Since They will No Longer Make CD's

falconcry72

Jerky,

F1nut is not saying that he thinks the files on a CD are better, or contain different information, than lossless files ripped the correct way to a HDD. He's saying that the CD playback method as a whole sounds better to him than does any PC-based playback method as a whole.

The files are bit-for-bit identical. We all get that. The transport method; however, varies significantly, and will have an impact on sound.

I am currently running a PC-based rig as my main source, and, for my money, I'm doing it the best ways possible. PC-based audio does not get better than how I'm currently doing it... for now at least. Having said that, my Parasound CD player sounds different transporting the exact same files to the exact same DAC. I have done extensive A/B'ing between the two, and while I can't say that one is deffinitely better than the other, I can say with absolute certainty that they sound different. Everything has an impact on sound.

Keep in mind, this Parasound CD player is not a "boutique" player by any means. It does a good job, but I'd imagine that a higher quality CD transport would sound better... which means that it may also sound better than my PC-based setup. I am in the process of acquiring a better CD transport purely to be able to compare it to my PC rig so that I'll know definitively if I can make PC-based audio as good as a high quality CD transport.

Until you actually listen to a high quality CD transport vs. a PC-based solution in a controlled A/B testing environment, with both sources transporting to the same DAC, you are just arguing based on theory, whereas F1nut is arguing based on real-world practice.

Everything matters. Tubes rule.:cool:

My .02

Cheers,


Ben


***Jesse, not trying to put words in your mouth, so I apologize for any incorrect assumptions I may have made on your behalf!

[Deleted User]

dorokusai wrote: »

I'd like to have some key titles in place before the mainstream dies.

+1. Also, some of the stuff I listen to will probably not be available on HD tracks or something similar. :cool:

falconcry72

I would like to add to my above statement that the difference I noted between the PC-based setup and the Parasound CD transport is very subtle.

In my experience, I observed a greater impact to overall SQ by switching between different DAC's while using the same source than I did by switching between these two sources while using the same DAC.

Subtle or not, the difference is there, especially on a highly-revealing system. On a less-detailed system, you may not be able to hear the difference...

This hobby is all about subtlety, nuance, and exploring the nitty gritty N'th degree details and differences. I love it!:biggrin:

BeefJerky

falconcry72 wrote: »

Jerky,

F1nut is not saying that he thinks the files on a CD are better, or contain different information, than lossless files ripped the correct way to a HDD. He's saying that the CD playback method as a whole sounds better to him than does any PC-based playback method as a whole.

His reply certainly didn't make that clear, and I'm still not sure that's what he meant.

The previous poster said "I think lossless digital files sound as good."
He replied with "I know it's subjective, but I don't."

It still sounds to me like he was referring to the files themselves. Perhaps he should be the one to clarify.

As for the rest, I agree that the source can affect playback. However, not everything about audio is subjective, and not every change in a system can make a difference. I won't go into further detail since it's clear that some folks here don't understand (or care to understand) what digital means and how it works.

BlueFox

What some people seem not understand is that a CD is a storage and distribution method for digital files. These files are referred to as lossless.

From a technical perspective, a CD is a very poor method for storing digital data (pits in plastic representing 1s and 0s), and a CD player is a poor method to extract that data (read it with a laser as it spins around). High end CD players have a lot of engineering, and expense, spent on trying to get the data off the CD with as little jitter as possible. Once the data is extracted from the CD then the digital to analog circuitry comes into play. This part can be off loaded to an external DAC if that DAC is better than the CDP DAC. Of course in that case, the cable that is used will also need to be decent, which is another expense to be considered.

Since the files themselves are the same whether they are on a CD, a hard drive, or some other device (flash memory, etc.) then it stands to reason that eliminating the error prone CD/laser storage/extraction mechanism will result in lower jitter file playback. Using the external DAC with a better file storage and extraction technology will lead to better audio playback than a comparably priced CD player.

For example, the Bryston BDP-1 digital file player based on USB attached hard drives is getting rave reviews in regard to the sonic playback of the digital files on the hard drive as compared to a CD player.

