How do I rip in 24bits?

[realysm42]

Was just reading up on geeky stuff and I thought I'd check what bit rate I've recorded my collection at (it's all CD btw).

It's:

44100Hz

2 channels

16 bits per sample

and at a bit rate of 1411

the codec is PCM

This is information that foobar 2000 had given me. I ripped everything using wmp's top qaulity wav format. I never saw anything about 24bits to select.

Am I missing a trick here?

Is it even possible to record something at 24bits if the source is 16. Is there any advanatge to doing so if that's the case?

In a way I'm hoping no as I've only recently ripped everything :mental:

[Welder]

The short answer is no.
You're stuck with what's on the disc.
You can force some players to utilise 24 bit depth playback which may or may not have an audible benefit.
You can given the right kit also resample your 16/44.1 to a higher bit depth and frequency.
However, all this does is guess at what might be there if it was 24/whatever.

[Stratmangler]

Should have ripped it with EAC or dbPoweramp.
WMP does not rip securely.
I wouldn't worry about 24 bits if your disc doesn't have it in the first place.

[realysm42]

Rip securely?

Also do you have experience of forcing your player to rip in 24bits for a 16bit cd? Does it make any difference?

What is a 24bit disc - a sacd?

[Welder]

You cant force a 24 bit depth rip.
What I wrote was force 24 bit depth playback.
The point of a rip is to copy exactly what is on the disc. ;)

[Stratmangler]

Rip securely?

Also do you have experience of forcing your player to rip in 24bits for a 16bit cd? Does it make any difference?

What is a 24bit disc - a sacd?

EAC will do multiple multiple reads of a chunk of data and compare the bits - if it reads the same way twice then the read gets passed as secure.

I've never forced a ripper to rip 16bit as 24bit.

As far as CD is concerned, HDCD discs contain 20bit data, and you can extract the extra bits using dbPoweramp with the DSP plugin installed.
HDCD discs are read as 24/44.1 by dbPoweramp (there are four redundant zeros added).

[realysm42]

EAC will do multiple multiple reads of a chunk of data and compare the bits - if it reads the same way twice then the read gets passed as secure.

I've never forced a ripper to rip 16bit as 24bit.

As far as CD is concerned, HDCD discs contain 20bit data, and you can extract the extra bits using dbPoweramp with the DSP plugin installed.
HDCD discs are read as 24/44.1 by dbPoweramp (there are four redundant zeros added).

Nice one; do you know how often WMP would get the reads wrong, or is it a completely random thing?

With regards to the HDCD, you'd have to purchase them specially wouldn't you, you don't get them from HMV for example?

[Welder]

I'm just going to get a bit ;)pedantic here because reading the above I think it could mislead.

You cannot rip any bit depth and frequency other than that which is on the medium you are ripping from.

You can with certain software re-sample the original rip to a different bit depth and frequency.
The difference may seem pedantic but its important. ;)

[realysm42]

I'm just going to get a bit ;)pedantic here because reading the above I think it could mislead.

You cannot rip any bit depth and frequency other than that which is on the medium you are ripping from.

You can with certain software re-sample the original rip to a different bit depth and frequency.
The difference may seem pedantic but its important. ;)

I hear you, ta.

Have you re-sampled anything and did it make it sound any better to you?

[Welder]

Yes I have.
And, no it didn't.

[bobbasrah]

Yes I have.
And, no it didn't.
+1
:rolleyes:

[Stratmangler]

HDCD is sometimes marked on a discs case, sometimes not.
And yes, you can get them from HMV.

The recent remaster of Tubular Bells is a HDCD disc, and it's marked on the case artwork.
Time Out, by The Dave Brubeck Quartet is also a HDCD disc, but there's no indication of it on the cover.

[Vincent Kars]

A ripper like dbPoweramp allows you to do almost anything you want like changing the bit depth.
Cds (Redbook audio) contains data in 16 bits word.
You can expand this to 24 but the only thing you do is adding 8 zero bits.
This by design increases your file size but won’t add any information.

If you have a DAC with 16 bits input, these additional 8 bits must be cut off at playback and your media player will probably apply dither because it thinks it is truncating true 24 bits audio.
If your DAC supports 24 bit input, your media player will append this 8 bits at playback time to 16 bit audio.
No use at all to convert to 24 when ripping.

Most ripping software does a reliable job when set to secure mode.
If you want to sure, a ripper like dbPoweramp checks the rip against the AccurateRip database and will tell you if the rip is bit perfect.
It also offers good meta data (tags).
http://thewelltemperedcomputer.com/KB/Ripping.htm

[Welder]

All true Vincent but dbpoweramp still rips to the bit depth and frequency that is present on the disc.
Everything else it may or may not do is subsequent to the original rip, ie feck all to do with ripping.

