You should at least spend E 100 on a cd
brsanko said:
As mentioned above i have a slight preference towards listening to uncompressed rather than lossless. As the two files are identical after decompression, the only audible differences can be attributed to an increase of various jitter components associated with on-the-fly decompression. This is probably difficult to measure but has some physical explanation which sets it apart from SandyK's fantasies.
The only jitter component could be an impact on power supply noise. A regular PC system (windows, OSX, linux), especially with graphical GUI, runs many different processes. I find it hard to believe a simple FLAC decoding at playback speed (which is basically nothing for modern CPUs) contributes to the power supply noise in a consistent and repeatable manner.
You don't really understand how FLAC works do you?
Music with a (from a data compression point of view) high information content will take longer to compress, but time to decompress won't really change.
Or for that matter, computers. Once again, computers are completely asynchronous. Jitter is a completely meaningless concept until one is fully inside the soundcard. WAV FLAC or anything else, all get sent to the soundcard in the exact same way, not streamed in real time, but in big chunks as requested.
Music with a (from a data compression point of view) high information content will take longer to compress, but time to decompress won't really change.
Or for that matter, computers. Once again, computers are completely asynchronous. Jitter is a completely meaningless concept until one is fully inside the soundcard. WAV FLAC or anything else, all get sent to the soundcard in the exact same way, not streamed in real time, but in big chunks as requested.
Oh there's a market to be sure. I just don't think that market has any better reason for existing than the homeopathy market.
Golden-eared audiophiles are funny things. They talk about ps delays in feedback loops screwing up the sound, and mysterious 'essence' of jitter (in places where the very real phenomenon of jitter is not applicable), along with strange theories about magic electrons doing things no other matter in the universe does, crystal defects causing if any errors at all, errors literally several hundred decibels down. Yet none of them complain about changes in driver time alignment with humidity, changes in both the mechanical and electrical properties of speakers with temperature, changes in their own hearing with blood pressure and blood alcohol content. Let alone all the other larger and better known limitations of both input and output transducers in the audio chain.
Golden-eared audiophiles are funny things. They talk about ps delays in feedback loops screwing up the sound, and mysterious 'essence' of jitter (in places where the very real phenomenon of jitter is not applicable), along with strange theories about magic electrons doing things no other matter in the universe does, crystal defects causing if any errors at all, errors literally several hundred decibels down. Yet none of them complain about changes in driver time alignment with humidity, changes in both the mechanical and electrical properties of speakers with temperature, changes in their own hearing with blood pressure and blood alcohol content. Let alone all the other larger and better known limitations of both input and output transducers in the audio chain.
One more.
I've never heard an audiophile say anything about haircuts and sound. I'm serious. Having (more than once) gone from huge poofy shoulder length hair to only an inch or two of hair, I know from experience how much big hair can block treble. A significant and under appreciated acoustic effect, both explicable and (though I haven't done so yet, at least potentially) measurable and falsifiable.
I've never heard an audiophile say anything about haircuts and sound. I'm serious. Having (more than once) gone from huge poofy shoulder length hair to only an inch or two of hair, I know from experience how much big hair can block treble. A significant and under appreciated acoustic effect, both explicable and (though I haven't done so yet, at least potentially) measurable and falsifiable.
gainphile said:The system is the same (DAC, player, computer etc). Are you saying the jitter is encoded in the file?
Absolutely not. I'm afraid I hadn't read the thread thoroughly enough (or had my brain in the wrong gear) and thought that what was being talked about was data burnt onto a CD, where an embedded clock also has to be recovered. Obviously, data grabbed and read from a HDD is an entirely (and bursty) different animal. Talking of which...
My 1TB USB drive arrived yesterday. Amazingly, the hardest part of the process was getting the wrapping off. I connected it to my crate computer, which recognized it and said it was ready to use. I installed "Audiograbber" freeware, rummaged through the settings, and copied a CD. I then took the new drive and plugged it into my laptop, plugged my "DACmagic" USB DAC in, which was recognized, and played the .wav file at 44.1kHz. Amazing - it all worked.
I've now copied about forty CDs to the HDD. Being of a suspicious nature, and noting that "Audiograbber" produces a checksum for each track on a CD, I saved the checksums, then re-inserted the CD and copied it again. And got the same checksums. I haven't been able to find out exactly how "Audiograbber" produces its checksums, but those results are encouraging.
Life's too short...
I have approximately 600 CDs to copy to HDD. It's a nice thought to meticulously check each one, but not really practical. I'll leave the computer to do what it's good at (lots of boring calculations), and I'll do what I'm good at (extensive beer quality assessment).
The files are never going to be copied back to CD. The exercise is purely to enable me to take my music with me without the inconvenience of carrying an enormous suitcase full of CDs. Music at home will continue to be played from the original CDs without any Windoze intervention.
Westerp said:Just rip the same track with both and then do a diff on the resulting files. When the files are different read both faqs and documentation and decide which one you trust
I have approximately 600 CDs to copy to HDD. It's a nice thought to meticulously check each one, but not really practical. I'll leave the computer to do what it's good at (lots of boring calculations), and I'll do what I'm good at (extensive beer quality assessment).
The files are never going to be copied back to CD. The exercise is purely to enable me to take my music with me without the inconvenience of carrying an enormous suitcase full of CDs. Music at home will continue to be played from the original CDs without any Windoze intervention.
600 times 74 mins max per cd, ripped at around 5x in secure mode,
will take 148 hours. As the cd (former record) companies overcharge
us for around 50 minutes per cd it will prolly take you 100 hours
so you still have quite some time to drink beer and sit back
Do switch disc insertion arm every now and again with beer guzzle
arm to avoid both types of rsi
will take 148 hours. As the cd (former record) companies overcharge
us for around 50 minutes per cd it will prolly take you 100 hours
so you still have quite some time to drink beer and sit back
Do switch disc insertion arm every now and again with beer guzzle
arm to avoid both types of rsi
It's not quite that bad. I regularly rip (and simultaneously encode in FLAC) even slightly damaged CDs, perfectly according to Accurip, with EAC at around 10x realtime. Add to that that most CDs aren't the full 74 minutes long (as you note), so going with your 50 minutes.
50 minutes * 600 CDs / 10x = 50 hours
Plus it only needs your attention when switching discs, so read a book, design some things, surf, drink....
In fact I'm ripping an Eldar CD as I type, it's presently running at 12.8x realtime.
50 minutes * 600 CDs / 10x = 50 hours
Plus it only needs your attention when switching discs, so read a book, design some things, surf, drink....
In fact I'm ripping an Eldar CD as I type, it's presently running at 12.8x realtime.
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