Should I get a CD Player?

[Rounder44]

Hi,

 

Currently ripping cds via dBpoweramp to an iMac (as FLAC's) with the Apple "super drive". Playing via a direct connected Hegel Rost through Focal 706's with Audrivana. I buy cd's all the time as there is plenty not available for streaming and out of print. I generally don't differentiate between "red book" etc.

 

Current budget is only ~$500 and a Marantz 6006 seems to be the best option.

 

I wonder if my losses from ripping with the above are perceivable with such a system? Of course I'll be upgrading over the years so planning for the future as well.

 

Should I skip a $500 player and save for better? Which one? (I doubt I'd spend much more than $1500)

Should I get a better cd to Mac cd drive? Are there better ripping drives?

Should I just stand pat? While my system is entry level I think it would take a couple $1000 to make a discernible difference and hence a $500 cd player may fit the bill for now....

 

Thanks,

 

R44

[kumakuma]

5 minutes ago, Rounder44 said:

Hi,

 

Currently ripping cds via dBpoweramp to an iMac (as FLAC's) with the Apple "super drive". Playing via a direct connected Hegel Rost through Focal 706's with Audrivana. I buy cd's all the time as there is plenty not available for streaming and out of print. I generally don't differentiate between "red book" etc.

 

Current budget is only ~$500 and a Marantz 6006 seems to be the best option.

 

I wonder if my losses from ripping with the above are perceivable with such a system? Of course I'll be upgrading over the years so planning for the future as well.

 

Should I skip a $500 player and save for better? Which one? (I doubt I'd spend much more than $1500)

Should I get a better cd to Mac cd drive? Are there better ripping drives?

Should I just stand pat? While my system is entry level I think it would take a couple $1000 to make a discernible difference and hence a $500 cd player may fit the bill for now....

 

Thanks,

 

R44

 

In regards to ripping CDs, assuming that the CD is ripped accurately, a better drive won't give you any improved sound quality:

 

 

[audiventory]

2 hours ago, Rounder44 said:

I wonder if my losses from ripping with the above are perceivable with such a system? Of course I'll be upgrading over the years so planning for the future as well.

 

Main aims of CD-ripping system are:

• maximal probability of correct error detection,
• minimal probability of wrong error detection,
• maximally correct restoration of damaged information.

I'm CD-ripper developer. And, I don't know about modern CD ripper that guarantee 100% correct ripping: when ripped file is binary identical original record.

 

As rule, for safe CD-ripping systems errors are corrected at 2 stages:

• into CD-drive (as far as I know, different implementations);
• into CD-ripper (different implementations).

I.e. it is multistage process and result may depend on system [CD-drive+CD-ripper]. Unfortunatelly, I don't know about independent serious comparisons of CD-ripping systems.

 

But, I think, that you needn't worry about the errors after safe ripping. Because, practically, audible errors are rare enough.

 

Read details https://samplerateconverter.com/content/safe-audio-cd-ripping-technology

 

Also you needn't worry about jitter, because, as rule, in audio system several asycronous FIFO buffers and stable clock generators.

Read details here https://samplerateconverter.com/educational/what-is-jitter-audio

[davide256]

2 hours ago, Rounder44 said:

Hi,

 

Currently ripping cds via dBpoweramp to an iMac (as FLAC's) with the Apple "super drive". Playing via a direct connected Hegel Rost through Focal 706's with Audrivana. I buy cd's all the time as there is plenty not available for streaming and out of print. I generally don't differentiate between "red book" etc.

 

Current budget is only ~$500 and a Marantz 6006 seems to be the best option.

 

I wonder if my losses from ripping with the above are perceivable with such a system? Of course I'll be upgrading over the years so planning for the future as well.

 

Should I skip a $500 player and save for better? Which one? (I doubt I'd spend much more than $1500)

Should I get a better cd to Mac cd drive? Are there better ripping drives?

Should I just stand pat? While my system is entry level I think it would take a couple $1000 to make a discernible difference and hence a $500 cd player may fit the bill for now....

