From PDRCanada's reply I would say, yes "tradition & ritual." 🙂 Nothing wrong with that. Vinyl does that for me.
It is convenient for 1 time play, that's why I like them at shows. And ripping is a tedious pain. Gotta get a "rip and play" setup, that would be ideal.
It is convenient for 1 time play, that's why I like them at shows. And ripping is a tedious pain. Gotta get a "rip and play" setup, that would be ideal.
This is a very interesting debate.
The arguments re: soundcards and noise - these were good arguments 10 years ago, but now? I don't think so. Even the cheapest sound card in a modern PC is relatively silent.
I have even tried real cheap USB devices which seem to work reasonably well.
Personally, I have a Logitech Squeezbox Duet, which I use along side my (very tweaked) Marantz CD17, and to be honest I cannot tell the difference between the two sources (playing through the same DAC).
Perhaps my ears are just not good enough. 😱
But my son has also listened to this setup, and he also doesn't notice any difference.
Before I got the Squeezebox, I had a Roku Soundbridge M1000 and we couldn't tell the difference with that either (through the same DAC).
I have also tried cheaper CD Players - NAD 540 / Sony CDP930 / Marantz CD63 / Cambridge 340 / 640. Again, there is no real noticeable differences.
Perhaps I'm just lucky, or have a really lousy system!
The arguments re: soundcards and noise - these were good arguments 10 years ago, but now? I don't think so. Even the cheapest sound card in a modern PC is relatively silent.
I have even tried real cheap USB devices which seem to work reasonably well.
Personally, I have a Logitech Squeezbox Duet, which I use along side my (very tweaked) Marantz CD17, and to be honest I cannot tell the difference between the two sources (playing through the same DAC).
Perhaps my ears are just not good enough. 😱
But my son has also listened to this setup, and he also doesn't notice any difference.
Before I got the Squeezebox, I had a Roku Soundbridge M1000 and we couldn't tell the difference with that either (through the same DAC).
I have also tried cheaper CD Players - NAD 540 / Sony CDP930 / Marantz CD63 / Cambridge 340 / 640. Again, there is no real noticeable differences.
Perhaps I'm just lucky, or have a really lousy system!
I think it's less technical and more habitual issue. I have very old CD player without remote (modified) and LP playback. I don't want "elevator music playing device at home" Knowing me and my lazines (damn pain to move from chair and change the CD or record) I'd have a streaming audio playing all day long without me puting any attention to it browsing the internet. I need this "celebratory" thing as a surogate of white shirt when in orchestra hall. An effort to get the music playing.Regards
PS.Tony ,those CD players you listed ARE pretty lousy ones🙂
PS.Tony ,those CD players you listed ARE pretty lousy ones🙂
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I agree that players days are numbered.
To become a craftsman with hand tools takes time and skill, something someone would have to take an interest in learning over a long period of time.
As a hobby you would have to spend hours to learn....because you love doing it.
As for the OP question.....I dont want to spend the time, dont have the computer skills, dont have the interest.....thats why I have a high end player.
Puters are not my hobby.......I dont enjoy them.
Do I believe that you can do better through a computer system?......well
probably, I think the weakest link in most peoples systems are not the players. So there are better ways for most to upgrade to get much more
noticable improvements.
To become a craftsman with hand tools takes time and skill, something someone would have to take an interest in learning over a long period of time.
As a hobby you would have to spend hours to learn....because you love doing it.
As for the OP question.....I dont want to spend the time, dont have the computer skills, dont have the interest.....thats why I have a high end player.
Puters are not my hobby.......I dont enjoy them.
Do I believe that you can do better through a computer system?......well
probably, I think the weakest link in most peoples systems are not the players. So there are better ways for most to upgrade to get much more
noticable improvements.
