Kenneth Fernandes
Well-known member
In today's remote working era, very few would opt for powered eggs over free-range whole ones.
GSV Ethics Gradient
Moderator
DCarmi
Well-known member
The UK has quite a few fairly archaic and ridiculous laws which are never enforced, such as this one.Are you in the UK?
If so, be aware:
Ripping music and films illegal again after High Court overturns new law
It's now illegal - again - to copy CDs or DVDs you've bought onto your MP3 player, your computer or other devices.www.bbc.com
Prosecutions are only likely if significant resale of media were involved.
nopiano
Well-known member
DCarmi
Well-known member
Yup! But it does keep the forum lively and the topic was... ermm... asking for it! 😉
Freddy58
Well-known member
What’s that got to do with the price of eggs? 🙂
tsaoandy
Well-known member
I grew up from the CD era, if I didn't give most of them away due to moving countries, I probably have around 2000 CDs by now. Years ago I bought Esoteric CD/SACD player(about 18 years old), it's still sitting on the hi-fi rack. After I played around with external DAC which made my aging Esoteric sound less detailed, I'm using it as transport only now. Since my DAC is connected to both stream and the CD player, I can compare them (although digital out from CD player is coaxel and I use USB for the streamer, however they are both audioquest carbon cable) Esoteric as transport has better sound stage, feels a bit more analogue, but the sound signature of the DAC seems to have the major impact on the whole presentation. In case you are wondering, I am talking about 5% difference here, and I don't have a fancy streamer or DAC either, it's just Bluesound Node N130 through external DAC (Topping D90SE) Software and hardware is improving in an unprecedented fast speed, put it this way, I love the Esoteric/TEAC technology with the transport, but I won't be buying Esoteric again simply because the price they're offering. CD is still very good, and for me it makes sense to own a physical copy, but kids today(gosh I'm old) don't have the concept of owning something forever because they are aware of new thing just keep coming out, the same with phones, computer even cars, but that also means stuffs are made to break or limited lifespan but that is a whole different discussion.
Dom
Well-known member
Rodolfo
Well-known member
I use MusicBee to manage my digital music on three Windows machines, and to play it mostly on one of them, my phones, and a DAP or two. MusicBee also offers AccurateRip-rip options for the more worried/compulsive/demanding types. Such rips take longer than my regular (careless to some, care-free to me) one-or-two-minute rips. I rip regularly to FLAC or 320kbps. On rare occasions, I note an error in a listen and I'll re-rip. A minor rare inconvenience -that's all.
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Rodolfo
Well-known member
@jy999 ...a dated format???
YES, but you ask or note it as if it's a bad thing: I am too, thankfully. Your "dated" is my tried and true, known to be worthy, proven gratifying.
I own 4 CD/SACD/DVD players -they all spin tried and true CDs, though one is only a boxed backup to my main music CD player. And that's not counting a blue-ray player and a 6-CD in-dash unit in my car.
Next question.
YES, but you ask or note it as if it's a bad thing: I am too, thankfully. Your "dated" is my tried and true, known to be worthy, proven gratifying.
I own 4 CD/SACD/DVD players -they all spin tried and true CDs, though one is only a boxed backup to my main music CD player. And that's not counting a blue-ray player and a 6-CD in-dash unit in my car.
Next question.
Leon74
Well-known member
Then what's the problem? All this "bit-perfect" talk you hear all the time nowadays is just nonsense as no-one can hear the difference between a perfect CD and one with a few errors. The difference between 320 mp3 and FLAC is MUCH greater bit-wise and yet an overwhelming majority won't hear a difference.
I agree with your assessment that we quite unlikely can't hear the difference. I guess that's besides the point. It's also expensive.
As I was exploring ways to increase my library with high quality sources, it just struck me as unneeded to have a system in this day and age that requires spinning (read: increased break chance), and struggles for a bit-perfect rendering. And you don't have the aesthetic qualities of going to LP - the ritual, the characteristic sound people like, etc.
But why would a person, say who has no CDs now, invest in this tech? Unless you are looking to collect cheap CDs on the used market, why bother? I can't see any redeeming qualities in this case. It particularly seems unnecessary to drop serious money on CD transports, for those who have good DACs already, just to try and compensate for the format's failings.
For those looking for high quality audio without the hassle of home network servers, etc., and like the idea of cases and booklets and art, etc., it strikes me as strange that we haven't had an audio flash format standard emerge by now.
