@emrei – do you actually buy box sets twice? One to listen to, and one to collect? I guess once a CD is listened to a “collectible” box set just becomes a box of of CDs – if that makes sense…
Would continuously buying box sets and ripping these CDs qualify as a sort of modern Sisyphus? 
Horror… 
Not very often, I just bought Beatles mono vinly and some LPs twice but even the set is used, still is an object of desire for me
I’m learning thanks to all of you! Not that anyone is interested, but my story goes something like:
Whenever I was in the presence of Audiophiles, I would always mention that I possessed an LP12 accompanied with Linn’s Briks! Instantly, I got their respect! Next, it was Active Briks! But eventually I got tired of the ritual of cueing up my TT: I sold it three years ago. Furthermore, I got tired of the sound and didn’t want to invest 6K into my TT!
Ok, this post is about Streaming/Hi Res!
Then came my CDX2, I love it, even without an external PS. Next, compare Hi Res vs Normal red book 16 bit, I guess!
Kind of Blue, Diana Krall, Jacintha’s. lush life.
The $50 CDs sounded slightly different from the $20 CDs. Blind A/B was difficult.
We concluded, if the original was done properly the 16 bit was just fine:
For example, Diana Krall’s Love Scenes.
Furthermore, STOCKFISCH. DMM–CD/SACD
AND OTHER Linn’s SACD hybrids sounded great!
Now I not that keen on streaming, I guess I’m streaming locally! One thing for sure, its nice to manipulate 5 day of music and an endless number of playlist from an $35 a month android phone with an remote app whilst lying in bed. I here itunes is inferior but it doesn’t sound bad at all! The convenience is of the hook:
Airport Extreme acts an router sending wireless signals to three airport express:
Living room
Family room
Rec room
I have about 300 CDs but have only ripped about fifty of my favorites. And when I hear a toon I like, I purchase it for 99 cents or $1.25.
Ok, getting long winded! But visit a Naim Dealer in the Mid-West USA, he was recording albums from an LP 12 and some fancy recording equipment to Naim’s Reference Core! He Told me, this is the way to go! I guess that wall of albums won’t be necessary, if he ever records them all!
With that being said, can anyone explain exactly what I’m doing, and what’s the Advantage of an 20K ND555 over a 3K Core!
I’m still confused:confused:
Could you be a bit more specific about what you’re confused by.
What are you using to stream? Is it connected by WiFi or is it wired?
Wi fi my MM and airport extreme!
Someone told me I was streaming locally!
Distinction between local streaming and paying for Tidal or whatever!
ND555 vs Core
MM == Mac Mini ?
Does Airport support 24 bit?
Yes, Mac Mini
Now the second question I don’t have a clue!
Hard Disk Player
Rip, store, catalogue and rediscover your music with our complete digital music centres.
, still learning:
I’m streaming locally, not from an outside source.
What is the difference between an network player and a hard disk player?
ND555 vs Uniti Core
By George I think I got!
If one ask enough questions, eventually they might figure it out:
Can iTunes play 24 bit?
(A) It’s true that the iTunes ecosystem isn’t geared for Hi-Res audio. First, the iTunes store only sells albums and tracks in the compressed AAC format (encoded at 256 kbps). … Basically, what you’ll need to do is select the appropriate format and bit rate (e.g., 96kHz/ 24 - bit ) for the track you want to play .Feb 3, 2016"
Thanks Headed out for dinner the 4th of July!!
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Ahem… and that’s just the CDs. We find that a “non-virtual” music library makes our living room feel quite homely. It’s just a case of organising it all really
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It makes perfect sense if you have multiple systems in multiple rooms and would prefer to put CDs on shelves that are way up out of reach to save space. I can listen to any of my CDs in any room without having to fetch them. I don’t have to worry about them getting scratched or the quality lessening as the laser mech slowly dies.
Eventually I can put them all in storage as cold backups. I went to a streamer as my only source years ago and never looked back. It made accessing my own CD collection that much easier and more enjoyable that I bought more CDs after ditching my CD players than I did before. And for me, it is all about home streaming. I want to own what I listen to. I don’t do Spotify or Tidal but I can definitely say, I would listen to less music if I was constantly up and out of my chair rooting around for discs that are often in another room.
The ritual of putting on a disc. vinyl, whatever often only holds value while you are still doing it. The second you let it go, you wonder what the fuss was about. I remember when I moved from Laserdisc to DVD. I bemoaned the loss of the large gatefold sleeves; the ritual of putting on this massive disc to enjoy a film. Then it was gone and I never gave it a second thought. These days, I still buy loads of BRDs and I stream them locally too from lossless MKV rips rather than use a BRD player. It’s just so much easier.
