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CR

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  1. louder: - analog pre-stages have different amplification, so that's normal and should not be an issue, just play a little bit with volume on the pre... - wider range, or similar effects. Yes, this is what most of the crowd don't allow to get into their mind (experience from other discussions), as their pc full digital setup has to be better.... - fact: it has a wider range with your setup, it's similarly better with my cd-amp setup, than pc-dac-amp. - I wouldn't blame it on the usb cable, if it's not a throw-away quality, just better than that is ok. - Further I wouldn't blame it on the RCA cables too, as I've tested it with different cables, the difference between the setups remained, just with minimal sound-colour change based on the rca cables. - itunes - hmmm, it usually sound pretty good, some prefer amarra, others foobar(pc), ... try amarra-demo - according to most it can't get better. I bet, the basic difference in sound-character will remain, even when amarra again introduces a different sound-colour, as it may happen with cables. what to do? 2me: If the origin source is digital file - I play it with pc-dac, if it's cd I play it with CD-player, if it's vinyl I use my garrard/EMT setup (others: get a propoer turntable, Rega or better). The fuzz about getting everything into digital makes sense only if you want to substitute your fm-radio or cassetteplayer with a comfortable all-playing source, that doesn't need to be the best in all cases, just very good, and I believe you've achieved that already. cheers, Carlos.
  2. well after some further tweaking in eac I got bit-equal files between originally unequal drives: TEAC and SONY. This sounds to me that only now I reached kind of bit-correct (as I still don't know what's on the disc or on the original master, just that the copies are identical to each other). Did that something to the sound-quality? yes. it has improved. Guess what, It didn't solve the issue. Still the sound is far below direct CD-play by my Philips CD-player, and different, still not better sound than from D-A-D recording. Still I'm not convinced of CD-ripping, before it gets better than the D-A-D recording. cheers, Carlos.
  3. I've created anonymized files already (w/o matching CRC, as differing CRC does not tell what is what), though as expected they're different sounding to the recorded (not much, irrelevant, as they show the same effects). But anyway thanks for the link, it might be useful for other moments... The recorded files of course are different from each other and show some information, showing clearly what they are. But hey, I don't mind people bugging around on it. I know already what I heard... this won't change and as I said, I'm not looking for advice, but for inspiration in between, or some fun chit-chatting... I've got fun understanding at what level or on which "search" mission the others are - so as they have with my blabla, I hope. ;-) cheers, Carlos.
  4. no problemo. yes, this is a constant, every time you improve your chain, some loved records or even equipment falls behind, others start to shine, I had that the last time with the switch from my SPU-A to the EMT system. Ortofon SPU, very good but too kind to old rubbish recordings. EMT shows them their place, but it shows the weakness of a perfectly set-up Garrard as well, so here's an improvement on it's way... la platine verdier... cheers, Carlos.
  5. "Carlos's over complication of his playback chain does not make sense for sure but other's have already commented on that." As I said, I do not like that D-A-D approach. Makes no sense to me too, but D-rip-D has to prove itself first... or improve, at least a lot. Of course having perfect original-master hirez digital sources from the start, with confirmed perfect professional mastering; that would be a great thing, but still it's a niche market and not all of them are HighQual HiRez, but just upsampled for nerdies. I'd like to see trusty validation of that before I invest my money on them. Vinyl is the second best to Master-Tapes available to me - looking at the analog recorded stuff. The new recordings that have been made digital from the start of course I'd like them sourced as approved HiRez Master copies. Ok, that's going to far, back to CD-ripping. My original intention was to get all my CDs ripped and my LPs digitized for "comfortable mobility" via my personal Cloud-setup with a WebDAV/Web-Server (network-based Backup and sharing) - and I quickly struggled on the CD-rip quality. That's where the confusion started. cheers, Carlos.
  6. Sorry, didn't read all additional comments in detail, yet and it seems to me that they're more a philosophical mix with some techno-literature buzzing comparisons, valuable for many. I don't care. You've got your own senses to receive the signals. That's what you value/feel, even though it has it's drawbacks... Important to me was above note from SandyK about the two drives, eac, and calibration, which inspired me (thanks to you sandy) to go back, and recalibrate my currently attached Sony Optiarc (Win7 Intel2Core E4800) with EAC as much as possible and re-rip a very new and much better quality CD of Arvo Pärt - Tabula Rasa. In addition the CD has been recorded with soundforge audiostudio 10 via RME Babyface, Euphia Alliance, from my non-oversampling philips CD604 - in 44.1/16 and 192/24. All .WAV . I know you can't put a gallon of water into a cup of tea. That wasn't my intention. The recordings are just there to compare the ripped signal and understand if it's better or not. I don't want a better result than the "original" to what I can listen with direct CD play on my chain, just as near as possible. Who likes to get a 1min extract of all three songs to comment - mail - me. Some things changed... I'd be curious what your opinion about those file-qualities are. Will test and try further. cheers, Carlos.
