All rips not equal...?!

[The_Lhc]

David, do you guys sell Sonos? I don't think there's any requirement for you to sell PCs or even NASs in order to offer something like Sonos (or a competitor) and it really is a POP to set up, any PC you have in the building will suffice for demo purposes to be frank (sorry, david...), I really don't see why you'd have to offer the rest of it, Richer Sounds (no offense!) don't for example, but they do sell Sonos. Just a thought.

 

[The_Lhc]

FrankHarveyHiFi:the_lhc:I can't believe the number of people who don't believe a computer can read a (undamaged) CD properly!
It's not that I don't believe it can't, it's just some things leave you with a niggling doubt in the back of your head - know what I mean?

No, to be honest!

I've never been particularly wedded to the CD player as a source though, so that may account for the difference in attitude.

 

[Gerrardasnails]

JoelSim:
the_lhc:I can't believe the number of people who don't believe a computer can read a (undamaged) CD properly!

Nothing to do with that, but Apple Lossless only takes 60% of the data from the CD so how can it possibly be as good?

By the way that's something I only found out after I'd done my A/B testing, finding that music streamed from my Macbook wasn't as good as the CD, when using the same DAC.

Maybe I don't understand this properly but, in simplistic terms, a CD has digital information on it. You put the CD in the player and the player reads the information and takes what it needs to send to the DAC within the player or to an external one. From this moment, it is the same as the files on a drive finishing with .FLAC (for instance) being ready for conversion from the DAC. The transport part of playing a CD is therefore more intricate and problematic than the PC transportation.

CD in player - CD starts spinning - information taken from CD - information sent to DAC - DAC does it's business.

Lossless files sitting on a drive - sent to DAC - DAC does it's business.

If how I understand it is correct, I don't see how any CD transport can be better than, well, no transport.

 

[Frank Harvey]

the_lhc:David, do you guys sell Sonos? I don't think there's any requirement for you to sell PCs or even NASs in order to offer something like Sonos (or a competitor) and it really is a POP to set up, any PC you have in the building will suffice for demo purposes to be frank (sorry, david...), I really don't see why you'd have to offer the rest of it, Richer Sounds (no offense!) don't for example, but they do sell Sonos. Just a thought.

Yes, we do Sonos, and that's about as 'PC' as we're going to get! We have no wireless system in the building (security issues), so have to rely on a wired connection, which is always better anyway, and we've had that installed over the weekend so we can get a ZP90 up in our main demo room so we can route through the Naim or Bryston DAC.

I do want to sit down and compare some lossless formats and see how I get on with them, but it's just having time to do it at the moment.

 

[Clare Newsome]

Gerrardasnails:
Maybe I don't understand this properly but, in simplistic terms, a CD has digital information on it. You put the CD in the player and the player reads the information and takes what it needs to send to the DAC within the player or to an external one. From this moment, it is the same as the files on a drive finishing with .FLAC (for instance) being ready for conversion from the DAC. The transport part of playing a CD is therefore more intricate and problematic than the PC transportation.

CD in player - CD starts spinning - information taken from CD - information sent to DAC - DAC does it's business.

Lossless files sitting on a drive - sent to DAC - DAC does it's business.

If how I understand it is correct, I don't see how any CD transport can be better than, well, no transport.

Here's Cyrus' take on it re their SE products with the new transport. Obviously you could argue 'they would say that, wouldn't they', but there is some science in there:

"A CD ROM drive is optimised for high speed data retrieval. It is not
the best tool for reading a CD audio disc, which was conceived as a low
speed, read once, system. Other proprietary drives, if not originally
designed, are typically low cost, high volume designs with inevitable
compromises in the early stages of the data retrieval process. It is
simply not enough to take the data from the drive and feed it to a DAC
application and expect the best possible audio performance.


It is commonly misunderstood that CD data retrieval is all digital and
always perfect. The laser light reflected from the CD surface is
converted into an electrical signal, which is in fact analogue. The
quality of this analogue signal is directly linked to the rise and fall
of errors in the later digitising process. A good analogue light signal
is completely dependent upon the ability of the servo systems to
control the focus of the laser light spot, providing smooth tracking of
the data stamped onto the disc surface in a spiral from the inside to
the outside edge. The Cyrus-designed system, unlike the servo systems
bought in by almost every other manufacturer, is optimised for audio
data retrieval.


Developing a 'no compromise' platform
specifically for the requirements of high-end audio has typically been
beyond the technical ability of specialist hi-fi manufacturers and many
use a proprietary drive, unaware of the improvements a properly
designed CD servo engine can provide. This project has required
significant investment and underlines the company's confidence and long
term commitment to compact disc as the dominant, uncompressed, digital
audio format for the foreseeable future.

