Agree 100%
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Octave will not replace your tags.
The problem when dealing with classical music is tagging is set up for pop music.Thus, for classical we are stuck with creating work-arounds.
Octaveās developer assures me it will handle classical music well, including importing oneās current library if this is what you choose
We will see.
Elk is correct. Octave is already much better than Roon in getting classical correct. We devoted a great deal of time to it. The charge was led by Copperās Richard Murrison, himself quite a classical fan and stickler for getting it right. Itās all in the metadata
and how it is handled by the computer. Lots of whatās known as āfuzzy logicā had to be written to get it right.
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Yes and no. The default for Octave is to honor the userās tags first. So, if when importing your library, we see youāve modified the tags those are what we keep and ignore our own findings. This is a toggle feature you can choose to keep or disregard. What
else we did was then to keep two pieces of metadata associated with that track, the modified version and the one we think is correct. When you go to that album you see the modified info. But, when we make suggestions or reference that album with others, we
rely on our own data match. Itās all pretty transparent.
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Thatās great and makes sense.
I think itās just important to be able to stick e.g. letās say with oneās own genre tag, but use the rest of Octaveās.
Can you already say if you will be able to enable add. user individual tags (also to be used for custom views)?
OPPORTUNITY FOR ME! I have opportunity for someone, my son, to rip all my CDs to a hard drive. Is there a necessary or required format they should be in and is there a particular kind of hard drive they need to be put on?? I have no idea regarding hard drive connectivity types or whether mechanical or solid state is preferred. I have DSD Sr. and not sure if I will be able to afford Octave or will have to settle for a lower priced Server. Thanks for your help.
To reply helpfully we need to know (1) how many CDs are involved, (2) details of your current system and (3) what level of expenditure are you happy with.
about 1500 Cds. currently using app on Oppo BluRay player to stream Tidal or PWT to play CDs. hard drive will be furnished by my son so not concerned with cost of that. Thinking waiting on used Innuos MK3 on used market or possibly Stellar server when available.
The most work in ripping is curating the metadata. If I were you, I would get 2 8 TB HDs, using one of them as backup. In my view, there is little gain using SSD (just adding costs). Should there be some budget to spare, I would invest in a NAS (a Qnap NAS - like this one QNAP 251+ (8GB) w/ 8TB Ironwolf NAS for Sale), to house both HDs. The NAS would be configurabel to RAID, automatically backing up the files.
Then I would use a program like Exact Audio Copy, that is able to populate the most basic metadata (track, album, artist, some artword), and rip to flac or aiff (lossless formats that enable to save the metadata).
Afterwards, either you use a program like Roon, that takes care of your metadata, or you will have to use something like MusicBrainz Picard or mp3tag and write the data of each CD.
Good luck.
I like dBpoweramp for ripping. It is available for Mac and PC (itās similar to Exact Audio Copy). I simultaneously rip to AIFF, which is what I mostly play, and FLAC, as a safety backup and archive. I keep multiple hard drive copies of each because Iām paranoid (and I have had plenty of hard drives fail over the years).
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Agree with all you say EXCEPT - RAIDED disks are not, never, in any way, a backup.
If some software goes mad and over writes some of your library, itās gone on both disks.
A backup is physically separate, usually removable (or already off site) and is designed to be a backup in case of site failure (i.e. your NAS burns to the ground) AND in case of software screw up that eats your files.
I recommend both RAID and a separate backup disk*, but never ever rely on a RAIDed set of disks as a backup - it wonāt save you in all scenarios.
*ideally 2, one of which is always off site (at someone elseās house, for example).
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You are technically correct. I mentioned RAID 1 as ābackupā as means to prevent from disk failure. But, again, you are right: should the NAS itself go mad, you could lose everything.
thatās why I have 2 NAS, and spend quite some time assuring both have my most updated libraryā¦
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Yes, this is exactly what I do. And I use dbPoweramp for ripping.
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The downside is that dbpoweramp is paid only (last time I checked, about US40,00), and EAC is for free. If you are not using the transcoding functions of dbpoweramp, I think EAC is enough. MAC also has a good free solution that is XLD.
didnāt know it was now paid, when I used it 3-4 yrs ago it was voluntary donation.
dbpoweramp is so very much worth the $40. I canāt believe on a forum where we are discussing among other things, $1000+ power cables that anyone would pass on the best ripping software available due to a $40 expenditure. But people are like that, sadly.
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There is nothing bad about using a free program if oneās needs are met.
How would you know if your needs were properly met if you went with free in order to save $40 on a highly regarded program? $40. In this hobby. Itās less money than one two LPās. They even let you use it for 30 days for the magic Free to find out.
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An amusing argument: that people do not know themselves and what they need unless they pay for your preferred program. 
Others can reasonably prefer buying the one or two LPs you mention. Then again, if they are buying LPs why would they need a ripping program?
I did mention the 30 day free trial. You didnāt.