  7. sorry, wrong path. you don't catch me in that supermarket. Maybe 30 years ago. Carlos.
  8. David, you're right it makes no sense, and it's awfully uncomfortable. Good, that I don't care about tagging, as a non-FLACer, using WAV only. To me album is album, don't need covers and texts beyond file-names and folder structures. Carlos
  9. come on, should we really start here calling each others system crappy? That's not where I wanna go! I had the plan to have a b-class setup, too, with pc+dac+headphone, but as long as I don't get the digital source to a minimum level even your setup would be disgusting to listen! so let's get the source right... What's your (all) experience with different dvd drives? And don't talk if you never compared them in the same system directly, it wouldnt' make any sense. thx.
  10. I know all that. And trust me, that's my view, too. But results are different to what should or should not be. Therefore I don't care on what some teacher says what should... I do, both, listen, call myself a stupid long-haired dude that should go to his doc asking for a new pair of ears, but.... My friends, supporters, enemies, ex-wifes and haunting deamons all confirm, whatever there might be wrong, it is what came out to be, and, what many broadcasters do for conversion, too: d-a-d-a-d-whatever. I still don't understand. getting d out of d to me currently is d-a-d, not d-rip-d, the control of the opto-mechanical is one element I assume that degrades too much, the rest might be HDD, PSU kind of troublemakers, to be sorted out. But as said, different PC-type equipment makes no difference, so I doubt proper psu, hdd setup (cause here I can change stuff) will improve sufficiently to at least reach the d-a-d level, which still is inferiour to a-a-a. ;-) cheers, Carlos.
  11. I'm absolutely with you, If I had your setup. I am happy with uncut analogue signals that are happy too, not being forced to run through 15 different digital devices to finally end-up in my analogue ears. I wish I could compare and learn from your chain setup. I started my test without the old-school perspective, but with a true hex/bit pc minded motivation. I know I wrote in a way that some thoughts may prevent an objective perspective, but I'm always open to listen to new, different paths and learn from that. I know too, a lot of our perspective is biased on the daily acoustical training, thus acustomed "hearing" to our personal setup. regards, Carlos. p.s.: our systems are from sooooo different, furthermore distant angles of the audiophile world, that I'd prefer not to compare and learn, but listen and learn. We certainly have different expectations of "audiophile", I assume (e.g.: #1 http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/auditorium232/solovox.html #2 http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/euphya/270.html)
  12. I'd say: +++ Listening to good vinyl recordings on audiophile turntable-amp-speaker setup. ++ Listening to good non-oversampling 16bit Philips CD Player + HighRez sampling of analog input and replay over... + very good midrange AD/DA converter with good USB handling - listening to CD-ripped WAV music on iPod -- CD-ripping to serious listening (hmmm, if you like, me not!) --- CD-ripping to audiophile listening (=CRAP!) &&& Calc! Your recording/ripping/tagging time vs. purchase of vinyl copy of degraded CD, or if you like HighRez purchase of it. You see - me can short. ;-) Carlos.
  13. Hi folks. I've been reading the forum with its commercial sponsors, contributors, private audio fans, etc. for a while. I like it very much and it helped me to understand a lot from the different approaches taken by many of you, even though you might think reading the below, I've not understood anything at all. ;-) Now to my testing. This won't please many of you as it's not german-engineering kind of a professional test. It isn't at all professional, but I was not looking for the truth anyway, but for confirmed indicators of what I read in this and other forums. I come to the conclusion: Computer audiophile is as philosophical and subjective as all other audiophile areas, thus not finding the truth, but personal preferences. The truths I found for me: - computers are goodish kind of players, as long as the data is as original unremastered, unresampled, untouched in HighRez as you can, even if it's CDrez, so be it - don't touch. - you need a very good (not the most expensive or voodoo or studio-like) AD/DA converter implementation of the most current generation - you need a perfect implementation of the analog stages of the AD/DA converter - you need to make sure that clocking is right, the less digital "length" the better, or, control it treating it as data-transfer, getting rid of clock-sensitivity (related to USB-async discussion) - get the best cables/connectors (XLR) that harmonize with your amp and ad/da converter, and an average good USB cable - CD-ripping is good for MP3-expectations, not audiophile at all. If you don't get it, get audiophile first, then reread. - CD analog recording is the preferred, but uncomfortable process to record and tag, trust me, visit me, or show me a setup that considerably improves on CD-ripping (see below). - analog2digital recording/replay can reach satisfactory, not analog-replacing audiophile levels if you have a very good quality AD/DA, USB-async, PC, Recording-Software setup with 24bit/192Khz, nothing below, Ok - at least try to get the _24bit_/48Khz