CD Ripping software

FrankC,

Thank you! This is exactly my point. FLAC sounds thin, bright and lifeless, IMO, regardless of computer type and operation system. Apple lossless MP4 sounds a lot better, so is WavPack and Monkey's Audio (APE). The latter was my favorite, but WMA lossless is what I like best, most likely due to the fact that, unlike the others mentioned, it is a fixed bitrate lossless compression, not variable.

Daverz,

Sorry, what I meant was that even a $49 CD player is absolutely bit-perfect and there are no losses, you can compare the output data with a high-end CD transport, and you will find out it is exactly the same. But how it sounds? What will really impress you is the fact that, even if you change DAC input format, you will still hear a sound quality difference, and that is with everything else the same.

Mapman,

I have installed a SB based upgrade to many customers inside their NWO Esoteric based players. I went to the extent of building linear power supplies (including removing the switching power supplies under the mini wi-fi card), four new low jitter clocks, sample rate converters, high speed buffers, etc. Sound improved by still nowhere near the VRDS-NEO transport on A-B test with the same disc. This is the reason adopting Marco's HiFace that is also highly upgraded (with its charge pumps removed too) and built into the NWO player and the DAC-S. The sound is much closer to the VRDS-NEO and much better than SB or Transporter with even the wildest upgrades installed.

Again, if someone has a benefit from this information, I am happy, if not, that is fine too!

Best wishes,
Alex Peychev

When looking up reviews of dBpoweramp, I came across one that compared all the lossless formats for encoding speed, file size, etc. As a test, the author encoded the same file through all 4 or 5 formats SEQUENTIALLY and then compared the final digital file and it was identical to his starting file.

However, that does not mean that the process to recover analog information from all file types is identical, just that the starting digital information is.

Its not like I have any idea what you guys are talking about, but I've gotten together with another good audiophile buddy, we copied redbook and downloaded wav vs flac. Only on the very best recordings at the highest bit/sample rates were there minor differences. Redbook to wav was noticeably better than redbook to flac. Can't tell you why, but we now both drop EVERYTHING to wav.

You can also try TunesKit Audio Converter. I use it to rip DRM from my iTunes music and Apple Music. After that, I can directly burn them into a CD.