I am still waiting for someone to explain why a cd player is superior to storing music on a hard drive and going to a dac. Probably because you all know it's not.
Every cd player has a dac. I'll repeat that. Every cd player has a dac. So if you can store the ones and zeros on a hard drive and use error correction JUST ONCE and then go to a high end dac, isn't that better than relying on a cd player's "on the fly" jitter correction every time you play a song? Not to mention the convenience of having hundreds of albums at your fingertips via an itouch remote.
If cd player sales drop, then will cd sales drop as well, making less music available to rip to a hard drive? Maybe, but there's the internet to give us all the selection we've been missing. Has anyone been in a Barnes and Noble or Borders lately? The music section has shown shrinkage worse than George Costanza! This is an obvious sign of things to come.....
People still embracing cd players are the "comb over" equivalent of bald men. They're trying to hold on to something that isn't there and they know will ultimately vanish one day.
I say sell your cd players and embrace the future of things to come. Don't do the digital "comb over".
What do you know, you guys ARE serious! Tanks are rolling across my lawn as I speak. Look at that! My Taxpaying Dollars hard at work coming to arrest me, and confiscate my CD's as well! Last Word, Gotta Run! These Guys are S-E-R-I-O-U-S!!!
Going to take a couple Zanies and smoke the peace pipe with my neighbors daughter and explain how resonance control is beneficial within the hemisphere and makes for better coupling. Probably be playing a cd in the round. Tom
Hold on Newbee, It's going to be a bumpy ride! Product Hell is waiting for the Compact Disk, Timrhu? No doubt Product Hell is still waiting for the LP! Waiting, and waiting, and waiting, and waiting, and waiting, and will STILL continue waiting. Gee, what happened to your Evil Plot to take over the World by getting rid of the LP, NUMBER ONE? You DO KNOW the price of failure, DON'T YOU? You claim you will do so much better with the CD? Why should we let you off of the hook, when you certainly wouldn't let anyone else off of the hook, NUMBER ONE? Are you stroking a White Cat verrry slowly as you type that keyboard? Isn't it time that your Organization select a NEW NUMBER ONE? You guys are going to self distruct on your own over your obsessive fustration with the CD! I really honestly don't think that the CD is an EMMINENT, CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER to Downloading. What about the Guy who wants both? Are you going to take him, and his whole family, out and shoot them because he posseses a CD? Are you gonna do a KAIZER SUZE on him. Are you guys pretending to be the USUAL SUSPECTS, the MP3 crowd that can't SHOOT straight on Sound Quality? Look, create your own Websight of CONVENIENT STEREO, in opposition to AUDIOPHILE STEREO, more power to you! Stop being the Black Cockroach crawling across the White Rug of Audiophile Stereo, disillutioning yourself that no-one is going to notice you, you are a joke! Oh, yeah, I'm done with this guy too! Still awaiting for the National Guard, they should be a little more of a challenge!
Pettyoffficer - I merely stated my opinion. Not trying to start any kind of "anti-democracy." If you knew me, you would realize how far off base your comments are about me, especially the militaristic ones. You are certainly entitled to your opinion - I was not attacking you or your opinion in any way. Peace!
And I am done with this Guy! Next Keystone Cop/Professor Chaos/General Disarray/Ernst Stoffel Blofeld/Richard Nixon/Taxi Driver/Member of the Q-continium/full time Employee of the Computer Industry, step right up! Yeah, yeah, you are NOT a crook. Shut the Hell up Ernst, before I start looking for someone with a license to kill! Gotta take you out before you take out the CD's you narcisistic Freak! They just keep on comming! Who are you going to send next, the National Guard?
