All my music is on cd's and my reading tells me that the cd itself has a limited shelf life and will degrade over time. Any recommendations about converting my cd's to FLAC or some type of high quality music files. Not looking for compressed files. I see products such as the Blue Sound Music Vault and a Sony High Resolution Music Player. Does anybody have any thoughts about how to accomplish this goal?
Absolutely! basement.Excellent points all around on the whole data extraction from a CD/SACD thing. If we are not "there" yet, as far as, player/dac(s) giving us the best sound? Manufacturers are getting pretty damn close.Happy Listening!
I thought the best way to preserve music would be to keep/store the hard copies!
No, obviously, we can't add resolution to CD's by "adding bits". But it is entirely possible that converting them to a higher resolution format makes it easier for a dac to retrieve the info that's there. Anyone remember how much a good transport improves a CD player?
There is a certain analog nature at play, in that the data stream/sine wave suffers from loss of quality...thus, preserving that as much as possible results in more resolution/better sound.
Well, as a whole, our transports are breaking down, and what is available are more geared toward universal and getting better sound with streaming. I wonder how much of the perceived quality is the result we have forgot what a GOOD 16 bit player sounds like?
So, I am wondering where the bar is. Asking the question. For example, to my knowledge, nothing exist or is being used that has as much available source info as a vinyl record. Has the bar been lowered to the best 16 bit? Has it, or will it be raised to enough bits to equal or better vinyl? Where exactly is it now?
So back full circle, makes sense to save the CD's as hard copies to perhaps wait, or find a medium that gives them the best sound, right? Cause I don't think it exist yet.
@elizabeth - You're right, keep it close to your vest. I always chuckle when some noob asks "what is the be version of this-or-that record?". Translation: "Tell me the best recording so I don't have to buy them all like you dummies did.".
Robert Harley did a piece about copying CDs and why they sounded better. Had something to do with taming jitter embedded in the source data stream. This results in better sounding music or letting the music that's already there come to the fore.
@elizabeth You are actually changing the data retrieved off a 16bit/44.1Mhz CD and having the Marantz up-sample the CD data to whatever. The original is still 16/44.1 and that is that. Half the problem with Hi-Rez downloads is that the masters (tape) were done at a bit rate (eg 16) but up-sampling falsely changes this to 24 bit by colouring in and sharpening the sound image. Sort of like photoshopping a bad or low res image. A.
I have ripped my cd’s to a HDD. I do not think any more resolution has been gained by this, but since the HDD is in another room, it seems the background is quieter and the sound better. No spinning disc or other sounds to hear. Is it in my head? don’t know but ripped files sound better to me.
I ripped my 500+ CD collection using my old Mac mini and iTunes to Apple lossless format. Yes, I have a backup disk, too. I use the Mac as the media player connected to the TV to browse music using iTunes, or just using Hyperfine Remote app (on any phone or tablet). I use the Mac digital out to a DAC.
“If you want to convert to DSD and you like the change in sound that provides, great. If you have one DAC you prefer over another, that is great. If you want to tout better sound due to reduction in jitter, better clocking, superior analog output stages, fine. But please don't provide misinformation about retrieving "more data", your simply not.”
Excellent discussion guys. I have only (1) CD that is bronze compared to silver in color. It is a disc from the 80's and spent most, if not all of its time, in Europe. Still plays fine indeed. As luck would have it I do not own any Compact Disc that exhibits "rot".Happy Listening!
CDs are encoded at 16 bits with a sampling rate of 44.1khz. Your not pulling more information off the disk than what is there.
If you want to convert to DSD and you like the change in sound that provides, great. If you have one DAC you prefer over another, that is great. If you want to tout better sound due to reduction in jitter, better clocking, superior analog output stages, fine. But please don't provide misinformation about retrieving "more data", your simply not.
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All my music is on cd's and my reading tells me that the cd itself has a limited shelf life and will degrade over time. Any recommendations about converting my cd's to FLAC or some type of high quality music files. Not looking for compressed files. I see products such as the Blue Sound Music Vault and a Sony High Resolution Music Player. Does anybody have any thoughts about how to accomplish this goal?"
I use dBPoweramp and a plain Jane Windows PC with a CDROM. I rip to FLAC files and store on a hard drive. Works like a champ, and these CDs have never sounded better. I play back through a Bryston BDP-1 and a Bryston DAC.
And BTW, I tried to measure the so called "CD rot" effect and found some evidence using Plextor error detection software on a few very old, first generation (early 80's) Redbook CDs that I had. These CDs are now almost 40 years old, and when scanned using the Plextor utility, found significant BERs (bit error rates). Ironically though, these same CDs, when ripped with dBPoweramp on the same Plextor CDROM, came out "bit perfect" with no indicated errors whatsoever. So from a practical viewpoint, I would not worry too much about degradation in your CDs. In fact, the solid state HD, thumbdrive, or SATA HDD you use to store your ripped music will probably fail before your CDs go bad due to CD rot.
I can’t think of ANY CD’s that have become unplayable (collecting since 1985). I do have a few DVDs that have gone bad or bad from the get-go (complete series of M*A*S*H had a few drop outs as did the Robo-Cop set).
I concur w/ Elizabeth, in that, there is an incredible amount of information stored/locked onto a CD or SACD. Historically, there have been a few players that possessed an ability to unlock , retrieve, the data in those pits and lands. The new Marantz SA-10 is such a player and relative bargain compared to the top-tier Esoteric (both actual brand) and other spinners in the $15K to 50K neighborhood.
Secondly, the DAC has come of age and properly matched w/ the best transport (C.E.C and other brands) offers the listener a never before musical experience. Happy Listening!