Hi Guys,
I'm surprised nobody has brought up the single greatest advantage of the music server:
Compatibility
The physical media market has been anything but kind to the dedicated audiophile who purchased one format after another, only to find some fall into obscurity, while other lesser quality formats just won't die. Let's review how many times a dedicated physical media audiophile has had to re-purchase his/her collection and player to stay current:
CD
HDCD
SACD
DTS-CD
DVD-A
- Insert future Bluray format here -
My music server plays anything, and mean anything. It's also future ready, so next year when the "Uber Mega Super Density Bluray Super Audio Hi Def" format shows up, for $65 a disc, I won't have to throw out my old music collection and my 2 year old $6000 player in order to make use of the newer and better recording formats. The day that 32-bit 192kHz recordings become widely available, I'll be able to play them with my music server. If I had spent my money on an expensive CDP, I'd be SOL.
The only reason physical media is still used is because it's in the best interest of those who distribute media. It's easier to try and encrypt/protect, and it allows them to more easily justify the inflated prices.
The "electrically noisy" argument is also pretty poor. If you don't like switching supplies, then it's easy to replace them with linear ones. People seem to love modding the supplies in their CDP's, and the same can easily be done in a PC. Using a proper transformer coupled AES/EBU or SPDIF output also allows you to fully isolate the DAC from the PC.
There are much greater "electrical noise" polluters out there than a small PC. Chances are if you own a cell phone, a TV, live in a big city, or run off 50/60Hz mains, then the PC is the least of your worries when it comes to EMI/RFI or "electrical noise".
Cheers,
Owen
I'm surprised nobody has brought up the single greatest advantage of the music server:
Compatibility
The physical media market has been anything but kind to the dedicated audiophile who purchased one format after another, only to find some fall into obscurity, while other lesser quality formats just won't die. Let's review how many times a dedicated physical media audiophile has had to re-purchase his/her collection and player to stay current:
CD
HDCD
SACD
DTS-CD
DVD-A
- Insert future Bluray format here -
My music server plays anything, and mean anything. It's also future ready, so next year when the "Uber Mega Super Density Bluray Super Audio Hi Def" format shows up, for $65 a disc, I won't have to throw out my old music collection and my 2 year old $6000 player in order to make use of the newer and better recording formats. The day that 32-bit 192kHz recordings become widely available, I'll be able to play them with my music server. If I had spent my money on an expensive CDP, I'd be SOL.
The only reason physical media is still used is because it's in the best interest of those who distribute media. It's easier to try and encrypt/protect, and it allows them to more easily justify the inflated prices.
The "electrically noisy" argument is also pretty poor. If you don't like switching supplies, then it's easy to replace them with linear ones. People seem to love modding the supplies in their CDP's, and the same can easily be done in a PC. Using a proper transformer coupled AES/EBU or SPDIF output also allows you to fully isolate the DAC from the PC.
There are much greater "electrical noise" polluters out there than a small PC. Chances are if you own a cell phone, a TV, live in a big city, or run off 50/60Hz mains, then the PC is the least of your worries when it comes to EMI/RFI or "electrical noise".
Cheers,
Owen
Just to expand a bit on the previous poster.
I went from this:
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
to that:
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
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I moving to a High bit rate music server , I have a CD quality one for years now.... but CDs are so cheap at local stores and my CD-Pro was so much fun to build.... Its not leaving my source group any time soon.
jk
jk
I have sort of a similar question. I've ripped my music cd's to flac and wave format. I'm using the Western Digital HD media player and the Toslink output to my dac.
My question is if I get a higher end cd player and also use the toslink output, would the sound quality be the same?
so is the digital information from the toslink output same coming from the WD or a cdp?
My question is if I get a higher end cd player and also use the toslink output, would the sound quality be the same?
so is the digital information from the toslink output same coming from the WD or a cdp?
Yes, they should be the same, provided the wave and flac rips are good rips and the cdp is not creating any errors in bits while reading. Until it hits the DAC, the data is all digital and it is very hard to corrupt a bit transfer with noise.
zyren
Try "Googling" HiFace mods/home.
You will get a huge amount of hits from different forums, including DIYAudio, where John often got himself into trouble because of his aggressive promotion of his modifications. You could also search on his name here.
There are also quite positive reports in another forum that I am involved in.
Personally, I prefer SPDIF from the soundcard of a well noise and vibration dampened PC, but that's another story.
SandyK
panomaniac
Do you rip directly to that thumb device that you cart around to friend's places ? Just curious.