Swampwalker-based on your premise, not mine, its NOT O.K. for Bill to bait a chained bear, but bit IS O.K. for you? Is there ANYONE in this Forum that practices what they preach? How do you expect me to take your Moral Veracity seriously even if, as you say I am "off my Meds"? What Drug could I possibly take that would make me oblivious to your contradiction? What Drug could you possibly be on to think that I would overlook your contradiction? What does it say about you Swampwalker when someone, "Off their Meds", can still see through you? It's not me pal, its you being the Emperor and his new clothes. Did you really expect that not a single person in the crowd would point at Swampwalker, and scream, "Look, he's not wearing any clothes"! Do you really dilude yourself into believing that you are that omnipitent? I am pretty certain that you are flesh and blood, and not a member of the Q Continium! What do you guys do all day, stare in a mirror all day repeating to yourself, "ARE YOU TALKING TO ME, ARE YOU TALKING TO ME"? I need Drugs, to stop laughing so hard that I might rupture something, at the sight of this spectacle. Please, get help for this dilusional Narcissism. You are NOT a James Bond Super Evil Villain who is going to take over the entire World by destroying ALL of the CD's in it! That is just Fantasy Crap, maybe your Mommie can explain it to you if I can't! We have had the second explosion of KRAKATOA, shall we continue building up pressure under MOUNT SAINT HELENS for the second time? You are worried about Trainwrecks, put your clothes on first before I can take you seriously. Never mind, that Train has already left the Station!
Not to mention Esoteric P-03 and P-01vu (and some EMM Labs/DCS models which I respect) with Rubidium clock. I doubt if there's such fool who auditioned any of these with their lovely music server and still claim music server is better ;)
Gentleman, I have Esoteric P-05 in serious > $50k system. With my utmost effort for spending on music server project costing higher than used price of P-05 itself (Let alone Mykerinos where you can get used P-05 from its price), I have to admit that it still can't outperform P-05. It sounds really good and pretty close to P-05 but I still can't make it better even with linear PSU built on separated 3x$2k toroidal for clock/mb/interface with all possible modifications for best sound.
But as we can see that Vinyl still outperforms CD Player in some hiend systems. I won't be surprised if someone use uPNP based playback like Linn or Mac Mini with shitty onboard USB/FW with some DAC and say it's better than CD Player.
aaannd.........\\!!!B-O-O-M!!!//....KRAKATOA does it again! BURN! BABY! BURN! OOOOOHHHH! AAAAAAHHHH! WOW! Way bigger than I ever expected! Gee, if only Audiofeil were here to see it! Time is up Gentlemen, the Debate is OVER! It has to end sometime, one Audiofeil in this World is enough! YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE, or if your Audiofeil maybe none at all! See you in the next Lifetime!
Weekend at Bernies, is going to have to become Weekend at Audiofeils. I bet that he would still get layed more than this group. Not tonight Hon, I have to spend a few hours Downloading Music. Aren't you guys the life of the party, congeniality gentlemen all!
Jdoris-Death Match? The guy can't even stay awake for five minutes! He's already dead! Oh! I get it, it's a joke! Much like the attempt to get rid of the CD was a joke, and I was foolish enough to take it seriously! Hey, I'll bet the guy can't even hold his eyes open for 30 seconds, any takers? By the way, anyone seen him recently. Oh, let me guess, he's sleeping under a rock. You might end up having a whole lot of Fans demanding their money back on this one, Jdoris, It sucks to be you! CD's perfect sound forever, Rgs92? Why don't you guys come clean and admit that you are all nothing more than A.I.N.O. Audiophiles in name only. It is so obvious that you guys are just trying to protect your jobs in the "Computer Industry"! Does the Industry give you a Bonus to go on Websites to promote the Industry? Either that or are you guys just trying to make me laugh to death with your pathetic attempts? I know, I know, I am the Paranoid Conspiracy Theorist. Except you guys couldn't form a Conspiracy if your life depended on it. Will someone PLEASE check on Audiofeil, the guy could have lapsed into a Comma or be dead by now! I suppose that you could always stuff him and put him on display. You could stuff him with the same B.S. that you guys have been trying to feed me. Who do you guys get your marching orders from anyways, Inspector Closeau? Until neest time, caseess solved! Now I'm scared!
You are boring the living Hell out of poor Audiofeil. Now, you are boring the living Hell out of poor Audiofeil, tomatoe/tom-a-toe, just a technicality! POOR AUDIOFEIL, he must be one really poor slob though!
No problem. Stick around, I'm going to push a few more buttons. There are some real Firecrackers on this thread with some real short fuses. Who could be bored watching KRAKATOA happening all over again! Your gonna miss the Fireworks! Of course if that sort of thing bores you, maybe you need to ask your phsyciatrist to up your medication. Hate to see a Manic Depressant miss the whole World as it goes by! Geez...doesn't ANYTHING excite you anymore Audiofeil, sounds like a personnal problem, can't help you!
