Is there a "audiophile ROM drive"...dvd or cd?

[phoneman]

There is so much made of stand alone players having superior transport's, optic's ...etc. Is there a comparable ROM drive. Most seem to be of quite cheap construction. I understand that computers have a advantage in error correction with buffering but it seems a higher quality transport would help with playback and ripping.

 

Enlighten me please.

 

[Quest]

I'm sure there are.. maybe you can read up on this.

http://www.sound-pit.jp/new/pc/cd-drive/product.html

 

Plextor premium 2 drive is supposed to be very good but now out of production. However, when a friend visited HK and asked Kent Poon about it (I wanted to buy), apparently he was told that this makes a bigger difference just for playback and software should sort out ripping.

 

Though it may not be definitive, you can read Kent's blog on this topic where he compared various ripped copies via different drives.. supposedly no difference.

http://www.designwsound.com/dwsblog/hifi-computer-faq/cas-5-cd-ripping-for-mac-itunes/

 

I however, have a group of friends who greatly believe in differences in ripping technique.. they use footers and stabilisers on their external drives, better cables, various mats and de-stat and supposedly can show the difference in ripped files.. apparently biggest difference is in de-static devices which kind of makes sense. the other tweaks also obviously only apply to external drives.

 

[realhifi]

Depends on what you mean by "Audiophile" and what you are willing to pay for it. Naim makes a piece called an nServe which is a high end ripper and 1TB hard drive in a slick case made specifically for ripping and storing music. It can then be on a network to any Upnp receiver and deliver superb sound to a hifi. It can be controlled by any of the Apple products, ie iTouch, iPad, iPhone and gives you feedback as far as album art, track info, etc.

 

Fantastic piece and a beautiful all in one solution for those that want what you are searching for...high quality rips and storage.

 

[ggking7]

I would love to know more about the differences in those ripped files.

 

[cococool51]

AQVOX high end CD-Drive/Burner in alu-case with FireWire and USB2.0:

http://www.aqvox.de/bestellung.html

 

if you like diy go there :

http://laudiophile.blog.free.fr/index.php?q=Rippeur-graveur+Phi%C2%B2+

 

or there :

http://www.apiguide.net/sacd-audiophile/lesfichiersdelaudiophile.htm

 

Take a look at the format "SARD" and test it you will be surprised.

you should buy their CD is a true mine of information for all good audiophile.i know that you are not french but you can always get a result as I do in English.

 

 

[audioengr]

A company called "RIPNAS" did a study of a number of CDROM drives and came to the conclusiong that this TEAC did the best job, so they put one in their product.

 

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=68223.0

 

I have the external slot version with USB interface and it works superbly. Cost $50 on ebay. You may want the drawer version so it doesnt scratch disks.

 

Steve N.

Empirical Audio

 

[phoneman]

sound very interesting Steve...now if I can only find a deal on one...will keep looking. I also like the idea of 1x rip speed mentioned somewhere in one of the above links...seems to make sense.

 

Ok what the hell is the deal with "SARD" Super Audio Ram Drive? I foolishly though I had heard of every format/prosses etc. Can someone enlighten me on this...is it the real deal or "mumbo jumbo"

 

I love this site...learning something all the time! Now if I could only win the lotto!!

 

[audioengr]

" also like the idea of 1x rip speed mentioned somewhere in one of the above links...seems to make sense."

 

I have a Yamaha that writes CD disks really well at 1X speed. This makes sense to get more perfect pits.

 

I dont believe this is necessary however to get perfect rips. The Teac does rips much faster than 1X, and I believe it does it perfectly.

 

Steve N.

Empirical Audio

 

[cococool51]

I hope to keep it simple in my explanation because I'm french and the translation is made from the original file apiguide.

I can only advise you to test too many solution brings this website in the treatment of sound and fresh approach that makes it.

Many file already treated to a reading in a ramdisk are available on the website then try and compare.

If I was not very clear buy their cd (about 20 euros it's not worth the shot to deny it) you'll have all the necessary explanations.

Thirty years of experience it can not refuse.

Make your own opinion.

 

The SARD - Super Audio Disk Ram - is an audio playback system Hi-Fi cloud is going to compact disc, laser and even hard drive apart for storage. Musicality obtained by this principle literally burying all other formats.

 

 

Music is the gain due to the extreme speed to 16 bit 44.1kHz wav file. The big difference between a RAM disk mounted (Ramdisk) and a hard disk is access speed. The time taken by a hard disk to move magnetic heads during the rotation (like a turntable arm moves on a vinyl disc 33t) is measured in milliseconds. Because the virtual disk has no mechanical components, its access speed, purely electronic, is measured in nanoseconds (one billionth of a second). Be quick, be brief!

- At the psychoacoustics, the wav file itself has been retired for 32-bit undergo ditherisation (adding noise) before specific reduction in 16-bit. This sound very analog added to the LSB gum residues digital quantification so little appreciated by the human ear. Make natural!

 

SARD: CDA->RIPP WAV 16/44.1 HDD->WAV 32/44.1->dithering high-pass triangular->WAV 16/44.1->RAMDISK->PLAYER 32->ASIO 176.4-> Préampli/ampli->Enceintes

 

1) Ripping audio CD with Easy CD-DA Extractor or the audio-converter-grabber internal AIMP2 44.1khz 16bit wav format on the hard disk (NTFS recommended) internal or external

 

2) Conversion with Switch Sound File Converter ripped files on the hard drive in wav 44.1khz 32bit (this will double the file size in bytes)

 

3) Install a Ramdisk in ImDisk NTFS (reformatting and fast clustering 64 kb). Copy this virtual disk 32bit 44.1khz wav files that you want to listen through a simple drag and drop.

 

4) Audio playback with either Spider Player AIMP2 configured with either 32-bit, connected by E-MU ASIO driver for USB2 external sound card E-MU 0202, powered by 5V regulated separately from the PC sound card configured with resampling 176.4 kHz in PC

 

Stage 4 may be amended is given that the sound card emu is now exceed.but the principle remains the same. (a better sound card or directly dac)

 

cococool51 a lover of music dematerialized by computer.

---if it interests you I can give you the configuration of my computer---