running. Extract of my testing - here with regards to CD-ripping, testing different drives on a classic music magazine give-away CD that has been used a while in my car. tested: sampler-cd without scratches but with dirty superficial layer-related reading-errors. AD/DA: RME babyface connected to Win7/Vista (Intel 2Core PC/Intel MP-IBM ThPad notebook) cd-drives tested: - nec ND-1300A http://www.necam.com/optical/ - IBM TP X40, Matshita DVD UJ-822S http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=MIGR-58635 - Sony Optiarc AD-7260S http://www.sony-optiarc.eu/de/products/dvddrivesdesktoppcs.html - Plextor PX-L890SA http://www.plextor-digital.com/index.php/en/Internal-DVD+/-RW/px-l890sa/Specifications.html - TEAC DV-W5000 http://www.teac.com/data_storage/industrial_dvd-rw_drives/dv-w5000s/ http://dvb-t.teac-europe.de/index.php?id=4109&L=4 buffer: - nec: 2Mbytes - Matshita: 2 MB - Sony: 2 MByte - Plextor 1.5MB - TEAC 2048 kB All ripped to WAV of course, nothing else (not over/under/resampled). and later compared with Philips 16bit non-oversampling hifi cd drive. results: - it sound's diffuse, "scratchy", irritating in an audiophile perspective. It may be the recording that could be way below quality, or whatever - listened on KOSS porta pro and alternative sennheiser pc155 headphone/-set via RME babyface and below system, too. - it sounds goodish full embodied, but still not perfectly round on the philips non-oversampler CD Player attached to my amp... - philips listened via euphya alliance amp and auditorium23 phy-hp speakers bit-comparison: - ripped with dbp-demo, eac and foobar2000 with burst and paranoia mode, foobar only paranoia-mode - same drive with different software in paranoia setup are bit-identical if the track is error-free (a few, not all tracks) - drives are not bit-identical to each other, except sony and nec managed to be bit-identical with same setup on faultless tracks, compared with bit-compare in foobar2000. Is bit-compare in Foobar2k wrong? Guess not. mechanical: - sony and plextor share same drives, but maybe different internals, e.g. controller setup, firmware, minor constructive elements, as sony is quick and loud, while plextor is a quieter drive. Case is identical. - nec loud, older, thus not so quick - matsushita, old notebook drive, slow and medium loud, slim device - teac, quiet error mgmt: - sony walks over all errors and seems not to care much about it, reading all tracks fully and quickly. both paranoia or burst mode. - paranoia-mode (EAC, dbp, foobar2k): plextor, nec, teac, matsushita may stop or need a hell of a time to get the bad tracks walked through, if (too many errors, manual interruption before vulcanization of laser and drive's plastics) ;-) - alternative burst-mode let them run over the bad tracks, more or less successfully summing up: - I'm very far from being motivated to rip my CDs instead of recording them via the cd+analog chain. - It's so much better sounding (although theoretically or techno-ethically not correct), so much better playing the pre-recorded digital2analog2digital copy of a CD, or played directly from CD, than the same CD ripped to pc and replayed to the same audio-chain. to improve: - STAX headphones on their way for new quick test with new/optimal CD and better headphones. - unfortunately can't stay forever with the CD/DVD drives and the NEC was getting old already, hang-up too often, so I had a sneaky look into it - god is this a cheap construction!! - nothing, it's useless, differences between the drives were minimal, aside from easy reading by the Sony drive. - I'd like to compare a manufacturer's professional product such as Naim Qunityserve's digital data, copied to my pc with the already gathered sound-files replaying them to my audio-chain. Will it differ much? Does it make a difference? Is the real issue with my pc/setup? If yes, why doesn't it matter/change using the thinkpad instead? PSU- or Controller issue the reason for the real difference? Oh! my unlimited service cloud provider changed rules of contract unilateral to rated traffic - HOHOHO, Bastard! So, self-clouding is not an option, only local server, but that wasn't the plan, nor does it interest me at all. I had the vision to creat my personal cloud on the web myself and stream from there via webdav to my vacation home, parents-home, iphone in hotel, ... wherever. Now: I just bought a few more vinyls on ebay and ordered a set of singles with my Vinyl store and keep my Garrard running while getting me a Verdier, instead of this digital rubbish. Analog RULZ!! Tube, yeah, sometimes. Magamp and wideband forever! Now call me stubborn old analog fashist! But it wasn't meant that way, really thought of creating my own cloud-based system substituting not my vinyl collection, but CD and Radio. I love my RME Babyface anyway, best soundcard ever and will remain for the few moments where I'll restart playing with digital. All in all I'm a Computer-Networks Guy, so be it. ciao, arrivederci. thank you for your time to read this madness. ;-) Carlos. P.S.: I do not want to give advice, nor do I intentionally ask for it. Just thought of sharing my incomplete and imperfect experience playing around with the digital audioputer stuff. ;-) Have fun, trying and playing it your way. Don't just follow commercial sponsors, and guides, just because they are there. Only a rare few of them have a real clue. As you can see I'm not part of that.
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