Computer Audio: confusing, complicated, & INCONVENIENT. About MUSIC or inner nerd?

[Windows X]

I don't think a study of digital media is going to reveal that optical transports all have lower jitter and noise levels, much less that they have faster access times than flash.

You don't need to study all that to know it. Just a bit of google may help you find some facts (Still, without proper self-studies, you can't really say you're knowledgeable about it).

http://www.hydrogenaud.io/forums/index.php?showtopic=45661

Stating it has < 65ms access time which is hundreds of times lower than magnetic disk drive. But since there's SSD having 30-100ms access time. This issue is gone for SSD but just for this part. As for the rest, I doubt you'll accept it knowing that you have no background knowledge about it so it's your job not mine for further study IF you're interested to know.

And the slot-fed optical drive in your laptop is completely irrelevant if you rip properly.

Try to study more about good ripping drive. Plextor Premium 2 isn't one of the best studio mastering drive just for the show. If you fail to realize how good quality drive affects ripping quality, it's your own problem to decide whether you want to correct it or not. It doesn't trouble me one bit if someone believe AccuraterRip saying it's perfect means it's perfect despite the fact that database has 30 offset too high.

You're not playing CDs from that drive are you?

Looks like you don't get it. What I meant to tell you is I have both average joe drive and one of the best drive. Doing the same tests on both and got the same result. Ripped from cheap drive and played comparing to cheap drive, cheap drive wins. Ripped from Plextor Premium 2 drive and played comparing to Plextor Premium 2 drive, Plextor Premium 2 drive wins. To make it more clear, one of my friend did some simple tests in highend shop. He connects his laptop to Esoteric K-03 using USB input and play CD from laptop's drive through computer using basic player comparing to ripped track. Everyone agrees how simple playback on simple drive in laptop can easily outperform ripped ones and his journey of hiend file transport ended there. Now he's using dCS Paganini set and looking for parts to build cheap PC audio that sounds good for budget.

 

[mojave]

Stating it has < 65ms access time which is hundreds of times lower than magnetic disk drive. But since there's SSD having 30-100ms access time. This issue is gone for SSD but just for this part.

You aren't making much sense regarding access time. An SSD has an access time of .1ms or less. A magnetic platter drive (hard drive) of 10-12 ms. Plextor lists their current CD drive as having 130 ms access time for CD.

This explains access time:

The access time for an optical drive is measured the same way as for PC hard disk drives. In other words, the access time is the delay between the drive receiving the command to read and its actual first reading of a bit of data. Access rates quoted by many manufacturers are an average taken by calculating a series of random reads from a disc.

Also, some playback software lets you decode the files, store them in memory, and then start playback. This eliminates any issues of differences between where the media is originally stored and even the file format it is stored in like FLAC, WAV, etc.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Yes "everyone agrees" is the metric we should all use. I'm struggling a bit with your language, but not the concepts. I don't think I've seen you present anything to back up your assertions.

 

[TBone]

Yep. Redbook is hi-res. Higher sampling rates are overrated and over-sold in audiophile circles.

Totally agree, and easily proven ...

 

[Windows X]

Looks like information about SSD I acquired was out-dated. Thanks for clarifying that. However, optical media still has more benefits of less jitter, no electric noise in data transfer, even conventional dvd drive can be measured and proven as I said before.

Stop being stuck in your own system, go outside, bring your laptop, and ask modern hifi shop to test your drive and ripped file on their CD's USB input. Those who did usually ended up with the same conclusion as I said before. There's no way ripped content from the CD drive can have better performance than playing that drive itself. Yeah, everyone agrees on things they never bother to try. They think their systems are good enough for good reference and can't bring themselves to test their judgements with real hifi CD users/shops.

As for memory playback will eliminate the difference of storage, there's JPLAY users and also J River users stated back then that eventhough they use memory playback feature. However, they can still hear the difference between storage like playing from solid state/HDD and USB2/USB3/SATA. The developers couldn't explain why. Some even labeled it as placebo effects.

Memory playback is nothing but cheap anti jitter trick. You fill contents to memory buffer and hope that buffer as better storage will eliminate all issues from original storage. Too bad that doesn't work like that. We used to have RAM buffer in CD players back in 90s and that ended up in failure to resolve jitter issues.

Looks like everyone forgot that there's anti-skip buffer in Walkman days too. We have memory buffer that store read data in cache and the longer we increase buffer time, the worse sound quality is. Because those people want to believe that there's no jitter added when filling into buffer, let alone eliminating it.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Looks like information about SSD I acquired was out-dated.

Or perhaps it was never accurate in the first place.