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This reminds me of a test we (some of us on the forum) did on the old forum or even the previous forum to that, several years ago when the hot debate was on whether some rippers were different from others and produced ‘better rips’ than others…
So I used a binary file debugger program to examine WAV files created from, iTunes(PC), EAC, Asset, Naim Unitiserve, on a few CD transports.
The DATA part (chunk) of the WAV files which contains the sample audio data, were all completely identical, that is totally consistent… not one digital bit of difference … other than iTunes which had a variance on the offset… that is there was a few mS difference between start and end of each track compared to the others, but other than that it was identical.
The Header and MetaData chunks differed between rippers… essentially some rippers used the old canonical header format, whereas others supported the later extendible format of WAV files that support Hidef and more advanced AV information. iTunes and Naim did not use the metadata chunks at all.
So our little test showed there was no difference on the audio data from different rippers from the same undamaged CD, but the additional meta data information varied and the WAV format style varies. Of course RIFF files allow you to create optional elements that may be supported or not… so not an issue.
The offset is an interesting one… as strictly there is no start or stop of tracks on a CD… a CD is just one continuous file that is indexed via a table of contents into tracks. Therefore the stop and start of a track can slightly vary between apps and CD ROMs unless an unofficial adopted standard offset is used for a particular CD ROM transport (this is what the AccurateRip database requires)… this was why iTunes had a slightly different offset… but a few mS offset to the start and end of track is not noticeable… and this offset is relative to the whole CD, so continuous audio is not impacted with the offset with a transition of tracks.
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If you use XLD Secure Ripper on a Mac then it uses dBPowerAmp Accurate Rip database as a checker. So you can see in a report if your rip matches those made by dBPowerAmp on various platforms. So if my rips are not perfect then lots of others have identical errors. My confidence is fairly high that if different folks get identical rips across various platforms as me then my rips are not too bad.
I have done similar tests to Simon and my findings were exactly as he documents. So I see no need for an expensive bespoke ripping engine. XLD, J River MC, dBPowerAmp, EAC and even iTunes seem fine to me.
dBPowerAmp PerfectTUNES is a nice utility for checking the integrity of rips.
As for HiRes vs CD, it depends. Mostly I prefer 24 bit 96 KHz if available, but CDs sound fine to me.
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This is what I love about the Forum, one can learn and enjoy his hobby at the same time.
Thanks Zen, Simon, and Magadino: I guess my little test with itunes wasn’t that far off! Can’t recall this moment, but when I was using my MM it offered a choice. I choose the uncompressed choice, it took up more space, but I was looking for sound quality. Then I would cue up my living room system (CDX2/282) with my Family room system (Primare Pre30) < Emotiva dac < Airport Express < wireless signal < Airport Extreeme < MM < itunes.
Then I would ask my friends who wouldn’t spend $1000 on an complete system less known and CD player, could they distinguish the difference.
Of course, they couldn’t but I wasn’t concerned about their perception. I would imagine the difference I noticed could be contributed to:
A. Systems. Wired 282/ CDX2 Brik vs wireless Primare Pre 30 Vienna Acoustic Baby Grands.
B. Inferior itunes ripping mechanism.
As you can tell, I still feeling my way around this streaming format!
But leaning towards Streaming locally with convenience that it offers!
Eliminating my MM, Ripping, storing, and playing CDs as well from Naim’s Core!
When the Naim/Linn Dealer suggested that it made a little since! Especially with an Statement within the room whilst recording Albums with some sophisticated devise that would improve upon an 25K Radical within the same room!
What am I missing?
Thanks In Advance!
PS. Is this a correct statement:
I’m streaming locally from a library created by ripping CDs on my MM via itunes.
The tricky part, if I don’t own the CD. How do the 5K tunes in my library transfer to the Uniti Core?
I guess the question I’m seeking an answer for:
Can one stream to a hard disk player?
Or is an Network player necessary?
NDX2
ND555
Which I’ve been trying to eliminate from the equation😢
After going down the streaming rabbit hole thinking it was less drama vs CD, it is NOT, better yes but way too many factors to juggle.
We often hear the expression, ‘bits are bits’ which infers that as long as all bits are present and identical then 2 files will sound the same. While there’s no doubt that missing or erroneous bits will have a detrimental effect on SQ, its typically not the main reason for variations in SQ between digital files, because as your experiment showed, most ‘bit’ comparisons show a 100% match; so all those files should sound the same, if all that’s involved is bit by bit integrity.