 

Thanks,

 

R44

My Linn Genki or Oppo 103 using SPDIF to external DAC  fall short of the sound quality of music stored/played back from PC . I'd suggest you spend your money on an Uptone Audio  Regen or ISO Regen to get better USB out to the Hegel.

[sandyk]

3 hours ago, davide256 said:

My Linn Genki or Oppo 103 using SPDIF to external DAC  fall short of the sound quality of music stored/played back from PC . I'd suggest you spend your money on an Uptone Audio  Regen or ISO Regen to get better USB out to the Hegel.

 I agree 100% with David. ( I also own an Oppo 103)

You can also use the Regen with a better PSU to save improved copies from the Computer to a USB memory stick for direct playback from the USB input of your DAC, but with the Regen and USB memory plugged into it for improved results.

[Norton]

Your setup seems fine to me as is.  Just enjoy it and save your $500 or spend it on music.

 

In due course you might want to think about upgrading to a separate DAC between your iMAC and the analogue inputs of the Hegel (presuming signals to these stay in the analogue domain), but I can't  imagine you'll get much of an upgrade on what's built into the Hegel for $500. Something like the new Chord Qutest might be a worthwhile upgrade when you have more budget. 

 

[Rounder44]

Cool! Thanks!

 

I wasn't sure about this.

 

Also I know when plugging in the Rost to a computer it becomes the sound card by passing the computer sound card. It is also a DAC so I'm unsure putting anything in the chain would improve much. But I could be totally wrong!

 

Thanks,

 

R44

[beerandmusic]

23 hours ago, Rounder44 said:

Hi,

 

Currently ripping cds via dBpoweramp to an iMac (as FLAC's) with the Apple "super drive". Playing via a direct connected Hegel Rost through Focal 706's with Audrivana. I buy cd's all the time as there is plenty not available for streaming and out of print. I generally don't differentiate between "red book" etc.

 

Current budget is only ~$500 and a Marantz 6006 seems to be the best option.

 

I wonder if my losses from ripping with the above are perceivable with such a system? Of course I'll be upgrading over the years so planning for the future as well.

 

Should I skip a $500 player and save for better? Which one? (I doubt I'd spend much more than $1500)

Should I get a better cd to Mac cd drive? Are there better ripping drives?

Should I just stand pat? While my system is entry level I think it would take a couple $1000 to make a discernible difference and hence a $500 cd player may fit the bill for now....

 

Thanks,

 

R44

you can buy a UD7007 used for under 500, that would be my recommendation.

 

edit: nevermind..you want something to rip from...i will think about it...

 

[Blackmorec]

When I spend money on a system its in the expectation that I’ll get improved SQ and convenience or a new source.

Buying a middle of the road CDP will deliver none of the above

 

Look at something like the Innuos Zen Mini. It will auto-rip CDs to a 1 or 2 TB HDD, play songs from its 2GB buffer, is fully Roon compatible and provides streaming from all the most popular sites. 

It will sound better than most if not all CDPs in the same price range,  helps manage your music libraries, assists in finding and downloading new music and gives you a multitude of streaming possibilities. Ticks all the boxes

[Rounder44]

27 minutes ago, Blackmorec said:

When I spend money on a system its in the expectation that I’ll get improved SQ and convenience or a new source.

Buying a middle of the road CDP will deliver none of the above

 

Look at something like the Innuos Zen Mini. It will auto-rip CDs to a 1 or 2 TB HDD, play songs from its 2GB buffer, is fully Roon compatible and provides streaming from all the most popular sites. 

It will sound better than most if not all CDPs in the same price range,  helps manage your music libraries, assists in finding and downloading new music and gives you a multitude of streaming possibilities. Ticks all the boxes

Yea but I have a decent system and was just considering SQ may be better playing CD's instead of ripping and playing digital files. I thought maybe a $500 cd player may be OK as the Marantz gets high marks across the board. Seems like you'd have to spend 3x to improve SQ.

