Need opinions on duping CD's

First off don’t get later "compressed" re-masters or re-issues, get the original uncompressed versions.


Cheers George

Yes, a much better way.   Download Exact Copy, which will cost you about $7 for a life time license.   Then  rip them onto a hard drive. either one on your PC or a USB drive, in either .WAV or .FLAC format.   You will need some space, so make it a big one.   The Exact copy will make a bit perfect copy of the music, something CD players don't always do.   Both formats are lossless, but the mild data compression in FLAC will save you a bit of hard drive space.   The trade off, if there is one, is the streamer will have to decompress and play the data on the fly, while the WAV file just streams.

Then make a play list of the songs you want and stream them to a decent DAC on your system.    Or, burn a CD or DVD with the wav files you want.

Download Exact Copy

EAC it might make an "exact copy", but it’s usually of the later re-issues compressed releases that one has, or borrowed, unless you look up the non-compressed early release CD on DRDB and exact copy it if you can hunt it down used..
https://dr.loudness-war.info/

Cheers George

"opinions on duping CD"

Just one: for copyrighted titles, it's ILLEGAL. 

It is not illegal to copy your own music for yourself, whether to move CDs to a music server, make a "mix tape", or just have a backup. The key is that the duplication is for your personal use.

It only becomes technically illegal when you pass the copy (or original) to someone else while keeping one for yourself.

Now, as a practical matter, the used CD market has been active for decades without problem. The record companies have no interest in running down used CD sellers to see if they kept a copy for themselves. The record companies only become interested when they discover mass duplication. The most infamous example was the Napster MP3 "peer to peer" music sharing service back in the late 1990s in which a single file upload could be downloaded thousand of times. This lead to a number of lawsuits which bankrupted the original Napster. (They are a completely different service these days.)

So, if you are only making copies for your personal use, don’t sweat it.

Edit: note the rules are different for commercial video DVDs since that requires one to break the encoded copy protection of the files. This is technically illegal even for personal use, though if you are just doing for yourself (say to copy movies to a personal server) no one is going to waste any time chasing your down. It is again the distribution to many others that stirs the pot.

"...Or, burn a CD or DVD with the wav files you want..."

DOS: diskcopy

Ripping CDs to HD is legal as long as you have one copy that paid royalties - original CD or "Audio CD-R" copy (cheap).

Copy can be better than original since most of CDPs can only read given sector once, operating in real time.  With longer scratches CDP might start to interpolate missing data.  Ripping program can go to the same sector hundreds of times to recover it.  That way copy can be better than original and you can even recover completely unplayable CDs.

hollowman. Good nickname. Very appropriate.
It sounds music deprived.  Probably thought that the old iTunes download system was per play.  

Responding to OP:
Dupes done on a computer as suggested by spalialking usually sound better than orig.
Dupes made on a CD recorder don't. And the record companies "tax" blanks to death.

OP

I don’t know the the machine that you are using, but If it is a CD recorder, with the original in one tray and the copy in the other, then the DAC in the machine should be a non factor.  All that is happening is the digits are being scanned and read and then passed and burned to the copy.  The DAC on these machines is in case you want to listen to either the original or the copy

I've always used computer drives and Nero to 'copy cd', quick copy. I cannot tell, copies of a great cd sound great. I recently made 4 copies of very familiar music to compare two players, moved orig here, copy there, all the same.

Thanks Mahler123 for answering my question.The dupe sounds incredible. I did an A/B listen test and my oldears couldn't tell the difference.

OP

  I had burned many CDs using one of those machines in the nineties and was almost always of the opinion that the copy sounded superior when played back on my regular system.  That machine died and then I used an Apple Computer to make copies and then I thought the results were more variable, but that might have had something to do with the I tunes software.
   There are endless debates here as to whether CDs sound better when played from a transport or when burned to to a HD and then played back from either a dedicated streamer or a PC.  It is a variation on the question that you are asking, which is how can Digital copy sound better than the original?  There are a lot of theoretical reasons as to why a copy might sound better, and they tend to come down to the copies may have less jitter.  Personally, I think it depends on the quality of the playback equipment.  A really good transport -DAC combination can best a good streamer, or vice versa.  Just my two cents

Yes, burning a bit perfect copy of a CD to a CD-R can sound different than the original. There are several factors that go into it. If you’re interested in learning more, I recommend you read the Genesis paper on burning black CD-Rs (see link). Even if you have no intention of using black CD-Rs, there is a lot of good information on burning discs in general.

https://www.genesisloudspeakers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Black_CD_Paper_v1.pdf

Last I checked, there are 3 versions of that paper. Gary Leonard Koh released new versions as he did more research. A quick Google search and you can find the other versions.

fuzztone wrote:

hollowman. Good nickname. Very appropriate.
It sounds music deprived. Probably thought that the old iTunes download system was per play.  

Oh .... okay .... uh .... FUZZTONE.

I have a bunch of those Harman Kardon machines. They are known for "glitches" in the duplication process. MANY times I have to throw out the CDR's after Ive spent HOURS making Mixed CD's because there are major flaws.  The Good news is your Laser will die shortly in that machine and then it becomes nothing more than a doorstop as you wont get it repaired.  Think I have 6 or 7 left of those duplication machines...some still Brand New in Box. Im sure the PC ones discussed above are better...something has to be.  TASCAM makes the best stand alone copiers/burners BUT they dont have 2 Drawers which makes it more of a pain in the arse!

We record our lps’ to computer. Then burn them at 96khz or whatever it is to taiyo yuden cdrs.    I love the ticks and minor pops recorded to cdr.

 Doing a simple recording on a descent cd deck will be fine. Dont overthink, record and listen. 
   Enjoy the music. Dont worry you wont miss the air around instruments or the floating spanish guitar or the 360 degree music engulfing you in a magical serene out of body experience. 
  Its music, record and listen. Enjoy. Dont overthink !!!!

my own experience is that cds burned on my old philips cdr765 sounded as good or better than the orginal redbook cd and audibly better than the same disc burned using nero/roxio or the like. i've read some credible explanations as to why--jitter, etc.--but it is a real thing.