OP first of all, very few CDs “degrade”. I still have mine from the early 80s and they play just fine. I have ripped several hundred CDs to the Vault2 and to a hard drive. Nothing has broke. I think that you have read too much Audiophile nonsense.
If you have an Oppo or similar player a simple method is to rip the CDs to a portable hard disk using a program like "Exact Audio Copy.". They can easily be played them through an Oppo via USB directly and controlled from your phone.
Or you can use a lap-top to play them through any DAC that has a USB input. If it doesn’t have USB you can use a USB to spdif converter. If you use a program like JRiver you can rip them even more conveniently and also control from your phone.
I am also in the market for a CD ripper. There is the Cocktail Audio X40 streamer/cd ripper/ cd player (and X30 that includes an amp) that interests me, but very few reviews out there. Compared to the other rippers on the market, this one uses a ESS Sabre DAC, one of the better DACs in the market.
Another worthy alternative is the NAD M50.2. This has had good reviews too and has one advantage in that you can actually use it just to play cds if you wish. The vault can only rip cds to playback from its hard drive.
That being said its mrsp is $4000 although I did see a factory refurbished unit for $2500 on eBay.
The only thing I would have liked the ability to do was to create a partition on the Vault hard drive. So I could have my daughter's cds on a separate section entirely however it does not seem possible.
I do not remember when I last played a CD in,my rig...lol. I either play vinyl, ripped CD from the Vault or streamed Tidal via the Vault. So as you see the Vault is vital in my system
OP I read the same review where it seemed the reviewer was drawing his conclusions from the noise while ripping. Well all I can say is approx 2500 cds later and 17 months and no issues. I believe ripping cds direct with the vault is the only way to add to its hard drive but not 100% sure. The vault is THE mainstay source in my stereo rig. It has RCA analog outputs and digital outputs so take your pick. I find the dig out on coax to be best but I am feeding it into a superior DAC. The RCA analog outputs will work just fine. Control it with the Bluos app from your droid or iPhone or iPad. It really is easy
I read about the Blue Sound Music Vault 2, which allows for ripping without a computer, but not sure if it is a good idea to rip 500 cd's to the vault as was advised that ripping is very tough on the internal parts of the music vault. Is there another way to rip cd's and then put into the vault. Or is there another competitive product that can be recommended. I saw the Aurelander 10 music system, but it is over $5000.00 and over my budget. Last question, can the Blue Sound Vault 2 work with my two channel system? This is critical to me, don't cared about music throughout the house, just want my cd's to outlast me so I can listen to them. My reason to convert my cd's is the possibility that the cd's themselves will go bad as well as the fact that cd players seem to be going out of style and Sony for example is not manufacturing them any more. Don't want to lose all my accumulated music. Thanks.
I will probably use Exact Audio Copy to rip my small collection into flac files And copy it to an extra Hard drive and Google Drive. I can use My computer with an usb dac or possibly try to build a Hifiberry with spdif output.
Another way is to use dBpoweramp to rip CD's onto your computer or external hard drive. dB converts the rip directly to FLAC, WAV, AIFF or mp3.
What I do is rip 16/44.1 cd's directly to wav. For online purchases, I download flac files to my internal computer hard drive, do the meta data editing in dBpoweramp and then copy the edited flac file to my Aurender internal storage. Then I use dBpoweramp to convert the flac file to wav on the Aurender drive. The flac files are saved as backup on the computer hard drive compressed so as to save space.
@dweller That is EXACTLY what you do with the Vault. I has built in 2tb hard drive, then you just do a back up to another external hard drive via usb connection. And another if you need to be super anal about it.....lol. I have 2 backups and feel pretty good about the data being safe.
Personally, I wouldn't undergo such a massive project (converting CDs to files) unless the end-product was being saved to the cloud. Might consider saving to hard drives but would have triple-redundancy and an off-site location (safe deposit box?) for safe keeping. BTW, I've heard there are services that will do the conversion for you if you've got the dough...
There is NO way to get any more musical information off a 16/44.1 CD! ALL the musical data is locked in those pits and lands! It is a FALLACY to think that upsampling adds "more" musical information! IT DOES NOT! Only a higher bit rate/higher frequency (24/88.2) recording has "more" musical information! So go to HDTracks and download some of their high-rez recordings unto your hard drive to hear better sound! Because you won't get it from 16/44.1 CDs or recordings!
I concur with uberwaltz. The Vault 2 will do everything you asked. The storage capacity is more than enough for most people. I put in approximately 700 cd’s as FLAC files which barely touched what is available. The Vault is super easy to use and Bluesound support is excellent if you need help.
The sound quality is way beyond my expectations. It’s way more satisfying to play music than to play with a computer setup. This small box is one of the best values in Audio! Buy one.
Certainly the Bluesound Vault 2 will do exactly what you are asking for...and then some! You can rip to flac or wav files or even mp3 if you wanted to...lol. However it is much more than just a cd storage device. You can access all manner of internet radio stations and paid streaming services like Tidal, Spotify, Deezer etc. All for about 1000 to 1300 depending where you shop.
However I am not so sure I would worry too much about your cds degrading too much. But the Vault does put them all at your fingertips and in better sq format imho. Take you about 6 minutes per cd to copy to its built in hard drive and the bonus is no computer needed to control or organise it. Just really needs a hard wired ethernet connection from your router. You control the Vault from the Bluos app on either droid or iPhone/ipad. I have been happily living with this solution for near 17 months now and still see nothing that makes me want to upgrade and I have looked. Good luck with your choices.
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