 

Streaming is fine and I use Tidal BUT I surmise 50% of my favorite music is not available streaming OR even HQ.

 

Sounds like ripping flac's and playing from HD the way to go for now!

 

Thanks,

 

R44

[sandyk]

3 hours ago, Rounder44 said:

Sounds like ripping flac's and playing from HD the way to go for now!

 

 If you have adequate storage space, ripping them directly to .wav or .aiff files is a better option, and they won't need to be decoded "on the fly" during playback, which MAY result in a small audible improvement.

[wwaldmanfan]

I'm still using a MacBook Pro with USB into my NAD M51. My setup has room for improvement, as priorities allow. I tried an amber REGEN with el cheapo linear PS and it did not improve my system. To that, I say YMMV.

I rip everything to AIFF because it is the uncompressed format that works with Audirvana, HQPlayer, and iTunes, all of which I use, as well as Audacity, TT DR Meter, etc.

[GUTB]

Check this out, uses a Philips Pro2 transport mechanism that's only used in a very high end transports:

 

https://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/QUEENWAY-CDT-2-CD-Pure-turntable-CDPRO2-LF-Transport-CD-Mechanism-AES-EBU-RCA-BNC-Optical/1070003_32847418555.html?spm=2114.12010612.0.0.eed11dcc3jvzKX

 

You really want units that have high-end transports like the CDPRO2 above, or a belt-drive unit from CEC. If a CD player (not just a transport),  only the high end units have good heavy disc mechanisms and they are all way over your budget limit....maybe a used Yamaha if you're lucky.

 

If you don't want to mess with the Chinese unit listed above and a high-end CD player is too much, just get anything with a linear power supply as everything is going to use the one of the two or three cheap plastic transport mechanisms in 99% of all disc players anyway.

 

CD players and transports generally will sound better than PCs due mostly to noise related to PC audio. PC noise can be largely corrected, however, so I would only go with a CD player if you know you're not going to put the required money and effort into fixing a PC audio chain.

 

In my view, the perfect system would include a dedicated CD Transport -> multi-bit / R2R DAC stack in addition to a high quality PC audio -> DSD DAC chain.

 

 

[Ralf11]

^^  alert @Johnseye

[Johnseye]

7 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

^^  alert @Johnseye

 

Thanks.  My previous experiment didn't amount to much if anything.  I'm walking away from this one.  The thought's appreciated though.

[adamdea]

On 13/02/2018 at 4:13 PM, Rounder44 said:

Hi,

 

Currently ripping cds via dBpoweramp to an iMac (as FLAC's) with the Apple "super drive". Playing via a direct connected Hegel Rost through Focal 706's with Audrivana. I buy cd's all the time as there is plenty not available for streaming and out of print. I generally don't differentiate between "red book" etc.

 

Current budget is only ~$500 and a Marantz 6006 seems to be the best option.

 

I wonder if my losses from ripping with the above are perceivable with such a system?

I’m not understanding the question. There are no losses provided the rip is checksum verified. 

By all means buy a CD player if you want to play the cds as such. But if you have a decent dac just get any old CD player. 

But for ripping, there’s nothing else to do. If your a billionaire or OCD then there’s a world of foo products to buy. But if your funds are short spend them elsewhere.

 

 

[bobbmd]

I use a circa 2005 Yamaha c-750 cd/sacd/dvd-a/dvd changer find one on ebay/amazon really great machine and combo with it an Outlaw Audio ICBM bass control manager

[sandyk]

On ‎18‎/‎02‎/‎2018 at 3:01 AM, adamdea said:

I’m not understanding the question. There are no losses provided the rip is checksum verified. 

 

 Loss of SQ from the saved .flac files, especially when played " on the fly" ? 

YES !

If sufficient storage is available it's always best to save the ripped music in .wav or .aiff format.

You can always include .jpegs and .pdfs where supplied, in the same folder

 There is nothing stopping you though, from saving Backups in .flac format in case of a HDD/SSD failure for security purposes.

