As with all this, no one is saying the rip will be different in what’s actually been copied and then looked at. Same as with an ethernet download or stream.
But if there was no difference in sound using different gear, then no one would hear anything different.
No one would need anything more than a cheap pc to do it all, or hear differences in streamers, ethernet cables, and even usb cables, the list goes on and on.
Wack it all on a good system and then listen, you will probably then just shake your head as to why it suddenly all sounds different.
Totally agree Dunc. Love listening to different gear and how it sounds. And blimey you have even got me looking a little into how different ethernet cables change the sound. Only a bit mind - the engineer in me will not put up with a cable that is not to ethernet specs!
However all simon and I and others are saying is that when it comes to computers, the exact same file fed through the exact same chain should sound exactly the same.
More helpfully for you, there might be a simple way of checking if the rips in your database are an accurate match to the original PCM file used to burn the CD or not. You could do what you want with the information. I will report back later when I have played with the software (just for fun) because it would surely be useful for anyone who has not used EAC or Accurate rip to rip their entire CD collection and has no interest in having to do so again.
I am sure the rips i have done are 100% accurate, be it with my cheap buffalo or the D100.
It’s all the other stuff that seems to effect the SQ that’s the problem
How do you know that the rip you made is an exact match to the PCM file that was used to burn the CD in the first place? Either made with buffalo, the D100 or my wife’s £50 usb bluray player?
My initial testing of perfectTUNES accurate rip says it works really well. Slow over a network share though. I initially started it doing everything and quickly realised it would likely to take 24 hours to run or more.
Do you think because you struggle to convince with your long and several posts that it’s impossible that two 100% accurate rips can sound different, those people who experienced the contrary will begin to doubt?
Hi Frenchrooster. No I have abandoned trying to do that and to be honest just reporting these findings now for anyone else who comes and reads the thread.
As several of us have said, if two absolutely bit identical files actually produce a different outcome that is a serious problem for the world as your bank balance will keep changing every several seconds - like its quantum! Happy for you not to believe that - all that matters is that engineers do.
No actually, this could really help you if you are convinced you can hear differences in your rips.
I totally understand you have ripped your CDs with a D100. If you wanted to you could experiment with using the above software to validate whether those rips you have done match the accurate rip database. And then just rip that CD again that doesn’t and add it to your melco. Then play whichever you think gives you pleasure.
So for you, or anyone else who has not ripped their Cds using accurate rip or EAC (and I understand if you haven’t) could get some extra assurance really easily that their rips are accurate. If you have a PC around its costs very little to try it. Or you could borrow a friends for 24 hours. Or not as the case could be.
Anyway, that’s it - no more from me on this topic. If you haven’t ripped with the above software, using perfect tunes is a bit of a no brainer and dead cheap.
I have ripped with accurate rips, with Dbpoweramp, Unitserve, and compared 3 Melco d100 rips a friend sent me. So compared 3 tracks, from 3 different albums, made by 4 different ripping methods.
The accurate rips and Dbpoweramp ( lossless Flac rips) sound the same .
I couldn’t distinguish them. The Unitserve ( ex Uniticore) gave a slight difference, with a bit more clarity and fluency. But I had to focus to hear the difference.
The D100 rips had the edge vs all. Of course not night and day. But easy discernible. The D100 rips vs pc rips sound enough different that it was clear to me the first 10 seconds.
However, as I have no more than 400 cds, I couldn’t justify buying a Melco D100.
As for local music, the differences between those stored on my PC , stored on my past Unitserve, then on my Melco N1z2 server are bigger.
Between streaming my files stored on my PC and those stored on my Melco, it’s like going from a Cdx2 / xps to a Cd555.
A software engineer at this point from a problem determination perspective would treat this as two issues.
Rips. They would ask to compare a d100 rip with an dbpoweramp rip to see if they are different files or the same. Of course we have the means to do that with perfect tunes. If the d100 file and the dbpoweramp rip of the exact same physical cd are both flagged as accurate by the software they are identical rips. If the d100 is not a match in the accurate rip database and the dbpoweramp rip is then I would suspect some kind of dsp explaining the sound difference. If the files match I would recommend recreating the test to investigate further. Recreating the problem is usually key to successful resolution.
