It has been on my mind for a while and my quick search did not come up with anything similar.
My question is :
Since everyone knows that any CD / DVD transport, however high end, always have reading errors, why hasn't anyone here come up with a transportless player by just putting the 'music' on a memory stick, and then just plug and play -- sort of like MP3, all solid state, but using red box CD or SACD or DVDA formats.
Surely, memory size can no longer be an issue these days ?
I do not mean using a PC as music player (have already gone through that thread), but a dedicated player which just load the digital information from a solid state memory instead of a spinning transport. Or is it too boring without moving parts ?
Looking forward to some enlightening advices,
Patrick
My question is :
Since everyone knows that any CD / DVD transport, however high end, always have reading errors, why hasn't anyone here come up with a transportless player by just putting the 'music' on a memory stick, and then just plug and play -- sort of like MP3, all solid state, but using red box CD or SACD or DVDA formats.
Surely, memory size can no longer be an issue these days ?
I do not mean using a PC as music player (have already gone through that thread), but a dedicated player which just load the digital information from a solid state memory instead of a spinning transport. Or is it too boring without moving parts ?
Looking forward to some enlightening advices,
Patrick
They do, there called streaming media centers. You hook up to the network, and stream MP3's, WAV's, whatever from a computer somewhere on the network. Then theres all in ones like the Escient Fireball (sp?) that has a built in hardrive. But that one is very expensive.
Most of these all have Digital outputs.
The problem is that most poeple on audio sites will find some mundane fault in the process. Of course the MP3 thing will get ripped to shreds, even though its pretty well tested that its extrememly hard to tell a 320kbps from a WAV when using good software.
Then you get to WAV's and poeple will say "oh well I have a SACD or DVD-A player, and you can't record those onto a computer in full glory".
Then of course the physical construction comes into question, because somehow some poeple would be able to hear the difference in a digital 1 or 0 when its coming though a player that has plastic feet, versus one that has hand rubbed wood feet. And a box that weighs 2 pounds can't possibly sound good right??
And the number one comment on DiyAudio....those things are so damn complex nowadays that we can't build them ourselves.......and thats the truth! 🙁
My opinion is that these network players are awsome, and extremely convient. Nothing like having your whole album collection on hand and hitting the "random" button. I'm in the process of archiving my CD's to my computer (CDex using Lame preset insane), and I love the convience.
And everything still has some type of element of error. Hardrives work just like CD's, and memory can still have stuck gates or whatever they are made up of. Luckily there is a good deal of error correction in digital, as opposed to analogue. Plus CD is one of the few that suffers from constant physical damage (scratches).
Also if you can find a player that has a built in hardrive that uses IDE, you can get an adaptor that allows you to plug a Compact Flash card straight to an IDE bus. So it would be very responsive and be very quite. However finacially your limited to about 4GB of compact flash (not the 1" hardrives that are CF form factor). Although I did just read someone (Toshiba maybe) came out with a 8GB CF card at a cool price of $1000 😀
Not attacking anyone here specifically, just repeating most of the comments I see on the internet
Most of these all have Digital outputs.
The problem is that most poeple on audio sites will find some mundane fault in the process. Of course the MP3 thing will get ripped to shreds, even though its pretty well tested that its extrememly hard to tell a 320kbps from a WAV when using good software.
Then you get to WAV's and poeple will say "oh well I have a SACD or DVD-A player, and you can't record those onto a computer in full glory".
Then of course the physical construction comes into question, because somehow some poeple would be able to hear the difference in a digital 1 or 0 when its coming though a player that has plastic feet, versus one that has hand rubbed wood feet. And a box that weighs 2 pounds can't possibly sound good right??
And the number one comment on DiyAudio....those things are so damn complex nowadays that we can't build them ourselves.......and thats the truth! 🙁
My opinion is that these network players are awsome, and extremely convient. Nothing like having your whole album collection on hand and hitting the "random" button. I'm in the process of archiving my CD's to my computer (CDex using Lame preset insane), and I love the convience.
And everything still has some type of element of error. Hardrives work just like CD's, and memory can still have stuck gates or whatever they are made up of. Luckily there is a good deal of error correction in digital, as opposed to analogue. Plus CD is one of the few that suffers from constant physical damage (scratches).
Also if you can find a player that has a built in hardrive that uses IDE, you can get an adaptor that allows you to plug a Compact Flash card straight to an IDE bus. So it would be very responsive and be very quite. However finacially your limited to about 4GB of compact flash (not the 1" hardrives that are CF form factor). Although I did just read someone (Toshiba maybe) came out with a 8GB CF card at a cool price of $1000 😀
Not attacking anyone here specifically, just repeating most of the comments I see on the internet
Well, not quite what I meant.
