Hard drive music

[visionary]

Forgive me if I've missed the point here.

A lot of folk are starting to talk about using hard drives to store and play their music and how it will be better. ( there was another thread which likened the situation to the change from film to digital media).

We hear a deal of discussion about the merits and musicality of different players and cables (please, no, not again).

Now you're seriously talking about using a cr*ppy CD drive in your computer, which probably has a nasty noisy power supply, to extract data from a music CD to put (OK lossless whatever) onto a hard-drive which introduces yet another source of error...

and this will be better? why exactly?

After the new world that was digital - CDs and transistors - we have a group of folk saying that, in their opinion (which I don't want to provoke) valves and vinyl are a "more musical sound"

HOW is transferring it all to high speed magnetic media going to help?

Is this yet another case of the Emperor's new clothes? Will we now have to discuss differences between SATA cables and the best CD/DVD drive to extract the data? Will the brand of RAM, or the speed/design of the processor, make a difference to the musicality?

Where is the padded room please ( and what are its acoustics like? )

 

[chebby]

This is a bi-weekly debate in one form or another.

I just prefer the sound this way.

I was sceptical - even a year or six months ago - thoroughly enjoying LPs and CDs and FM stereo.

I read about what other people were trying. Asked questions and tried it myself.

 

[matthewpiano]

Well I've got CD, vinyl, cassette (yes, really!), DAB, FM, internet radio, and Apple Lossless music on a hard drive and I enjoy listening to all of them. There is space for more than one format.

 

[idc]

visionary: A lot of folk are starting to talk about using hard drives to store and play their music and how it will be better. ( there was another thread which likened the situation to the change from film to digital media).

We hear a deal of discussion about the merits and musicality of different players and cables (please, no, not again).

Now you're seriously talking about using a cr*ppy CD drive in your computer, which probably has a nasty noisy power supply, to extract data from a music CD to put (OK lossless whatever) onto a hard-drive which introduces yet another source of error...

I asked elsewhere a while back about what impact, if any the computer used would have on the music and the answer, from more than one person and from posters who are not known for going OTT in debates that the PC and hard drive has no impact. The 'cr*ppy CD drive' is more than likely a DVD drive and is extracting a bit perfect copy of the CD to create a bit perfect music file. The computer outputs a bit perfect digital copy of said file to a DAC and that appears to be the reason why so many prefer the sound. Ignore the computer, it is the stand alone DAC that makes the real difference. Hence so much praise on the forum for the likes of the DACmagic and Beresford.

 

[Anonymous]

visionary: A lot of folk are starting to talk about using hard drives to store and play their music and how it will be better. ( there was another thread which likened the situation to the change from film to digital media).

Now you're seriously talking about using a cr*ppy CD drive in your computer, which probably has a nasty noisy power supply, to extract data from a music CD to put (OK lossless whatever) onto a hard-drive which introduces yet another source of error...and this will be better? why exactly?

If you were referring to my thread about "CD Transports going the way of photographic film?", then I never said that PC based music is better or worse than CD/Vinyl, I was merely referring to CD Transports perhaps going downhill, (eg. Cyrus CDXTse which costs nearly £1000 and does nothing but extract data from a CD and feed that to an external DAC) because my laptop can stream bit perfect data (eg lossless files) to a DAC too. In my view there is little difference between the two. And I have compared my lossless files -> DACMagic combo with a £900 CD player and could not say which is better, hence I have no CD player with my Cyrus system. I also have an expensive CD player in a second system so I am not saying PC based music should take precedence over the CD player, it is all a matter of personal choice and convenience.

Re your second point quoted above, my understanding is that even if you use a cr*ppy CD drive to extract files onto a hard drive, then provided you have proper error correction and verification done, then the files on the hard drive will be bit perfect and identical to the ones on the CD. Then if you stream those files to the DAC, it will still be bit perfect.