However, optical media still has more benefits of less jitter, no electric noise in data transfer, even conventional dvd drive can be measured and proven as I said before.

Proof and measurements are readily available, I'm sure. Where? Got links?

Stop being stuck in your own system, go outside, bring your laptop, and ask modern hifi shop to test your drive and ripped file on their CD's USB input. Those who did usually ended up with the same conclusion as I said before. There's no way ripped content from the CD drive can have better performance than playing that drive itself. Yeah, everyone agrees on things they never bother to try. They think their systems are good enough for good reference and can't bring themselves to test their judgements with real hifi CD users/shops.

I'm going to plug my laptop into their CD's USB input? That should be interesting.

Actually, there are a few measurable, quantifiable ways that ripped files can be better. But you first. Measurements; Independently verified results pointing to the superiority of the optical drive. Unless you want to stick with the "everybody agrees" metric.

Tim

 

[Windows X]

Before asking for jitter measurements (which I know you're going to ask for this), do you even know what kind of jitter do you want to measure? For example, mind to tell me kinds of jitter they're talking about in these two links?

http://www.plextoramericas.com/index.php/forum/18-plexutilities/7670-plexutilities-cd-testing
http://www.monarchyaudio.com/Monarchy_Music_Server.htm

Do you know what DC jitter is? Can you classify the difference between random jitter and periodic jitter? Can you tell how async USB handles random and periodic jitter? Do you know what TE/FE measurements in there is? Do you know how to make measurements comparison in HDD/SSD? If you can answer me all that, I can make a scope for what to do with oscilloscope to make measurements. But if you can't make a clear answer, I don't know what measure or whether I have tools to do it. I'm tired with pseudoscience and I don't plan to do those hard work just to please people I don't even know if they know what they're talking about so I hope you could assure me with that minimum requirements at least, Tim.

As for 'everyone agrees' metric, you accept to use the database that have 30 offset too high and creator claimed it's only little to do for being called 'accuraterip'? Oh man, I feel lost here with everyone's metric. Why don't we jump to 256-320kbps music in iPhone as everyone agrees to use that and be content with? Well, let me know the results if you're actually willing to try comparing between slotin drive and ripped file from your laptop plugged to either Esoteric K-0x/Emm Labs XDS/whatever that have USB audio input.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Before asking for jitter measurements (which I know you're going to ask for this), do you even know what kind of jitter do you want to measure? For example, mind to tell me kinds of jitter they're talking about in these two links?

You made the claims; assertions presented as facts. I'm just asking you for anything you've got to back up your assertions. Anything?

I'm tired with pseudoscience and I don't plan to do those hard work just to please people I don't even know if they know what they're talking about so I hope you could assure me with that minimum requirements at least, Tim.

I didn't think so...

Tim

 

[Windows X]

Then what kind of jitter do you want to see for measurements? What I'm asking is for setting up the scope of measurements. I made claims but you also made yours that optical disc is inferior and ripped track can sound better than actual disc drive so we need to setup the agreement of what and where to verify. Now tell me. What kind of jitter and where should we measure to find the proof. So I can think of measurement method and see if I can find required tools to perform the experiments. f you don't know about jitter stuff for real then honestly tell me so I can think of different method to find the proper conclusion.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Then what kind of jitter do you want to see for measurements? What I'm asking is for setting up the scope of measurements. I made claims but you also made yours that optical disc is inferior and ripped track can sound better than actual disc drive so we need to setup the agreement of what and where to verify. Now tell me. What kind of jitter and where should we measure to find the proof. So I can think of measurement method and see if I can find required tools to perform the experiments. f you don't know about jitter stuff for real then honestly tell me so I can think of different method to find the proper conclusion.

My only claim is very easy to demonstrate -- I have CDs that have obvious errors, not subtle noise or distortion, but clicks, pops, skips -- when I ripped these CDs to my drive, the error correction software re-read the data until the error was repaired on the ripped version. Pops, skips, go away. I call that better. Any one who has ripped a sizeable collection will have had the same experience.

Back to you -- you came into a thread about computer audio making unspecified, unsubstantiated claims that optical drives are lower in noise, lower in jitter, and faster in data retrieval than any computer used as a source. I'm just asking you to back that up with whatever you've got. You seem to want me to tell you what evidence to present. It's not my case; it's yours. Make it. Use whatever "jitter stuff" supports your argument. I'll try to keep up.

Tim

 

[JackD201]

I have CDs that have obvious errors, not subtle noise or distortion, but clicks, pops, skips --

Tim

You play frisbee and use your CDs as coasters?