A very severe weakness of a standard CD player is that it is limited to low res CD quality files. It cannot play high res files that offers the potential of much better fidelity than does a standard CD. Of course, a bad recording will be bad on both a CD and a high res file, but a great recording played from a high res file will easily trounce the CD version.

mantis

I have a Salesman who works at our store. He has been into audio since the 60's. He has had many high end systems . He has converted over to the computer world and built a music PC. He has a external DAC and brought this rig into the store for a side by side compare of a high end cd player. I will say this , his rig sounded as good and most of the time better then our high end cd players in our store. We used a very nice system to compare them on (Bryston and Magnepan's , Cardos ) and after that experience I never want to use a cd player again and build my own PC. Basically I'm gonna use a mac mini and a Dac Magic as my rig.

falconcry72

BlueFox wrote: »

... it stands to reason that eliminating the error prone CD/laser storage/extraction mechanism will result in lower jitter file playback. Using the external DAC with a better file storage and extraction technology will lead to better audio playback than a comparably priced CD player.

In this line of thought, I'd assume that the preferred storage device would be a SSD.

falconcry72

mantis wrote: »

He has a external DAC and brought this rig into the store for a side by side compare of a high end cd player. I will say this , his rig sounded as good and most of the time better then our high end cd players in our store.

Were you using the DAC's in the CD players vs. the guy's external DAC? If so, that's not an accurate test, and you were likely hearing differences between the DAC's as opposed to differences between the sources.

To accurately evaluate digital sources, you must use the same DAC. To accurately evaluate DAC's, you must use the same source. It's the only way to be sure.

BlueFox

falconcry72 wrote: »

In this line of thought, I'd assume that the preferred storage device would be a SSD.

Yes. It will be nice once the price drops to get a Terabyte of solid state storage for backup, and play.

dorokusai

You can start with something like a Cambridge Audio, Wadia or Bryston in various price levels. At that point if you have lossless and you're output is into the DAC, then to you subsequent stereo....you won't hear a difference between the same media on CD.

F1Nut - I'm not sure what you've been able to listen to but this argument is real easy to put to rest. I understand your position and there's a LOT to be said about media that's simply not available on CD, or even pressed anymore but the road ultimately leads to digital. The market share will become smaller and smaller, enough to even bet money on it in Vegas.

BlueFox

Ken, since you want to use a computer then there is a lot of tweaking that needs to be done to turn it into a high-end source, versus just a good source in its stock form. Others have been that route, but I personally like a dedicated music server that only does one thing. For example, I use the iPod Classic and Wadia 171 iTransport digital dock. Without a doubt, this has been the best audio component I have ever bought. Of course, after upgrading the stock power supply and digital cable you can easily double the price, but it still is a superb music server for lossless files.

Anyway, as a starting point, buy the current (December 2011) issue of the absolute sound. On page 22, they review 11 MAC based music playback software solutions.

[Deleted User]

Thanks, I'll read that article.

inspiredsports

Knock on wood, in 26 years I've never had a CD fail, but I've had numerous hard drives fail.

How do you guys who have gone all hard drive based back up?

Until 9/11 happened , no one believe it was possible. There are now both nuclear and non-nuclear methods to produce EMP.

For those of you who do know how to back up properly, are you concerned about lead poisoning?

cnh

I don't doubt that CDs will disappear some day...just not today! Not yet, that is. And when they do you only have to look at the used Vinyl Market to realize that they'll still be a HUGE market for buying and trading old CDs! So it should 'only' affect new music. And it might not even do that because there might be 'limited' CD releases of new titles like there are 'vinyl' releases?

I'm not worrying. And I have too much invested in my CD player at the moment to justify a 1000 dollar DAC. Can't budget for that or I'll be in the Doghouse! lol (Besides, believe it or not, the HD 990 is a half decent DAC (asynchronous) as well as a passable second CDP).

cnh

falconcry72

inspiredsports wrote: »

How do you guys who have gone all hard drive based back up?

My main drives are internal in a desktop PC. My backups are external that I keep, not plugged in, in a separate part of the house.Whenever I add new music to the main drives, I add it to the externals as well. I'm in the process of getting a second group of backup drives that will be kept offsite, at a buddy's house. This way, my house could burn to the ground, but I'll still have all my music.:biggrin: Not to mention photos, documents. etc.

I have friends who have "backup" drives located right in top of their main PC's, and they leave them on all the time. I don't understand this. Spill a beer: both drives gone. Burglar: both drives gone. lightening strike: both drives gone. Natural disaster: both drives gone. Not much of a "backup" solution, if you ask me.

