Here's How to Digitize Your Music Collection and Upgrade the Quality

I'm an avowed music collector. At the peak, I had thousands of CD's. Eventually, I got rid of many and ended up with a more manageable few hundred. Last year, I bought a digital music player - which totally changed my music hobby.

A digital music player (I'm not advertising any, so won't mention names - look it up - they go from $99 to $1k, and for $100-$300, you can get an incredible digital music player.

Why a digital music player?
Your smartphone doesn't play music with any quality. The sound is mediocre at best.
If you love music, you want quality. Skip mp3 and go lossless - there is a big difference.
Digital music players have one and only one task - playing music. They typically have a few processors - one for each aspect of playing music - and there aren't other processes competing for the memory's attention.
Digital music players are small and easily fit in a backpack or purse.
Not convinced? Go to a store that sells digital music players and try one out!
Don't forget to buy good earbuds - spend $50-$100 for your first "quality earbud".
Your smartphone probably can't play 24 bit music.

Most digital music players hold micro SD cards of 128GB. Buy as many cards as you need. There are two parts to a music collection - the originals and the backup. Keep your originals in wav - or mp3 if you insist. Though my music players will play lossless FLAC files, I prefer the real deal and listen in wav to ensure 100% sound and zero slowdown. Backup your digital music collection on 2-3 external hard drives - in FLAC format, to save about 40% space. When you hit 50GB+, this makes a big difference.

The Hard Part of a Digital Music Collection
Every time you buy - or acquire - new music, add it to the right micro SD card and also copy it to all of your backup drives. With 3, this takes a bit of effort, but it's worth it.

Ripping discs with Exact Audio Copy takes time - it took me a few months to rip everything.

The Day You Go Digital
When you're done, you're music collection is in a new world. No more pulling out compact discs. I removed the plastic on most to store them, and just kept my favorites on the cd stand - The Who, Beatles and Stan Getz for me. The experience is totally different - instead of changing each cd, I only have to change per micro SD card. It's a lot easier to have 9 micro SD cards than thousands of cd's - or even music scattered on multiple hard drives.

Now that you have a digital music player and collection, consider getting some hi-res music. 24-96 and 24-192 are common hi-res rates. Blast Led Zeppelin in hi-res or listen to every note in the classic, "The Girl From Ipanema" - and then there's Earth, Wind & Fire in hires - it's like listening to the music for the first time.

Until recently, music collections took up an entire room. Today, your music collection will fit in your pocket - enjoy the music!