[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Looking for advice on sound quality
Néstor Wrote: Hi, If I remember it well, EAC always re read the suspicios block a fixed time (I guess 8 times the first time) and if, lets say , 7 of the 8 reads of the same block produce the same value, and only one is different then EAC assumes that the most common value is the right value. Thats why it always fill the first line of leds. If EAC finds 4 for one value, and the other 4 for some other value, then it will read 8 times more ( the second row of leds) and then decide again. If by 64 re-reads (or 32 dont remember well now) it cant decide whats the right value for the block, it will give a data error message. Ah, thanks for jogging my memory; what you say sounds familiar. But can anyone tell me if CopyTest yielding identical CRCs in burst mode is as reliable as secure mode? -- dbls ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Looking for advice on sound quality
seanadams Wrote: Also, any opinions as to whether plextor drives are really that much better than the others these days? They earned a good reputation early on, but AFAICT all CD drives are now equally good at ripping. Here's one anecdotal bit of evidence: I have a Plextor PX712A, and have always felt it was really good at ripping. I particularly like all the facilities in Plextools. However, the other day my daughter asked me to rip one of her CDs, and it was in really terrible condition. There was a scratch on *both sides* of the disc (must have got snagged between something), and I could see that the actual data layer had been damaged. In attempting to rip it in the Plextor, it failed on the last track (where the worst damage was). Even switching off error detection didn't help. The Plextor always ended up reporting read error, whether I used Plextools or EAC. I then put it in the LG4521 drive (a DVD-ROM/CDRW combo) in my wife's PC, and EAC managed to read that one track (in secure mode). It took about 95 minutes to rip just the one track, and there were lots of sync errors and suspicious positions reported, but at least we got a usable rip in the end. -- cliveb ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Looking for advice on sound quality
The ones that you rip in non-secure mode will potentially not sound as good as the ones that you do in secure mode. In secure mode, they are guaranteed to be an exact copy of your cd. It depends on whether you actually sit in front of your pc whilst it's ripping. I did my 300 odd albums in secure mode over a month or so. I'd put a new cd in whenever I noticed that the old one had finished, then would go off and do whatever else needed doing around the house. The difference between 3 minutes and 7 was therefore fairly irrelevant. The nice thing about the combination of secure mode and flac is that you know you will never have to rerip. With anything else, you're not quite so future proof. Max Mike Anderson Wrote: OK, well I set up EAC/FLAC on my PC according to all the instructions, and it seems to be running OK. However, it's still taking somewhere between 5-10 minutes to rip most of my CDs. I've got hundreds of CDs, so it's a major undertaking. Question: What am I losing by not running EAC in secure mode? Doing so substantially cuts down on the ripping time. So how much difference does it really make? Can I use secure mode on those CDs I really care about (about 20% of them) and unsecure mode on the rest of them, or would that present problems? -- max.spicer The wild things roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws but Max stepped into his private boat and waved good-bye ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Looking for advice on sound quality
max.spicer Wrote: The ones that you rip in non-secure mode will potentially not sound as good as the ones that you do in secure mode. I guess my question is, how potential is potentially, and how bad is not as good? I should add that I'm using a Plextor 740A to do the ripping, and I don't seem to encounter many errors. I frequently work on my computer too, but for whatever reason, it's a pain to do with EAC running. For one thing, the EAC window always wants to be on top. -- Mike Anderson ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Looking for advice on sound quality
The problem I've found, is that whilst CDPs use 'concealment' to conceal any errors they detect but cannot correct, ripping s/w doesn't. So any ripping errors you do get, tend to be very annoying on playback; pops, clicks - that kind of stuff, whereas a good CDP will still sound like music. A lot depends on the care you have taken with your CD collection (looked-after CDs tend to have fewer errors IME), and how much you value you peace-of-mind. I'd hate to sit down to listen to something only to find it had ripping errors and I needed to dig the CD out and rip it again, so I'd rather just spend the time doing it 'right' in the first place. YMMV -- Patrick Dixon www.at-view.co.uk ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Looking for advice on sound quality
OK, well I set up EAC/FLAC on my PC according to all the instructions, and it seems to be running OK. However, it's still taking somewhere between 5-10 minutes to rip most of my CDs. I've got hundreds of CDs, so it's a major undertaking. Question: What am I losing by not running EAC in secure mode? Doing so substantially cuts down on the ripping time. So how much difference does it really make? Can I use secure mode on those CDs I really care about (about 20% of them) and unsecure mode on the rest of them, or would that present problems? -- Mike Anderson ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Looking for advice on sound quality