As I was exploring ways to increase my library with high quality sources, it just struck me as unneeded to have a system in this day and age that requires spinning (read: increased break chance), and struggles for a bit-perfect rendering. And you don't have the aesthetic qualities of going to LP - the ritual, the characteristic sound people like, etc.
But why would a person, say who has no CDs now, invest in this tech? Unless you are looking to collect cheap CDs on the used market, why bother? I can't see any redeeming qualities in this case. It particularly seems unnecessary to drop serious money on CD transports, for those who have good DACs already, just to try and compensate for the format's failings.
For those looking for high quality audio without the hassle of home network servers, etc., and like the idea of cases and booklets and art, etc., it strikes me as strange that we haven't had an audio flash format standard emerge by now.
Leon74
Well-known member
As far as I understand it, CD is (much) more durable than flash memory.
And I think that's one of the great advantages of CD: You throw it in the device and you can start listening. It's quicker and easier than starting a record. No needles that need to be exchanged, no static charge as with records, no cleaning needed (in general) and not a myriad of problems that can occur with streaming.
The problem now is that streaming is getting quickly more expensive and .you are left with nothing if you cancel your subscription after say 10 years and thousands of euros. If it weren't for that and streaming would be technically more mature, nobody would use CD's or Vinyl or any other physical media anymore I guess. But ownership is baked into the genes of people.
On one hand yet I think we will one day fully move to streaming, while on the other hand this "need" for physical media will always stay with us and who knows, one day we will buy something similar to flash "records".
Friesiansam
Well-known member
Flash memory needs to be plugged in and powered up from time to time, to refresh the stored data. If it is left unpowered for a long time, it will eventually lose all the stored data. Some devices will do better than others however.
manicm
Well-known member
Why bother? Well young people who never owned any physical audio mediums started buying vinyl. People want something tangible.
It's also why CDs are taking off again because they're much cheaper than vinyl.
Why flash format when many streamers have USB ports to plug in sticks? I don't fathom your idea for flash memory. CD players have flash memory as buffers.
Gnik_Nus
Well-known member
Ripping and playing a challenge? I think in the MP3 age everyone and their dog was ripping CD's without any problems. People have ripped their entire CD libraries into Flac and there is plenty of free software on the web that allows you to do that. First time I heard someone say it was hard. Obviously if there are CD's with DRM or something, it might be harder, but I am sure that can be done too.I recently ripped some of my old CDs, and finally learned why ripping and playing can be such a challenge. This is probably not news to many here, but despite being a digital medium, there is atrociously little error correction or accuracy protections built in. I can see why this was developed, to make CD players cheap and robust (do its best to play no matter what), but like, aren't we past that?
I was looking up CD transports as I don't need the DAC, and even those are fricken expensive, with "temperature controlled clocks" and electromagnetically protected CD cages to increase read accuracy. That's a lot of work for something that should be guaranteed.
Note that in the same era, CD-ROM formats guaranteed exact data recovery (barring physical damage). Now perhaps they cost more to build the readers, and perhaps they were slower (doubt it), and most likely perhaps they were less robust to dust and scratches. But if we're aiming for high quality audio, these are problems that can be fixed.
So to sum up... hundreds or thousands of dollars to build machines to compensate for a dated data format? what the heck? why aren't they selling factory copies to flash drives by now? I have a drawer full of them (some as small as 16mb though
OK, rant over. I suppose SACD may fix these issues but I haven't looked into it
Also, pre-recorded CD's were not originally designed to have the data taken off from them. They were for playback only and they were never marketed as something you can use for ripping or copying.
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Friesiansam
Well-known member
You can buy a good optical drive for PC, for under £30, use it in conjunction with Exact Audio Copy (EAC) and you can produce goood accurate rips with ease.
Gnik_Nus
Well-known member
I agree with your point and think you nailed it. This is a long pair, so ignore it if it takes too long to read.
I used to buy vinyl in the mid to late 1990s when all my richer friends bought CD's. In fact it was kind of embarrassing to play music on what was then considered an obsolete format. People looked at you with pity, as if tonsay "oh sorry you can't afford CD'# but else are, erm nice in a late 1960s kind of way...".
It didn't matter too much because I thought it was cool because I had original factory pressed copies of albums my friends were paying a fortune to buy. It was still the same music and it was so cheap I was able to buy more music for less money than they did. In spire of them having high end CD players and more money, I had way more music than them because I was buying older vinyl copies, which were pretty much being given away!
