View Full Version : Sound quality: is this possible?
Last night I did a direct comparison of the sound quality on a couple of Kate Bush songs: vinyl on the TT, cd in the player, and ripped flac of the same CD from hard drive via toslink. I tried to synchronise all 3 reasonably successfully. The vinyl and the flac were both great, though subtly different. The CD sound was always poorer, sometimes just more muddied. Is this possible? Seems to me the CD and the flac should sound the same!
Look to the variables - the CD player ahs an analogue output stage which I'm guessing you are not using when playing the flac unless you are using the DAC in the CD player to replay the flac file?
Why not consider using a different/another CD player if this troubles you. Otherwise accept these things happen.
Did you enjoy the music and in what order did you play the three sources? Try changing the order maybe. Play the changes.
You are lucky you can remember what a piece of kit sounds like (enough to compare) for more than a few minutes and that all outside sound is constant.
No, using separate DAC. :doh: Ah . . . light dawns. Crap CD player DAC! Would have thought the CD transport was better than the one in the laptop I ripped with though. Or does that just not matter?
Yes Alan, I enjoyed the music, although I don't want to hear it again for a while! Listened to two tracks in every order of player, result with CD player always the same. Synthi-drums seemed to bugger up the CD player most, BTW.
awkwardbydesign
28-05-2015, 08:09
My system does the opposite; CD better than rips. Different DACs, I believe. And if I take the output directly from the Squeezebox Duet's DAC, different again. LPs sound best here. Also different ICs, which make an audible difference in my system.
No, using separate DAC. :doh: Ah . . . light dawns. Crap CD player DAC! Would have thought the CD transport was better than the one in the laptop I ripped with though. Or does that just not matter?
the transport probably is but its dac is probably crap. they often are. as for ripping then much depends what you used program wise but some like eac have the ability to compensate . cd players do as well so transport wise the cd would likely be ok so the dac would be at fault
If you ripped using something like EAC, the ripping process will have corrected a lot of the errors which are always generated in the process of reading the data stream off the disk. It does this by doing multiple passes where errors are encountered, so the ripped data will always be less corrupted than a live stream from a CD player.
I remember comparing 'Hounds Of Love' on CD and vinyl when it was first released - first pressings on both formats. The sound was very similar (mid price system), the only real difference being a little bit of gentle gain-riding (not compression) in the vinyl cut, the loud bits slightly less 'loud' and the quieter parts slightly boosted. I think Chris Blair did the vinyl mastering and seem to remember he has a good reputation...
I can't understand why more CD players didn't have buffers on them, to collect the data off the disc and then clock it out correctly. I suspect in the OP's case, the CD player may not 'sound' as good as the computer sound card. I have the opposite in the workroom system, where the old M-Audio 24/96 soundcard via 2.4m Belkin ic's is a bit 'dead' and 'muted' sounding compared to the Denon 1520 used either as a stand alone player via van Damme or Atratus1, or optical via the ton-up twin-supply Digit Opto outputting through NVA T.I.S ic's.
Clive197
28-05-2015, 10:23
As both Marco and I have commented previously, a ripped version of the same CD does sound better when streamed. I have read a number of explanations for this and I think the one about jitter seems to make the most sense.
In my own system CD's and Streamed music are both played by the same type of digital cable into the same DAC.
As both Marco and I have commented previously, a ripped version of the same CD does sound better when streamed. I have read a number of explanations for this and I think the one about jitter seems to make the most sense.
In my own system CD's and Streamed music are both played by the same type of digital cable into the same DAC.
Hmm - not my experience of comparing RPi2/IQDAC+ playing EAC ripped WAV off NAS with original CD playing in a Naim CDI, original CD in CDP was considerably better. I think the results will be very system dependant.
Richard
Won't be error corrections since once read errors are corrected there will be no difference to the wave form. The idea that error correction affects the sound quality
of a cd player is a myth.
Also unlilkely to be jitter, more likely to be something to do with the analogue output stage of the cd player or the power supplies adding noise/distortion.
