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When did you digitize your CDs and LPs? I still haven’t...

I’m a 46 year old guy who came up on LPs and cassettes, got into CDs and then stumbled into the world of online music where I’m still trying to figure out what to do.

20 years or so ago when people started getting excited about digitizing their CD collections, I never bothered. I have maybe 900-1000 CDs and the idea of having to “rip” them never appealed to me. Heck, I never even liked the word “rip” and the action seemed time consuming and boring as heck to me. Same for LPs.

These days, I still have all my obsolete media but I’m a Tidal HiFi subscriber and have come to love streaming. Still, there’s a lot I have on CD and LP that Tidal doesn’t have and I’m wondering if it’s time to step into the present and get something like an Innuos Zen Mk III so I can stream, rip, and store at least all of my CDs.

Is it time to step into the present, or will I be fine rocking my Nakamichi CDP-2A until it dies and then just buying another CD player or transport? That certainly seems less expensive these days than a fancy streamer/server/“ripper”.
pip_helix
georgehifi's avatar
georgehifi
10,312 posts
 
I can’t explain it but I get more detail than from my CD transport
Impossible, it can’t make extra bits that are not there.

Probably hearing some form of hf colouration/distortion or maybe even even jitter or more error correction if that’s possible.

Cheers George
kijanki's avatar
kijanki
4,453 posts
 
I can’t explain it but I get more detail than from my CD transport
Transport connection to DAC can add more jitter (noise) and also scratches on CD can force CDP to interpolate data since CDPs, working in real time, cannot re-read each questionable sector again, like ripping programs do (often hundreds of times).  Ripping program can effectively renew old scratched CD making it sound better - like new.  Even CD-R made from such rip will likely sound better than original CD.
georgehifi's avatar
georgehifi
10,312 posts
 
 
Ripping program can effectively renew old scratched CD making it sound better - like new. Even CD-R made from such rip will likely sound better than original CD.
Not correct sorry, I can hear the difference between the original and the burnt copy I make for the car.
Also if you search there is a lab test disc you can buy I think it was the Pierre Varney double disc test disc suit, that has all the usual cd bench test tracks, but it also has a piece of music on it and then the same piece but 10 x generation copy. And you can clearly hear the degradation on the 10th copy.
  
Cheers George
kijanki's avatar
kijanki
4,453 posts
 
If each CD has exactly the same checksum there will be no degradation since exactly the same data is copied each time.  Checksum of the whole CD can be verified.  I'm not sure how they copied CD - perhaps using Itunes or device that doesn't look for proper checksum of each sector or whole CD.  Either way - by using good ripping program created CD-R will always sound better than badly scratched CD since CDP will always interpolate for scratches longer than about 4mm along the track - no matter how tiny.  In extreme case CD might not even play but ripping program can still extract data (but often goes for hours).
georgehifi's avatar
georgehifi
10,312 posts
 
Either way - by using good ripping program created CD-R will always sound better than badly scratched CD

Sorry no they don’t

Also here, are the micron photos of the original stamped retail CD left, middle is a burnt gold CDR copy, and right is the burnt aluminium CDR copy.
As you can see there will be far more error correction going on for the laser to read middle and right. https://ibb.co/qjYQFyc
Even to a HD there are added jitter and errors.
Pierre Varney proved this, get it and have a listen, as it not even burnt, but hd copied, then one single stamp CD.

Cheers George
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