I mean these were the days when you could go to a Sunday market or charity shop and they would be selling 5 LP's for a pound. I got albums by Bowie, Dylan, Michael Jackson, The Beatles, George Michael, The Doors, Hendrix, Captain Beefheart, The Who, The Stones, various soundtracks and stacks of singles. Very few albums were being released on vinyl at the time and the ones that did come out were priced way cheaper than CD. I remember once I went into HMV Oxford Circus to get a Beatles album and both cassette and CD was more expensive than the LP, which was £10.99. the CD was around £17, and even used CDs were around £13 in other music stores. Used Beatles LP's, especially reissues of their original albums were dirt cheap in used music stores such as the Music and Video Exchange shops in Notting Hill Gate. This is why I liked vinyl at the time, not because the sound was better because at the time, all I wanted was to listen to the albums and the cheapest way to do that worked for me. I knew it would sound good enough because it was still an original copy made by the record label. I would never have called vinyl better than CD because to me, an LP that is played many times starts to degrade even if you take good care of it. A CD, on the other hand, if well cared for, will not have any clicks or pops, and I have CD's dating form 1984 that still sound the same as they did the day they were manufactured. Only two or three copies issued in the last 15 years got disc rot and I think that was probably because they were badly pressed.
I think CD's are good because even if you don't rip them, high quality media is stored on the disc anyway, so no effort has to be made to take the data off if you are happy enough to just play the disc. Just pop it in player and enjoy. Nothing else needs to be done. No app is needed, no files have to be moved or converted. No annoying app updates are and new sign ins are required. A Standalone player connected to decent speakers - just play away. No need to change sides for an album, no need to faff around with bit rates. It is a beautiful technology.
[Cue wistful nostalgic music and imagine Olivier narrating the next part of my comment]
That is what was good about cassette and Mini Disc. Whatever was on the cassette or disc could stay there and though you could copy it, the discs themselves were the storage you needed, and as long as you stored and filed them away sensibly, it was there when you needed it. If it is very important, back it up. Otherwise just label it properly and store it in some coherent manner so when you look for recordings, they aren't scattered everywhere. I mean it used to be a grand old feeling to just record a radio show on a disc, and be done with it. That disc was put in a file and you had to do nothing further.
Of course, if it was every important it would have been good practice to back it up but I used to record radio programmes on Mini Disc and I still have all those discs clearly labelled and stored, and I can still play them on the mini disc recorders I still have. I normally back up my phone photos on the cloud, save them on a high capacity SD card and delete the originals from the phone. Once the memory card is full. I make a duplicate and keep them in a little storage case. Since I don't take that many photos or videos, a card could last ages, and I don't have to worry when I need to retrieve the data. A back up (or two) is a very good idea of course. Those pesky micro SD cards do fail often.
With copying and ripping CD's, there could be a lot of data, and depending on the number of CD's and the bit rates at which you rip them, they could take up a lot of space so if your CD's are in good condition (you should inspect them from time to time), copying them can mean getting high capacity hard drives that need to be regularly replaced because they typically fail after a few years. If a disc is at risk, then it should be ripped for preservation.
I hate having multiple hard drives and all these wires attaching them to a media centre or computer. Many hard drives need their own power supply and then you have to plug them into a PC or some devices that can play them back. A Blu Ray player, with support for CD/DVD, plugged into a TV is the easiest solution, and a smart TV which I can use to access my streaming services is good enough for me.
Ripping all the discs would be a total waste of time and energy, unless it is something very rare or at risk of becoming damaged.
I know someone who owns a whole lot of DVD's and recently it was discovered that some of them have disc rot, even when they were kept in a mould free area and were rarely played. This is why checking them often is a good idea because in the early stages of such a problem the disc data could easily be preserved.
Generally though, getting data off from discs might make them more accessible, but how often do you really need to access all of them at the same time? Do you need immediate access to all of your discs everyday? You are certainly not going to play all of them every day, and the data is already safely preserved on the original disc. If it kept ina. Convenient place it is probably just easier to ake it off the shelf, pop in the player and play.
The effort of ripping them is not worth it in my opinion because that is not the end of it. It also means backing them up regularly to ensure the data is not lost over time and it would also mean quite a big investment in memory, especially if you continue to invest in high resolution media. For me, this Is where CD is useful because the music is on the disc. I can hear it any time I want. To save the hassle of digging through them it is better to make effort to file and store them properly. Shelves of CD's, displaying your musical taste is far more impressive than having a hard drive with rips.
