I have an old iPod with 1,000’s of songs on it and just plug it into the stereo....stereo keeps it charged and just switch to it...it stays plugged in all the time

 

Way back I took all of my CD's and put them onto my PC. Then open itunes and IIRC I had to import and convert them. You can also just put them on a flash drive in their original format and if your stereo has a USB post you can just plug it into there.

Either way keep the original formatted files separately too in case you ever want to put them on a flash drive, etc

 

Way back I took all of my CD's and put them onto my PC. Then open itunes and IIRC I had to import and convert them. You can also just put them on a flash drive in their original format and if your stereo has a USB post you can just plug it into there.

Either way keep the original formatted files separately too in case you ever want to put them on a flash drive, etc

Please explain the format you "put them onto" your PC? Did you just copy them or rip them?

 

The way to leverage the Apple Music ecosystem is to subscribe to iTunes Match for $2/month. Any CDs you load into iTunes would then be "registered" as belonging to you; you only need to do this once. When you want to use them on the iPhone, Apple actually uses its own copy of the song which will be free of any defects that might have been on the CD and will download that to your phone. Whatever is in your library will be available to download on to an upgraded device or another member of the Apple family like an iPad. You can also pick and choose what to keep on your phone at any given time. If you tried to keep everything on your phone at once you might run out of memory.

 

We use Spotify. I have my music lists downloaded on the phone. I Bluetooth or connect via hardware. What is a CD?

 

A CD on our boat is a "Cold Drink"

 

I loaded all mine into iTunes years ago, works good

So I want to have music to play when out of range of the internet phone connections. I have 400 CD's that I want to access and have much on my phone as well as several thousand songs from a hard drive. What is the best way to do this in the Apple ecosystem? If I load them am I listening to my music or theirs? If a song has a imperfection on the CD will that transfer?

Should I put them in iTunes or another way? What is the most efficient way to have them on my phone and move them when the inevitable upgrade occurs?

 

I have Spotify and just download the playlists to my phone in case I don’t have service. Listened to music all winter from my phone on the boat stereo while in the black hole of a storage building.

 

I’m also doing this instead of satellite radio.
However, I have to reload them every morning on my IPhone using the down arrow.
Is that normal?

 

Old iPods are great for what you want to do. Between the wife and I we have about 4 of them.
iTunes sometime has problems if you try to clone one iPods contents to another one.
If you just want to load up MP3's there is a program called AnyTrans that works really well.

https://www.imobie.com/anytrans/

It also has and upgrade feature that will clone old to new.

 

Years ago I imported all my CD’s into iTunes. It was basically an automated process. Out I the disk and iTunes rips it to the library. Took time to convert them all.

The one on the hard drive should be about to simply be imported to iTunes. Point iTunes a a folder, hit import, and go have coffee.

Then you can managed what gets synced to your phone.

 

I think you basically have two options. Itunes on your phone or a streaming service you pay monthly for. Ripping the cds is a lot of work. We use Napster (formally Rhapsody), kid uses Apple music. The streaming service is much easier and you can just setup playlists of your favorites -- like "boat tunes." They'll download to your phone so you don't need internet.

 

Years ago I started building a music library in iTunes. Loaded a lot of CD's that we had, bought other songs off iTunes. Would sync to an old iPod which we carried from the house to the boat and back.

Couple of years ago changed out the system on the boat to a Fusion with BT. Around the same time installed an Apple TV device which is connected into the Control4 automation system at the house for whole house audio.

I moved the iTunes to iCloud. Connected the AppleTV at home and connected my phone.

When on the boat, I connect my phone to the fusion system via BT - can play the library.

The OP referenced access to music when away from internet phone connections.

Not sure about the underlying tech discussion - but the approach I am using will play music well beyond the range of voice communications.

We run a pretty standard route on a regular basis, come out of Clearwater inlet, turn south and burn diesel. Most of the time we angle out and run 7-8 miles off the coast. Cell service is spotty, music fine.

There are spots along the coast where we are technically further from a cell tower due to curvature of the coast and still have music.

Granted we haven't run out 30-40 miles with music playing. But seems to work pretty well for us.

 

For the OP, iTunes Match was already mentioned, time consuming and you need a Mac/PC with a CD/DVD drive, I’m pretty sure it would simply quickly scan the drive (I did this over time after getting my first iPod back in the early 2000’s), then it finds the matching music in Apple’s library, and finally downloads it. I’m assuming this is still available, not certain. Alternatively, we have shared Apple Music(15$/month and everyone in the family gets free music, or 10$/month for individual?), so in most cases, any album is available for download onto your phone. Use the settings above to ensure it stays on your phone. This is similar to the non-free Spotify option.
You can also turn on Automatic Downloads in Settings -> Music, this will ensure any song/album added to your library will be downloaded, space can be a concern, of course...

 

I just re-ripped my entire CD collection. I had a bunch of junk and mismatched or duplicate files in my digital library. I just set up a 2nd laptop on my desk with an external CD drive, and fed it as I was working on other things. I then created a series of playlists for certain things. I also found I own a lot of CDs that I have no interest in listening to, so I didn't bother with those.

I use iTunes but I'm on Windows, but I ended ripping these in Windows Media Player. It doesn't matter what you use - either player can read the files, and you can set the file format in either. If you want to move the files to your phone, you can really do it either way. They key is whether you have enough storage space. On some Android phones you can add a separate SD card and have plenty of space. On an iPhone I think your space needs to be original to the phone.

Rather than saving this all on my phone, I copied the ripped files to a couple of 64gb USB thumb drives, about $15 each. I put one in my car and one on the boat, and these are the source for my music. It's really easy, and I can navigate those files using the head unit so I'm not fiddling with my phone to select music. I just leave them in place, and there isn't any connectivity needed at any point. If I make changes to the master on my computer, I can just copy the new files over.

I keep a subset of the music on my phone to listen to when I am working out.