FWIW Drive play isn't perfect. There are some basic requirements that need to be aware of to avoid annoying latency in both command and play. Especially when the library becomes very large.

 

[Windows X]

My only claim is very easy to demonstrate -- I have CDs that have obvious errors, not subtle noise or distortion, but clicks, pops, skips -- when I ripped these CDs to my drive, the error correction software re-read the data until the error was repaired on the ripped version. Pops, skips, go away. I call that better. Any one who has ripped a sizeable collection will have had the same experience.

Back to you -- you came into a thread about computer audio making unspecified, unsubstantiated claims that optical drives are lower in noise, lower in jitter, and faster in data retrieval than any computer used as a source. I'm just asking you to back that up with whatever you've got. You seem to want me to tell you what evidence to present. It's not my case; it's yours. Make it. Use whatever "jitter stuff" supports your argument. I'll try to keep up.

Tim

1. optical media uses laser reading and we all know light is the fastest so the jitter issue iself lies to CD and drive's sensor and mechanism to ensure the accuracy of reading the perfect pulse. But in SSD, it depends on medium and electricity that sends it which is obviously slower than speed of light and has marginal variation that can cause more jitter than CD itself. So the process of retrieving information to drive's controller from CD has less jitter than from SSD's chip.

2. In SSD, it uses electric that isn't as fast as speed of light and EMI/RFI can affect signal reading. Not to mention there's ripple current from power source that can affect signal transfer directly unlike CD that uses laser reading. While we still get correct 0 and 1, it doesn't lie exactly the same time domain. SSD maybe more reliable to get the right data over time but CD is better at sending the very same data to the right time.

3. For future studies about digital audio, you can start with this paper http://www.linkwitzlab.com/dCS_Guide_to_Computer_Audio(2).pdf at timing data section. That should provide some insights for starters.

So will you go to hifi shop with your laptop and test what I tested here or you'll remain here waiting for chance to continue this groundless debate with zero motivation to do the experiment like most pseudoscience experts did? If you did like I've just told you, you should be able to find the conclusion quite immediately and come back to tell us the result. We started this argument because you claimed 'It takes no confidence at all to know that sometimes files ripped to my hard drive are better than they are on the discs they came from, because sometimes, that process corrects obvious errors that no transport can remove from the optical disc.'. Remember that.

Or you can play your ripped file through Esoteric D1's USB input and compare to to Esoteric P1 instead of your laptop slotin drive directly if you're confident enough to show that file is superior to plastic disc no matter what kind it is.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

1. optical media uses laser reading and we all know light is the fastest so the jitter issue iself lies to CD and drive's sensor and mechanism to ensure the accuracy of reading the perfect pulse. But in SSD, it depends on medium and electricity that sends it which is obviously slower than speed of light and has marginal variation that can cause more jitter than CD itself. So the process of retrieving information to drive's controller from CD has less jitter than from SSD's chip.

2. In SSD, it uses electric that isn't as fast as speed of light and EMI/RFI can affect signal reading. Not to mention there's ripple current from power source that can affect signal transfer directly unlike CD that uses laser reading. While we still get correct 0 and 1, it doesn't lie exactly the same time domain. SSD maybe more reliable to get the right data over time but CD is better at sending the very same data to the right time.

3. For future studies about digital audio, you can start with this paper http://www.linkwitzlab.com/dCS_Guide_to_Computer_Audio(2).pdf at timing data section. That should provide some insights for starters.

So will you go to hifi shop with your laptop and test what I tested here or you'll remain here waiting for chance to continue this groundless debate with zero motivation to do the experiment like most pseudoscience experts did? If you did like I've just told you, you should be able to find the conclusion quite immediately and come back to tell us the result. We started this argument because you claimed 'It takes no confidence at all to know that sometimes files ripped to my hard drive are better than they are on the discs they came from, because sometimes, that process corrects obvious errors that no transport can remove from the optical disc.'. Remember that.

Or you can play your ripped file through Esoteric D1's USB input and compare to to Esoteric P1 instead of your laptop slotin drive directly if you're confident enough to show that file is superior to plastic disc no matter what kind it is.

That's not where this discussion began, but I stand by it. A song that plays all the way through without obvious read errors is still superior to one that clicks, ticks and skips. And you still have not provided anything to support your argument for the sonic superiority of the optical disc. Yes, light moves faster than electricity. And this results in superior sound how? Demonstrated by what?