High res audio is a waste for most people because it costs the same or more than a CD, takes up way more space for barely noticeable sound improvements to a CD (of you rip it in lossless format). It doesn't offer much sonic improvement anyway (unless it is a different mix or master). Recently I met a guy who was streaming high res files on an Android music player, and he boasted how good it sounded. When I looked at his player, his settings said " Hi Res streaming: off". He was streaming Lossless files but they were being output in AAC. Happily ignorant, I thought it showed that people who think they notice the difference is probably placebo.
People are just creating a headache for themselves by buying these massive files that have to be stored and curated on a computer system, when you could just buy the CD, file it away and be done with it.
When you play it will not sound appreciably different than the Hi Res file anyway.
If it music you love and it is removed from a streaming service, you still have a high quality version of the album there on your shelf, so you can rip in lossless quality if you want to.
Of course, compressing all music for portable devices might make more sense if you want immediate access to your music library when you are on the move. I really don't think anything I bought off iTunes in AAC format sound bad in any way, and compressed files means more music, using less memory which could the be used for more music. A 1.5tb micro SD card can store far more albums in good quality compressed form than hi Res files. It is conceivable that many people could store almost all the music they like on such a high capacity card in compressed format. If they do high res, or lossless, the music won't sound so much better and they would have less of it.
I see no point on hearing an album in high res audio when the sound quality is only marginally better, and using up so much memory for one album when I could have stored ten iTunes AAC format files which have never impaired my enjoyment of the music.
Furthermore, if you have Blu Rays, DVDs, games and CD's it would be a lot of data so the original media as a self contained thing is very good, as long as you have the equipment to play it. This Is why people should always make sure they always have the equipment to play all their old discs and media and concentrate more on that because to me that is less hassle, and cheaper than ripping everything - constantly getting new hard drives etc to save it. The whole point of physical media is that it is in itself a high quality back up of your favourite content, and the data is on there if you need it at some later point. Ripping all of it in the highest quality makes very little sense unless you are afraid of losing the media (in case of floods, fires, or a Biblical exile!). Maybe it would make sense if you intend to travel or move abroad or something and don't want to take all that physical media with you. Maybe you want to sell the originals or save space and want to rip everything at high bit rates and then it might make sense.
Low Res and compressed files for portable media use are OK but the originals, if kept in good condition, are there if and when that data is needed. That was the whole point of physical media!
Pedro2
Well-known member
CD rips can sound as good as or better than CDs. They can also sound as good as or better than vinyl. From personal experience, the only way to achieve this is to buy some real quality kit and then support it with real quality network infrastructure.
podknocker
Well-known member
If you rip a CD to FLAC at the same quality as CD, then you have an exact, lossless copy of the CD. You can't rip a CD and get better than CD quality. You can't add extra information the CD doesn't hold already. You don't need good quality kit. Windows 11 Media Player will rip CDs to FLAC or WAV and the quality will be identical to the original CD. I don't know why you'd need quality network infrastructure to do this. I've started ripping my 250 CDs to FLAC and they will all sit on my PC and laptop and will be shoved onto a large USB device at some point.
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Pedro2
Well-known member
The sound quality differences between CDs played on a CD player (or in my case, CD transport + DAC) and rips streamed over a network from a NAS are subtle but audible. The only reason I can suggest is that any electrical ‘noise’ is minimised over a well constructed Ethernet feed. Some manufacturers are even producing streamers with optical Ethernet input to minimise electrical noise. Linn, who have spent years developing digital streamers stopped producing CD players several years ago (Linn CD12 was well regarded at the time) as a result.
I understand the argument that it’s just 0s and 1s so it should all sound the same. However, in reality, it doesn’t. The quality of the analogue conversion process is usually crucial in how ‘good’ a system sounds as does the effectiveness of power supplies, mains noise rejection and rejection of other wire induced interference (some streamers now adopt wireless only feed but this can have its own issues).
On a final note, I still own a CD transport (Audiolab) and it sounds great - it’s just that the same CD, ripped and streamed over Ethernet from a NAS sounds just that little bit better (to my ears at least). As a result, I’m more than happy with 16bit 44khz CD sample rate rips (FLAC or WAV) and do not crave anything higher. I suspect that CDs will go on existing for many years to come but will be seen as ‘legacy’ audio much like vinyl.
I understand the argument that it’s just 0s and 1s so it should all sound the same. However, in reality, it doesn’t. The quality of the analogue conversion process is usually crucial in how ‘good’ a system sounds as does the effectiveness of power supplies, mains noise rejection and rejection of other wire induced interference (some streamers now adopt wireless only feed but this can have its own issues).
