> isn't it true that the actual process of extracting Audio CDs can, and to a certain > extend will, introduce errors? Here on the Mac side of things we have > several tools to reduce these errors, they usually do this by reading the > data several times and comparing.
Some extraction programs have an option called "Safer but Slower". The problems you mention occur only at very high (and risky) speeds, like 16x or more. Or with unreliable equipment / software. And if it occurs then you will hear it as a pop or crack. A good free extraction program (PC only as far as I know) is www.exactaudiocopy.de which helps if you have scratched cds. > If what you say is true then CDs would be the nearly ideal recording media. Well, they aren't. They can have mold growing on them, they are sensitive to sunlight, they are sensitive to scratches. The realtime playback mechanism is far from ideal. But CD's are good for holding data, if you make backups (as you have noticed). But Byte for Byte it is now actually cheaper to make backups on hard disk. The experiment which proves the exactitude of audio CD extraction is: -- Extract audio from a CD using your computer CD-Rom drive. -- Play the same CD via digital out of a cheapo cd player into your computer sound card's digital in. -- Compare the files in your computer using a mathematical algorithm (phase inversion works well for this; the resulting difference should then be = 0). They are bit-for-bit identical, given that you line up the start and end of the resulting files. -- Play the same CD via digital out of a $10,000 CD-player into your computer sound card's digital in. -- All files are identical once they are in the hard disk. Again, unless you hear obvious pops, cracks, etc. due to scratches. The differences in perceived sound quality are only in Jitter www.jitter.de and D/A conversion. In the 80's these differences were not well understood but today it is all well-documented and analysed. Problematic remains that this information is less marketable than easy slogans such as "100% Digital". Liudas _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