 

[Anonymous]

I am also confused. I understand how you could potentially copy the CD so as to be identical, given enough passes and comparisons with the source. However, when extracting the data from the hard drive there is going to be some sort of error correction going on as with a CD transport so unless the playback first buffers it to memory in its entirety, after correcting any read errors, I currently fail to understand how it can be bit perfect on the way to the DAC. In fact, I would suggest that a CD transport specifically set up to correct music data would possibly be in with a better shout than a hard drive to produce musical output or am I missing something fundamental here? Isn't that the whole point behind the latest Cyrus CD players (that seem to be gathering favourable reviews from just about every source) that computer data extraction (with the old Phillips and Sony built drives) and music data extraction have different requirements?

In the case of hard drives, I would have thought that there has to be a compromise somewhere between the reproduction and the streaming of the music out there in real time.

Apologies if all this has been explained elsewhere.

 

[idc]

Hi horsburghn, here is one of the many debates here http://community.whathifi.com/forums/t/224750.aspx The crux of the matter is that the PC can read and re-read data at its leisure and once satisfied then a copy is produced. The error correction in a CDP has to play in real time, or at least with a very short buffering and it cannot keep re-reading when error correcting. Those who know a lot more than me are satisfied that the data extracted, stored and outputted by the computer is bit perfect.

 

[Anonymous]

My understanding is that neither a CD Transport nor a hard drive produce "music", ie the PC does not do "playback" as you mentioned. All the PC does is to send whatever data is already on the hard drive to the DAC in streams of "1"s and "0"s. Yes it does use error correction too and I believe (but not 100% sure) that a well known US audiophile magazine conducted a test using the Apple Airport Express (which receives music wirelessly from a PC/MAC, and the result was that the data it receives was bit-perfect and the data it then send onto the DAC was also bit perfect.

A CD Transport on the other hand has to extract data "on the fly", ie when the CD is spinning and has to work a lot harder and has to make error correction in split seconds. I do not know whether there is any test or comparison between a CD transport and a PC/Mac in terms of which is better in extracting and sending data, but for my ears, in my system, there is no need for a CD player as I could not say a CD6Se which I compared with was better than my DACMagic combo, hence saving £900 for more music!

 

[Anonymous]

idc, you beat me to it by a few minutes if not seconds... again!!

 

[Craig M.]

perhaps look at it this way, if errors were introduced by your pc or hdd, then none of your programs would work. pc's are very good at handling digital information. also, yes the file will be buffered into memory.

 

[idc]

AKL:idc, you beat me to it by a few minutes if not seconds... again!!

We are the champions, we are the campions, no time for losers, cause we are the champions....................!*

*Disclaimer - nobody should take me or anything I say or do or post on this forum seriously.

 

[visionary]

AKL:If you were referring to my thread about "CD Transports going the way of photographic film?", then I never said that PC based music is better or worse than CD/Vinyl, I was merely referring to CD Transports perhaps going downhill, (eg. Cyrus CDXTse which costs nearly £1000 and does nothing but extract data from a CD and feed that to an external DAC) because my laptop can stream bit perfect data (eg lossless files) to a DAC too. In my view there is little difference between the two. And I have compared my lossless files -> DACMagic combo with a £900 CD player and could not say which is better, hence I have no CD player with my Cyrus system. I also have an expensive CD player in a second system so I am not saying PC based music should take precedence over the CD player, it is all a matter of personal choice and convenience.

Re your second point quoted above, my understanding is that even if you use a cr*ppy CD drive to extract files onto a hard drive, then provided you have proper error correction and verification done, then the files on the hard drive will be bit perfect and identical to the ones on the CD. Then if you stream those files to the DAC, it will still be bit perfect.

Yes, I was referring to your thread but I didn't mean to imply that you had made the comparison with CD/Vinyl, merely to observe that others do have the CD vs Vinyl debate, sometimes quite hotly.