 

There are numerous reports, even in this forum, about reported SQ degradation from saving and playing .flac files despite what your precious Check Files may report. There are also published reports in T.A.S.: 220 and 221 etc. 

If that's not enough, some members are even recently reporting that streamed .flac files do not sound as good as their own !

 Not that YOU will ever accept these reports though.

The Checksums can only be verified after the .flac file is converted back to the original format again. 

[Spacehound]

28 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

 Loss of SQ from the saved .flac files, especially when played " on the fly" ? 

YES !

If sufficient storage is available it's always best to save the ripped music in .wav or .aiff format.

You can always include .jpegs and .pdfs where supplied, in the same folder

 There is nothing stopping you though, from saving Backups in .flac format in case of a HDD/SSD failure for security purposes.

 

There are numerous reports, even in this forum, about reported SQ degradation from saving and playing .flac files despite what your precious Check Files may report. There are also published reports in T.A.S.: 220 and 221 etc. 

If that's not enough, some members are even recently reporting that streamed .flac files do not sound as good as their own !

 Not that YOU will ever accept these reports though.

The Checksums can only be verified after the .flac file is converted back to the original format again. 

Why do you suggest FLAC rather than WAV/AIFF for backups?

 

You can embed jpegs pdfs, (and tags) in WAV with zero difficulty, same as FLAC. They are in a 'chunk' at the  beginning.

 

JRiver can decode an entire ripped CD, and put it all in memory,  in less than  a second. It does it when you click 'play'.

 

People don't report on what doesn't happen. That  does   NOT prove  that you are wrong, it just means your 'numerous reports'    don't demonstrate anything.

[sandyk]

27 minutes ago, Spacehound said:

. That  does   NOT prove  that you are wrong, it just means your 'numerous reports'    don't demonstrate anything.

Agreed.

 Any more than many of the old Papers etc. that so many like yourself love to drag out of old archives as proof of what you claim.

Quote

You can embed jpegs pdfs, (and tags) in WAV with zero difficulty, same as FLAC. They are in a 'chunk' at the  beginning.

They then may become unplayable due to not meeting the standards that some software players require.

As an example, some of Barry Diament's recordings supplied on DVD could not be played directly from some media players such as the Oppo, due to incorrect header chunks from the original format conversion.  Removing these chunks using Sound Forge 9, which also stated there was a problem, made them playable in the Oppo.

 

" JRiver can decode an entire ripped CD, and put it all in memory,  in less than  a second. It does it when you click 'play'"

 The time needed would depend entirely on the storage medium used, especially if playing from System Memory.  It takes several seconds to even load a single track into System Memory from a USB memory stick to be played  using cPlay for example.

 

[Spacehound]

16 minutes ago, sandyk said:

Agreed.

 Any more than many of the old Papers etc. that so many like yourself love to drag out of old archives as proof of what you claim.

They then may become unplayable due to not meeting the standards that some software players require.

As an example, some of Barry Diament's recordings on DVD could not be played directly from some media players such as the Oppo, due to incorrect header chunks from the original format conversion.  Remove these chunks using Sound Forge 9, which also stated there was a problem, made them playable in the Oppo.

Provided you use 'regular' tags ID2(?) they are  totally portable. EG - most tagging systems do use regular tags so WAV is fine. If a player does not reject what it can't understand because it was put in incorrectly  that's not WAV's fault.

 

Remember WAV was not specifically intended for music, it was designed to accept ALL 'sounds'  so was made 'universal'. You can put anything you want in the 'chunk', even an email.

 

I do not understand your "old Papers" and your "people like you" comments.

[sandyk]

7 minutes ago, Spacehound said:

I do not understand your "old Papers" and your "people like you" comments.

 

Perhaps you don't want to ?

 

Perhaps they changed the .wav file format standard for the chunk size since it's original beginnings, as many programs will not accept more than a certain size. This included SF9 which reports an error and offers to remove the chunks.