Unfortunately for us, its not all that’s involved and from a SQ perspective while bit integrity is one key element, its by far not the only one. Let’s think about the composition of a bit stream. Essentially its a stream of voltages set to a time base. So a digital signal is nothing more that an analog signal strictly organised to a time base. The ‘bits are bits’ philosophy essentially looks at each time segment and checks whether a voltage reaches a certain threshold value. That’s all it does. It doesn’t look at how it reaches that value (rise time, overshoot etc) not does it look at when it reaches that value (the time base). But both these values are critical to sound quality…the accuracy, shape, stability and extraneous noise content of the voltage rise and the accuracy of the clock base that defines each voltage segment are absolutely key to SQ. So, its quite feasible, indeed accurate to say that the mere presence or absence of bits in a stream of bits does not in itself define SQ.
Now here’s the thing. Both voltage profile and timing are critical to SQ and both can be manipulated and improved upon. Because digital signals follow a strict pattern, anything outside of that pattern can be removed and the time base can be redefined…so a bit stream with HF noise and a lot of time variation (so-called jitter) can be improved on the fly…unlike analog and unlike most CDPs with integrated circuitry and a built-in DAC. Which begs the question, how much of an improvement can this make? And the answer is dramatic. It can make a huge difference. Further, avoiding noise generation from things like poor quality SPMPs, cables acting as antennae, vibration induced disturbance of crystal oscillators (digital clocks) etc can also have a major impact on SQ. So bits may be bits and the data files may match 100% For a computer that would be good enough. Unfortunately hi-fi is a lot more sensitive to any noise, poorly shaped voltage waves and timing issues which affect the inherent SQ of any data stream.
In my experience, a carefully optimised data stream, using good power supplies, well screened cables, vibration minimisation, noise clean-up and reclocking to remove jitter can sound better than the vast, vast majority of CD players and turntables, regardless of whether those streamed files are local or remote.
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Yes the bit are bits is often mistakenly referred. In data streams the value is determined by bit bit values and time as generated by a clock, people often seem to miss the analogue time aspect when they are referring to bit as bits in digital audio… there is therefore the likelihood of variation… typically not through the but values unless there is a catastrophic failure but variation in the ‘analogue’ element, the timing clock and its stability.
Now a file or matrix of data has no concept of time… it’s just a matrix of data… Therefore a rip recovers that matrix of data not dissimilar to how a computer file is read from a CD-ROM, albeit file formats and some other physical aspects differ.
Therefore rips can be reliably achieved with a deterministic outcome…
With no variation at all.
To turn that file structure into an asynchronous audio bit stream requires the introduction of timing… typically undertaken by a digital transport of some sort, such as the front end of a streamer, or the DAC clock in computer sound card … that is where variations come.
But you will see, these variations are nothing to do with rip of a flat file… where indeed a bit is a bit… and if it wasn’t so a massive part of mathematics would fail, and digital files, storage and computers would cease to operate.
People confuse flat static matrices with sequential series… these are two very different things… one has time and one doesn’t.
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Be warned though - it’s a slippery slope!
I too wasn’t convinced by the concept of streaming before I tried it many years ago. I had an iPod that I used to use in my car and on holiday, and decided to purchase a docking station to allow me to plug it into one of my audio systems for convenience at times when I just wanted random background music without too much interest in ultimate sound quality.
Then I was persuaded by a friend (who had a Linn Klimax Renew at the time) to give ‘proper’ streaming a try. I didn’t expect streaming to replace CD replay in my system and so I didn’t want to invest much money. I auditioned the likes of Cambridge Audio and Marantz, and ended up purchasing an ND5XS for my middle system and a Marantz NA7004 for a bedroom system. I loved the convenience, but the sound of the original ND5XS was just a little too harsh to my ears in my system - cured by adding a Chord Hugo DAC. Then when my friend upgraded I jumped at the chance to buy his Klimax Renew for my main system which was at least a much for my CD player at the time (a Shanling DCT100).
I have since upgraded to a Linn Klimax DS/1 (a different league altogether) in my main system. A Sonore microRendu/Mytek Brooklyn+ DAC with linear power supply has replaced my ND5XS/Chord Hugo in my middle system, and the Marantz remains in my bedroom system. All with access to Tidal and with Roon as the front end for each of them.
Six or seven years ago I would never have dreamt that I would go down this route, but music discovery, selection of music to play and the sound quality of the music I play is just an absolute joy nowadays. It really couldn’t get much better.
I still play LPs from time to time on my Michell Orbe and occasionally play tapes on my RT-909 reel to reel deck, although truth be said I value the RT-909 more as an ‘ornament’ now than as a music playing device.
Be very careful!
What’s the player, and where do you get your SACDs from?