Nearly found myself falling for this 'different rippers sound different' thing last night, and coincidentally it's kind of topical, given the recent thread by Staggerlee.
I've ripped knocking-on-the-door-of 450 CDs as Apple Lossless files using a cheap (£15) DVD R/W drive attached to my Mac Mini. Then last night I came across one CD that the drive wouldn't rip properly: Rolling Stones, 40 Licks, 2nd CD, last two tracks. So instead I ripped it with the drive in my iMac.
Then I did the inevitable, which was a bad idea. I listened to the two rips, using 'Sympathy for the Devil'.
I was mortified. While I didn't try AB-X, I was convinced the rip from the iMac sounded fuller and more energetic, with a more rhythmic bass. This was not a Good Thing, after I've ripped nearly 450 CDs with the other drive, plus it went against everything I've preached about and everything I thought I knew about digital audio.
Only one way to sort this. I fired-up Audacity. I loaded-up both rips as separate stereo tracks and aligned them absolutely perfectly with each other. Interestingly, lining them up was harder than I thought it would be because the rip from the external drive was about 100 samples longer at the start for some reason, so I had to zoom right in to sample-level to get them precisely aligned.
Then, I inverted the phase of one file using Effect > Invert, and with more nervousness than an expectant father, I hit play.
Silence. All 6:18 of it, or thereabouts. Audio ripped from CDs is nothing but 16-bit numbers, minus and positive, running past at 44,100 samples per second. Inverting the file makes all the positives negative and vice-versa. The inverted rip was cancelling-out the other file 100% absolutely, because they were perfect mathematical opposites. This in turn means before I inverted the file, they were completely identical (bar the extra samples at the start). No question. No 'might be'/ 'might not be'. No opportunity for subjectivity.
Phew. Sanity restored. The difference was all in my head. No need to re-rip 450 CDs.
Just shows how one can be fooled, eh?
As you were, everyone.
I've ripped knocking-on-the-door-of 450 CDs as Apple Lossless files using a cheap (£15) DVD R/W drive attached to my Mac Mini. Then last night I came across one CD that the drive wouldn't rip properly: Rolling Stones, 40 Licks, 2nd CD, last two tracks. So instead I ripped it with the drive in my iMac.
Then I did the inevitable, which was a bad idea. I listened to the two rips, using 'Sympathy for the Devil'.
I was mortified. While I didn't try AB-X, I was convinced the rip from the iMac sounded fuller and more energetic, with a more rhythmic bass. This was not a Good Thing, after I've ripped nearly 450 CDs with the other drive, plus it went against everything I've preached about and everything I thought I knew about digital audio.
Only one way to sort this. I fired-up Audacity. I loaded-up both rips as separate stereo tracks and aligned them absolutely perfectly with each other. Interestingly, lining them up was harder than I thought it would be because the rip from the external drive was about 100 samples longer at the start for some reason, so I had to zoom right in to sample-level to get them precisely aligned.
Then, I inverted the phase of one file using Effect > Invert, and with more nervousness than an expectant father, I hit play.
Silence. All 6:18 of it, or thereabouts. Audio ripped from CDs is nothing but 16-bit numbers, minus and positive, running past at 44,100 samples per second. Inverting the file makes all the positives negative and vice-versa. The inverted rip was cancelling-out the other file 100% absolutely, because they were perfect mathematical opposites. This in turn means before I inverted the file, they were completely identical (bar the extra samples at the start). No question. No 'might be'/ 'might not be'. No opportunity for subjectivity.
Phew. Sanity restored. The difference was all in my head. No need to re-rip 450 CDs.
Just shows how one can be fooled, eh?
As you were, everyone.
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