Using the cloud as a storage/backup measure is a viable 3rd tier type of option, but it will NEVER be a primary option for me. I don't want my personal stuff to be dependent on how well some huge company manages their servers. Servers go down. Drives fail. I'd rather take the necessary precautions myself, and know that I was protected, then pay a big corporation to do it and cross my fingers that they know what the eff they're doing. Cloud storage can be a good supplement to other measures, though.

Systems

How many hours a day would you guesstimate you spend dealing with pc based music?
That is the part I would not like!:sad:

I just as soon pop in a cd and go fix my hair in the mirror:cheesygrin:.

falconcry72

pepster wrote: »

How many hours a day would you guesstimate you spend dealing with pc based music?
That is the part I would not like!:sad:

I just as soon pop in a cd and go fix my hair in the mirror:cheesygrin:.

Man, you got the wrong idea, friend!

It only sounds complicated. Going PC-based has been the single greatest milestone of my life. Well, that may be an exaggeration, but it has simplified, expedited, and made more efficient my music listening experience. Come over if you're ever in the area and play around a little. You'll be hooked.:biggrin:

brgman

pepster wrote: »

How many hours a day would you guesstimate you spend dealing with pc based music?
That is the part I would not like!:sad:

I just as soon pop in a cd and go fix my hair in the mirror:cheesygrin:.

+1
I love the squeezebox i picked up and how well it works but for a computer novice the files and codes and folders and zip files and playlists and well you get the idea.
Tedious and frustrating.:evil:

Systems

I am just another reason this forum needs an independent "pc audio" section.

dorokusai

inspiredsports wrote: »

Knock on wood, in 26 years I've never had a CD fail, but I've had numerous hard drives fail.

How do you guys who have gone all hard drive based back up?

Until 9/11 happened , no one believe it was possible. There are now both nuclear and non-nuclear methods to produce EMP.

For those of you who do know how to back up properly, are you concerned about lead poisoning?

I've had 1 HDD fail 5 years ago out of probably 30 historically, so I'm not sure what you're doing to have so many failures and were they all at home? WOW, you have bigger issues.

I simply back up on an external. I know the HDD failure is the easy excuse but its simply not a factor if you have a brain.

inspiredsports

So physical off-site backup drives at a friends house, or cloud based uploads (or both) are the methods.

Let's say you end up with 3 terabytes of music and photos. What does that cost to back up to the cloud (including bandwidth costs)?

And how much does it cost for 2 X 3 terabytes of physcial drive space? And then assuming half is off site at a friends, what are the costs associated with going back and forth every time you buy a new tune?

If you don't back up, how much do you stand to lose?

And you STILL need the physical CD anyway to get the lossless file on your hard drive.

Doesn't sound like hard drive based is very convenient to me, and if you don't have lossless, it sounds horrible.

No wonder CD's are a 3+ billion dollar industry.

WilliamM2

inspiredsports wrote: »

Knock on wood, in 26 years I've never had a CD fail, but I've had numerous hard drives fail.

How do you guys who have gone all hard drive based back up?

It would depend on the device used to store the music. Mines not on a PC, it's on a Yamaha CDR-HD1500. You take the drive out, and connect it, and a spare drive to a computer. Then use a free program called Yamaha Assistant to copy one drive to the other. Of course since I buy all my music on CD's, I also have the original CD's as a secondary backup. The only reason to backup to another hard drive, is to save ripping them all back to the CDR-HD1500, as it takes about 5 minutes a disc.

WilliamM2

pepster wrote: »

How many hours a day would you guesstimate you spend dealing with pc based music?
That is the part I would not like!:sad:

I just as soon pop in a cd and go fix my hair in the mirror:cheesygrin:.

As stated above, I use a CDR-HD1500 to store all my CD's. It takes 5 minutes each time I buy a new disc, which certainly isn't everyday. It actually stores them as exact copies of the CD, in CDA file format, no compression, or decoding needed.

So I don't even need to pop in a disc, just turn it on and over 400 discs are available for playback, from any of three locations in the house or garage.

dorokusai

inspiredsports wrote: »

So physical off-site backup drives at a friends house, or cloud based uploads (or both) are the methods.

Let's say you end up with 3 terabytes of music and photos. What does that cost to back up to the cloud (including bandwidth costs)?

