Gizmodo
If you're rich enough to have a dedicated media server from the likes of Crestron, Elan, Escient, Kaleidescape, ReQuest or Apple—a strange one to mix in, I thought—you can go off and buy Rolling Stone magazine's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time already ripped and encoded on a NAS RAID drive, for the low price of $9,000, thanks to a company called Terra-San. I can see several problems with this:
• If you love music enough to install a server, you probably already own (or, um, have borrowed) at least 500 really good albums, potentially a decent overlap of stuff. Like me, you may have accumulated most of the 500 totally by accident, not to mention a lot of other less popular music.
• Assuming you don't have the CDs in pocket, and your digital downloads just don't cut the mustard, you can probably buy them all at an average of $8 or $9 a piece, and many are pre-collected in box sets at substantial discounts—and with attractive keepsake booklets to boot. Besides, most of this stuff would be easy to find in used bins, too. We're not exactly talking about the rare and out-of-print here. At most you'd be out somewhere between $4,500 or $5,000.
• The argument that this will save you time ripping CDs only holds true if you can't find someone to rip your CDs for less than $4,000. Ask any kid in the market for a plasma TV if he'd rip all your CDs and he'll probably name a price between $1,000 and $2,000—throw in a USB drive for free—and believe he's getting away with murder. [Electronic House]
Comments
In a lossless codec, I would hope.
As long as it's your CDRom drive, I'll do it for $500.
but your way can you say "yah, totally bought this whole set up from Terra San, I don't even know who joni mitchell is, but apparently they were good"... I mean clearly the target audience for this, much like rolling stone itself isn't real music aficionados...
but seriously, court and spark didn't even crack the top 100?!? wtf? and can't buy a thrill is 238?!? that's fucking retarded. M.I.A.'s Arular and Daft Punk's Discovery didn't even make the list?! yah fuck this list.
So, does this mean I can sell my mp3 collection on some relatively cheap RAIDs for 9g per 500 albums?
COUNT ME IN!
Where are these rich people who don't understand ripping?
but $9000/500cds = $18 per CD
average CD on itunes (or whatever you prefer) is $10 * 500 = $5000.
all you have to do is click "download" 500 times, and let it go to work, it should be done in a day or so, and you have just saved yourself $4000, not to mention that you could not buy all the CDs you dont want
@daversW:
But the quality on iTunes is ass compared to this RAID server.
@daftrok: If you don't have a large number of the albums already, odds are you're not the kind of person who'd care about 128kb.
@daftrok: Who cares?
Im perfectly satisfied with all my 128-320kbps bit rate stuff, because all im gonna do is listen to it on my iPod, and you can't really tell a difference there.
I've been working on this list for awhile now and I've got 242 checked off - Literally, I printed the list and check them off as I go - I also maintain a spreadsheet.
MagnoliaBoy : So Right! While building my MP3 collection, I totally destroyed my first ripping drive.
+ Watch video
[500albumsrjg.blogspot.com]
my friend Ross is review all 500 of these albums, 2 a day/5 days a week, and also reviewing the original Rolling Stone review of these albums.
it's a pretty fantastic and in depth project.
I have this right by my bed (the original magazine) and I've been buying/downloading most of them. I have the top 15 at least.
Okay, it's pretty obvious many of you haven't even glanced at the article or thought about how much the people who would be buying this sort of things time is worth.
First, they don't just get a couple of drives, they get a full NAS/RAID Array, All of the physical discs, and a coffee table book (wooo, a coffee table book).
Second, buying one of these is going to be a LOT faster than ripping and encoding 500 CDs, let's say each disc takes five minutes to rip and encode, if you ripped one after another, with zero seconds spend changing disks, or doing anything else... it would still take over two days. Now consider that the type of person who would be in their target market likely makes over $75 an hour and the cost benefit goes away.
Some of you have said "they could just download them from iTune". Believe it or not, not everything works with stuff bought from iTunes... and you don't get the physical media... and you have to supply your own drives.
Could you do it cheaper? Sure you could, but you could also make a hamburger for less than you pay at McDonalds... it would probably be better too... but you don't. Why? Because it's a pain in the ass... same thing here, they're paying for convenience. When you look at it that way it's not quite as stupid as it initially seems... don't get me wrong it's still stupid, just not quite as stupid.
