Count me as a very strong vote positive in favor of ripping all your CDs to FLAC and accessing them through something like foobar. Some general statements:
A) There are several ways to rip to FLAC. I haven't tried any of the commercial programs. I used (for well over a decade) EAC, which is free and very well respected. EAC stands for Exact Audio Copy and will give a bit free copy of both every track and the entire CD IF set up properly. Once set up EAC is very simple to use. Setting up EAC properly is very daunting but there are several guides (on youtube and elsewhere) which give clear step by step instructions on how to do it.
B) There are hundreds of programs to listen to FLAC or MP3 files, a great many of which are free. I also use foobar which is kind of a swiss army knife of programs. If you like tinkering with software (I don't) you can do just about anything with it. There are tons of preset foobar templates available which make it far easier to get going fast. There are lots of other programs that also are players and have big fans (like Musicbee), feel free to try them out to see what fits your needs. IMO there is absolutely no reason to ever pay for a player program.
C) EAC can and should be configured to tag your FLAC files. If you need to tag (or retag) files MP3tag is free, easy to use and very capable. To me a basic rule is to decide on a naming/tagging convention you like and STICK TO THAT. Consistency is very important.
D) Personally I use FLAC at home but for use in the car I convert files to MP3 and put them on my phone. I do this for space reasons and quite frankly the car is more than noisy enough so I doubt even the best ears can tell the difference between FLAC and a good MP3. Again, there are lots of free and easy to use programs to do this.
E) Personal choice but I keep an excel database on what albums I have. Again there are easily available free templates.
It sounds complicated but it's not, especially once you dive into it. I still buy CDs-mostly to support the artists-but I rip them to FLAC on the first play and put the CDs into a storage box.
A) There are several ways to rip to FLAC. I haven't tried any of the commercial programs. I used (for well over a decade) EAC, which is free and very well respected. EAC stands for Exact Audio Copy and will give a bit free copy of both every track and the entire CD IF set up properly. Once set up EAC is very simple to use. Setting up EAC properly is very daunting but there are several guides (on youtube and elsewhere) which give clear step by step instructions on how to do it.
B) There are hundreds of programs to listen to FLAC or MP3 files, a great many of which are free. I also use foobar which is kind of a swiss army knife of programs. If you like tinkering with software (I don't) you can do just about anything with it. There are tons of preset foobar templates available which make it far easier to get going fast. There are lots of other programs that also are players and have big fans (like Musicbee), feel free to try them out to see what fits your needs. IMO there is absolutely no reason to ever pay for a player program.
C) EAC can and should be configured to tag your FLAC files. If you need to tag (or retag) files MP3tag is free, easy to use and very capable. To me a basic rule is to decide on a naming/tagging convention you like and STICK TO THAT. Consistency is very important.
D) Personally I use FLAC at home but for use in the car I convert files to MP3 and put them on my phone. I do this for space reasons and quite frankly the car is more than noisy enough so I doubt even the best ears can tell the difference between FLAC and a good MP3. Again, there are lots of free and easy to use programs to do this.
E) Personal choice but I keep an excel database on what albums I have. Again there are easily available free templates.
It sounds complicated but it's not, especially once you dive into it. I still buy CDs-mostly to support the artists-but I rip them to FLAC on the first play and put the CDs into a storage box.