Lossless Files Vs CD's

Listening involves significant subjective judgement when it comes to sound quality.

There is no guarantee that listening alone will determine the quality of the digital source, especially if the two compared are more similar than different. Too many other factors at play.

I am a software engineer with a background in digital imaging for military applications as well and a long time audio geek. I agree with the others that assert a properly impemented lossless CD rip to file has fewer technical obstacles in its way and playback is less problematic than from an optical CD reader typically.

I can pretty much repeat what Al said but I won't bother with someone who makes ugly suggestions.

Dvavc - If you are coming to Newport show, bring a thumb flash drive with your ripped files on it. Make one FLAC and the same track wav. See you in Hilton 1001.

Thanks,
Steve N.

Dvavc

I'm not sure why you responded as you did, but know that the folks that are sharing with you are just sharing their opinions, albeit that they are also quite well informed. Two of them are EEs as they stated and I'm in real estate.

I've never been involved in any way in the audio industry and I have absolutely no connection with anyone in this thread, beyond that what you've seen on this public and anonymous forum. See my further comment below*.

If you can get to Newport, you'd do yourself a great favor. Steve, from all I've seen in these forums, is a straight-up guy. Knowledgeable and courteous. *I did shake Steve's hand at the show last year. But I can say that he'd not know me from Adam and am quite sure that he would not remember our brief encounter last year.

I will be at Newport and do plan to stop by Steve's room on Saturday sometime and can't wait to hear what he has brought to the show this year.

The analogy of ripping to a Xerox copy is flawed. There is loss in copying a non-digital source, but there can be exact copying of a digital source.

If the digital computer file->DAC had been invented first, and then someone designed a way to copy the bits to a ten cent piece of plastic, spin it at high speed and bounce a laser beam off it, we'd see it as a Rube Goldbergian sow's ear, and inherently problematic.