The Naim rips were from core (I think) as they were what my Dealer had already there.
I was picking-up my Melco Server that day and asked about the best ways to rip - innocent.
Just arrived in a box was the Melco ripper they had not even opened the box or tried - it so I asked what made it worth the price - they said, lets try it.
We got a disk that had already been ripped by the Naim ripper and did DBpoweramp rip using an cheap USB drive that was my intended rout at that point - compared it to the naim one and it was similar but they did sound different - all listening was hosted from the same server drive via ND555 and Statement system.
We then moved the cheap drive to Melco and ripped the same CD using that same drive and listened - that was my first jaw-drop surprise as it was clearly better and I was wondering how; clearer and better involvement and lower perceived noise.
Then we did the same again using the melco Ripper into Melco server and it was better again, but about 70% of the improvement was gained by the previous rip and this one was just clean and precise with acoustic space far better portrayed. It was the Suzanne Vega first album CD we used.
The Melco rip was more ‘like Vinyl’ in a good way; start-stop and timing and connection were good to me.
I decided I liked the last version and that is the path I took.
But respect those that prefer otherwise.
The trouble with this stuff it that it is like the Ethernet cable discussion - people have very fixed views and it causes pain - I’m just relaying what happened and my decision chain.
I wanted the cheap option to be the same, but for me it didn’t work out that way.
These are small changes made larger on a very revealing system - context - the other rips were not awful.
I agree, a lot of people have very fixed points of view. It’s a bit tiring.
I was wondering to buy the ripper but 1k is 1k …maybe later.
I just bought however the Eros Titan powerblock. I have also a good power cable in stock. I hope it will raise all my system. Will report.
Did you try to compare melco rips vs same album downloaded from Qobuz or Hdtracks? on 16/44 format.
Not done anymore comparisons as of yet.
I feel it was good enough.
I’d advise to put that money towards other enjoyment priorities.
Just use a reasonably good external drive and you will probably get most of the effect - my Deler used nothing special for the USB drive as far as I can recall.
did you find the difference more minimal or relatively big? like between stock powercable and 100 euros powercable, or like between stock powercable and powerline? to have an idea…
Important to point out that (AFAIK) neither the UnitiServe nor the Melco use the AcurateRip database, so with either of these you can’t guarantee the accuracy of the resulting rip.
EAC and dBpoweramp do use the AcurateRip database, and when the database confirms the accuracy of the rip they sound identical when the rips are played in the same playback system.
Someone who had the discussion with Naim told me he had asked why they did not verify now, as they used once to do so, the rip - the answer was that it was found, for a reason then unknown, that the resulting rip attained with verification turned off consistently sounded better - and they were getting perfect rips anyway so went with what sounded, to them, best.
That is just a tale I was told. I have had direct conversations with Naim designers with other subject matters on their reasons for certain choices and have been told that although Naim base all their decisions on the foundation of sound engineering solutions, they do have a comprehensive music listening verification of the resulting designs and some tweaks are made that improve the end result but are not fully at the time (and perhaps even later) understood, but consistently improve the result in the direction they want, so these changes are incorporated into what is final product.
Generally some of these things can, at a later date, be revealed as to why they have an effect that was at first not understood, even though it by listening test did. Personally I’m happy that they listen to their product and choose what works best by listening tests than otherwise.
Rooster, I had discs that never ripped right on my old LG drive. I swapped it out for a fairly expensive internal Pioneer one and never had problems again. FWIW I use EAC for the ripping and dbpoweramp for tag embedding using a plugin that does it.
Why ? I have never used accurarip for anything in 10 years and had less than 10 bad rips in that time. A change of drive fixed those or a clean and rerip. There is no need for accurarip at all in my view.
My Dell DVD drive is not/will not be recognised by dBpoweramp’s AccurateRip, something to do with offset or something. My very old clanky Samsung works OK.
However the Dell is a simple USB powered connection & it runs Ultra Secure perfectly, with this I get a 100% perfect copy of that CD; so whats wrong with that, why (is) Acc.Rip better than Ultra.Sec ?? OK my once in a while one off rips of new CD purchases with Ultra.Sec takes longer to complete, I’ll live with that.
How do you know that others weren’t bad rips - just ones that aren’t bad enough to be completely obvious on playback or to actually fail in the ripping process?
Back in the days when I ripped CDs to my iPod there were certain CDs that came out distorted. It wasn’t a copyright issues but I seem to recall that the issue was with Warner Brothers CDs not being compatible with the cd drive I was using. I changed the drive and they ripped fine.
Because they play and sound fine. If bad they won’t and have pops, clicks and other digital artefacts. Pretty noticeable really. It’s either read or its not, no in-between. Some failed to rip at all. I have use Linux rippers for the last 6 years that use cd paranoia and it’s a damn good ripper , whatsl Vortexbox has used for years.
Just because a drive will rip some CDs fine isn’t a proof that it’ll rip all CDs fine, particularly id they are using a non Red Book form of copy protection *. Some drives will fail on some particular CDs and other drives will fail on other particular CDs.
.* CDs that use non Red Book copy protection aren’t guaranteed to be readable on any specific Audio CD player as, unless they comply with the Red Book specification, then strictly speaking they aren’t actually audio CDs - even if what they contain is audio data!
That’s a major failing surely?