500 greatest albums on RAID - 1 or 2 decent songs per album = approximately 4000 waste songs you'll likely never listen to
@matthewgerber: yeah that's where you're wrong. at least for a few hundred of the albums, they dont have throwaway tracks. that's what makes a good album. find a song on Highway 61 Revisited that you can kick off the album without making it incomplete.
and i haven't really looked at this list since that issue came out a few years ago, but it even has a couple Pavement albums and such on it.
of course it's got whole albums that i cant fucking stand, like U2 and Def Leppard. it's also got albums that all the cool kids are supposed to like but i just cant get in to, like Country Life.
2,46 GB that is the size of rolling stone magazine top 500. And in preaty good quality from 2.5MB/song to 16.5MB/song average is about 5MB/song, so you can put them on 4GB on usb stick whit playlist and media player.
Oh and they were all ripped from original CDs(not from the net) and have m3u info. Maybe I should put it on some torrent or something.
I suppose if you've got everything else, like a (few) fast car(s), big house(s), ridiculous stereo setup, trophy wife and maybe the original tuxedo from the first James Bond movie, you may as well go for this.
Because at that point, you have people you pay to buy things for you, right?
allmost forgot 192kbps at 44khz
Rolling Stone have their heads way too far up their asses with that list. Way to much Beatles in the top 20. WAY to much.
@rrwakc: Oh the torrent will come out.
@Joseph: yep. i was just going to say that but i have proof...
[www.pizzatorrent.com]
The only problem I have with this is that it's Rolling Stone. Honestly, RS hasn't been relevant for decades. This month they have the 'Hills' on their cover for f's sake - why would anyone trust their music advice?
@Joseph: Exactly! Although all that music and more is already available via torrent.
If the files are lossless, album includes cover art, ID3 tag includes all musicians info, plus lyrics, then I am sold -- that can take a long times to do, frankly. Think about it, if 500 album contains 4000 songs, doing all the stuffs mentioned above probably will take you at least 5 minutes per song (including ripping.) That's over 333 hours of work. To the person who says he would do it at $500 -- that's $1.5 an hour. Even Wal-Mart pays better than that!
@B1663R: Most of those listed are the top 500 SONGS of all time, not albums
If they can put it on one big zip-drive, I'm sold!
Just 500 albums. I laugh in the face of your puny music collections.
a nail in the coffin in physical formats? Personally I love owning CDs. After i borrow a friends album r get songs sent between email I will buy the album if it is any good.
@Andham:
I find your lack of hearing disturbing. 128 kbps is horrible sounding, even on an iPod. Either you don't know what you're talking about, you've never actually listened discriminately, or you don't really care.
anyone who says 128-320 cant tell difference or whatever...add a sub to the mix and you will quickly understand.
My stereo system pushes 1010watts with a 10in sub...music for me goes 192 or higher.
p.s. 500 albums is puny...i have 1500 plus :)
I count 22 albums I could ever imagine myself listening to. And a lot of those DO have throwaway tracks.
@josejuan05:
It also depends what you're listening to.
@bitfactory: This issue was from 2003 and all of the albums were actually voted on by hundreds of professional musicians and industry folk (who are listed at the back of that issue) Rolling Stone didn't "hand pick" them like most people think. A lot of work went into it.
@something_unique_and_descriptive: Why does it have to be a "do it all at once" thing? Ever ripped an entire CD collection? It's not hard once you look at it as a project that can be done over a period of time.
Do 10 a night while watching TV and maybe knock out 30 or so on a Saturday and/or a Sunday while watching a ball game. The advantage (other than money) is that it's easier to clean up. Putting away 10 CDs at a time is easier than putting away 500.
So I know that everyone is going to have their own opinion on any list anyone ever puts out. Personally I would have put the White album above Sgt. Pepper. Although Sgt. Pepper is still awesome so you can't really argue that much. But Pet Sounds at number 2!? What am I missing? I LOVE the Beach Boys but no way would I put any of their stuff in the top 10? And Dark Side comes in at number 43? That thing was in the Top 200 for almost 14 straight years! Fourteen...straight...years. And it was only taken off after a "rule change" to the Top 200 grading. Sure, you can argue that sales don't equal impact but can anyone truly argue that for Dark Side? Still...nice list. I'll be "going out" and "acquiring" these shortly.
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