Good CD quality off of a pc?

lando885

hey guys, I'm getting a new stereo soon, and am really exited. But my budget doesn't have anything left over for a good quality cd player, plus all of my music is on my pc, and i only have the original disc's for about half of them. My question is, am i wasting my money on this system ( Cambridge 740A with B&W 683's) if i plan to connect my pc up to source my music through it? Also, is there a way to get original cd quality music on my pc? what is the best program to do this, what file should i import as? i have heard that any lossless is really good, but i dont really know. I have a good sound card (creative x-fi elite pro), but what else is a factor here? will a cheep dvd/cd drive cause degradation to the music as i import? Basically im looking for the best way to cd quality sound through my pc, into my 740A and on through the 683's with the best quality possible.

cfrizz

Welcome Lando.

Basically it is a crap shoot that depends on the quality of the original cd. If you had a good cd to begin with, then your pc will make a good copy. If not then nothing you do will get it to sound good.

skrol

About the best that you could do is get a good sound card for your PC. The Creative X-Fi are pretty decent. There are others that are more hard core SQ wise with fewer bells and whistles. You will still have a sub-par transport mechanism but it might get you through.

Personally I think that you would be better off spending the money on a good quality used CD player or universal player. Some of the older ones (Rotel, Marantz, etc) still hold up very well against the newer models.

I recently had to replace my 1991 Denon CD player. I found that CD players are a dying breed and many folks are using DVD players strictly for audio. Since everyone wants Blue Ray, the DVD players now are a dime-a-dozen. I picked up a demo Denon DVD-2910 (plays HDCD, SACD and DVD-Audio) and has a decent audio stage for $130.

Stan

SolidSqual

Take the CD off the PC tray and put it in a decent CDP.

Face

SolidSqual wrote: »

Take the CD off the PC tray and put it in a decent CDP.

I agree.

But if you're stuck on using your PC as a music server, it's not that difficult. Rip all your music to either Windows Lossless or FLAC, use the digital out on your video card, and use a external DAC for decoding.

Take a look at the 840C, it has two sets of digital inputs and is also a excellent CDP.

BigMac

I will make this short and sweet. If the original cd sounds good then the ripped tracks will sound exactly the same if you use lossless. If the original cd sounds crappy the the ripped tracks will sound crappy no matter what you do. You asked which programs to use so here ya go. They are free as well. There are tons of programs that will do the same things these will do but I think these 3 will serve you pretty well for your purposes.

1. Ripping in FLAC: http://flac.sourceforge.net/index.html

2. OR if you are limited on hard drive space and want to rip to another format use CDEX.....I use the 1.70 Beta 2 (this program will rip in FLAC as well): http://cdexos.sourceforge.net/?q=download

3. Winamp: http://www.winamp.com/player Winamp will play almost any file you throw at it and if it does not then more than likely there is a plugin that is available that will. Heck, even Winamp will rip to lossless if you know what to do. If you want to go that route do a little research on the Winamp site and it will give you a step by step on how to do it.

Like others have said to get the best possible sound you really need to get a good cd player. In the meantime while you are saving for the cd player since your budget does not allow for a cd player at this time you can use these alternatives.

BigMac

Here is a track I just ripped using CDEX. One track is mp3 320 and the other is FLAC. Use Winamp to play them (not all players support FLAC) and I think you will see that on your computer they sound almost if not exactly the same. The only way I think you will hear a difference is if you had a standalone cd player hooked up to your integrated amp and speakers. Let your ears decide. As you can see when you go to download this song there is a BIG difference in file size. Like I mentioned before if YOU can hear a difference in sound quality between the two pick the one that sounds best to YOU. After you compare the two let us know if you could tell a difference and if so what it was. Thanks.