The Cyrus SE system provides clearly enhanced audio resolution when compared to our
previous CD platforms. The audio data is read with a much lower block
error rate, up to five times better than ordinary CD playback engines.
This enhanced level of data integrity significantly reduces the need
for the data to be passed multiple times through the error corrector,
generating less electrical noise and improving system resolution."

 

[Gerrardasnails]

Clare Newsome:Here's Cyrus' take on it re their SE products with the new transport. Obviously you could argue 'they would say that, wouldn't they', but there is some science in there

Thanks Clare but I don't understand half of what Cyrus are saying!

 

[The_Lhc]

FrankHarveyHiFi:the_lhc:David, do you guys sell Sonos? I don't think there's any requirement for you to sell PCs or even NASs in order to offer something like Sonos (or a competitor) and it really is a POP to set up, any PC you have in the building will suffice for demo purposes to be frank (sorry, david...), I really don't see why you'd have to offer the rest of it, Richer Sounds (no offense!) don't for example, but they do sell Sonos. Just a thought.
Yes, we do Sonos, and that's about as 'PC' as we're going to get!

Well, like I said, that's as PC as you need to get, as far as I'm concerned.

We have no wireless system in the building (security issues), so have to rely on a wired connection,

That doesn't matter, Sonos doesn't use your wireless network, it creates its own and I'm not aware there's any security issues involved with it.

which is always better anyway, and we've had that installed over the weekend so we can get a ZP90 up in our main demo room so we can route through the Naim or Bryston DAC.

Well that's fine, there's nothing to stop you from using that as the wireless bridge to other ZP's around the store, to demonstrate the multi-room aspect of it. The wireless mesh will be present regardless as it's required for the handheld controller to work.

I do want to sit down and compare some lossless formats and see how I get on with them, but it's just having time to do it at the moment.

I'll do it for you, if you need iTunes compatibility use ALAC, if not use FLAC. All done!

 

[The_Lhc]

Gerrardasnails:Clare Newsome:Here's Cyrus' take on it re their SE products with the new transport. Obviously you could argue 'they would say that, wouldn't they', but there is some science in thereThanks Clare but I don't understand half of what Cyrus are saying!

To be honest it has no bearing on on the debate between CD players and computer-based audio (we need a catchier title for this!), ripping a CD to a PC or NAS has no requirement to read and play the audio in real time, so the PC can read and re-read the CD as often and for as long as it likes in order to get the data off and then it can compare the results to a database of rips from the net to confirm the accuracy of the rip. The Cyrus piece just seems to be comparing their drive mechanism with that used in other CD players.

 

[Clare Newsome]

But Gerrardasnails was asking how one transport could be different to another; the Cyrus piece gives an explanation on that...

 

[The_Lhc]

Gerrardasnails:Maybe I don't understand this properly but, in simplistic terms, a CD has digital information on it. You put the CD in the player and the player reads the information and takes what it needs to send to the DAC within the player or to an external one. From this moment, it is the same as the files on a drive finishing with .FLAC (for instance) being ready for conversion from the DAC.

Not quite, the flac file IS compressed, compared to the CD data, however nothing is lost in the compression, the file is decompressed before being sent to the DAC.

Lossless compression is not new, it's something we've been doing on computers for decades, it's only in recent times that it's been applied to audio data. If you've ever used zip on your PC you're performing lossless compression; you take, for example, a Word document, zip it up to make it smaller, email it to a friend, they unzip and voila, they get a bit-perfect copy of your original document. If they didn't the document would be corrupt and unreadable. FLAC, ALAC etc, is EXACTLY the same as zipping a WAV file after it's been ripped from the CD.

It's a shame no-one thought to call it a-zip (audio zip), we might never have had all this scepticism.

What am I saying? of course we would...

 

[idc]

Clare Newsome:

Here's Cyrus' take on it re their SE products with the new transport. Obviously you could argue 'they would say that, wouldn't they', but there is some science in there:

"A CD ROM drive is optimised for high speed data retrieval. It is not the best tool for reading a CD audio disc, which was conceived as a low speed, read once, system. Other proprietary drives, if not originally designed, are typically low cost, high volume designs with inevitable compromises in the early stages of the data retrieval process. It is simply not enough to take the data from the drive and feed it to a DAC application and expect the best possible audio performance.


Is a CD ROM really optimised for high speed data retrieval? Mine varies its speed depending on how the rip is going and I can choose different speeds. It simply is enough to take data from a drive and feed it to a DAC, that is how it happens and here language has been used to create a critical fictition of other systems in Cyrus' favour.

