NAD 3020 / Ripping CD

[Crazyhorse82]

Hi Guys,

I bought the new NAD 3020 paired with speakers Dynaudio 2/6, the sound is great and I am really happy.

I am just ripping all my CD in my laptop through foobar2000.

Can anyone suggest me the best format to convert. WAV, FLAC or MP3?

Many thanks,

 

[matt49]

Enjoy!
How is the NAD/Dynaudio combo?
I'd rip to FLAC. Avoid WAV, as tagging is a problem. MP3 is compressed and (to me) sounds markedly worse than uncompressed codecs.
:cheers:
Matt

 

[Crazyhorse82]

It sounds great, thanks!

At the very beginning my intention was to buy NAD 516 and NAD 326, but then I have realized the possibility I have with NAD 3020 (and, not minor, almost 200 Euro saved) and the quality of the music that for me is perfect.

For the file, I have seen that WAV may have this problem but with foobar bitrate of WAV is higher than FLAV, so i thought that even quality is much better...

Another thing; while ripping you also experience some minor problems related to offset? I do and don´t know really how to solve it...quality of my CD is pretty good original, new, deutsche grammophon..

 

[MakkaPakka]

FLAC will sound identical to WAV. It works like a zip file - exactly the same thing but shrunk down and gets unpacked when played. It also adds proper tagging which you won't get with WAV. MP3 was designed to get file size as small as possible and includes removing some of the sound itself.

I used EAC for ripping and MP3tag for tidying up any tags that didn't work right.

Don't know what you mean by offset?

 

[Cypher]

So the D3020 has no problems driving the DM 2/6 speakers ? It has enough power ?

 

[drummerman]

Its probably all relative.

During 'normal' listening levels we rarely use more than a couple of watts so the little amplifier section of the NAD should be fine.

At medum to loud levels the picture may be different with softened transients and/or even clipping on peak programme levels. Sustained bass notes may lack impact too.

This is common to most low powered amplifiers and not a critcism per se at the NAD.

However, I am curious as to the '100W/4ohm' headroom figures by NAD. 'Digital' PWM modulation amplifiers usually almost double power into lower loads but have limited headroom. The NAD has a continous rating of 30w/8ohm. Double that (at best) into 4 ohm and its a 60w amplifier. 40w quoted is a lot of headroom for this kind of amplifier.

regards

 

[andyjm]

FLAC will sound identical to WAV. It works like a zip file - exactly the same thing but shrunk down and gets unpacked when played. It also adds proper tagging which you won't get with WAV. MP3 was designed to get file size as small as possible and includes removing some of the sound itself.

I used EAC for ripping and MP3tag for tidying up any tags that didn't work right.

Don't know what you mean by offset?

Data is stored on a CD with embedded track, timing and navigation data so the CD player knows where it is at any given time. Depending on how the CD drive processes this data, the relationship between the navigation data ("track 2 starts here" for example) and the audio data samples can become offset. Usually not by many samples, but enough to screw up the clever accurate rip approaches used by EAC and dBPoweramp. The offset is constant and is driven by the processing firmware in the drive, so the same drive with the same revision of firmware will usually have the same offset.

I believe EAC and dBPoweramp try to identify the drive and offset at the start of a rip to align the audio samples in the rip with their library of rips to compare the checksums.

 

[Crazyhorse82]

For my room which is pretty small there is no problem..

Maybe you need more power from amplifier for bigger places but for the use I make I am satisfied.

 

[Crazyhorse82]

So the D3020 has no problems driving the DM 2/6 speakers ? It has enough power ?

For my room which is pretty small there is no problem..

Maybe you need more power from amplifier for bigger places but for the use I make I am satisfied.

 

[Cypher]

Thanks !

A german magazine says the D3020 has a power rating of 54 watts at 8 ohm. So should be enough for most rooms.