O.K.-its back to pretending that I DON'T have a point. I do what I do because I can, and because it amuses me! After so many years of trying, you guys still haven't been able to get rid of the CD, which STILL amuses me to no end! How many more years of trying (yawwwwwnnn!), are we going to have to wait? I will try to hold back my anxious anticipation. You continue beating your head against a wall, meanwhile I'm popping in another CD. You guys wont mind, will you? I know you guys have some real exercises in futility to contend with for the next-what-decade? So facinating to watch the struggle, no wonder you guys have such a short fuse! It must be really fustrating! You can't always get what you wa-ant, you can't always get what you wa-ant! You guys are probably way to obsessed to get what you need! For some reason, I am no longer afraid of you guys succeeding, concidering your track record so far! Why am I NOT suprised? Didn't get rid of the CD yet, huh! Check this out, this is my suprise look,...WWWHHHAAAT!
There you go! I got a yawn. I knew the point was obvious, I just didn't know it was THAT obvious. Now see what you guys have done, you have forced me to make a completely redundant arguement over something that was completely obvious to everyone. Gee, lose if I have a point, lose if I pretend that I don't have a point (again, your rules). You know changing the Rules when you have run out of arguement is really starting to bore the living Hell out of me! Now you are boring the living Hell out of poor Audiofeil. Hey pal, talk to the people who are conceitedly making up the Rules as they go along, ITS NOT ME! I am just trying to play the game according to their Rules, not my fault if its not conveniently working out to their advantage. Around and around we go, I'm just following their lead!
Timrhu, I get accused of not having a point. I just play the game where the rules keep on changing every 10 seconds. I'm supposed to not have a point, I won't argue the point so I will pretend that I don't have a point. Otherwise, we will all be here on this same Thread for the rest of our lives. Of course I am accused of not having a point, best way of preventing me from making my point by tying both hands behind my back. So I have to use my teeth, pretend that I don't have point to get my point across. The point is the absurdity of the rules that I am being forced to play by here. Anyone with any common sense can see what I just described above is absurd in the extreme, but this is what I am being forced to deal with. I still don't understand why anyone who is more interested in convenience in Audio at the sacrifice of sound quality, would waste their time on a Forum concerning Audiophile Sound Quality. Aren't there other Websites concerning the sale of used Convenience Audio as oppossed to the sale of High End Audio? I see used CD Players going for sale here between $3000.00 and $5000.00. Perhaps someone wanting to get into a Music Server, all the while spending their time on this Forum talking down the value of their CD Players. Then they can't figure out why they haven't been able to sell their CD Player for 6 Months. You guys don't really know what you are doing trying to get rid of the CD Format, no more than anyone knew what they were doing getting rid of the LP. Why do we find out later that we are missing some Music when the CD took over. Ditto for whatever takes over the CD. I try to learn from History, I try my best to not repeat the mistakes of the past. We leaped onto the CD bandwagon without even thinking. What is there to make sure that we are not making the same mistake again? Someone who is interested in Convenience as oppossed to Sound Quality making the decision, doesn't fill me with much confidence. There you have it. My statless, nonfactual, misleading diatribe! Feel free to add whatever other adjective you want to describe, just don't you dare tell me its pointless. We have been down this road before. My point is have we actually learned anything from the first time we have been down this road? We all took that same trip down that same road, I thought the point was obvious.
I nearly wrote that exact statement a while back. At soome point in the future people will look at cds in a museum and think, "how quaint," but not in my lifetime.
Timrhu - Thank you. As for PO, he is overly passionate about format choice but I agree 100% with Tvad - it doesn't have to be antagonistic since formats tend to stay for a long time and are also convertible. I will expire before CDs, for sure.
Kijanki, thanks for the reply. No my comment concerning poor communicatiion skills was not directed at you. In fact, I have read many of your posts and never would have guessed English is not your first language. Especially since many of your posts are of a technical nature. As for Pettyofficer, I could have been more diplomatic with my comment but I really thought a direct approach would work better. In his next couple of posts he said he has no point and I see no reason to read any more of his posts/rantings.
Many other posters had some great things to say also; however too many to list or respond to.
