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Hard drive storage still need good cd player?

Starting moving my CD's to my media center PC. I connected the PC via digital optic to my external DAT converter (proceed) and the sound is pretty good. I haven't done serious listening, I just did this for the convieniance and ability to have music playing without having to change CD, when doing chores or have company over type of thing.

So while I'm recording this to the HD, I started woundering, what is the difference with having the music stored on the HD compared to the cd it came on..? The CD is just a transport with a laser pickup that reads bits and bytes and sends it to the dac as accurately as possible. So if you where able to get a great copy of a cd onto a hard drive, and pump that to the DAC you don't need a 5K cd player. One step forward, and what if I could simply buy the music already copied with the best equipment possible directly to a file I could download.

For reference, I'm using a classe cd/dvd player with proceed avp, classe cam 200 mono blocks and bw 802 speakers.

Michel
michel_findlay
michel_findlay OP
6 posts
 
So begs the other question. How can you get the best possible copy from CD to HD. For sake of lazyness I used the built in cd tray, all the while knowing already that it sounded worst than my transport, but wasent' thinking about real good sound quality when I started, now I see that I can get pretty good...better than I originally thought.

Michel
bigamp
219 posts
 
Apparently, when you use Exact Audio Copy (EAC) or JRiver (with error checking enabled), no bits are lost during a CD rip--hard drive copy is exactly the same as the original CD. So, is there any benefit to using CD treatments or antistatic spray prior to rip?
ckorody
643 posts
 
Million dollar question there Bigamp LOL

When I started I was a fanatic about doing a "full treatment" prior to ripping. After scribbling green ink over too many CDs, and trying literally every paste, powder and spray I could find, I settled in on a routine of Mapleshade's Optrix spray wiped off with Kimwipes (lab grade tissues for optics) and then a shot from their anti static zapper prior to ripping. (If nothing else this improved playback when I took a disc to play in the car)

When I broke down my system for some remodeling I put all my secret sauce stuff away and digitized new CDs right out of the jewel case. At a certain point you have to say that bitz is bitz and move on. I can't say that I have noticed a difference though I still feel a twinge of audio nervosa every time...

The distinction here is not subtle, we are not trying to keep a laser reading in real time happy; we are just trying to suck the data off the disk which is pretty standard stuff for a computer. So in my mind, laser read errors, and all the nightmare of electro-optical-mechanical playback devices is eliminated - thus the instant improvement most everyone notices.

However I am glad to have tried all the stuff. Some of the used CDs I buy have what I like to think of as peanut butter on them - then its soap and water followed by Optrix. They rip faster and with fewer or no errors.
mrmb's avatar
mrmb
299 posts
 
I just made the following relevant post on the Computer Audio Asylum:

http://www.audioasylum.com/forums/pcaudio/messages/16783.html
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