Tim

 

[Vincent Kars]

ad 1
If the fact that light is used as a transport mechanism guaranteed the lowest possible jitter then Toslink should be the superior transport method. As we know it isn’t.
Obvious the circuits driving the transport generates the jitter not the transport method being light or electrons.

ad 2
If using a PC would mean a real-time stream between a storage medium and a DAC it would make sense but this is exactly how a PC don’t work.
All data is read from storage and stored in memory. From this buffer in memory it is spooled to the audio device. All this is asynchronous making the jitter performance of the storage totally irrelevant.

Ad 3
Do you really think the description of jitter at page 6 makes sense?

 

[Windows X]

That's not where this discussion began, but I stand by it. A song that plays all the way through without obvious read errors is still superior to one that clicks, ticks and skips. And you still have not provided anything to support your argument for the sonic superiority of the optical disc. Yes, light moves faster than electricity. And this results in superior sound how? Demonstrated by what?

Tim

Dude, did you ever hear pops and clicks on most CDs you played? I don't. My CDs collection is well kept and never have issue with it for since 5 years at least. Only damaged CD or broken drive will have that issue. So please scrap the idea of CD reading more error than disk if both played just fine. I haven't seen any proof from you too claiming how ripped content from disc can be better than the original. I usually see the other way around here. And I didn't make a debate with you from groundless talk. I have normal slotin drive, I have one of the best studio drive, I tried many apps and configuration for optimal ripping, I tested with many hiend sources and systems. And I said from my tests and conclusions that I disagreed your claims.

ad 1
If the fact that light is used as a transport mechanism guaranteed the lowest possible jitter then Toslink should be the superior transport method. As we know it isn’t.
Obvious the circuits driving the transport generates the jitter not the transport method being light or electrons.

Do you know toslink is one kind of optical media and there's ST Link used in media professionals and many hiend sources like Emm Labs/Weiss/Wadia/etc. as recommended connection over AES/Coaxial?

ad 2
If using a PC would mean a real-time stream between a storage medium and a DAC it would make sense but this is exactly how a PC don’t work.
All data is read from storage and stored in memory. From this buffer in memory it is spooled to the audio device. All this is asynchronous making the jitter performance of the storage totally irrelevant.

It's people who made that claim being irrelevant. Like I said pages back, some people perceived the difference between storage even with JPLAY/J River's memory playback. Maybe it's placebo? Yeah? What about different memory management engine in JPLAY causing different sound? CD players in 90s used to introduce this concepts but it failed to eliminate jitter. Then masterclock was introduced by Esoteric as new concept to reduce jitter with same clock sync. Memory playback or buffered asynchronous reading may eliminate random jitter but it does make periodic jitter becoming worse and you need to manage jitter threshold for managing periodic jitter that causes different problems.

Ad 3
Do you really think the description of jitter at page 6 makes sense?

Page 6? Did you mean page in dCS? I don't recall saying that will explain anything jitter. I said it's about digital audio and basic understandings for starters. If they want to fully understand about jitter, go take data communications 101 course like I did. I also took computer architecture and design and also Operating System just in case.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Dude, did you ever hear pops and clicks on most CDs you played? I don't. My CDs collection is well kept and never have issue with it for since 5 years at least. Only damaged CD or broken drive will have that issue. So please scrap the idea of CD reading more error than disk if both played just fine. I haven't seen any proof from you too claiming how ripped content from disc can be better than the original. I usually see the other way around here. And I didn't make a debate with you from groundless talk. I have normal slotin drive, I have one of the best studio drive, I tried many apps and configuration for optimal ripping, I tested with many hiend sources and systems. And I said from my tests and conclusions that I disagreed your claims.

Damaged CD. And you're confused. All I've claimed is that error correction works. You are the one, the only one, here claiming sonic superiority. And really, it's late. This is getting tedious. it's about time you backed up your position or just admitted you have nothing substantive to say. For the rest of this post, I'll leave you in Vincent's capable hands.

Tim

 

[Windows X]

It's you who started this claim "sometimes files ripped to my hard drive are better than they are on the discs they came from". And I disagreed on that by saying how could that be since optical media is superior to magnetic/nandflash/ssd from what I tested with common slotin laptop and very good ones. And then you said you don't believe in that and I have to start explaining things I don't know whether you know the basics or have any experiences behind or not.

As for error correction, I don't understand the logic behind your claims...at all. If any cd transport can't correct that error on that disc, how could ripping track even correct it? Re-reading it until it's correct? Where could it say correct? With accuraterip database? Is that even correction? I don't know. I don't understand the minds of 'everyone agrees' who treat any drive is fine if program says it rips correctly here.

To get back to original point is whether your claim of ripped stuff to your hard drive is actually better than place they came from or not. Will you make this clear with any concrete fact? You can test it again with my method and tell me the result. See if iTunes/foobar/J River can make ripped track better than where they are from during playback.