There will always be developments in the way that music is brought to us. It is up to each of us to choose the one or ones that work best for us, regardless of others opinions or beliefs.
With each new development it has been said it was the death of the previous method, i.e. vinyl vs cd. But this has not been the case, many different methods of storage and playback exist, and we are all free to choose which ones we like best.
Well there you have it, Anti-Democracy in action! Its going to be his way because Learsfool SAYS it's going to be his way! Are you going to take everyone out that doesn't follow your Formula and shoot them? You and who's Army? So it is said, so shall it be done! Much ado about nothing? With so much Testosterone flying, everyone trying to dictate to everyone else what Format they should be listening to! Everyone thumping their chests! Obviously everyone thinks that this is much ado about everything! Just wait untill you see the Fireworks, WOW! You just don't get that kind of response with much ado about nothing! You don't get this much action on All Star Wrestling! Wait...do I hear a pot boiling over some where? Wait...for....it! Wait...for....it!
For me, the vast majority of this thread is Much Ado About Nothing. I agree with Tvad's original post here - "computer audio" is going to a one-box format, i.e. the music server. This is most certainly the wave of the future, and I for one certainly do not want to hook up a computer in my listening room in the meantime. Especially since probably 80% or more of my listening is on vinyl, anyway.
If you could get rid of the CD Format, you would have done so by now. It has already been how many years? Come on Fantasy 90%, make me wake up tomorrow to find ALL of my CD's missing. Make them disappear into thin air! I am going to be REALLY disappointed in you if you don't! It will be just as I figured, you Guys will be nothing but a joke! I will go down to the local Store and buy a HUNDRED CD's. I will recite every Title to you over this Forum. I am going to love hearing you guys squeal and squirm in agony! Point? There is no point in torture! It is just fun to do when someone is begging you to do it to them!
I believe that Devilboy was addressing me. Who needs Acid when you get twice the Fireworks from pressing buttons. Three times the bang for the buck, it is not illegal, and it doesn't cost a thing. My point, why press buttons, to gather information on those who are self appointed Sheriffs of what Formats I should be allowed to listen to. Yeah, yeah, nothing has happened to the CD's yet. Nice distraction from what it is that you want to do to the CD Format, now is it! If you are going to dictate to me, I want to know what makes you tick! I am curious what makes you the Emperor with his new clothes. I am simply facinated by Narcissistic Characters so wrapped up in themselves, that they can dictate to everyone else what Formats to listen to. You guys are practically Cartoon Characters. Ernst Stoffel Blofeld, Darth Vader, Ming the Merciless have nothing on you. What are you guys going to do next, come out with an evil death ray that will destroy all CD's on the Planet? From my point of view you all seem more like Butters alter ego, Professor Chaos from South Park. What so amuzes me is that you actually believe that you can destroy all of the CD's on the Planet simply by saying so. You believe in your own Fantasy and your own Rhetoric. When anyone challenges your Fantasy, WOW, fireworks. Hey, when we get rid of our CD's, it will be because we want to. Not because you had anything to do with it! No doubt, in your Fantasy you will be dancing a victory dance. You need to wipe the drool dripping on the floor from your mouth. Santa Claus doesn't exist, neither does the Easter Bunny, and you are NOT going to get rid of all of the CD's on the face of the Planet either! This will be the third time, no doubt, that you will be running home crying for your Mommie! When reality hits, it hurts because the Truth hurts doesn't it! What is my point, no point. I do this because I can and it amuses me! You dream of getting rid of the CD Format, but you can't, and this amuses me to no end! With all of this amusement, who needs a point?
Timhru - I appologize. I read your post twice and didn't notice PO. I'm perhaps overly sensitive to my lack of language skills. For some reason system did not allow me to erase my previous post.
As for the speed - I use MAX and noticed that not only it changes speed during ripping sometimes slowing down to about 2x but also some CDs start really fast and some very slow. I've noticed that CDs that make vibrating noise in the drive rip very slow. On average Itunes rips much faster. I suspect that both programs adjust speed to number of errors encountered. What program do you use?
Kijanki, Computer CD Drive doesn't have any particular speed during ripping process - it is program controlled and changes from 1x to about 20x on my Mac.