I was also looking at it in terms of what I called a cr*ppy CD/DVD drive with a nasty plastic tray which wobbles in a case with vibrations from fans, HDDs etc vs "this marvellous CD player has a transport machined out of a solid block of Euphorium

and is positioned on top of a special unit designed to damp alll extraneous vibration"

Don't get me wrong, I don't want to be provocative here, I'm just trying to get it straight in my head. Thanks to all for the comments and observations so far, I think the most helpful point I've see so far is the one about the CD player is doing it in real time whereas the computer extraction has the luxury of time to analyze and error correct.

BUT surely the HDD is then going to "play" the music in real time so e.g. is a Western Digital going to be more musical that a Samsung......

 

[Anonymous]

I was surprised myself when I put CD's onto the HD on both the PS3 and my RDR970. The playback off the PS3 is a little less open but
couldn't believe they sounded so good.
To my ears the music is just as good off the 970 as on my Meridian 206CD player/pre amp.
The signal is processed by my Onkyo 875 and with the whole system having a clean, stable Mains capacitored supply the pre amp Burr Brown section is not hindered and sends pure and clean music to the speakers.

Don't see the need for a 'big debate' just try it and see for yourself what you make of it.

Still buying CD's, I just rip them onto a hard drive now.

 

[visionary]

Craig M.:perhaps look at it this way, if errors were introduced by your pc or hdd, then none of your programs would work. pc's are very good at handling digital information. also, yes the file will be buffered into memory.

mmmm........... there has yet to be a time where I have had to remove the CD from my player, switch the player off, switch the player back on again, re-insert the CD and start playing from Track1 again.

 

[visionary]

trevor79:I was surprised myself when I put CD's onto the HD on both the PS3 and my RWD970. The playback off the PS3 is a little less open but
couldn't believe they sounded so good.
To my ears the music is just as good off the 970 as on my Meridian 206CD player/pre amp.
The signal is processed by my Onkyo 875 and with the whole system having a clean, stable Mains capacitored supply the pre amp Burr Brown section is not hindered and sends pure and clean music to the speakers.

Don't see the need for a 'big debate' just try it and see for yourself what you make of it.

Still buying CD's, I just rip them onto a hard drive now.

Thanks Trevor, I'm just trying to decide how much time effort and money to spend on the whole "convergence" thing so your's and others' feedback is helpful

 

[Ant8519]

I agree with the idea that debate is pointless when you can just go and try it....

Obviously we can't all just throw money at a theory though, so advice is always useful.

Regarding how a computer "reads" the music, my understanding is that when you rip a cd losslessly the pc reads and rereads and rereads some more until it has ALL the information stored on the disc. It is merely lots of 1's and 0's. Streaming this to a dac involves no degradation at all as this is what computers are designed to do - process 1's and 0's and not lose any.

Compare this with a cd player which must read the disc and output the sound almost simultaneously - there is a huge potential for lost information or "made up" information as the player attempts to compensate for what it has misread. Hence the enormous variation in sound from various cd players. Add to this the interference from the spinning motor, laser, etc and there are more variables that may affect the sound.

So the pc can be as cheap as chips, as long as the ripping software and process is robust then you will always get everything information wise. As long as the medium taking this information to your dac is also sound then the only thing to affect the sound will be the quality of the dac. Consequently one can spend relatively small amounts of money on a dac and get sound quality equal to a far more expensive cd system. No electrical interference, vibration, etc.

Now let me qualify this by explaining I am no hifi nut, I just keep an open mind and trust the evidence.....

Simple really!

 

[idc]

visionary:BUT surely the HDD is then going to "play" the music in real time so e.g. is a Western Digital going to be more musical that a Samsung......

Visionary, the HDD does not play the music in the same way as the CD does not play the music, both hold information. The difference is how the DAC recieves that information. A stand alone DAC taking its information from an HDD appears to have an advantage over a DAC contained in a CDP that is getting its information from a spinning disc that is subject to pretty much instantanious error correction. Hence £100-200 DACs are regulary compared to £800 plus CDPs in terms of sound quality.

 

[The_Lhc]

Craig M.:perhaps look at it this way, if errors were introduced by your pc or hdd, then none of your programs would work.