This would also explain why the rips sound better than the CD player for some and not for others. If jitter was the cause the lower jitter system would always be preferred and clearly it isn't.
Always found ripped CD,s sound better than direct from CD player but regarding Kate - Vinyl wins hands down!
Clive197
28-05-2015, 14:13
......
Also unlilkely to be jitter, more likely to be something to do with the analogue output stage of the cd player or the power supplies adding noise/distortion.
This would also explain why the rips sound better than the CD player for some and not for others. If jitter was the cause the lower jitter system would always be preferred and clearly it isn't.
The flaw in that comment in the case of my own system is that my CD player is a transport only as is effectively the streamer so everything stays in the digital domain hence no analogue output stage until after my Pre DAC.
Ali Tait
28-05-2015, 14:40
Always found ripped CD,s sound better than direct from CD player but regarding Kate - Vinyl wins hands down!
The best sounding vinyl always beats any digital to my ears.
Audio Advent
28-05-2015, 15:16
What was the album by the way?
My original CD of the Red Shoes sounds bad compared to it on tape. Not all CDs and vinyl are the same even when released simultaniously, especially back in the earlier days of digital. Bush herself was always disatisfied with the sound quality of those 90s albums too apparently, having used early digital equipment that she didn't really like in retrospect.
I've a CD re-issue of Hounds of Love taken from the original masters. You can hear the imprinting from the tape having been in storage all those years - before a song starts you hear it begin to play very very faintly first in the background before it starts, like you're hearing an imprint on the tape from the layer below it on the reel. Also happens on a re-master of The Doors. Too faint to here during the main track but it will be there also - wonder how that effects one's perception as a whole, if at all.
The flaw in that comment in the case of my own system is that my CD player is a transport only as is effectively the streamer so everything stays in the digital domain hence no analogue output stage until after my Pre DAC.
Different transports do sound different into the same DAC though. So it could be that there is a transport out there that will sound better than your streamer but you haven't tried it.
Won't be error corrections since once read errors are corrected there will be no difference to the wave form. The idea that error correction affects the sound quality
of a cd player is a myth.
That may not be strictly true ;) It depends on how the drive handles C2 errors. This is the reason EAC works, it can perform analysis on the reported C2 error and correct it where the drive may fail to do so and simply raise the C2 error flag and pass on the data regardless.
That may not be strictly true ;) It depends on how the drive handles C2 errors. This is the reason EAC works, it can perform analysis on the reported C2 error and correct it where the drive may fail to do so and simply raise the C2 error flag and pass on the data regardless.
And what is the chance of that causing the consistent and repeatable deterioration in audible sound quality (compared to streaming) that people are reporting? I'd guess slim to none.
You may guess wrong. Audio CD transports may not have the error correction features you seem to put so much faith in...probably there is no way to tell in reality. BTW not everybody is reporting streaming is better...
Clive197
28-05-2015, 16:13
You may guess wrong. Audio CD transports may not have the error correction features you seem to put so much faith in...probably there is no way to tell in reality. BTW not everybody is reporting streaming is better...
In fairness you will never get 100% of people to agree 100% of the time. Life has far too many variables.............Oops! I seem to getting philosophical in my old age.
Yes, Sam - Hounds of Love, original vinyl from the first week of release. CD does indeed have "print through" - fainter than Led Zep though!
Audio Advent
29-05-2015, 17:57
"print through" - that's the term I was searching for.
Wonder how the original CD compares to the original vinyl in an ideal world. Probably the re-issue is the better CD (and includes some great B-side tracks).
Stratmangler
30-05-2015, 13:36
"print through" - that's the term I was searching for.
Wonder how the original CD compares to the original vinyl in an ideal world. Probably the re-issue is the better CD (and includes some great B-side tracks).
I hate it when additional tracks get shoehorned onto a CD just to fill the disc up.
It usually gets pushed out with the phrase "bonus material", when in actual fact its addition (the additional material) dilutes the impact of the original album.
If they're going to put bonus material out with the release, at least stick it on another disc, and then the listener can choose whether or not to play the additional disc.
Maybe I'm a bit old fashioned in this respect ....
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