Subscription fatigue is real, and I’ve been slowly building a digital music library to lessen my reliance on streaming services like Apple Music. In parallel, I’ve assembled a physical media collection of vinyl records, CDs, and cassettes with some of my favorite music. As a result of that hard work, if music streaming services disappeared from the face of the earth today, I wouldn’t miss them.
I have a sustainable, self-hosted media library that didn’t cost a fortune to put together, and it’s all thanks to an affordable USB accessory most people forgot about: the external optical drive. It’s inexpensive, connects to modern laptops and computers, and lets you take advantage of plummeting CD prices.
Apple Music is losing its luster
The ads and redesigns are distracting from the music
I’ve been paying for my Apple Music subscription for over a decade. Before that, I was a Beats Music subscriber. You might not remember it, but Beats Music was the music streaming service from Beats by Dre that became the foundation of Apple Music following the acquisition.
When I originally joined Apple Music in 2015, I paid for the subscription service by purchasing physical gift cards that could be redeemed for one year of access. It’s safe to say a lot has changed since then. Apple Music is just one of many streaming services I pay for monthly in 2026, and prices continue to rise.
If I tallied up how much I’ve spent on music streaming services over that span, it’d probably break into the quadruple-digit range. And if I cancel Apple Music, my handcrafted library disappears.
The value proposition isn’t the only thing pushing me to consider leaving Apple Music behind. I chose Apple Music over Spotify and YouTube Music for its light, ad-free software experience. Apple Music is hardly minimal or ad-free these days. I see ads for concert tickets and distracting album artwork animations in the app, and all I really want from Apple Music is its namesake: music.
If you’re tired of paying for music streamers like me, starting your own digital library might seem daunting. There aren’t many ways to legally acquire high-quality song files, and the accessibility of lossless audio on Apple Music, Tidal, Amazon Music, and Spotify is hard to ignore.
Luckily, there are alternatives. Qobuz is a digital music storefront that lets you buy lossless FLACs for almost any album, but the prices are steep. The better way is to acquire cheap secondhand CDs and rip them, creating your own lossless digital files. I don’t use any computers with an optical drive these days, so I turned to a $40 combo CD/DVD reader and writer from Asus.
An optical drive is the key to owning your music
CDs are still affordable and easy to find, and you can rip them
The external optical drive from Asus plugged straight into my macOS and Windows computers, and worked immediately without drivers. Ripping CDs is easier than you’d think, even if you’ve never done it. In my case, I ripped and burned my fair share of CDs during the MP3 golden age of the 2000s, grabbing digital files to sync to my iPod. So, I fired up iTunes and got to work.
I recommend iTunes as a digital library manager and CD ripper to anyone who craves a simple experience. iTunes is still available for Windows users, and can be installed on unsupported macOS versions using the Retroactive tool on GitHub. It supports automatic ripping and ALAC encoding, which can be converted to FLACs later without quality loss. Go to Preferences → Files → Import Settings and choose Apple Lossless Encoder for lossless rips in either the iTunes or Music apps.
For Windows users, there’s nothing better than Exact Audio Copy. Exact Audio Copy is a free app that creates lossless FLAC files from your CDs while ensuring the copies are 100% accurate using the AccurateRip database. It’s the easy choice for anyone that values the compatibility of FLAC and the AccurateRip guarantee.
The reason for returning to CDs in the first place is their cost. While CDs are steadily gaining popularity, they’re still readily available at cheap prices. I never pay more than $10 for used CDs, and I paid under $5 for most of the discs in my collection. Thrift stores and Goodwill locations still have dollar CDs, and music stores don’t upcharge used CDs by much more.
I can pick up a handful of used CDs to pad my collection of digital music each month for the same price as my Apple Music subscription. The difference is, I can stop paying at any time, and my digital music files won’t ever go away. With a music streaming service, you’re locked into paying forever, or you lose access to everything.
7,000 songs later, I don’t rely on streaming
Physical media and a digital library are a winning combination
Building up a digital music library of your own takes time, and it’s best to start collecting while keeping your subscription active. It’ll cost more in the short term, but it’ll save you money in the long run, and you’ll benefit from true ownership. I have a physical media collection of over 500 vinyl records and CDs, and a digital library of over 7,000 tracks.
There are avid collectors out there with tens or hundreds of thousands of songs in their digital libraries, and perhaps I’ll get there one day. For now, my respectable library covers all my favorite tunes. Everything I’d need or want to listen to is there, and I’m no longer dependent on a recurring subscription that comes with a monthly charge.
It took me a while to get here, but I started with a $40 external optical drive and used CDs from the dollar bin. If you’re tired of paying monthly for music you don’t actually own, putting together a digital library with CDs could be the alternative you’re looking for.
- Power
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USB-powered
- Speed
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USB 2.0: Up-To 480Mbps
- Connection
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USB 2.0 (Type-C)
- Brand
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Asus
This USB optical drive from Asus connects to any modern computer or laptop and supports CD/DVD reading and writing. I’ve used it with Macs and Windows PCs to rip and burn audio CDs while building a self-hosted lossless music library.