Sound Quality


First off, I am pleading ignorance here, so my apologies up front, but I need some help on figuring out what this digital stuff is all about. It was simple, just to pull out a CD and play it, but with streaming and such, it seems to be a whole different ball of wax.

After finally finishing the remodel on my home, I've have had a bit of time to sit down and listen to my system. My Aurender N200 came with an SD card loaded with music. Most of it is ripped from hybrid SACDs or at 16bit- 44.1kHz "Original Mastering Recording" CDs, (some are DSF files some WAV files, but all sound the same to me). The music sounds flat and dull but when I play the equivalent song on Tidal in 16bit-44.1 kHz it sounds much better.

I have a second SD card  with some HD Tracks CDs at 24 bit-96 kHz that I which sound really good through the N200. Maybe understandable being hi-res, but some say they can't hear a big difference between the two, but I sure can in this instance.

I understand that up sampling, DSD and HQ Player can even bring better sound to the table, but I'm having enough trouble with just the basics here, that stuff is way over my head. 

I'd like to rip a couple of my own CDs to a new SD card and try it to compare with the SD card that came with the N200. What is the best method to do this?

As always, your thought & comments are much appreciated!

128x128navyachts

OK thanks gentlemen, FLAC it is! Further to ripping, is any old CD rom drive, like that of an old laptop OK? Or is it the better the drive, the better the rip?

OP:  Faster is better, but you do want your ripping software to validate the results. I have had situations when the speed was too fast and had to slow the ripper down to ensure reliable transfers.

@navyachts I use a $39 LG external cd-rom drive. It’s not super fast though. The dbppweramp has validation built in and will display the results if any issues. So far I ran it without any problems. 

“FLAC it is”

@navyachts 

I would rip and compare FLAC vs WAV and see if you are able to tell the difference between the two files 😊