I downloaded my CD collection without compression to my computer. I partitioned the collection by genre into compartments of less than 500 files. I copied the full library to a low profile flash drive. The Mark Levinson system can search, shuffle, and play all 100+ CDs without a loss of fidelity.

 

I use my iPhone 14 Pro and Apple Car Play to listen to my music. The ML system sounds great and I am a bit of an audiophile. In my youth, and I am 64, I used to build the sound systems in my cars. Radio Shack loved me. All I needed was a good head unit and I was off to the races with amps, speakers, etc.........

Now I await the "you are going deaf" comments. I defend myself in advance because there is nothing like classic rock blasting from my homemade speakers.

 

Please provider the software name / model /version you used to do this as we have hundreds of CD's that I'd love to rip to FLAC format if I can get it done this winter.

 

I just entered "rip cd music to flac" on Google Search and got lots of info.

 

I did the ripping in the Linux Ubuntu operating system. The software was abcde. I think abcde version 2.9.3 is the most recent download and was released on February 5th 2019.

 

No special software needed. In Windows Media Player, you can rip CDs to uncompressed (.wav) files or lossless compressed (.flac) files.

 

How did opinions on the economics of buying an ES350 at present turn into ripping CDs?
I don't really mind but maybe a good seperate post. Looks like there is interest in the topic.

 

Last week my brother and I went into a den of iniquity to negotiate for a family member on a lower-priced new car that we knew was slow-selling and had incentives and ample inventories. The dealer was advertising discounts of $800 to $1,400 right on the windows. Turned out what that meant was $800 to $1,400 taken off a price that was inflated by a $400 window etch and a $2,000 "appearance package" that consisted of the usual wax job and Scotchgard. And this was at the dealer we'd vetted first through DealerRater as the area's least unethical of a half-dozen for that make.

It's a very good time to buy, particularly on ES 350 and particularly if you can finance as little as possible, since the prices are good and the financing is bad. But with dealers spoiled by the markups they were getting until just recently, now more than ever your feet are your best friend. Costco might be a really good idea right now to cut that nonsense out of the pricing.

 

There's a reason we call them STEALERships. That is unconscionable.

 

It's both. Which is why the franchise-dealer model is eventually doomed.

As with so many other deakers, this absolutely was business as usual at this particular store. They just defaulted to having that crap in advance on all the cars on the lot. There's an Audi dealer in my area that, ever since the start of the pandemic, has flatly declared on its website that they add $2,000 of garbage on every car. Unlike the one we shopped this week, at least they disclosed it. Not that that's an excuse for it

 

Nope I get it - when we bought my wife's RX seven years ago, they added $500 for paint protection without even telling me. I noticed it over dinner after we left the stealership - called them and advised the deal was off if they don't remove the $500. "But the protection is applied to all of our new inventory" Thank you for that but I'm not paying for it. I learned back then to state up front I will not accept .01 of any add on BS.

 

Curious - what kind of paint protection only costs $500?

 

If you're getting it as part of your new car, probably the kind in a pump spray bottle.

Serious story: When shopping a new (non-Lexus) car last week, my brother was waiting around through one of those interminable delays that dealers are so good at generating during the sames process. So he approached a low-paid service bay employee who was shining up one of the popular sporty models. He casually asked what product was used for the paint treatment of the $1,999 "Appearance Protection" package. The youngster said, "I don't know. They just pour some kind of yellow liquid in from a giant drum." That's not to say the anonymous yellow liquid in question is not a top-quality product; you be the judge.

 

I think you hit the nail on the head with your first sentence. I have all of my vehicles ceramic coated. The first step is paint correction which takes the most time, the right lighting, and the right tools. Depending on the vehicle, the number of professional shops in the area you live, and products used by a professional shop ceramic coatings cost between $3k-$7k. The "kind in a pump spray bottle" aren't warranted and you have to re-coat the vehicle every year to get even close to the shine a professional ceramic coat will give you.

 

Probably the one that was never applied to begin with Or maybe TurtleWax.