Honestly, how much can you really dress that up? Well, the 16bit part is the only real limiting factor (unless you are a bat ;) ) and since surprisingly few systems actually to manage the full 16 bits in actual reality, you may be surprised! Andy. -- Andrew L. Weekes ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Looking for advice on sound quality
Well, I'd have to get an external/firewire drive or something, so that'd be a little more expensive than $100, and I'd have to keep it hooked to my laptop (I'm assuming). But I'll do a blindfold test on a random sample of songs and see how much difference I can detect between lossless and 320. If I can tell the difference, I'll step up. Thanks for the advice. -- Mike Anderson ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Looking for advice on sound quality
Mike Anderson Wrote: Well, I'd have to get an external/firewire drive or something, so that'd be a little more expensive than $100, and I'd have to keep it hooked to my laptop (I'm assuming). But I'll do a blindfold test on a random sample of songs and see how much difference I can detect between lossless and 320. If I can tell the difference, I'll step up. Thanks for the advice. Also check out this thread for tips on mp3 vs. lossless: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=16497 The differences between 320kbps mp3 and 750k-ish FLAC will be all about high frequencies and phase accuracy. You will need a VERY good system, especially the tweeters, to appreciate a difference. I have always believed that room acoustics and speakers are the most imporant factors, but that's not our business. :) Sb2 aims to be the most accurate source, but there is so much more to the whole systems. -- seanadams ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Looking for advice on sound quality
Does your A3.2 have the ability to connect direct into the power amp side, bypassing the preamp? If so, I recommend you try feeding the SB2 analogue outputs direct into the power amp and use the SB2 volume control. Even the best preamps will slightly degrade the signal, and in my experience eliminating the preamp is a bigger gain than improving the DAC (probably because the SB2 DAC is pretty damn good to start with). -- cliveb ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Looking for advice on sound quality
cliveb Wrote: Does your A3.2 have the ability to connect direct into the power amp side, bypassing the preamp? Nope; it's a very basic (albeit high-quality) piece of gear. -- Mike Anderson ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Looking for advice on sound quality
Even the best preamps will slightly degrade the signal Yes, we can tend to forget that anything in the signal path, however esoteric and expensive, degrades the signal. I sometimes feel that we should not talk of 'upgrades' or 'improving the sound', but that the focus should be on minimising the degredation. A better amp doesn't improve the sound, it just screws it up less. Sorry, I know nothing about Apple products so cannot advise on software. -- Fifer ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Looking for advice on sound quality
^^^ Right, I gather that's what makes this a nice (integrated) amp - It has no tone knobs, no balance, nothing -- just a volume knob and input selectors. -- Mike Anderson ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Looking for advice on sound quality
Mike Anderson Wrote: Looks like it will take well over 30 mins to encode most of my CDs, Wow. Why? Do you have a very slow CD drive or something? On my PC using EAC a typical rip takes about 2 minutes, with compression happening in the background and rarely taking more than another 30 seconds. I'm afraid I can't offer any specific software recommendations for Mac, though I know there are people on the forum who are Mac users. -- radish ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Looking for advice on sound quality
radish said the following on 30/09/2005 17:17: Mike Anderson Wrote: Looks like it will take well over 30 mins to encode most of my CDs, Wow. Why? Do you have a very slow CD drive or something? On my PC using EAC a typical rip takes about 2 minutes, with compression happening in the background and rarely taking more than another 30 seconds. I'm afraid I can't offer any specific software recommendations for Mac, though I know there are people on the forum who are Mac users. If your rips only take 2 minutes using EAC then you're not using secure mode whicn means you might as well not use EAC. I suggest you visit one of the oft-posted links telling you how to set up EAC correctly. R. -- http://robinbowes.com If a man speaks in a forest, and his wife's not there, is he still wrong? ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Looking for advice on sound quality
Your maggies deserve lossless! Try encoding something with ALAC as an easy to accomplish test, and compare it with the AAC at 320. If you do decide to go lossless, you might want to spend money first on hard disks, rather than a DAC. Ive got an older pair of MG 3.5s and Im using a modified ART DI/O DAC. So far, its hard to qualify the difference between the ART and the internal DAC in the SB2. Im very happy listening to the SB2 analogue out. -- gharris999 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
