CD archiving in 2025?

I actually just spent a year or so doing this during break times at work with EAC. I ripped everything to WAV because storage is cheap, it’s a bit faster, and you can tag WAV files now, so I saw little reason not to, though FLAC is usually just as good and has wider support, so it’s up to you (you can easily convert back and forth if you change your mind, since either is lossless).
The key factor with EAC is to use it with AccurateRip (which is built-in to the app, but you need to configure it with your drive properly for it to work). There’s a lot of info on configuring this online but like with anything that touches audiophile communities, there’s a lot of bullshit you have to sort through as well. You’ll see a lot of people saying to set it to the slowest option to ensure a perfect rip, but 99% of the time you don’t need to do this - AccurateRip will compare your CD to what other users have ripped and ensure a bit-perfect match. In the event you have a rare CD or it doesn’t match the database, that’s when you set EAC to run slowly (secure mode) and set it to test and verify the tracks. After ripping, I use MP3tag to search musicbrainz or Discogs to tag the tracks and it’s good to go. In the event you’ve got a slightly defective disc AccurateRip/EAC point out errors in, you can even use an app called CUEtools to scan the database and repair the files.
I was paranoid about getting everything right on my first try, since the last thing I wanted to do was rip every CD I had again (well over a thousand) due to some dumb configuration mistake, so feel free to send me a message if you’ve got any questions. I nerded out and took a stupid amount of step by step notes about what I did so if this post isn’t long and annoying enough for you, I got plenty more where that came from.
- Great info, thanks! This is enough to get me started.
  Maybe you could post the details here for people to see. Lemmy can always use the content.

Exact Audio Copy.
Does even verify the content on disk vs whats ripped.

Nowadays I see no reason not to use FLAC. I've not ripped anything less than 320 CBR mp3 for almost 20 years.
- My reasoning is that I'm an audio engineer with good equipment and I can't hear the difference between v0 and flac

I think the "industry standard" tool for ripping is this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exact_Audio_Copy

My favourite tool on Windows to do that is fre:ac.
I should mention, however, the benefits of flac audio depend of the equipment and the person listening. Me, personally, I can't, no matter what I do, tell the difference between a 245 kbps VBR mp3, and a cd-quality flac, even when doing side-by-sides. So, I think that it's not worth wasting time and storage space using flacs.

For Windows, Exact Audio Copy has been the standard for some time. In Linux, what I run, I tend to use Ruby Ripper which should be available in most repositories.
Either path ends with me adjusting the tags using Picard. Which reminds me, it's been a few years, I need to check and see if there are any new rippers available for Linux.
- I've just always used abcde in terminal personally

Very big difference in quality between mp3 and flac. My advice is if you're going to do it, do it right the first time. Flac is for sure the way to go. You can always make mp3s from those flacs. Ripping CD's take alot longer then converting files. fre:ac is a great CD ripping application. It's similar to Exact Audio Copy but easier to use.

I like V2 VBR MP3s for a balance of quality and size, or V0 for best quality and still VBR

I'd say don't bother and just pirate the songs on the CDs... Would save you a ton of headaches.

Do you want and can deal with no compression at all?, what if you made an ISO of each CD and then archived that as a lossless option.
- Strictly speaking, you cannot make an ISO from an audio CD. Yes, you can make a bin cue file pair as another commenter has suggested. But realistically what you've then got is uncompressed wav audio with the metadata in separate files. The only real advantage this gives you is something that theoretically allows you to recreate precisely the original layout of the audio CD, together with the appropriate length of silence in between the tracks, etc.
  When you convert to FLAC there is no loss in audio quality, you use approximately half of the storage space compared to wav, and you can have all of the metadata such as tags and art images embedded in the file itself.
  Bin/cue is not really very useful unless you're not listening directly from a computer or burning to a CD and listening to that. For every other use case, it's better to have a file that you can play directly and index directly.
- I don’t have a need beyond .flac and storage costs will become a concern at some point.
- I don't think you can make .iso's of Audio CD's. .bin and .cue files are the standard I think.