I'm making this distinction because its important to be aware that ripping or compressing to Flac are separate processes as is interpolation carried out by any software that increases the bit depth and frequency.

Given that no interpolation, or re-sampling is ever perfect then making such differentiations leaves room for that wonderful debate regarding the audibility of re-sampling errors.

[Vincent Kars]

Agreed, if there is 2 ch 16 / 44.1 on a optical disk you can only read 2 ch 16/44.1

[magiccarpetride]

Was just reading up on geeky stuff and I thought I'd check what bit rate I've recorded my collection at (it's all CD btw).

It's:

44100Hz

2 channels

16 bits per sample

and at a bit rate of 1411

the codec is PCM

This is information that foobar 2000 had given me. I ripped everything using wmp's top qaulity wav format. I never saw anything about 24bits to select.

Am I missing a trick here?

Is it even possible to record something at 24bits if the source is 16. Is there any advanatge to doing so if that's the case?

In a way I'm hoping no as I've only recently ripped everything :mental:

I was experimenting with this, using Max for Mac. I've ripped some CDs in 24-bit mode. Expectation bias kicked in, and I fancied I've heard a difference. Not major difference, just that the music seemed to flow a bit more effortlessly, that's all.

Chalk it up to those outlandish things such as me applying my mental powers to control my dog telepathically. I can do it! (and if you feel a bit skeptical about my claims, just ask my dog;)

[Welder]

I was experimenting with this, using Max for Mac. I've ripped some CDs in 24-bit mode

NO! You cant rip 24 bit depth from a 16/44.1CD ffs!

[magiccarpetride]

NO! You cant rip 24 bit depth from a 16/44.1CD ffs!

I know, I know. But I have, in principle, serious personal problem with authorities (don't ask), so I did it anyway regardless of the fact that I was breaking the law!

Sue me...

[morris_minor]

I know, I know. But I have, in principle, serious personal problem with authorities (don't ask), so I did it anyway regardless of the fact that I was breaking the law!

Sue me...

:scratch: Am I missing some hidden meaning here? A CD will only ever give 16 bit quality no matter what the rip is upsampled to. Did someone mention polishing and turds ? :rolleyes:

[bobbasrah]

Or could it be that some DAC implementations favour 24bit, 48/96 etc signal feeds?

Having always ripped as source from digital, it has never seemed valid to do otherwise.
I have misgivings with the idea of interpolation and resampling as it is not what was recorded, but it is an increasingly common design incorporation in devices nowadays.

[roob]

Am I missing some hidden meaning here? A CD will only ever give 16 bit quality no matter what the rip is upsampled to. Did someone mention polishing and turds ?
The clue is in the posters signature;)

[morris_minor]

The clue is in the posters signature;)

Ah - I have signatures turned off! Some are longer than the posts :lol:

[nat8808]

I know, I know. But I have, in principle, serious personal problem with authorities (don't ask), so I did it anyway regardless of the fact that I was breaking the law!

Sue me...

Hehe... I think you've miss-understood what Welder meant, I'm sure he doesn't care if other people break the law or not (well.... you know what I mean).

He's saying that if you 'rip' CD with a 24 bit recorder, all you get is a 16 bit recording with all the other bits that make up the extra detail of 24 bit completely empty with no data whatsoever.

Ripping a 16 bit CD in 24 bit and hearing a difference should be the definitive test of the placebo effect in hifi.

May as well have swapped cables by taking your old ones, giving them to someone, they hand them back to you but tell you they are now better, and you plug them back in. Then you go "yeah, they sound better! Thanks! err.. how much do I owe?" (of course the madness would set in and on a forum somewhere this would be discussed and the conclusion would be that the heat from the other guy's hands changed the properties of the cables etc etc and there would be a craze for handing cables to friends or chains of friends or alternating genders of friends blah blah blah).

[nat8808]

Was just reading up on geeky stuff and I thought I'd check what bit rate I've recorded my collection at (it's all CD btw).

It's:

44100Hz

2 channels

16 bits per sample

and at a bit rate of 1411

the codec is PCM

This is information that foobar 2000 had given me. I ripped everything using wmp's top qaulity wav format. I never saw anything about 24bits to select.

Am I missing a trick here?

Is it even possible to record something at 24bits if the source is 16. Is there any advanatge to doing so if that's the case?