Clare Newsome:

It is commonly misunderstood that CD data retrieval is all digital and always perfect. The laser light reflected from the CD surface is converted into an electrical signal, which is in fact analogue. The quality of this analogue signal is directly linked to the rise and fall of errors in the later digitising process. A good analogue light signal is completely dependent upon the ability of the servo systems to control the focus of the laser light spot, providing smooth tracking of the data stamped onto the disc surface in a spiral from the inside to the outside edge. The Cyrus-designed system, unlike the servo systems bought in by almost every other manufacturer, is optimised for audio data retrieval.


All manufacturers have to contend with these issues. Optimised for audio? How? Optimised for data retrieval more like, how does it know whether it is audio or not, it is just ones and zeros and a clock signal.

Clare Newsome:


Developing a 'no compromise' platform specifically for the requirements of high-end audio has typically been beyond the technical ability of specialist hi-fi manufacturers and many use a proprietary drive, unaware of the improvements a properly designed CD servo engine can provide. This project has required significant investment and underlines the company's confidence and long term commitment to compact disc as the dominant, uncompressed, digital audio format for the foreseeable future.


The Cyrus SE system provides clearly enhanced audio resolution when compared to our previous CD platforms. The audio data is read with a much lower block error rate, up to five times better than ordinary CD playback engines. This enhanced level of data integrity significantly reduces the need for the data to be passed multiple times through the error corrector, generating less electrical noise and improving system resolution."

So Cyrus are claiming to have developed a better CD transport than ever before that reads data more accurately. I look forward to seeing a comparison between data retrieved from a Cyrus and another CDP. Then we will see.

 

[JoelSim]

If there's no loss of any data, then why the hell does it not sound as good as my CDP in terms of atmosphere, why is the soundstage smaller?

 

[Clare Newsome]

idc:
Clare Newsome:

Here's Cyrus' take on it re their SE products with the new transport. Obviously you could argue 'they would say that, wouldn't they', but there is some science in there:

"A CD ROM drive is optimised for high speed data retrieval. It is not the best tool for reading a CD audio disc, which was conceived as a low speed, read once, system. Other proprietary drives, if not originally designed, are typically low cost, high volume designs with inevitable compromises in the early stages of the data retrieval process. It is simply not enough to take the data from the drive and feed it to a DAC application and expect the best possible audio performance.


Is a CD ROM really optimised for high speed data retrieval? Mine varies its speed depending on how the rip is going and I can choose different speeds. It simply is enough to take data from a drive and feed it to a DAC, that is how it happens and here language has been used to create a critical fictition of other systems in Cyrus' favour.

Clare Newsome:

It is commonly misunderstood that CD data retrieval is all digital and always perfect. The laser light reflected from the CD surface is converted into an electrical signal, which is in fact analogue. The quality of this analogue signal is directly linked to the rise and fall of errors in the later digitising process. A good analogue light signal is completely dependent upon the ability of the servo systems to control the focus of the laser light spot, providing smooth tracking of the data stamped onto the disc surface in a spiral from the inside to the outside edge. The Cyrus-designed system, unlike the servo systems bought in by almost every other manufacturer, is optimised for audio data retrieval.


All manufacturers have to contend with these issues. Optimised for audio? How? Optimised for data retrieval more like, how does it know whether it is audio or not, it is just ones and zeros and a clock signal.

Clare Newsome:


Developing a 'no compromise' platform specifically for the requirements of high-end audio has typically been beyond the technical ability of specialist hi-fi manufacturers and many use a proprietary drive, unaware of the improvements a properly designed CD servo engine can provide. This project has required significant investment and underlines the company's confidence and long term commitment to compact disc as the dominant, uncompressed, digital audio format for the foreseeable future.


The Cyrus SE system provides clearly enhanced audio resolution when compared to our previous CD platforms. The audio data is read with a much lower block error rate, up to five times better than ordinary CD playback engines. This enhanced level of data integrity significantly reduces the need for the data to be passed multiple times through the error corrector, generating less electrical noise and improving system resolution."

So Cyrus are claiming to have developed a better CD transport than ever before that reads data more accurately. I look forward to seeing a comparison between data retrieved from a Cyrus and another CDP. Then we will see.

A reminder that this is just one explanation, available for all to read on Cyrus' website.

We're rip-agnostic here at WHF - as you can tell by latest issue, complete with coverage of NAS drives et al...

Personally i'd rather listen - blind - to a range of products and choose my favourite from that experience, than study data charts

 

[Anonymous]

I agree that the Cyrus transport gives a good account to help understand that the transport part of the cd player is critical and different. I also agree they have perhaps taken a few liberties in dumbing down the language used away from less technical and accurate descriptions.

