Indeed that is one way of doing it. I just did so myself, but simply ripped the same track in both EAC and 'dbpoweramp' to wav and the MD5 checksum is identical. Which is why posts like this are nonsense:
Firstly referring to using FLAC to store music as "would undoubtedly appeal to people who don't demand the absolute best quality from their music" is incorrect, HINT: the L in FLAC stands for lossless!
Secondly... read first paragraph of this post... identical rips with different software. There is no difference. If there is your doing something wrong.
Firstly referring to using FLAC to store music as "would undoubtedly appeal to people who don't demand the absolute best quality from their music" is incorrect, HINT: the L in FLAC stands for lossless!
Secondly... read first paragraph of this post... identical rips with different software. There is no difference. If there is your doing something wrong.
"
Firstly referring to using FLAC to store music as "would undoubtedly appeal to people who don't demand the absolute best quality from their music" is incorrect, HINT: the L in FLAC stands for lossless!
Secondly... read first paragraph of this post... identical rips with different software. There is no difference. If there is your doing something wrong.
Yes ,and playback from a SSD doesn't sound better than that from a HDD with the identical material either ?"
That isn't the finding from a Computer Audiophile Symposium back in June, where there many representatives from the Audio, Industry, Recording Industry, and Recording Artists. There is a lot more to the picture than just ripping the files with the cheapest and nastiest CD writer you can find,having the ripping program say you have an accurate rip,and storing them on a typical noisy SMPS powered PC or Mac, with or without conversion to a lossless format. Yes, all ripping programs sound the same too ?
Again, why does playback from a SSD sound better than a HDD ?
I'm outta here! There are far too many sarcastic, and closed minded members,
who rely on present teachings.
Firstly referring to using FLAC to store music as "would undoubtedly appeal to people who don't demand the absolute best quality from their music" is incorrect, HINT: the L in FLAC stands for lossless!
Secondly... read first paragraph of this post... identical rips with different software. There is no difference. If there is your doing something wrong.
Yes ,and playback from a SSD doesn't sound better than that from a HDD with the identical material either ?"
That isn't the finding from a Computer Audiophile Symposium back in June, where there many representatives from the Audio, Industry, Recording Industry, and Recording Artists. There is a lot more to the picture than just ripping the files with the cheapest and nastiest CD writer you can find,having the ripping program say you have an accurate rip,and storing them on a typical noisy SMPS powered PC or Mac, with or without conversion to a lossless format. Yes, all ripping programs sound the same too ?
Again, why does playback from a SSD sound better than a HDD ?
I'm outta here! There are far too many sarcastic, and closed minded members,
who rely on present teachings.
Ironically my post contained no sarcasm and your was rife with it.
Please try not to insert your own words into quotes. We are not discussing storage media here.
So are you suggesting there is a difference between the two files I ripped? That the MD5 checksum cannot detect 'low level detail' or some other 'audiophile' concept?
Dear god... they are organising symposiums?!? Quick, rational people of earth, run for the hills, we've already lost!
Please try not to insert your own words into quotes. We are not discussing storage media here.
So are you suggesting there is a difference between the two files I ripped? That the MD5 checksum cannot detect 'low level detail' or some other 'audiophile' concept?
Dear god... they are organising symposiums?!? Quick, rational people of earth, run for the hills, we've already lost!
sometimes I wonder if people want there to be a difference enough to hear it...
The reason an SSD may sound different than a platter-based HD is simple. Voodoo.
okay, I'm kidding, and that may make me an ***. I'll accept that. Honestly, what you're likely hearing is the result of the DA converters, and whether or not they're getting the information on time (jitter), processing it on time (again, jitter), and processing it accurately (distortion, but not the HDs fault). If the recordings are both bit perfect, then the only issue can be the exact timing of the bits, or the translation of the bits into analog, neither of which is handled by the drive
So, if you have an HD and the song is written to it in one contiguous file, then you should have no issues with jitter as related to the drive, unless of course there is a system issue with the SATA controller being accessed by something else and interrupting the flow of your bits (or whatever controller you're using, IDE, SCSI, whatever), but due to the high bandwidth of a SATA controller and the buffers, this is highly unlikely. if it is happenning, your system needs to be reconfigured because someone screwed up horribly. The issue could be if your .wav/FLAC/whatever is fragmented, then there is always that possibility that you could have jitter induced by not getting the bits through fast enough, however... that's why you have buffers on HDs. The bandwidth needed by even a 32-bit wav file is not enough to overload an SATA controller or a modern HDs streaming capabilities (unless you use some crappy HD in an attempt to sway the opinion, or have a very fragmented file, which is, again, your fault).
