High End Rip Vs Pc/Mac rips

[nopiano]

Thanks all for your comments. I didn't want to refer to naim as such, as i know that Linn also say the same thing. I was curious as i have always found a pc very easy to use for ripping and couldn't understand why you need a £2k macine to rip cd's. No one has ever complained that data is missing. Funnily enough i found the ndx streamer better than the nds. I think the audience was a bit shy when it came to disagreeing with the naim reps.

I suspect you don't really need to have a dedicated box, but given the tortuous threads here and on other forums about tagging and indexing and proxies and network issues (etc, etc) I can see the appeal of a Naim box. Not to mention how different 'clients' sound different.

I could believe that a dedicated, fanless box with no other PC guff inside might be 'purer' for music only. Much like a preamp is better than an integrated. And you can keep it next to the system without heating up too much or whirring into life (e.g. my MacBook Pro runs quite hot and the very quiet fans by laptop standards are still audible).

What I think Linn and Naim have comprehensively shown is that ripped CDs sound better than live replayed CDs on their gear. Hence your cd555 can probably be bettered by an NDX - and by preferring it to the NDS you just saved £3k which will buy you a UnitiServe and a NAS backup!

 

[chebby]

I think the audience was a bit shy when it came to disagreeing with the naim reps.

Why? As a Naim owner at the time, I had a 'robust' discussion with a Naim sales area manager (at an Audio-T 'NaimUniti day' a few years ago) over their 'drug pusher' pricing and upgrade philosophy (they had just raised the Uniti price by almost £500 and the guy was telling me how essential it would be to get an additional power amp for it to really shine*) compared to Rega's pricing where prices remain the same (or go down) throughout a product's lifetime - barring any VAT changes.

They are not gods. Just employees of a business trying to sell you their stuff.

*Pretty ridiculous statement given that it was an 'all-in-one' and sounded absolutely fine without strapping on a rack full of added boxes and defeating the whole point of buying one. (Or putting off first time Naim buyers by making them think their two and a half grand box was only a 'first step' to the good stuff and somehow only half complete.)

 

[staggerlee]

Actually, i didn't think it bettered my CD555.

 

[cheeseboy]

Hi - Was at the Bristol show yesterday and a lot of companies with high end ripping products were saying that riping by PC/mac's are of poor quality, data gets lost and hence buy a stand alone rip unit. other than marketing speak is there any truth in this. thsi sin't a question about file format as such, but just wondred whether this was the case ? Anyone using high end rippers

bullpoo quite frankly.

There has to be some form of computer and OS involved in order to rip and tag the files and make them available in a computerised format. It can't be done with just a cd player and some voodoo box. Therefore what they are saying is that PC/Mac's that anybody owns are rubbish and that the pc that they have built and are not calling a pc is better. chances are it's running a form of linux of windows embedded. I know naim are keen on windows.

This whole digital debacle by hifi companies is starting to get very tedious and the utter tosh they come out with out seems to know no limits.

 

[staggerlee]

I do find this topic interesting, i wonder if one of the reasons for a lot of mumbo jumbo around this is that as hifi companies are entering this market they still dont really understand it. As the traditional business model is to sell boxes, therefore by saying a pc is inferior a market maybe created for standalone rippers. After all most of us have a pc. I can understand software being improved but still require some convincing on this subject.

 

[nopiano]

Actually, i didn't think it bettered my CD555.

...then you just saved a lot of time and money!