Suppose you already have a large collection of digital music, and are archiving it in your computer (like you said). You can of course read it multiple time and use some error correction software to minimise your reading error. Or maybe one day we can get them direct downloaded in wav or whatvever format. So the starting point is perfect audio data stored somewhere, say in a PC.
So now you could, when you want, load these digital music onto say a 1GB USM memory stick (these days costs around $100-) and then plug the latter in turn into your dedicated player, with whatever high end clock and what not, as you like, to read that information and play it out, just like a normal CD or SACD or DVDA player.
Wouldn't that make sense ? I am assuming of course that loading into solid state memory is less susceptical to error, which may or maynot be true. But at least you can load it again and again until it is error free.
Patrick
Suppose you already have a large collection of digital music, and are archiving it in your computer (like you said). You can of course read it multiple time and use some error correction software to minimise your reading error. Or maybe one day we can get them direct downloaded in wav or whatvever format. So the starting point is perfect audio data stored somewhere, say in a PC.
So now you could, when you want, load these digital music onto say a 1GB USM memory stick (these days costs around $100-) and then plug the latter in turn into your dedicated player, with whatever high end clock and what not, as you like, to read that information and play it out, just like a normal CD or SACD or DVDA player.
Wouldn't that make sense ? I am assuming of course that loading into solid state memory is less susceptical to error, which may or maynot be true. But at least you can load it again and again until it is error free.
Patrick
KISS.
Hybrid, you may want to consider losslessly compressing your music. The FLAC codec seems to be quite popular (although lossless compression achieves somewhere around 50% compression).
Also, how do you read the music onto the solid-state memory without a transport of some kind? You could download the music, but it would most likely be ripped from a disc.
Hybrid, you may want to consider losslessly compressing your music. The FLAC codec seems to be quite popular (although lossless compression achieves somewhere around 50% compression).
Also, how do you read the music onto the solid-state memory without a transport of some kind? You could download the music, but it would most likely be ripped from a disc.
Compression
I'm terribly sorry, but my only interest is a way to eliminate the need for mechanical movement in data retrieval. Whether the data should come in what format, compressed or not, is irrelevant to this discussion.
Patrick
I'm terribly sorry, but my only interest is a way to eliminate the need for mechanical movement in data retrieval. Whether the data should come in what format, compressed or not, is irrelevant to this discussion.
Patrick
No one else interested ?
Can't be such a bad idea to get rid of moving parts ?
(Me being a mechanical engineering is the irony !!)
Patrick
Can't be such a bad idea to get rid of moving parts ?
(Me being a mechanical engineering is the irony !!)
Patrick
http://www.riksmusic.com/marantz/pics/pmd/pmd570-lrg.htm
this is a compact flash reader. perhaps you are wanting a DIY version of this?
this is a compact flash reader. perhaps you are wanting a DIY version of this?
What about harddisk recorders ?
The stuff, musicians use for homerecording ?
Also I once opened a (dead) Yamaha audio recorder and what I saw was an IDE CD burner 🙂
The stuff, musicians use for homerecording ?
Also I once opened a (dead) Yamaha audio recorder and what I saw was an IDE CD burner 🙂
> What about harddisk recorders ?
The question is, which recording and reading method (CD, DVD, harddisk, solid state memory, ......) is LEAST susceptible to reading error IN REAL TIME (when reading offline, one can do it as many time as one wishes and try to average out random reading error).
I do not have an answer for that. If I do, the discussion is perhaps more focused.
Patrick
The question is, which recording and reading method (CD, DVD, harddisk, solid state memory, ......) is LEAST susceptible to reading error IN REAL TIME (when reading offline, one can do it as many time as one wishes and try to average out random reading error).
I do not have an answer for that. If I do, the discussion is perhaps more focused.
Patrick
Before you want to criticize the Audio CD format, because it may produce reading errors and such things, you must carefully study those errors and theyr source.
Then, you'll be able to know if another format also has those errors, of if it has other ones.
I have no answear to that, but it seems obvious to me that nothing is perfect
Then, you'll be able to know if another format also has those errors, of if it has other ones.
I have no answear to that, but it seems obvious to me that nothing is perfect
D-LINK
A funny DVD with memory card reader , could be a transport less by simply insert a memory card ?
http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=387#
A funny DVD with memory card reader , could be a transport less by simply insert a memory card ?
http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=387#
Hi Patrick,
Basically what you are saying is why don't we have a CD player with a Gig of DRAM and a 52x CD-ROM reader and rip off all the audio at high speed into TEMPORARY memory buffer which is then clocked out as a digital data stream.