And how much does it cost for 2 X 3 terabytes of physcial drive space? And then assuming half is off site at a friends, what are the costs associated with going back and forth every time you buy a new tune?

If you don't back up, how much do you stand to lose?

And you STILL need the physical CD anyway to get the lossless file on your hard drive.

Doesn't sound like hard drive based is very convenient to me, and if you don't have lossless, it sounds horrible.

No wonder CD's are a 3+ billion dollar industry.

I don't find it that expensive and I also don't keep every song, off every CD I've ever listened to or have in my library. If every song, on every album, from every artist was good...it still wouldn't be that big of a problem. It sounds like you just want to hate it so much that there's not much anyone could say to you. Good luck man.

BYW - I'm working on your wires.

tonyb

I highly doubt most people have more than 100 gigs of music stored. One terabite is a heck of alot of songs. I don't buy songs on the internet, lossless or not. Between ripped cd's and Rhapsody, thats more than I will ever need to listen to. I also don't store every song too. Not every song on a cd is worth the effort or storage space when you know you will never want to listen to it. A hard drive crashing has about the same odds as you getting robbed, flooded, or a tornado ruining your cd collection. Computers are kinda like cars, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Don't overload your computers memory, have surge and spike protection, don't let your 10 year old niece or nephew play around on the computer that has your stored music. Old computers are great to turn into a dedicated music server, plus you could back that up offsite if you wanted without the worry of your main computers personal info going anywhere. I still like the physical media, cd's, but now I don't have to have them out in the open for easy access every time I want to listen. If my computer crashed tomarrow, the only thing I lost will be my time ripping. Having a wireless music system is way more convenient than spinning cd's. It passes the WAF with flying colors, my wife has never been happier using it.

If you already have a seperate dac in your music system, you have half the battle won to start with. The other half is the quality of the rips, and the distribution. SB and Sonos have become the main 2 devices for the average joe and are relatively cheap in terms of what they provide. Even today, a good cdp can go 1g- 3g's no problem. So relatively speaking, a wireless system is still cheaper.

I will still buy cd's but for me todays music isn't worth forking out for a whole cd for one or two songs I may like. So I just go on Rhapsody stick it in a playlist and I'm done. If thats not conveinant, I don't know what is.

BeefJerky

falconcry72 wrote: »

In this line of thought, I'd assume that the preferred storage device would be a SSD.

HDD versus SSD is irrelevant in this matter. The problem that BlueFox mentioned is related to how a CD player mechanism works. It boils down to redbook audio CD's not having any form of effective error correction. Really, a CD player will do its best to cover up an error, but the "error correction" system is worthless. These problems can cause changes to the data, jitter, clicks, or just downright failure to read a portion of the disc.

This does not apply to computer based storage. Hard drives and SSD's have extensive error correction built in to ensure you get the exact data back that was written to it. In fact, the user won't even know about most bad sectors since the data is corrected and already rewritten to another sector silently. If you actually get real failures to read, your drive is on the way out; you simply got a nice warning instead of a complete crash, so you might be able to recover some data. Failures can happen in both HDD's and SSD's. All this is to say, that in general, errors are irrelevant in terms of computer audio storage.

As far as jitter goes, it doesn't begin to apply until you get to the stage where the audio player is giving the data to the sound card driver. So, your storage method is irrelevant as far as jitter goes.

inspiredsports wrote: »

Knock on wood, in 26 years I've never had a CD fail, but I've had numerous hard drives fail.

How do you guys who have gone all hard drive based back up?

If you missed it, I gave a detailed report on how I handle backups in post #31. It sounds excessive, but this is also including irreplaceable data such as family photos, family videos and documents.

falconcry72 wrote: »

Man, you got the wrong idea, friend!