In a way I'm hoping no as I've only recently ripped everything :mental:

I think the trick you are missing is based around the word 'rip'.

It ends up meaning different things to different people as people refer to digitising vinyl as 'ripping' too.

Once something is in the digital domain, the data is stuck at the rates at which it is digitised, effectively. You have a CD which is 16/44.1 and the data will always be 16/44.1 in general terms.

I'm being very simple here. You can change the bit rate and the sampling frequency but essentially the data is still at 16/44.1 even if the data is re-calculated to fit the other formats.

Think of digital as arriving in different formats. Its initial format is the one that determines the 'quality' even if you then convert it into another format later..

Change a .raw into a .jpg and then a .gif and the photo is still the same, still has the same maximum possible quality when it was first digitaly taken and recorded as a .raw (the photo equivalent of a .wav).

However, when people talk about ripping vinyl then they are talking about casting that first digital representation of the analogue record in digital stone. At this first stage the bit-rate and sample frequency does matter and you will generally get better results the higher they are. This confusion of terms may have people thinking the same way about both kinds of 'ripping'.

Ripping should only refer to the copying of digital to your hard-drive or some other unauthorised digital copying and is kind of wrong in the vinyl context.

Maybe you are thinking of upsampling which is where the 16/44.1 audio IS converted to higher rates (again the actual data still only represents 16/44.1 quality) and is played using these higher rate capabilities of a DAC.

People think that upsampling does sound better (I've never heard it) but there's no real explaination as to why it should - dCS (used to make studio digital equipment, now only super expensive hifi) did some research into it in the mid 90s and could only just say that it does sound better but they don't know why..

You could convert your CD rips to 24/96 to save upsampling on the fly but they'll take up so much space in comparison it's not worth it (unless your DAC can't upsample - many cheap DAC chips can these days).

Changing the format of digital files is, on the data level, quite complicated and requires sophisticated algorythms to get right. I wouldn't trust something free like Winamp or any general consumer software engineer to get an algorthym like that right, only copy other people's basic work. It's normally top studio/pro manufacturers that put the time into the research of algorythms like that. Some say Merging Technologies' Pyramix software is the best which is an equivalent to Pro-Tools: £4000 software on £6000 hardware.

[nat8808]

As far as CD is concerned, HDCD discs contain 20bit data, and you can extract the extra bits using dbPoweramp with the DSP plugin installed.
HDCD discs are read as 24/44.1 by dbPoweramp (there are four redundant zeros added).

I'd disagree here... Think there's some confusion.

HDCD data is still 16 bit 44.1KHz data.

If you rip an HDCD digital -> digital, you will get a perfect copy of an HDCD which will then still give the 20-bit equivalent when the DSP is used and played through a DAC of 20 bits and over.

The way HDCD works is that a 20-bit recording is processed in a certain, clever way and converted to 16 bit data. This data is still read by a non-HDCD CD player in the normal way but 1 bit of it appears as random noise at the lowest volume level with only 15 bits coming through as music. (In theory, HDCD should sound slightly worse than a normal CD if the HDCD part isn't used).

When processed by an HDCD player, this 1 bit of noise is used by the processor to recreate the original 20 bit recording mathematically in the digital domain before then being sent to a DAC. (Actually, HDCD only reproduces about 19 bits..)

So, you can see that if you just rip the data off the CD then it will still be in this 16 bit format ready to be decoded by an HDCD dac directly or dbPoweramp will convert it to be played by ANY dac.

All ripping does is move the exact same data from a CD to a hard-drive. Put a CD in a cardboard box and the data is still the same.. it's just now inside a cardboard box. When the data is copied from the CD to a hard-drive it is still the same data... it's just now on a hard-drive instead.

You seem to be thinking that you'd need to re-digitise this HDCD decoded version into a new 20-bit format. Again, you could if you wanted... but why not just let dbPoweramp do it on the fly from the original ripped data?

(P.S. I didn't know, or hadn't thought about it, that you could get software HDCD decoding.. thanks for the tip!)

[morris_minor]

May as well have swapped cables by taking your old ones, giving them to someone, they hand them back to you but tell you they are now better, and you plug them back in. Then you go "yeah, they sound better! Thanks! err.. how much do I owe?" (of course the madness would set in and on a forum somewhere this would be discussed and the conclusion would be that the heat from the other guy's hands changed the properties of the cables etc etc and there would be a craze for handing cables to friends or chains of friends or alternating genders of friends blah blah blah).

:lol:. I think there's a lot of truth in this, Nat! Beware the snake-oil evangelists :)