That is interesting as just recently I was ripping cds to my hard drive and noticed some were taking longer than others and also the rate was different. Why is this? As for PO, I have read several of your posts word for word and must say I don't know what the hell your point is. You may be one of the worst communicators I have encountered on any forum. Please take a few minutes to compose a short and intelligent synopsis of your opinion.
I will stick around Mlsstl. I will keep pounding on that nerve, because I haven't gotten any answers yet! You guys are part of a Puzzle that just absolutely has to be solved! Wanting less for your money, NOW THAT IS JUST WEIRD! You guys must know that I can't quit till the Puzzle is solved!
M-O-M-M-I-E!.....THEY ARE STILL MAKING CD'S!....M-O-M-M-I-E! WWWWWHHHHAAAAAA! WWWWWWHHHHAAAA! I would say grow up and learn to live with disappointment, but what is the use!
some time ago I tried some converters (USB/Firewire to I2s, Spdif ,AES/EBU) none of them mached to any of my transports even oldest ones like krell MD 10. Still my 1400CD colection is colecting dusts. why? diference between CD and HD source is siginificant, but it does not makes bad system sound good or otherwise. room acoustic and speaker sonics features- this is what makes me cry or yawn. and its very comfortabile to surf throught thousands of performances.
Mlsstl- the 90% was never mine, the stats were never mine, and I was never the source of the Propaganda. Neither was I the source of any facts, distorted or otherwise. The Source is a little group of obsessive, compulsive braggards who want to control what everyone else listens to! These People claim to ME, that THEY are the 90% therefore I should shut the hell up and do what I am told, convenient! What is also convenient is YOU laying respondsibility for THEIR propaganda at my feet, can you read, I never claimed ownership of that either! On the contrary, I think that it is insightful into how their little minds, and yours, work. You go on worrying about Stats all you want, I'm talking about intent here! What is the intent behind those who want to get rid of the CD Format? Why are they so desperate to lie, cheat , and steal to accomplish their goal? What is your intent behind laying their intent at my feet? That is really sweet trying to hide your intent behind Stats, nice try. Blaming me for the misinformation of others, now THAT is REAL special! You didn't really honestly think that this was going to work did you? I would say nice try, except it was way too transparent even for that. What was that attempt, a 200 LB. cockroach crawling across a white rug? REAL suttle there Mlsstl, with the finese of a Chimpanzee performing Brain Surgery. I would almost be tempted to believe your rant, except for one very important thing. The fact that you are ranting it tells me that I am hitting a nerve. Was that your honest opinion of me, or were you just squealing in pain? Why do those who believe themselves to be part of their delusional 90% squeal the loudest when they can't get their own way with CD? I can see that I am going to have to keep on pounding on that nerve till I get some answers! Why should you even care what happens to the CD Format? What is it to you? Don't try to couch your answers in Stats, what IS the CD Format to you guys anyways? Is it the most dire threat to Downloading, a clear and present danger that absolutely MUST be eliminated at all costs? Why should you guys even care WHAT Format others are listening to? Conspiracy, nah! You guys can't EVEN keep a secret. You have your intent written all over your face! If you are trying to perpetuate a Conspiracy, this is the worst bumbling that I have ever seen since Richard Nixon or the Keystone Cops! You can drop the pretence, we ALL know what it is that you guys really want, and it is NOT to help or enlighten the rest of us. It is not about Sex, Music, Formats, Stats, it is about P-O-W-E-R! If you can't have it (CD) you will end up running home crying to your Mommie! What part of NO (CD), doesn't your child like brain understand?
Alex - I'm pretty sure that most of CDP don't spin faster and FIFO buffer is filled in real time just to take out jitter (while PLL keeps same average of both clocks). $19.95 Pioneer is not necessarily much worse then $6000 Esoteric since Pioneer is produced in milions. Also Esoteric drive alone doesn't cost $6000 (more like $600?).
Computer CD Drive doesn't have any particular speed during ripping process - it is program controlled and changes from 1x to about 20x on my Mac.
Server based system and mentioned Esoteric might sound different because of different electronics. Use top quality DAC in the system and to many it might sound better then Esoteric.
In my setup computer noise induced jitter doesn't make much difference since data is send to Airport Express not as a stream but as files/packets. AE decodes data and spits it out with its own clock achieving, according to Stereophile measurement 250ps word clock jitter. Dacs have usually some means of reducing jitter (like PLL). Benchmark DAC1 does even more but some people don't like upsampling or oversampling converters.
