I’ve recently shifted from streaming services (though I still think of all of them Apple Music is the best balance of cost/ethics/quality/catalogue) to using Plex so that I can access my library (collected over 30+ years) on the go. One thing I immediately noticed is that the majority of my collection was ripped at the pretty low rate of 128kbps. This would be because my first proper MP3 player was a 2nd Generation iPod with only 10GB of storage, and I wanted to be able to carry most of my collection around with me. After all, if I wanted to be limited to a subset of my collection I might as well use a Discman! I’m now in the process of re-ripping my collection of CDs (albums and singles), which go back to the early 1990s, at 320kbps (and FLAC in the case of music, such as classical, ambient and jazz, that will benefit from it).
Those of you of a similar vintage as me may remember the original broadcast of the clip at the top of this post, in which Kieran Prendiville demonstrates the brand-new format of the Compact Disc, showing how much more resilient than a vinyl LP it was by scratching the surface of the disc. Unfortunately, I can report that Mr Prendiville was misinforming the audience!
What I have found is that CDs are not actually as resilient as we were led to believe. I’m ripping CDs using a Linux command line tool called cdparanoia. This tool extracts the raw data from the disc and has a sophisticated error correction system (as dedicated CD players do) which reports on the quality of the data as it rips. It can handle jitter and correct errors in the data stream, but sometimes the data is just too corrupt for it to be able to correct. What causes these corruptions? Smudges (usually fingerprints – which can be fixed with a soft cloth), scratches or pits on the playing surface of the disc, and in one case chemicals in the leather pouch the CD was supplied in causing the metallic part of the disc to corrode! In these cases I’ve had to rip as much as I can from the disc and keep the remaining tracks as the 128kbps mp3 files I already had.
It just goes to show how important archival is, as no medium stays pristine forever!
Excuse me, must get back to my ripping, I’m still only at ‘D’…