Media servers. The developer would ask for clarification. Where was the pc in relation to the hifi when the test was done. Was it on a switch or two away from the streamer? Same room or electrical circuit? What media server was used? Was it set to transcode to wav given the known issues?
In both cases, the response would be in the hands of the user to progress. This developer has lots of other things to do but would be happy to help uncover more evidence if it increased our collective understanding. I have already learned several new things in the discussion and maybe given back a little to the community. Thats enough for me. Bfn.
I must say I find this thread a little bizarre. The question is do all ripping devices sound the same? Clearly there is disagreement on this and that’s fine.
What I find bizarre is the use of technical discussion / explanations to attempt to ‘prove’ that they can’t sound different. If people hear that a D100 makes better sounding rips than a cheap drive, and many are in agreement that it does, then will a technical explanation to the contrary prevent that?
The people who insist that if rips are all bit perfect or bit identical or whatever then they will all sound the same are ignoring the empirical evidence. That is a serious and fundamental flaw in reasoning. The correct approach is to say ‘I can’t explain the differences heard in terms of my technical or scientific understanding. Therefore there must be something going on that I don’t yet understand’.
If you don’t personally hear these differences then on a personal level it’s valid to say that there is no technical reason that can explain them. But then you are ignoring the experiences of people who do hear differences. If you are not prepared to consider that your technical understanding may be missing something then you must put these contrary experiences down to imagination or some sort of psychological phenomenon.
Of course this as an explanation has its own difficulties in that you will also be subject to exactly the same psychological influences. So there is no reference point. Your claim that others are imagining the differences will be no more or less valid than the possibility that you will be imagining that real differences don’t exist.
That is essentially what is happening here. It’s bizzare because the people who postulate this wield their technical knowledge as an all-conquering weapon. Yet they appear to fail to realise that their approach is an inherently unscientific and illogical one. In science one can’t simply dismiss evidence that doesn’t fit with one’s current understanding. One must be prepared to question and re-evaluate one’s understanding according to the empirical evidence. That doesn’t equate to accepting things without question, but it certainly doesn’t equate either to dismissing experiences which don’t fit with what we currently understand.
The other relevant point is that in some cases there are in fact known technical/scientific explanations. It’s just that these aren’t necessarily known or understood by the people who claim that differences can’t exist.
It’s not that differing equipment can’t, or shouldn’t sound different - of course it will. The question is whether bit-identical rips sound different when played through the same equipment - of course they can’t.
Conflation of these two is the source of much of the apparent disagreement.
AccurateRip as I understand it, which accords with your explanation of it, compared the music data, but not other data like metadata (tags). With reference to my recollection of speculation in the previous thread on this subject, do you have any views on whether that may be a possible explanation when a difference genuinely is heard between two files both confirmed as Accurate?
If the files are played through the same equipment - running the same software - then they will be handled the same in each case…
What will change - as I previously posted - was that the different times they are played will mean tiny differences due to small fluctuations in the environment but these will be random, not consistent.
Of course if we are talking about files where the ‘music content’ is bit-identical but the metadata and other components are different then this could result in differences - again as previously discussed.
Personally I’ve got as much out of the discussion as I want. Learned new things. I also got to rip the last two cds I bought for my mum’s funeral two years ago so that was nice and very poignant.
Yes but they will sound different according to how the RIP is packaged into a file construct by different rippers. If I have understood Simon correctly then deconstructing this will result in different errors/noise according to the partcular file construct/ripper in question.
It could have an effect of course. However the metadata is stored separately to the audio data I understand. How, when and what of that metadata is transmitted to the streamer is I believe up to the music server software’s implementation. I would expect it to transmit upfront before the audio stream. So it could be an unintended design choice or software error in the media server but I doubt it. The consequence would be feedback from users of random variations in sound when playing files. I think if it was a thing it would probably be resolved fairly quickly. Ps not got time now to see if this is discussed in upnp specs.
To clarify the deconstruction of the file is in the streamer cpu not the media server cpu unless the server transcodes. Some software choices at both server and streamer ends have had impacts on the noise shape into the dac. So in the old flac v wav debate we were sending different files to the streamer - one wav, one flac. If we sent the same identical file to the streamer eg 2 identical flac files, we got identical sound characteristics.
