Ripping Guide

[drpetar]

You're welcome, пак заповядай.

[Jankoff]

OK, but what about the "long answer" to the question? Any negative effects on sound? Or possibility for such effects? Why do some or even many people think "exact copy" software should be used? I continue to listen and do not find any deviations. But I might turn out wrong. Here we are after "best possible sound", not just "some copy", right?

[drpetar]

The music on CDs is written in specific .cda format. You can not use this format directly for file based audio. First you should extract the files from CDs and convert them in WAV format (or any other losless or lossy format like ALAC, FLAC, APE, MP3 etc.). That's why you need a specific software program like Exact Audio Copy, dbPoweramp etc. The sound quality depends on how accurate this extraction is performed by the software and that's why using a quality ripping program with the correct settings is essential for the SQ.

Once the extraction is made and the music is transferred into WAV etc. format, the files can be treated as any other files and can be copied (with copy-paste function of any file manager) over and over again without any SQ loss, because the copies will be identical.

Of course it is just IMHO

[struth]

+1To above.. JRiver is also a very good option. EAC wont work on my win 8 pc so ive reverted to jriver. Have to say i cant here any difference... Foobar2000 is a good free option and latest version is a lot simpler to set up.

[Jankoff]

(1) The music on CDs is written in specific .cda format. You can not use this format directly for file based audio. First you should extract the files from CDs and convert them in WAV format (or any other losless or lossy format like ALAC, FLAC, APE, MP3 etc.). That's why you need a specific software program like Exact Audio Copy, dbPoweramp etc. The sound quality depends on how accurate this extraction is performed by the software and that's why using a quality ripping program with the correct settings is essential for the SQ.

(2) Once the extraction is made and the music is transferred into WAV etc. format, the files can be treated as any other files and can be copied (with copy-paste function of any file manager) over and over again without any SQ loss, because the copies will be identical. Of course it is just IMHO

I have no problem with the first part (1). But the second part (2) is very interesting in terms of the assumption that "the [wav] files can be treated as any other files and can be copied (with copy-paste function of any file manager) over and over again without any SQ loss, because the copies will be identical." At least as far as my knowledge goes, it is widely accepted that every subsequent copy of wav files on a CD-R is worse than the previous one - the best copy is the first one, the second one, made from the first one, is worse, etc., etc. There have been many demonstrations of this - and I have heard some, where every subsequent copy is slightly worse that the previous one. And this is clearly audible! And, say, the 20th copy is absolutely clearly MUCH worse than the 1st or 2nd copy. Having in mind that the laser-made holes and the non-holes in the CD-R represent nothing more than the ones and zeros of the recording, what is it that makes every subsequent copy worse? Jitter? But can jitter be induced in the process of copying the file? It ought to arise only as a result of the quality of the disk player, i.e., its ability to correctly read the ones and the zeros, the quality of the transfer to analogue, etc., and the ones and the zeros are supposedly the same. Thus if we take it that copying wav files does lead to a drop in quality when files are copied onto CD-R, what is it that prevents a drop in quality when wav files are copied from a hdd onto another hdd?

OK, I am a layman in the technical sphere and furthermore I may be missing or misunderstanding something. Still I strongly hesitate to believe that copying wav files onto hdd is totally different from copying wav files onto CD-R. And hence problem-free SQ-wise ...

[mikmas]

CD-Rs do not have 'pits' - they use a dye technique outlined below (from Wikipedia)

"The blank disc has a pre-groove track onto which the data are written. The pre-groove track, which also contains timing information, ensures that the recorder follows the same spiral path as a conventional CD. A CD recorder writes data to a CD-R disc by pulsing its laser to heat areas of the organic dye layer. The writing process does not produce indentations (pits); instead, the heat permanently changes the optical properties of the dye, changing the reflectivity of those areas. Using a low laser power, so as not to further alter the dye, the disc is read back in the same way as a CD-ROM. However, the reflected light is modulated not by pits, but by the alternating regions of heated and unaltered dye. The change of the intensity of the reflected laser radiation is transformed into an electrical signal, from which the digital information is recovered ("decoded"). "
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CD-R

Unfortunately written CD-Rs can degrade over time and/or produce inaccuracies which can then be passed on to subsequent copies. Also the process of converting data from one format to another doesn't help.

[drpetar]

...Still I strongly hesitate to believe that copying wav files onto hdd is totally different from copying wav files onto CD-R...

But it is As far as I know copying WAV files from one HDD to another HDD (or from one path into another path of the same HDD) and burning to CD-R are quite different processes.

[struth]

A burned cd is also just that...burned. Its very likely to contain faults...a real cd is a different process. Flac or alac is best especially if you want metadata attached

[Jankoff]

Thank you mikmas, drpetar, struth. Let me make my point in another way. Surely, burning a CD-R and writing onto hdd are different processes. But the result is the same: ones and zeros, whether the ones are indentations, or different color, or whatever. A CD player in a computer, due to its slow speed, is, of course, incapable of extracting music of the same audio quality as the hdd (provided the PC output is USB signal fed into a good USB interface, M2Tech-like or Asynch-1-like, then into a good DAC and henceforward into a good analogue section). So I am not comparing sound quality from a CD-R disk played by a CD/DVD-ROM in a computer to sound quality from a hdd. What I mean is, and this is based on my personal experience, while there is a big difference between a recording on an ordinary CD-R and a recording on a good CD-R Audio disk in the sense that they perform differently on a good HiFi/HiEnd setup with a good CD player and other components, I do not find any difference in SQ between music ripped from a low quality CD-R and a very good CD-R Audio disk (or a matrix audio CD for that matter) when these are played from a hdd through a USB interface etc. (see above). At least so far I haven't. Would be curious to see if you have similar experience - or different. Apart from a PC, I have been using the well-known M2Tech Hiface Evo One setup: M2Tech Evo Power Supply + M2Tech Evo Clock High End Word-Clock-Generator + M2Tech HiFace Evo 24Bit/192kHz USB-Interface with high-class cables (DIY) throughout, then follows a very good setup with Hi-End-ish components. The source part of the system thus described (PC+M2Tech Evo) beats the hell out of the analogous source with a Hi-End CD Transport - DAC combo. To cut the long story short, within a period of some three years I have become fully convinced that at the heart of a really good HiFi/HiEnd setup is a computer with a hdd, followed by a quality USB-interface. In such a system, in which the quality of the USB-interface, the DAC and the cables is axiomatic, the essential thing is now to obtain the best possible quality of the hdd files. Hence my question. For the time being I cannot hear a difference between wav files originally ripped onto a hdd and wav files copied from one hdd onto another in the standard way (copy-paste). But further listening might prove otherwise.

[struth]

I used to stream from my laptop via an async converter and dac. I now do it via a RPI/Dac ... I still rip to flac via my laptop but the rpi s far superior in simplicity and sound quality,.... cheaper too