Converting CD collection to digital?

[Republic DC-9]

I want to digitize my CD collection so I can more easily access it on my iPad and play it on our Bluetooth speakers.

I’ve tried using the iTunes program on my PC to digitize, but it often throws fits for zero reason (CDs are perfect condition, yet it’ll only import a few songs off the disk etc.

Are there recommended apps/programs for this effort that will work to digitize on the PC end and play nice with an iPad?

Thanks…

[reeshau]

I don't know about an iPad,  but I used CDEX to rip my CD collection.  I don't believe it is being actively developed any more, but you can download it.  Due to that, the choices of catalog meta info to ag the MP3's are all extinct, but you can search for active ones.

The only thing I wish it had was some volume leveling,  but a good player should have that.  You can output non-lossy formats, but the MP3's travel well across devices.

[Psychstache]

For the ripping, I used EAC:

https://www.exactaudiocopy.de/

For storage and playback to devices, I used Plex:

https://www.plex.tv/

[Daley]

I don't know about the most Apple friendly, but the way I'd do it these days (provided it's still legal in your jurisdiction) from a wholly OS agnostic approach would be to recommend fre:ac (cross platform, so Win/OSX/Linux friendly, still actively developed, supports automatic CDDB/GNUdb meta tagging as well) on a proper desktop or laptop computer to rip your music collection to whatever preferred non-DRM encumbered file format you'd prefer and what your storage has room to hold at whatever bitrates and quality you rip at (MP3, OGG, M4A, FLAC).

Assuming your router has a built-in USB port and supports DLNA file hosting (like, say, a Netgear Nighthawk for example instead of the crap-ass router from your ISP), I'd stuff all those music files onto a USB drive, host it from your router, and use VLC Media Player on the iPad for playback and pipe-out to Bluetooth, as it has integrated DLNA media server support baked in.

Voila, free home server music streaming, and no gumming up the fixed storage on your iPad with your entire music library or shuffling out what you want to hear. Bonus, no vendor lock-in making it impossible to potentially use other devices (like Android, or Windows or Linux) now or potentially switched to in the future.

Otherwise, if you're willing to tackle the more technical jobs, and your router doesn't have the ability to act as a media server on its own and you don't want to pay for cloud storage (I know, big ask if you're asking about ripping music in 2025 - but I'll include it anyway, because I'm going to assume that you're capable of taking the time and effort to learn new skills to save money)... a $40 (for now) Raspberry Pi Zero 2W kit paired with DietPi base image with the ReadyMedia DLNA media server installed (bonus project with this device, run Pi-hole on the same device for DNS level ad-blocking for your home network).

Lastly, if you'd rather do cloud storage and you don't want to do iCloud specifically, the music players start to become proprietary to the host. If you don't want to administer your own cloud server, MEGA is an option and their app client has a built in music player and some of the more spacious free tier cloud storage plans. There's also 1TB managed NextCloud storage for $5/month or basic cloud storage for $4/month with WebDAV access through Hetzner, but I can't recommend any apps that can stream media via WebDAV on iOS, even though I know there are options (sadly, VLC isn't one of them).

[Republic DC-9]

Thanks for the suggestions everyone- I ended up downloading and using EAC which was VERY fast vs. iTunes, and then copying the music folder into the same place as the rest of my music I transfer to my iPad and boom it worked!