Because the CD Audio disc is no longer being spun at a set speed all the mechanical fiddling around to keep everything in step is eliminated. Any errors can be re-read and if hard can be interpolated by software (over which one would have some control).
An additional bonus is that as soon as the CD is fully ripped the CD-ROM reader is turned off - and the player becomes silent.
Reading errors from solid state memory should be effectivly nill (otherwise our computers woudn't work).
Which brings to mind the CD Walkmans with "anti jolt" buffers. These read the CD audio into a solid state buffer and then stream from memory.
It would be interesting to listen to one and see if there is an audible difference.
Best wishes,
Susan.
EUVL said:
Basically what you are saying is why don't we have a CD player with a Gig of DRAM and a 52x CD-ROM reader and rip off all the audio at high speed into TEMPORARY memory buffer which is then clocked out as a digital data stream.
Because the CD Audio disc is no longer being spun at a set speed all the mechanical fiddling around to keep everything in step is eliminated. Any errors can be re-read and if hard can be interpolated by software (over which one would have some control).
An additional bonus is that as soon as the CD is fully ripped the CD-ROM reader is turned off - and the player becomes silent.
Reading errors from solid state memory should be effectivly nill (otherwise our computers woudn't work).
Which brings to mind the CD Walkmans with "anti jolt" buffers. These read the CD audio into a solid state buffer and then stream from memory.
It would be interesting to listen to one and see if there is an audible difference.
Best wishes,
Susan.
Long Time no Hear
Susan,
Long time no hear. Hope you are still doing fine with your lateral FETs.
And at last someone who pinpoint exactly what I am after.
The Walkman is a temporary buffer read once only, and does not have the benefit of averaging. But if you apply the arguement to original CDs sounding better than copies, then it can only be due to recording / reading errors. I happen to know people who design CD transports, so I know how much reading errors there are, and how well you can correct.
Send me a email, maybe we should start a project together, since there seems to be little interest here.
Cheers for now,
Patrick
Susan,
Long time no hear. Hope you are still doing fine with your lateral FETs.
And at last someone who pinpoint exactly what I am after.
The Walkman is a temporary buffer read once only, and does not have the benefit of averaging. But if you apply the arguement to original CDs sounding better than copies, then it can only be due to recording / reading errors. I happen to know people who design CD transports, so I know how much reading errors there are, and how well you can correct.
Send me a email, maybe we should start a project together, since there seems to be little interest here.
Cheers for now,
Patrick
This is already what Windows XP does standard out of the box.
When playing a CD thru mediaplayer, it's not the analog out of the cd-player that is routed to the sound card; the CD is "ripped" and playback occurs from a buffer in memory. As long as you have a decent soundcard with spd/if (digital out) that *doesn't resample*, you should have a perfect signal... (remove the analog cdrom-soundcard link to be sure) - creative does resampling to 48khz and mixes inputs and so on... so that's a no-go, most basic AC97 cards do not resample (or have setting for 44khz)
however... a lot of CD players are not consistent reading audio (audio packets don't have error correction that data cd's have... an audio sector is about 2300 bytes, a data sector 2000) - windows doesn't use advanced ways to read that audio.
There are a lot of programs like EAC that read audio from cd's in different ways - like reading multiple times, overlapping, etc. You can even "checksum" a track - you can read it twice or three times, or even from a cd-r copy, see if the checksum remains the same, to be sure of the extraction.
Result is .wav files (or .flac LOSSLESS compressed) files on disc. Again, a quality spd/if out card (with a quality clock) should get the most out of the red book audio you have just ripped.
Pioneer for example went further - they have USB on their high end amps, when connected to a computer the Pioneer amps are recognized by the machine as 2-channel or even multi-channel soundcard with 96/24 capability, using the clock and D/A's on the amp.
As for "you can't build it yourself" - not quite true. For example, take a look at Via Eden based motherboards... They are very small and don't need active cooling; you can boot these from Compact Flash cards acting as IDE drives - a read-only linux based machine could be made, accessing a hard drive or the network for music. Price won't be extremely cheap but it can surely be done.
No solution for DVD-A or SACD of course... DVD-A might happen one day, if the encryption is bypassed like on DVD-V
When playing a CD thru mediaplayer, it's not the analog out of the cd-player that is routed to the sound card; the CD is "ripped" and playback occurs from a buffer in memory. As long as you have a decent soundcard with spd/if (digital out) that *doesn't resample*, you should have a perfect signal... (remove the analog cdrom-soundcard link to be sure) - creative does resampling to 48khz and mixes inputs and so on... so that's a no-go, most basic AC97 cards do not resample (or have setting for 44khz)
however... a lot of CD players are not consistent reading audio (audio packets don't have error correction that data cd's have... an audio sector is about 2300 bytes, a data sector 2000) - windows doesn't use advanced ways to read that audio.