There is no magic here
The reason an SSD may sound different than a platter-based HD is simple. Voodoo.
okay, I'm kidding, and that may make me an ***. I'll accept that. Honestly, what you're likely hearing is the result of the DA converters, and whether or not they're getting the information on time (jitter), processing it on time (again, jitter), and processing it accurately (distortion, but not the HDs fault). If the recordings are both bit perfect, then the only issue can be the exact timing of the bits, or the translation of the bits into analog, neither of which is handled by the drive
So, if you have an HD and the song is written to it in one contiguous file, then you should have no issues with jitter as related to the drive, unless of course there is a system issue with the SATA controller being accessed by something else and interrupting the flow of your bits (or whatever controller you're using, IDE, SCSI, whatever), but due to the high bandwidth of a SATA controller and the buffers, this is highly unlikely. if it is happenning, your system needs to be reconfigured because someone screwed up horribly. The issue could be if your .wav/FLAC/whatever is fragmented, then there is always that possibility that you could have jitter induced by not getting the bits through fast enough, however... that's why you have buffers on HDs. The bandwidth needed by even a 32-bit wav file is not enough to overload an SATA controller or a modern HDs streaming capabilities (unless you use some crappy HD in an attempt to sway the opinion, or have a very fragmented file, which is, again, your fault).
There is no magic here
Wonder no more!
This being said in reference to the comparison of two bit for bit identical (with the exception of inept use of software, a large caveat) files.
There is a huge croud of software engineers that almost laughed to death tonight. Thank you, thank you so much for provding us with this entertainment.
The WAV vs. FLAC was hilarious enough, but then the things turned to SSD vs Magnetic Disk and we had to take a break, risking to choke from laughter otherwse.
Ooh, man, it's been a good night.
The WAV vs. FLAC was hilarious enough, but then the things turned to SSD vs Magnetic Disk and we had to take a break, risking to choke from laughter otherwse.
Ooh, man, it's been a good night.
I still find these discussions fun, because I've fallen into the same trap of "I heard a difference!" when it was just that I was listening closer because I wanted some kind of justification for all the hassle I went through when a DIY project had extra 'complications.'
I can honestly believe that anyone who claims they hear a difference honestly does hear a difference. The problem comes in believeing we know exactly why there's a difference with nothing but a listening test behind us. Still, fun to believe though.
I can honestly believe that anyone who claims they hear a difference honestly does hear a difference. The problem comes in believeing we know exactly why there's a difference with nothing but a listening test behind us. Still, fun to believe though.
All fun aside, EAC is my favorte and I store music in FLAC.
There's a reason why CDs work even after abuse and why a software executable, whch can suffer irrecoverable corruption even due to 1 flipped bit, still works after you play frisbee wth the CD. It's called Cross-interleaved Reed-Solomon coding, which along with certain techniques in CD-readers ensures the damn thing still works after every time you take it out of the case.
Yes, in certain cases using a software that scrutinizes the raw data access can have benefits and that's why we like using some of the aforementioned programs. The cases in which they've reported that I *needed* to run them however have been very, very few.
Compared to those error margins, the noise in any sound card is a much bigger problem.
There's a reason why CDs work even after abuse and why a software executable, whch can suffer irrecoverable corruption even due to 1 flipped bit, still works after you play frisbee wth the CD. It's called Cross-interleaved Reed-Solomon coding, which along with certain techniques in CD-readers ensures the damn thing still works after every time you take it out of the case.
Yes, in certain cases using a software that scrutinizes the raw data access can have benefits and that's why we like using some of the aforementioned programs. The cases in which they've reported that I *needed* to run them however have been very, very few.
