A mammoth task at any bit rate

I have treated myself to a new mp3 player. My old one is in good working order but I wanted more capacity in order to do something I've wanted to do for ages - have my entire CD collection on one portable device.

I don't buy many CDs these days. Spotify has helpfully removed the gamble of buying a record on spec, and whether or not that encourages bands to try harder I'm calling it a good thing.

If an album passes its streaming audition I'm still only likely to buy a hard copy if it's a band or artist I really like. You know, out of respect. I do have the genuine (if fairly lame) excuse that I'm running out of shelf space, but I remain one of those nasty hypocrites who downloads most of his music while bemoaning the death of the high street record shop. I really can't explain myself - the idea that one day there will be no physical albums at all makes me want to cry, vomit and then cry into the vomit but there I am, helping to nail down the coffin lid. I still have a turntable though, if that offsets the heresy at all.

Anyway, back to my daft desire to compress my entire collection. I haven't counted lately, but there must be almost 900 discs, a very large proportion of which I haven't listened to in years. So why not be more selective and avoid shelling out for a 64GB player? Well, I've got about 150 albums on my existing 8GB device and I always find myself wanting to listen to something that's not on there. So I thought, Sod it, I'm going to eliminate that possibility. But you can't do 90 per cent, it has to be all or nothing, which is why I've spent the better part of the past two days ripping CDs in Windows Media Player, including those I know with certainty I will never listen to again. For some reason I don't find it tedious - I like challenging the online database with obscure titles, though it's annoying to have to enter track listings manually. I've also made some interesting discoveries, namely albums I had no idea I owned. Remember The Electric Soft Parade? Six By Seven? The Distillers? No, neither did I.

The really daft thing is that I usually listen to mp3s when I'm in bed. The player almost never leaves my flat.