SandyK
No, I rip to a dedicated HDD on this computer. Files are pulled via Ethernet to the playback computer in another room. Just bought another HDD to go in the playback machine, so that the files will be local and redundant. I.E., I'll copy all files from here to there.
I've never checked the files on the USB thumb drive, maybe I should? Seems unlikely there would be any problems.
I've never checked the files on the USB thumb drive, maybe I should? Seems unlikely there would be any problems.
panomaniac
If your Thumb drive is a relatively fast drive, and you use it for demo purposes at friends places, why not try ripping any demo files directly to the Thumb drive ? Obviously, you would only do this for your very best files due to size constraints.
You may get a pleasant surprise. There are also now a lot of reports from seminars and other forums that it is best to rip to non moving storage .
Many U.S. studios now seem to prefer SSD over HDD.
SandyK
P.S.
Perhaps being stuck in a room with TerryO would help convince you ? (He, he!)
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Well I just did checksums on 5 random files on the HDD and on the USB drive. They all checked perfectly. I used several different checksum schemes, all passed.
So the files on the HDD and the thumb driver are identical. Guess I could try ripping to the USB drive and to HDD and compare the two.
So the files on the HDD and the thumb driver are identical. Guess I could try ripping to the USB drive and to HDD and compare the two.
panomaniac
PMs with attachments, are size limited,and can be a real P.I.T.A. in this forum . If you care to email me, I will send you copies of a few reports that you may find of interest.
Regards
Alex
OK Alex, I will PM you.
FWIW, I just ripped a CD to HDD and to USB Thumb drive. Two separate rips of the same CD. dBPoweramp reported Accurate(200) on all tracks, both rips. I did checksums on the files on the two drives. They all check. I can't find any problems at all. So no write problems, no read problems. As far as I can tell, the files are identical. I can't ask for more than that.
EDIT: Just to double check, I opened one of the files in a hex editor and changed a single value mid file from E8 to E9. Checksum failed. Tried again changing a value 01 to 00. That should be just 1 bit. Checksum failed again. So I'm pretty confident that the original files are identical, bit to bit. "Bit Perfect".
FWIW, I just ripped a CD to HDD and to USB Thumb drive. Two separate rips of the same CD. dBPoweramp reported Accurate(200) on all tracks, both rips. I did checksums on the files on the two drives. They all check. I can't find any problems at all. So no write problems, no read problems. As far as I can tell, the files are identical. I can't ask for more than that.
EDIT: Just to double check, I opened one of the files in a hex editor and changed a single value mid file from E8 to E9. Checksum failed. Tried again changing a value 01 to 00. That should be just 1 bit. Checksum failed again. So I'm pretty confident that the original files are identical, bit to bit. "Bit Perfect".
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There are many variables.... clocking, which decoder chip the DAC is using, quality of the cable....
The only time it will sound the same is when you prove it side by side.....
A " high end CD player" may not make a good Transport only..... And its TOSLINK may not be the best output choice.... I happen to like TOS with a really good cable...other people like co-ax. It depends alot on the implementation.
jk
I agree. I also use a USB pen into the WD TV Live, but I have replaced the supplied wallwart with a 12V 2.5A linear PSU.
During a recent listening session we played both .flac and .wav files of the same track through the WD TV Live. Our gear was pretty high resolution, but the .wav file sounded better. The .flac version sounded veiled in comparison
. I expect this will be due to converting back to.wav on the fly, and PSU interaction issues inside the WDTV Live.
SandyK
If there really is a problem, then it must lie in the conversion at the player level. I checked the same tracked ripped to wav and to flac (then extracted). While there where some minor differences in the file headers, the was NO difference at all in the audio portion.
I used Audio Diffmaker, a wave editor and a hex editor to compare the files. NO difference found. None. (outside the headers).
So on my system at least, the audio files are identical. Bit perfect. If there is trouble in the playback of flac files, it's going to be harder to find.
I used Audio Diffmaker, a wave editor and a hex editor to compare the files. NO difference found. None. (outside the headers).
So on my system at least, the audio files are identical. Bit perfect. If there is trouble in the playback of flac files, it's going to be harder to find.
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