On a final note, I still own a CD transport (Audiolab) and it sounds great - it’s just that the same CD, ripped and streamed over Ethernet from a NAS sounds just that little bit better (to my ears at least). As a result, I’m more than happy with 16bit 44khz CD sample rate rips (FLAC or WAV) and do not crave anything higher. I suspect that CDs will go on existing for many years to come but will be seen as ‘legacy’ audio much like vinyl.
daveh75
Well-known member
I'd wager those subtle differences would disappear completely if you tried comparing them blind.
Ethernet is galvanically isolated by design.
Completely unnecessary (see above) but yes, they clearly know their target market!
Rui
Well-known member
well ,i agree with you in some points digital as evolved a lot and we still buy cd´s?but cds in the 80´s were several times more resistant to anythingI recently ripped some of my old CDs, and finally learned why ripping and playing can be such a challenge. This is probably not news to many here, but despite being a digital medium, there is atrociously little error correction or accuracy protections built in. I can see why this was developed, to make CD players cheap and robust (do its best to play no matter what), but like, aren't we past that?
I was looking up CD transports as I don't need the DAC, and even those are fricken expensive, with "temperature controlled clocks" and electromagnetically protected CD cages to increase read accuracy. That's a lot of work for something that should be guaranteed.
Note that in the same era, CD-ROM formats guaranteed exact data recovery (barring physical damage). Now perhaps they cost more to build the readers, and perhaps they were slower (doubt it), and most likely perhaps they were less robust to dust and scratches. But if we're aiming for high quality audio, these are problems that can be fixed.
So to sum up... hundreds or thousands of dollars to build machines to compensate for a dated data format? what the heck? why aren't they selling factory copies to flash drives by now? I have a drawer full of them (some as small as 16mb though
OK, rant over. I suppose SACD may fix these issues but I haven't looked into it
in 1990 they anounced that they had a cheaper material to make cds, so they could be afordable to anyone but they seem very frail the older ones i have only some but i used to be a DJ and put a cd player for some cds i had at the time,
in a friends..., as in two groups of friends we opened a nigh club to our taste and become the most frequented space at night in the city where i live,
and liquor when dried forms a litle sugar crystals ,i used to carry all cds put them where they used to clean the cold preassure beer glasses and with Sonasol and a scoth-brite rub them hard till the remains of liquor disappear,
today all those cds play perfect and newer ones if they have a litle scratch they play but one hears a noise everytime it rotates, kind of electrical interferencie ,
the old ones not even having lost all their brightness of so many times they were cleaned hard with a scoth-brite and sonasol and all cds play perfect,
but i only had 7 because when at a store i could buy a cd or two lp´s in vinyl, has i have good turntables i would always ended buying two records instead of a cd, later i discovered that cds had inferior sound quality compared to vinyl.
About the SACD ,i remenber them saying that will be like a cd but with vinyl quality ,i´m still waiting
and bought a SACD from Sony in brushed aluminium that costed what today is 450€ but a year later they might had wrong the price as i bought it for what today is 120€, but only two stereo outputs,
surround in lp´s from Bob Dylan ,early ones in 7.1 or 5.3 or whatever they called it or similar surround type ,it was funny one hears the guitar in one speaker the voice in other ...and what to do with other outputs of sounds,
i think without surround one already heard bob dylan playing guitar in one speaker and the voice in other then he starts to play harmonica and where to send the sound only possible today with surround systems, but i remenber hearing him with guitar and harmonica when i had only a stereo receiver, speakers ,a turntable and a reel recorder/player ,all Pioneer and Akai
well it´s funny because we listen to bob dylan in several speakers like if some sounds come from one speakers others from other etc. and so on divided by the frequencies,
where is the quality promissed when SACD was anounced ,some say it was a breaktrough but those don´t know what is a band playing
so no knowledge about how the music is played or how many musicians are in the recording or the same musician in studio plays diferent types of guitar as an example the level of each recorded channel or how the instruments sound in reality ,
those are happy with a digital format from the 70´s
Pedro2
Well-known member
‘You don’t need quality kit’ - interesting statement for a Hi Fi forum. Makes me want to sell my stuff and replace it with an old iPad and some cheap active speakers 😉
Friesiansam
Well-known member
You could look at that as, you don't NEED quality kit, you WANT quality kit. like I don't actually NEED such a fast PC but, I certainly WANT it...
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