It only sounds complicated. Going PC-based has been the single greatest milestone of my life. Well, that may be an exaggeration, but it has simplified, expedited, and made more efficient my music listening experience. Come over if you're ever in the area and play around a little. You'll be hooked.:biggrin:

Correct. A proper PC based setup should be very easy to use, but is also very capable and can be used in more advanced ways. There is no fumbling with CD's, or trying to find the right one in your pile or rack. You can browse by artist, title, album, genre, or any other number of ways. You can also do a text search to find what you want.

brgman wrote: »

+1
I love the squeezebox i picked up and how well it works but for a computer novice the files and codes and folders and zip files and playlists and well you get the idea.
Tedious and frustrating.:evil:

I have a Squeezebox Radio that I use as my bedside radio and alarm clock. I love it! Later on down the road, I will get one with a digital output to use in my main system as well as other places in the house.

dorokusai wrote: »

I've had 1 HDD fail 5 years ago out of probably 30 historically, so I'm not sure what you're doing to have so many failures and were they all at home? WOW, you have bigger issues.

I simply back up on an external. I know the HDD failure is the easy excuse but its simply not a factor if you have a brain.

You're lucky Mark. However, there are a lot of factors that can affect this. In my case, I've used a great deal of drives over the years, including both consumer and server drives. This includes IDE, SCSI and SATA drives. I also tend to have many in the same system at the same time. My server right now has a total of 7 hard drives, and I have 4 in my backup external RAID array. I also have an SSD and HDD in my laptop, plus a few more scattered around in various computers. All this adds to up to a higher chance of hard drive failure.

In addition, sometimes you end up with a model of drive that has a problem, which can factor into the equation. I've experienced this twice. First was a particular model Seagate 1GB (huge storage back in the day) SCSI drive. I had three, and all three failed. Next up were the Quantum/Maxtor 74GB Atlas 10K II's. I had 3 in my system, but two were replaced twice, and one was replaced once. The second replacements of the twice replaced drives, and the one replacement for the other were Atlas 10K III's after a bit of a go around with the company. Those were much more reliable drives, and I never had one of them die. All in all, those alone account for 8 failed drives.

Aside from those bad models, I only remember having 1 or 2 other drives go bad. However, in total, I've easily used 45-50 drives, and this is just via my computer hobby at home.

inspiredsports wrote: »

So physical off-site backup drives at a friends house, or cloud based uploads (or both) are the methods.

Let's say you end up with 3 terabytes of music and photos. What does that cost to back up to the cloud (including bandwidth costs)?

And how much does it cost for 2 X 3 terabytes of physcial drive space? And then assuming half is off site at a friends, what are the costs associated with going back and forth every time you buy a new tune?

If you don't back up, how much do you stand to lose?

And you STILL need the physical CD anyway to get the lossless file on your hard drive.

Doesn't sound like hard drive based is very convenient to me, and if you don't have lossless, it sounds horrible.

No wonder CD's are a 3+ billion dollar industry.

Off-site is always a good idea, however, sometimes you need to figure out what is a really important or irreplaceable and what is not. At the very least, try to have an off-site backup of your most important data on a flash drive. This could be a flash drive you keep with you, or in the car.

As to how much you stand to lose, that depends on your particular data. Some may be easily replaceable, some may not.

As for music, having one backup to an external drive you don't keep connected to your computer is probably enough for most people. I don't consider that inconvenient or too hard.

[Deleted User]

Aside from those bad models, I only remember having 1 or 2 other drives go bad. However, in total, I've easily used 45-50 drives, and this is just via my computer hobby at home.

Is there one you recommend ?

BeefJerky

nap wrote: »

Aside from those bad models, I only remember having 1 or 2 other drives go bad. However, in total, I've easily used 45-50 drives, and this is just via my computer hobby at home.

Is there one you recommend ?

It depends on what you're looking for.

SSD: Intel, and nothing else ([cartman]seriously, you guys[/cartman])
HDD: Western Digital or Hitachi

If you want more specific recommendations, just give me an idea of what you are looking for, and what you want to use it for.

[Deleted User]

BeefJerky wrote: »

It depends on what you're looking for.

SSD: Intel, and nothing else ([cartman]seriously, you guys[/cartman])
HDD: Western Digital or Hitachi

If you want more specific recommendations, just give me an idea of what you are looking for, and what you want to use it for.

Back up for home pc. I was also looking for a media storage solution for music only. Had my eye on the Western Digital 1 TB or 2 TB (I forget which) storage device they were selling on Amazon. :cool:

BeefJerky

I think you've made a good choice there. Those should work well for what you want, and be reliable as well. Just remember to keep the backup drive unplugged and separate from the computer when you are not backing up your data. This protects it from power surges, accidental data corruption, and small fires caused by the aftermath of eating Taco Bell.