CD Tweeks...Improve Ripped SQ?

IS it coincidence that as soon as BS is mentioned, Geoffkait pops up?

Here we go...

I've ripped to .wav from various CD drives on various laptops over the last 3-4 years or so using basic Windows Media player (using highest sound quality setting to minimize any errors) and have not had any issues.

If teh CD looks dirty, as used CDs often are, I spray it with a very dilute natural cleaner solution first and wipe them clean. This is to make the rip go faster in that it will take longer to rip the CD if disc is dirty and rereads are needed.

On rare occasion, mostly with cheaper older CD-Rs I might rip that have been around awhile and not in good condition, I will get a minor dropout during play or other minor glitch. But with commercial CDs, the rip either completes normally fine eventually or if the disc is visibly scratched or defective usually, it may continue to reread indefinitely during the rip and eventually I might just have to give up and chalk that one up to a damaged or defective disc. VEry very rare though. I've ripped thousands of CDs and had issues on less than a half dozen or so I would say.

I'd have to agree that CD treatments for ripping in particular are mostly BS as well.

GEoff, maybe.

We'll find out when you actually present some real scientific evidence of anything having to do with sound quality and I then fortify my position without considering the evidence. Otherwise, I will reserve my right to express my opinions as well.

Bits are never just bits alone. A bit is an abstract concept with a binary state. Bits do not really exist at all in the physical world (point one out to me somewhere). The binary state has to be physically represented somehow, electronically, optically, however to be used. COmputers (and CD storage media) are designed to transmit binary data accurately, else they would not work at all. To get audio/sound, the binary data stream gets converted to an analog signal. The D/A process (which requires very accurate and precise timing to be done properly) is where pretty much all of the variability comes into play regarding resulting sound quality.

Rodge,

Sound from ripped files can be top notch if done well.

If you want to contact me by agon email to discuss options, I'd be more than happy to try to help. I am not a vendor and have nothing to sell.

"Mapman, the evidence is there, you just dismiss it. "

Actually no I do not dismiss it. I merely judge as inconclusive in this particular case (ripping CDs) at this particular time for the reasons that have been stated by others even above.

In the case of playing CDs, I think there could be something to color tweaks affecting the sound, but like fancy fuses (which I also do believe can sound different) its a non issue for me. Not to say it may be for others. More power to you if so.

BTW Geoff sells CD color tweaks here on agon, so I will defer to him to make the case for those as needed and wish the buyer good luck. Maybe he'll toss in a free alarm clock with a color dot on it as well to help sweeten the deal. :^)

"assuming that the ripping software assures bit perfect accuracy. "

That's an optional setting and not a guarantee on some ripping programs, so its possible that read errors could come into play, depending on the implementation of the ripping software.

Even in that case though, I would seek out a rip program that does assure bit perfect accuracy as the best solution. Then, its just a matter of how long the rip takes. Rips with more error reads from disk will take longer to re-read, so any improvement to the physical disc reading system might help produce faster rips perhaps, how much faster depending on disc quality and how well the optical disk reader does its thing. With most decent modern commercial grade optical disc readers, I find only CDs that are visibly in very bad shape (like some from the library) or physically defective in some other way rip significantly slower when bit perfect accuracy is in play, but of course YMMV.