 

[Craig M.]

JoelSim:If there's no loss of any data, then why the hell does it not sound as good as my CDP in terms of atmosphere, why is the soundstage smaller?

do some reading. there are two variables, the data and the timing of that data (jitter).

sorry for repeating myself, but if you will keep asking the same question and taking no notice of the answers...

 

[Craig M.]

Clare Newsome:
Here's Cyrus' take on it re their SE products with the new transport. Obviously you could argue 'they would say that, wouldn't they', but there is some science in there:

"It is commonly misunderstood that CD data retrieval is all digital and
always perfect. The laser light reflected from the CD surface is
converted into an electrical signal, which is in fact analogue. The
quality of this analogue signal is directly linked to the rise and fall
of errors in the later digitising process. A good analogue light signal
is completely dependent upon the ability of the servo systems to
control the focus of the laser light spot, providing smooth tracking of
the data stamped onto the disc surface in a spiral from the inside to
the outside edge. The Cyrus-designed system, unlike the servo systems
bought in by almost every other manufacturer, is optimised for audio
data retrieval."



this bit doesn't seem to have any relevance in comparison to a cd/dvd rom. if the pc drives were so bad at this you wouldn't be able to install anything from disc, as the data would have errors. the way i see it, it doesn't matter if it's audio or not, everything gets read by the laser and converted to electricity and then back to digital.

 

[Alec]

Forgive me if im wrong, Mr Sim, but did you arrive at your 60% figure just by listening?

 

[PJPro]

I suspect JoelSim compared the size of the .wav file with the compressed file and arrived at a conclusion. If you are not aware of compression works, I guess it's easy to think there is less information in the compressed file.

 

[Dan Turner]

JoelSim:If there's no loss of any data, then why the hell does it not sound as good as my CDP in terms of atmosphere, why is the soundstage smaller?

Lossless compression doesn't lose any data - of that there is absolutely no doubt. Quite why your experiences trying this are the complete contrary to mine are a mystery to me, but hey - enjoy the CDs, you've obviously got a great CD player.

Out of interest have you done any comparisons with uncompressed rips - AIFF/WAV etc? I tried Apple Lossless and AIFF and both sounded identical to me and both better than CD replayed on the CD37 I had at the time.

 

[Craig M.]

Dan Turner:
JoelSim:If there's no loss of any data, then why the hell does it not sound as good as my CDP in terms of atmosphere, why is the soundstage smaller?

Lossless compression doesn't lose any data - of that there is absolutely no doubt. Quite why your experiences trying this are the complete contrary to mine are a mystery to me, but hey - enjoy the CDs, you've obviously got a great CD player.

Out of interest have you done any comparisons with uncompressed rips - AIFF/WAV etc? I tried Apple Lossless and AIFF and both sounded identical to me and both better than CD replayed on the CD37 I had at the time.

two choices, either the cdp doesn't reject incoming jitter from an external source as well as it may, or joel is imagining it because it's at the back of his mind that it won't sound as good. actually three choices, maybe itunes isn't configured correctly.

 

[Anonymous]

I just can't help feeling, that all the theory in the world says one thing, and in reality it is different. Power cables, USB cables and optical cables etc are examples of where there should be no difference, but there almost always is. Debating the theory is nice, but the reality kicks in and some notice differences and others don't. I'm going down mac mini route with DAC because the convenience suits my needs better and it is in act cheaper than CD. But if i had the money, I would probably go for CD transport also.

 

[Craig M.]

it's not theory joe.

but then i don't hear any differences in optical cables either, and i think i have 5 different ones going from no-name cheapies to hifi branded ones that i wasted money on.

 

[Frank Harvey]

Gerrardasnails:Thanks Clare but I don't understand half of what Cyrus are saying!

Well to be fair, judging by Cyrus' current track record, they're not exactly THE authority on CD replay are they? (insert exceedingly devilish smiley here)......

 

[manicm]

Again, 'lossless is lossless', then again to my ears Apple Lossless sounds the worst - dull and flat - of all the lossless formats - WMAL included.

And I'm not the only one who thinks so.

So much for all rips being equal.

I hear Cyrus is going the Linn DS route - let's hope so - but without the horrific usability.

Looking forward to that - if they can nail it then surely the CDP's days will surely be numbered.

 

[Craig M.]

again, your talking about formats, not rips.

as for differences between lossless formats... i don't know how your linn works but on a pc it is decoded by a codec and then buffered to memory, then the media player gets it, at that point the data being played is identical to any other lossless format, it still isn't music at this point, just data. and yes, i have tried listening to them, no difference whatsoever.