Compared to those error margins, the noise in any sound card is a much bigger problem.
It's because the error detection and correction of CD/DVD data is more robust than that of music CD. Also, data CDs aren't subject to the read/write offset problem of music CDs. You could consider the latter to be a trivial error, as it only changes the amount of silence at the beginning and end of the song by a tiny amount. But it does make it a little messier to determine whether you got a bit-perfect rip of your CD - especially since you don't know a priori what the data were supposed to be. Thus the use of AccurateRip and read/write offset correction for helping with this task.
I've ripped about 1000 CDs, many of them as old as around 1984 when I first started buying them. I'd say maybe 3 percent of them had some kind of problem. There's a freeware called KProbe2 that works for Lite-On drives. It checks C1 and C2 errors on CDs among other things. I checked the problematic CDs with KProbe2 and found they usually had C2 errors, or a much higher than normal incidence of C1 errors. It's complicated a bit by a pretty large variance in quality of audio CD error detection and correction in different makes and models of computer CD/DVD drives.
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All fun aside indeed. This subject actually depresses me somewhat. The flac vs wav argument is as far as I am concerned the pinnacle of 'audiophile' stupidity. In almost every other case of 'golden ears' coming into play there are actual physical differences in what is being compared, however inaudible they are. Different cables have minuscule differences in electronic property (LCR), a dac with 120db snr will produce different sound to one with 117... dont get me wrong, I do not believe the difference to be audible, but at least there IS a difference.
When people start claiming that IDENTICAL files have complex differences I start to despair.
It seems mixing hifi with computers results in even more absurd opinions than just plain physics did... couldn't it have been wonderful?
Personally, when I was reading his posts I was convinced that SandyK was simply trolling.
Looking back on them.... highly possible.
Personally, when I was reading his posts I was convinced that SandyK was simply trolling.
SandyK is a friend of mine and I can assure you he is serious. His post here are his firm beliefs and his motives are completely honorable.
We have had many arguments about this topic and both of us remain firmly on the opposite sides of the fence.
regards
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Back to this again, I wouldn't mind one or two dropped samples in 72 min but if a vocalist IS louder than the backup almost ALL the bits have changed. Though it is true that I have made perfect rips off of completely unplayable (on ordinary players) CD's.
It seems the bit perfect rip is the ultimate reductionist audiophile dilemma.
Saying that a flac file sounds different than wav is equivalent to saying that a Word document has a different meaning if it was zipped before emailing.
Lossless compression is just like zip archive- it decompresses to 100% identical copy of the original. It's not like MP3- where data is lost. But we all know this.
This is easily shown by transforming a wav to flac and back to wav, then comparing the two wav files.
Lossless compression is just like zip archive- it decompresses to 100% identical copy of the original. It's not like MP3- where data is lost. But we all know this.
This is easily shown by transforming a wav to flac and back to wav, then comparing the two wav files.
Since you are serious, would you mind doing some more effort to give me more information about this?SandyK is a friend of mine and I can assure you he is serious. His post here are his firm beliefs and his motives are completely honorable.
We have had many arguments about this topic and both of us remain firmly on the opposite sides of the fence.
Is this file identical to the file ripped by EAC?
I have used both EAC and dbpoweramp. Both are excellent rippers. However, my recollection is that dbpoweramp accesses several online databases to verify the rips, EAC only one. For CDs where EAC did not find a verification, dbpoweramp did comfirm the rips. If I remember correctly, you have to pay for this after the initial trial period.
In all cases where EAC could not verify the rip results online, the results where nevertheless bit-identical with those ripped and verified with dbpoweramp. Also rips on different drives yielded identical files. In summary, I think that both of these programs are really reliable.
And yes, if the files are identical, they of course sound the same (it's like one being a backup of the other).
Kurt
In all cases where EAC could not verify the rip results online, the results where nevertheless bit-identical with those ripped and verified with dbpoweramp. Also rips on different drives yielded identical files. In summary, I think that both of these programs are really reliable.
And yes, if the files are identical, they of course sound the same (it's like one being a backup of the other).
Kurt
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