I resent being classified as being "lazy" because I choose to do other things with my time, rather than spend it on an activity that I consider immature and unreliable.
Aplhifi, I think you're conflating several issues into one. A cheap CD drive is perfectly capable of delivering a perfect bit performance as far as data goes. If it couldn't, it would be useless in a computer. Corrupted data is no more useful to computer program than it is to a music system.
Of course, the drive may also be producing digital hash that gets picked up by the analog circuiting.
If the cheap and electrically noisy CD drive is side-by-side with the fancy audio electronics, it will likely influence the sound.
An, if a cheap drive has its output rebuffered, then it can't be blamed for a jittery signal - the buffer isn't doing its job.
If that cheap CD drive is in a computer far away from the stereo and is only being used to transfer data to another storage device, I become far more skeptical that there is an issue.
I rip my CDs to a music server (as noted earlier in this thread) and I've gone through several computers and optical drives over the years. I've yet to come across a situation where I can tell the difference between a file ripped on a Sony drive versus an Lite-On or other drive. Same thing with hard drives. I don't go "boy that Western Digital drive just doesn't have the same tone as my old Seagate...."
Of course, I keep my computer equipment away from my stereo in a different room.
Once again, in your next to last paragraph, you comingle two separate issues - jitter and noise. Jitter is a timing error that occurs when the data packet is converted to an analog sound. Jitter can be caused and addressed by several different issues.
EMI is a byproduct of the operation of digital circuits and other electrical devices. Good practice dictates that care be taken in circuit design to minimize that issue. It's tough to do that right in cheap products.
Finally, please do not put me in the "everything sounds the same" box. I've spent a lot of years picking out the equipment I like.
And I've also never said a word about MP3s in this discussion. The bulk of my collection is ripped to FLAC and I download very little music. Less than one-quarter of 1% of my collection is downloaded. Approximately 40% is material I've converted myself from LP and open reel to digital. (I'm in my 9th year of converting my analog collection to digital and working on another album as I type this.)
So to wrap this up, if you are going to have a CDP sitting on your system rack, it is important that it is a well designed piece of kit. If you are going to tell me that I can't get a bit perfect rip using the Sony drive in my DAW, then I guess we'll have to disagree.
Jitter only occurs during the actual decoding step, when the digital is transferred to analog. Until then, it is just another data file and you can move it around all you want. (It was certainly transferred multiple times on hard drives at the studio and production plant prior to becoming a CD.)
So, in your opinion, $19.95 Pioneer universal player transport (for example) and $6000 Esoteric VRDS-NEO transport jitter is the same? It is just another data file you can move around? Bits are bits? :-) Please keep in mind that the above mentioned transports are both spinning CD at x4 while filling-up SDRAM, so the laser can go and re-read any missing info if needed. But somehow, those two example transports sound completely different, while both pumping "bit perfect", "jitter-free" and "error-free" data to the digital output. Interesting!
The only issue with a poor drive would be a read error, but that is not jitter. Read errors on CD are mainly an issue only if the CD is damaged or defective. Read errors on a disc in good condition are fairly rare (or no computer program would ever install and run.)
Sure, you are perfectly right about that; even a boombox CD drive doesn't come up with any errors if the CD is clean. But how does it sound?
Most computer drives will read a disc multiple times to get rid of errors. Many CD players differ from computers in they only get one shot to read a disc correctly since the data is delivered in real time.
While you are correct when it comes to some rare old "classic" CD drives, most of the current disc-spinning transports found even in the cheapest universal players, spin the CD at higher speed, buffer data in memory making possible the so called RUR (read until right). But even a "classic" CD player features 512K FIFO memory; otherwise it will not be able to correct errors.
In conclusion, even the most expensive CD/DVD-ROM drive will not give you audiophile sound quality. Not to talk about the million hear-thin traces on a computer mother board, various controllers, HDDs, memory, interfaces, switching mode power supplies, jittery clocks, bunch of PLLs, etc., etc., etc. Each of those inevitably inducing....what?....jitter and noise.
Sadly, Kijanki is right; who cares about the best? Just keep bringing those high-rez MP3s. :-)
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