Is this the END of DAYS for the high end CD player

"The rest is BS. It is just pure data storage and number crunching."

Dont believe this. There are a LOT of affects in both ripping S/W, Playback S/W and the hardware playback device that affect sound quality. Do some more reading on the forums and you will realize this. There would be no market for devices like:

http://www.mach2music.com

Which makes a big sonic impact on audio streams

Or music playback software like Amarra, Pure Music or AyreWave, which all make itunes sound better. These deal with CODEC floating-point rounding and dithering correctly. iTunes does not.

Or ripping S/W like dbpoweramp and XLD, which are used with Accurate-Rip on the web to insure not only bit-perfect data but correct control and offset information in the frames.

Those in the know, have done all of these tweaks. If you are new to this, then there is a lot to learn.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

"I have linked the computer to DAC by using toslink and coaxial. I have even used my computer as the cd transport to play CDs rather than files linking to a DAC. none of these method sounds as good as burmester 069."

No surprise. You are probably playing back using iTunes on a PC or WMP. Complete junk.

You must jump through a few hoops in order to get the SQ that you need to beat your CD player. That's right not just match, but BEAT.

1) Rip with C2 correcting CDROM drive
2) Rip using dbpoweramp or XLD (Mac) with Accurate-Rip enabled.
3) playback using Foobar with Kernel Streaming on PC or Amarra/Pure Music/Ayrewave on a Mac. Playback from memory and SSD is even better
4) Avoid Toslink - get a good quality USB to S/PDIF coax converter or a USB DAC - should preferably use async protocol and have good clocks

For digital the clock is everything

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

You must jump through a few hoops in order to get the SQ that you need to beat your CD player. That's right not just match, but BEAT.

And same applies to a CD transport; you must jump through a few hoops in order to BEAT any computer audio currently available.

3) playback using Foobar with Kernel Streaming on PC or Amarra/Pure Music/Ayrewave on a Mac. Playback from memory and SSD is even better

IMO, the J. River Media Center with ASIO4ALL (on Win 7, 64bit) offers better audio quality compared to Foobar with KS and any Apple-based playback. Playing from memory makes things even worse.

Best,
Alex Peychev

This talk of CD drives in computers is nonsense. If they could not transfer the data properly none of our computers would work.

So you really believe that transferring data correctly is the only requirement for "perfect audio quality"? Every CD player has C1 and C2 error correction built-in. This said, with a brand new clean CD, there are no errors coming even from a boom-box CD drive. But why it does not sound as good as a high-end transport then? Is it only clocking? Is it only jitter?

Fplanner2010 you mention the use of coaxial (I assume the jittery s/pdif) which is a consumer digital in/out. Isnt that 75ohm system only capable of 24/96k in stereo if that? I am a bit confused as you mention 24/192. Sorry it has been a while and I have only really used AES/EBU 110 ohm digital ins/outs in the past.

The "jittery" S/PDIF in Fplanner2010 NWO-M is used in a non-jittery way. :-) And no, it is not limited to 96/24; it is 192/24.

Best,
Alex Peychev

It seems like getting computer source perfect and beat hi end cd player is problematic and cumbersome, which completely destroyed the convenience of computer source..... Even if you do everything right... it's still not definite... there are so many things besides bit perfect read that affects sound quality....

Sigh... I have ripped 8000 songs with WAV on iTune over the past 5 years...... it's such a daunting task to start over....

I have read on some forums that even with bit perfect set up/software, you still get different results with different CD/DVD ROM drives... how many different bit perfect copies are there?

If it is at all possible getting bit perfect results.... shouldn't the results be the same with different drives....

"Because that's a much bigger if reading real time from an optical drive in general than with files stored on a computer hard drive".

If reading in real time (1X) doesn't result in bit perfect data comparing with files stored on a computer hard drive.... How is it possible to get bit perfect data in the first place? What I mean is..... if reading/ripping in real time doesn't get perfect bit for bit data..... how is it possible when reading/ripping at multiple speed (4x, 8X, 24X) be any better? It's the same data, if a CD/DVD ROM can't even get it right in the first place in real time..... how can one guarantee ripping from it results in perfect bit for bit information?

Still.... I believe the power supply in a computer is not clean enough for hi end use..... and.... there are so many signal cross talk with all the components in the computer.... hell... even hard drive generate internal noise....

I guess it's one of those thing where people have different school of thoughts... and one can believe in anything with theories to back up their thoughts...

At the end of the day...... I urge all of us to just trust our ears..... I have personally done a blind A/B test....Even if I didn't do every technical aspects right .... I have preference in hi end CD players and hi end dedicated music server...