 

[FrantzM]

WindowsX

You may need to review your definition of jitter... The argument of light being fast is ... well... light in substance...Jitter is ot about fast transmission or read ...
As for the last paragraph it is also hard to follow.. The data came from a CD and I can always find a better way to send it to another device. The CD is just a medium, I could send the data through the Air, it will not change it... Thus you sending these notes over the Internet ...

I will leave is at that as you seem to confuse several issues ...

Let's get back to the OP...

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

It's you who started this claim "sometimes files ripped to my hard drive are better than they are on the discs they came from". And I disagreed on that by saying how could that be since optical media is superior to magnetic/nandflash/ssd from what I tested with common slotin laptop and very good ones. And then you said you don't believe in that and I have to start explaining things I don't know whether you know the basics or have any experiences behind or not.

As for error correction, I don't understand the logic behind your claims...at all. If any cd transport can't correct that error on that disc, how could ripping track even correct it? Re-reading it until it's correct? Where could it say correct? With accuraterip database? Is that even correction? I don't know. I don't understand the minds of 'everyone agrees' who treat any drive is fine if program says it rips correctly here.

To get back to original point is whether your claim of ripped stuff to your hard drive is actually better than place they came from or not. Will you make this clear with any concrete fact? You can test it again with my method and tell me the result. See if iTunes/foobar/J River can make ripped track better than where they are from during playback.

Not to put too fine a point on it but that was not the original point, it was an answer to the original point, in which you established your claim for the superiority of optical transports:

Journey to the unknown world is rather eccentric trip. Everyone loves to brag how their systems sound and some was over-confident enough to say it's even better than expensive disc players/transport.

Error correction - Just iTunes by the way - will re-read a damaged disc, sometimes until it actually gets a read of the pits beneath a scratch, making the ripped file whole where the cd always erred. Happened to me with a Tom petty disc. It has happened to lots of people who have ripped large CD libraries. On the other hand, I have another CD among the thousand that simply won't rip at all. I don't know why. It's an old one. Copy protected maybe. In that case, the CD is better; it plays music.

Now, back to the point -- do you have anything other than personal opinion that shows that music ripped to a computer hard drive has more noise and jitter than it does on the optical disc it comes from?

I appreciate your concern, but don't worry about my knowledge of the basics. If I get confused I'll ask Vincent or Amir to explain it to me.

Tim

 

[Windows X]

I didn't start claiming anything at all. It's you who started it. Please don't confuse my first post as a claim such as 'CD transport/player is superior.' I never said that in the first post. I said 'some was over-confident enough to say it's even better than expensive disc players/transport.'. It's not the same statement as I said 'expensive cd transport/player is better than file transport' but pointing out there's people saying the opposite. I hope this will clear out our confusion here.

The only matter of fact I firstly said here was 'some people were over-confident enough to claim it's better than expensive cd transport'. That's all there is to it as the matter of fact not opinion. I actually could say the same too since my music server projects already outperformed many CD transports under $3k and it's not me but my clients who said all that. I weren't that confident enough to say it out myself. No my opinion about cd transport being superior to file or anything explicitly implied until you claimed that some of your files ripped to your hard drive are better than they are on discs they came from. So I disagreed with information from my experiments and my studies in proper classes with many experiments from real hiend sources. But if I have to say so, I've yet to see any hifi distributor selling real hiend sources prefer any kind of music server over their reference cd/sacd transport except when they're doing their marketing jobs.

To get back to the point, all I've said so far is for asking to know your support evidence about "sometimes files ripped to my hard drive are better than they are on the discs they came from". So please ignore all my foolish posts and just tell me how you reached to the conclusion. That's what I really want to know so that I could try repeating the same experiment as yours and see if I could reach to the same conclusion as yours as I couldn't with other experiments I tried here ranging from bundle slotin drive in laptop to one of the best studio mastering drive. Ripping and playing with the same drive and same program. No matter what kind here, drive always be better than files stored in HDD.

I hope you'll be kind enough to share how you reached to that conclusion in here so people can try and see as guidelines in case I may miss out something. Playing ripped contents to compare with original drive is different story from comparing between mastering file from file transport and disc from cd/sacd transport. I tried writing 16/44.1 track from Kent Poon DVD I bought but never manage to rip it back as the same as original file I wrote to CD even with Plextor Premium 2 here using EAC/dbpoweramp/PlexTools. They sound different and I'm trying to findout why and how I can correct this so I could restart my ripping journey again. Though I'm quite skilled at building music server for file transport but I may not have everything covered for ripping part.