Foobar 2K which is "jack of all trades" and " master of none,"  does however ignore the incorrect chunk size , as do some more recent programs. A C.A. member, Peter (thesurfingalien) even wrote a simple software program for me which also detects these incorrect chunks, and can be used to remove them. The problem  was reported to Barry Diament at the time, and only happened with the 24/192 recordings.

 Interestingly, the files corrected by Peter's simple little program sounded a little better than those corrected by SF9, DESPITE still having identical Check Sums !!!

[Spacehound]

2 hours ago, sandyk said:

 

Perhaps you don't want to ?

 

Perhaps they changed the .wav file format standard for the chunk size since it's original beginnings, as many programs will not accept more than a certain size. This included SF9 which reports an error and offers to remove the chunks.

Foobar 2K which is "jack of all trades" and " master of none,"  does however ignore the incorrect chunk size , as do some more recent programs. A C.A. member, Peter (thesurfingalien) even wrote a simple software program for me which also detects these incorrect chunks, and can be used to remove them. The problem  was reported to Barry Diament at the time, and only happened with the 24/192 recordings.

 Interestingly, the files corrected by Peter's simple little program sounded a little better than those corrected by SF9, DESPITE still having identical Check Sums !!!

It took three reading, the successful one a minute ago 

The chunk has allays been 'adjustable'.  I assume the ripper does it if you are  using a ripper - I use the JRiver one, EAC was too tedious.

You can put another one  at the end. 

 

I've not found a box of mine that can't recognise  it  If they use the most 'common' way (it's not an agreed  'standard', IBM/Microsoft wanted it flexible) it will always work. Everything can be in any order and they they will still be  used in their correct place on any machine that recognises them at all, which they all should. If not it's their fault, they  haven't read the spec.

 

BTW: If you ever come across a CD that won't rip (DRM) Windows Media Player will do it if you turn error  correction off, Windows Control  Panel  'properties'   as I recall  and tick the 'my own use' box (you only have to tick the  box the first time).

[sandyk]

3 hours ago, Spacehound said:

The chunk has allays been 'adjustable'.  I assume the ripper does it if you are  using a ripper - I use the JRiver one, EAC was too tedious.

You can put another one  at the end. 

 Before finding how to make those files from Barry playable with cPlay etc. I found that if I trimmed a very small amount off either the beginning, or sometimes the end of the file it became playable. (in the silent period at the start and finish)

I always use EAC for ripping. Incidentally, I wasn't ripping the files from Barry's supplied DVD, I was simply trying to play the DVD directly with my Oppo 103.

IIRC, at the time Barry had a warning on the DVD about them being for PC use only, and not directly playable .Saving a copy of the files with SF9 made them all playable, as it ignored the header chunks that were incorrect when re-saving them.

[Rounder44]

On 2/19/2018 at 9:19 PM, sandyk said:

 Before finding how to make those files from Barry playable with cPlay etc. I found that if I trimmed a very small amount off either the beginning, or sometimes the end of the file it became playable. (in the silent period at the start and finish)

I always use EAC for ripping. Incidentally, I wasn't ripping the files from Barry's supplied DVD, I was simply trying to play the DVD directly with my Oppo 103.

IIRC, at the time Barry had a warning on the DVD about them being for PC use only, and not directly playable .Saving a copy of the files with SF9 made them all playable, as it ignored the header chunks that were incorrect when re-saving them.

Hahaha!

 

Which is EXACTLY why I am considering a decent cd player!

 

I quit buying even the highest quality downloads as I've seen how the computer industry is trying to get us to upgrade every fortnight. More and more often software does not port over well and with many audio apps being made by boutique designers it's feasible they won't invest in updates forever.

 

Whereas a 20 year old CD player will mate with my 2018 integrated amp with a simple plug and no configuration per se.

 

Interesting that the large corporate concerns have not made a monster audio app! We got Word and Photoshop devouring the market but not one decent audio from a large concern..... Look at the disaster iTunes is! And that's the best effort from a major player?!

 

I must be missing something....

 

Thanks,

 

R44