There are a lot of programs like EAC that read audio from cd's in different ways - like reading multiple times, overlapping, etc. You can even "checksum" a track - you can read it twice or three times, or even from a cd-r copy, see if the checksum remains the same, to be sure of the extraction.
Result is .wav files (or .flac LOSSLESS compressed) files on disc. Again, a quality spd/if out card (with a quality clock) should get the most out of the red book audio you have just ripped.
Pioneer for example went further - they have USB on their high end amps, when connected to a computer the Pioneer amps are recognized by the machine as 2-channel or even multi-channel soundcard with 96/24 capability, using the clock and D/A's on the amp.
As for "you can't build it yourself" - not quite true. For example, take a look at Via Eden based motherboards... They are very small and don't need active cooling; you can boot these from Compact Flash cards acting as IDE drives - a read-only linux based machine could be made, accessing a hard drive or the network for music. Price won't be extremely cheap but it can surely be done.
No solution for DVD-A or SACD of course... DVD-A might happen one day, if the encryption is bypassed like on DVD-V
@EUVL:
Using EAC you can test the quality of your CD-R audio copy. Just make a checksum of the track on the original CD, then copy it using any tool/program you like, make a checksum of the track on the copy. If checksum matches, your copy is bit-for-bit identical.
Most recent CD writers make perfect copies.
Of course, "simple" CD players do not buffer or re-read the CD, so differences in material (real cd vs the dye on the copy, the pit size) could lead to read errors. Small ones should be handled by the reed-solomon error correction though. This is what ppl experience in difference between original and copy. When read on CD-Roms with good audio extraction capability, every read is identical (see EAC)
The pits are more defined when the CD is burned slower, so the reading might be more consistent this way for "classic" CD transports.
Using EAC you can test the quality of your CD-R audio copy. Just make a checksum of the track on the original CD, then copy it using any tool/program you like, make a checksum of the track on the copy. If checksum matches, your copy is bit-for-bit identical.
Most recent CD writers make perfect copies.
Of course, "simple" CD players do not buffer or re-read the CD, so differences in material (real cd vs the dye on the copy, the pit size) could lead to read errors. Small ones should be handled by the reed-solomon error correction though. This is what ppl experience in difference between original and copy. When read on CD-Roms with good audio extraction capability, every read is identical (see EAC)
The pits are more defined when the CD is burned slower, so the reading might be more consistent this way for "classic" CD transports.
The fact is that unless you have a severly scracthed disc, there aren't any real reading errors.
The underlying mechanisms can repair simple reading errors flawlessly due to the built in data redundancy.
I think the whole problem is, that even with synchronous reclocking just in front of the DAC with a low jitter clock, transports can still have an audiable signature, vibration tweaks still make a difference IME, etc.
I also prefer a system that is as "quiet" as possible; it should be possible to use a very high speed DVD/CD to fill up a large memory area, being built with several banks of memory.
As soon as a memory bank is filled, it could be galvanicaly switched out from the filling part, that is, the transport.
The transport continues filling up the next memory bank that is switched in.
The filled up memory bank should now have no galvanic connection with the transport, and is streamed to the DAC (asynch with respect to the transport, synch with respect to the dac).
There shall be a synchronisation mechanism to speed up / slow down the transport.
The underlying mechanisms can repair simple reading errors flawlessly due to the built in data redundancy.
I think the whole problem is, that even with synchronous reclocking just in front of the DAC with a low jitter clock, transports can still have an audiable signature, vibration tweaks still make a difference IME, etc.
I also prefer a system that is as "quiet" as possible; it should be possible to use a very high speed DVD/CD to fill up a large memory area, being built with several banks of memory.
As soon as a memory bank is filled, it could be galvanicaly switched out from the filling part, that is, the transport.
The transport continues filling up the next memory bank that is switched in.
The filled up memory bank should now have no galvanic connection with the transport, and is streamed to the DAC (asynch with respect to the transport, synch with respect to the dac).
There shall be a synchronisation mechanism to speed up / slow down the transport.
Rudolf,
Maybe I have not made myself clear at the start, but one of the main reason why I am thinking about this is exactly as you said, to only have the data (from memory) synchronised to the DAC. I would even go further and switch the transport off all together, so there would be no more discussion with vibration or noise or whatever else.