Actually you can take it even further than that, if HDDs introduced unrecoverable errors into your data then computers wouldn't work full stop. Which is exactly what's happening whenever a PC blue-screens due to faulty hardware (usually the HDD or RAM).

The OP needs to get his head around the idea that the PC isn't "playing music", it's just passing data to another device, there isn't even any real need for the computer to know that the data it's passing can be interpreted as music.

 

[visionary]

but that was my main issue really - the CD player isn't "playing music" either it's just passing data to an on-board DAC.

I think idc makes the best point that there is, potentially at least, better/faster error correction from the hard drive.

Thanks for all opinions

 

[The_Lhc]

visionary: but that was my main issue really - the CD player isn't "playing music" either it's just passing data to an on-board DAC.
I think idc makes the best point that there is, potentially at least, better/faster error correction from the hard drive.

No, the error correction is when the PC is ripping the data (data, NOT music) from the CD in the first place, the PC can just keep re-reading the disk until it gets the data accurately (and can then compare it to other rips online for accuracy), it never needs to "guess" what the data might be, which is what CDPs have to do, as they have a requirement to deliver the audio in real-time, which is a requirement the PC doesn't need to concern itself with.

 

[basshead]

i know nothing about the technology, but storing my music on a pc/hard drive has saved me so much money over the years! in the past i have re-baught some cd's several times, many of my cd's that are over 10 years old simply cannot be played anymore due to the inside rotting away (i have no idea how this happens, any1 else experieced it?), and many have been scratched (usually at parties)!

BTW, does anyone else remember that epiode of 'tomorrows world' on the bbc where they first demonstrated cd's? they tested them and showed how 'indestructable' they are, if i remember it correctly they smeared one with jam, drove a tank over it, hit it with a hammer ect and it still worked perfectly - what a load of rubbish that was.

 

[visionary]

but when it is delivering that data from the hard drive to the DAC it is doing that in real time?

Appreciate your patience here, perhaps I am being a bit slow to grasp it

 

[Anonymous]

Reading data from your drive into a PDF document is something that can be tried several times to get the correct information so error correction is fine for loading data. Streaming music directly will still potentially involve error correction. So, the big question is when exactly and how often does this error correction come into play with either CD transports or Hard Disk Drives? Technically CDs shouldn't degrade much if at all in our lifetimes (granted some do but then some hard drives also fail) and they have the same information stored on them as the hard disk drive so if proper care is taken of the CD why should error correction come in to the equation at all? Both are just sending zeroes and ones. Is it possible that the reality is that ripping to a hard drive and using a DAC comes in at a considerably cheaper price point than the equivalent CD and DAC set up? What then of the really expensive HDD based kit supplied by the likes of sooloos http://www.sooloos.com/www/index.php ?

 

[The_Lhc]

visionary:
but when it is delivering that data from the hard drive to the DAC it is doing that in real time?

Appreciate your patience here, perhaps I am being a bit slow to grasp it

Effectively, no. Personally I'm not a fan of connecting a PC directly to a DAC, there's too much going on on a PC to ensure uninterrupted delivery (and personally I always get annoyed when the PC injects its own sound effects, so as new mail delivery), so I use a streamer such as Sonos, which buffers the data internally, giving it a second or two of leeway between receiving the data and having to output it as audio (or passing it to the DAC but at that point you're in the same situation as a CDP passing the data to a DAC anyway, so there's no difference).

I don't know how much, if any, error correction is required when reading from a hard drive but the other point to remember is that extracting data from HDD is MUCH quicker than extracting it from a CD (especially when the CD is only being read at single-speed). 1x CD extraction maxes out at 150KiloBytes/s. The maximum throughput from a mechnical disk drive is about 127MegaBytes/s. At that speed you could load the entire CD into RAM in about 5 seconds, you could probably re-read an entire track about 20 times in one second to make sure the data is consistent, so if you do need to do error-correction you're got an awful lot of spare time to do it in, unlike a CD player.

 

[visionary]

That makes sense now!

Thanks lhc