**This song is for comparison purposes only. After you finish comparing please delete them. Thanks.**

MP3 320 (9.17mb ): http://www.megaupload.com/?d=WY66ECI3
FLAC (29.33mb): http://www.megaupload.com/?d=VDMLPXYE

Face

IMO, Foobar is better for playback. I find it very light, less buggy, and friendlier to use. Whatever player you end up using, be sure to download ASIO 4 All, it bypasses Window's sound processing for playback.

lando885

hey guys, thanks for the quick responses and input. I agree that ideally a good cdp is what im going for. I looked at the Denon DVD-2910 which is about the price range i will be able to afford in another month or so. The 840c looks amazing, and will probably be a long term goal of mine to own one. But for now, i am stuck with my pc. I tried both files bigmac, and at first i couldn't tell a difference, so i turned up my system, and did a lot of abx with the first 10 seconds of each song. I was able to tell a difference at a higher volume, it sounded like the FLAC was a little bit fuller, the treble not as rough, and a smoother sound. It sounded a little fuller, like their was more their. kind of like comparing records to cdp. Just to see if it was my wishful thinking creating this difference, i randomized them and turned off my monitor while to the comparison, and came up with the same result. It wasn't a big difference, and if i didn't crank my system and do the repeating of the same 10 seconds over and over, i wouldn't have noticed anything i don't think. Thanks for posting the demos bigmac, was interesting. I feel though that if i can here a difference on the system i have now (Samsung HT-Q80 all-in-one), then i will defiantly be able to on the new system.

Is their any other cdp's that anyone would recommend in the same price range as the Denon?

Thanks for all the input guys

lando885

I'm checking out Foobar right now, and ASIO 4 All. Do you recommend using any of the optional components with Foobar, face?

Sami

CDEX (or EAC) to rip to hard drive as FLAC. I would recommend MediaMonkey for playback. Don't worry about quality degrading as you import from CD to hard drive, it's not going to happen unless the disc is scratched. As long as you use the digital output of the soundcard and the drivers don't have design flaws, you're going to get the same output from the PC as you would get from a CDP using digital output.

lando885

Is asio4all going to make a difference in playback? i've been reading and it sounds like its meant for dealing with latency issues, which is more of problem if your recording.

sucks2beme

lando885 wrote: »

Is asio4all going to make a difference in playback? i've been reading and it sounds like its meant for dealing with latency issues, which is more of problem if your recording.

It removes some of the playback processing, which does affect playback
quality. And even fast pc's sometimes stutter without some tuning of windows.
I use an external DAC via USB for playback. I tried a pro sound card
by EMU, but found the DAC to be much better. A pc can be a pretty
good source if done right. But a really good DAC soon puts the price
close to a decent CDP. I use EAC to move cds over to a pc, then
playback using Foobar and asio4all. The Pc is dedicated to music playback.
It's the best source I have in the house. The KECES DA-151
sells on EBAY reasonable, and gets pretty good reviews.
I'm using a Monica. Both are low cost, and kick butt over any sound
card I've heard.

eloplayspolo

I used these on my old desktop when i used to DJ
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829102021

lando885

i got Foobar working, and tweaked it so it looks and functions like iTunes, only it sounds a lot better, lol. I got asio4all working to, after a while, and just finished fixing up EAC. It wasnt registering any audio cd at first, and i had to put a nero aspi dll in the folder to get it to work. Man....after hearing how my can music sound now, with EAC, i have decided that my old mp3 files are going to be retired : ) I'm going to re-do all my favorite disc's with EAC so it all sounds this good. I have everything i needed, thank you guys for the help, i'm defiantly ready for that new stereo now, lol.

lando885

btw, that sound card is pretty good elo, i use the e-fi elite pro, which is the same card, with a little more options, and the external hub.

eloplayspolo

lando885 wrote: »

btw, that sound card is pretty good elo, i use the e-fi elite pro, which is the same card, with a little more options, and the external hub.

its incredible.... i ran a parties off of my desktop with it.... all i brought was the 2 speakers my monitor tower keyboard mouse headphones and amp... and i was good. the other guys brought so much other **** it was rediculous... a lot of them bought desktops and had me put the card in. we convinced the company to pay for half of the card so it was cool getting back 125 bucks