Maybe not practical five years ago, but memory is only going to get cheaper, and these days you can even load the wav data from a PC on a USM stick and just plug it to a decoder of some description to feed to the DAC. Then you are free to choose whatever DAC you want and not limited by the quality of sound cards and computer clocks, not to speak of no GHz digital circuit in the vencinity.
Patrick
Maybe I have not made myself clear at the start, but one of the main reason why I am thinking about this is exactly as you said, to only have the data (from memory) synchronised to the DAC. I would even go further and switch the transport off all together, so there would be no more discussion with vibration or noise or whatever else.
Maybe not practical five years ago, but memory is only going to get cheaper, and these days you can even load the wav data from a PC on a USM stick and just plug it to a decoder of some description to feed to the DAC. Then you are free to choose whatever DAC you want and not limited by the quality of sound cards and computer clocks, not to speak of no GHz digital circuit in the vencinity.
Patrick
Well, my personal preference would be a standalone device that accepts the media I got music on, that is a few hundred cd's. 😎
I don't have and want a computer in my living room and I guess this is the situation for many inmates, excluding students 🙂
So it's a bit inpractical to upload a cd from your computer to a 1GB memory stick each hour 😱
I think a practical solution looks more like a silent pc type of device, dimensions like a big DVD player, harddisk space 400GB+ and a 1GB+ of memory.
Special requirements for power supplies (non switching), being able to suspend pc with stopped clock while music is playing etc.
Initially when feeding in the cd's they'll be ripped to harddisk at high speed (unless copy protected) in about 2 minutes.
A next time you want to play the cd, you simply insert it, the TOC is read and the music starts playing from harddisk/memory without spinning the cd anymore. Or choose it from a menu, either on the player or lcd on the remote control.
Preferably you want to suspend the pc part when the music is playing and at least disable the cpu clock, hardisk, cdrom etc.
and have dedicated electronics stream the memory to the DAC of your choice.
It would be very nice to have two small size batteries with automatic charger and switchover so you're always mains isolated when playing music.
This is something I would seriously want to buy/build.
A DVD/harddisk recorder already has lots of the required hardware, maybe it's got potential ?
I don't have and want a computer in my living room and I guess this is the situation for many inmates, excluding students 🙂
So it's a bit inpractical to upload a cd from your computer to a 1GB memory stick each hour 😱
I think a practical solution looks more like a silent pc type of device, dimensions like a big DVD player, harddisk space 400GB+ and a 1GB+ of memory.
Special requirements for power supplies (non switching), being able to suspend pc with stopped clock while music is playing etc.
Initially when feeding in the cd's they'll be ripped to harddisk at high speed (unless copy protected) in about 2 minutes.
A next time you want to play the cd, you simply insert it, the TOC is read and the music starts playing from harddisk/memory without spinning the cd anymore. Or choose it from a menu, either on the player or lcd on the remote control.
Preferably you want to suspend the pc part when the music is playing and at least disable the cpu clock, hardisk, cdrom etc.
and have dedicated electronics stream the memory to the DAC of your choice.
It would be very nice to have two small size batteries with automatic charger and switchover so you're always mains isolated when playing music.
This is something I would seriously want to buy/build.
A DVD/harddisk recorder already has lots of the required hardware, maybe it's got potential ?
It's been talked about in another thread, but I'm working on a DSP-based, CD "transport" that uses a PC CD/DVD drive. It's got LVDS I2S on one side, an ATA interface on the other side, an RS232 interface for controlling it, and a '531 Blackfin DSP and a big SDRAM in the center. Call it "realtime, embedded EAC" if you will.
The first software version will play CDs only. Future software versions could read WAV/FLAC/whatever files from hard drives, and anything that uses a hard drive can use a compactflash card in ATA emulation mode.
And, project status - I've got a '533 Blackfin evaulation board in my hands, and I've got an ATA adapter daughtercard designed for it. But I'm having trouble getting the latter made - you'd be surprised how many PCB companies don't want to touch a PCB with a 0.5mm pin spacing chip on it. 🙁
The first software version will play CDs only. Future software versions could read WAV/FLAC/whatever files from hard drives, and anything that uses a hard drive can use a compactflash card in ATA emulation mode.
And, project status - I've got a '533 Blackfin evaulation board in my hands, and I've got an ATA adapter daughtercard designed for it. But I'm having trouble getting the latter made - you'd be surprised how many PCB companies don't want to touch a PCB with a 0.5mm pin spacing chip on it. 🙁
> This is something I would seriously want to buy/build.
Me too, to build; at least from DAC onwards.
Let's hear some further proposals.
Patrick
Me too, to build; at least from DAC onwards.
Let's hear some further proposals.
Patrick
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