Sound Quality

Typically you will get very equivalent sound from an N200 with say red book stored files and streaming. The mastering and resolution will bring up the sound quality. FLAC tend to sound better than WAV.

Overall it sounds like the stored files you inherited were perhaps compromised. You can use a laptop or computer to rip the files. Rip to FLAC. There are lots of programs available, including Apples.

Overall, I no longer wast time with stored files. Streaming sounds as good (red book) or better when streaming higher resolution. I would work to optimize streaming and just use the stored files as backup in case the network goes down.

Qobuz sounds better than tidal, but not by a huge amount. They have over half a million high resolution albums, so they are the preferred source.

I see you are using a Gustard R26 DAC. One of the next steps might be to upgrade that. The N200 sound quality can be really very good.

Yep agree a test file of known high quality stored on your drive should equal a streamed file…. should….

Also, after doing that try to reserve judgment until your Bricasti arrives and broken  in…

Don't make it too complicated, at least at first.  Most music out there is CD quality and that should be your first goal.. but it isn't quite that simple.

Playing CDs was simple but you were a slave to the DAC in the CD player, which was often poor.  Then we started getting excellent standalone DACs.  And we switched from CD players to CD transports to use with our standalone DACs.  

Now once you have a good DAC, streaming just requires a good streamer.

Upscaling is the one thing you listed that might be worth pursuing at first but don't worry if it doesn't fit into your budget.  I have a Grimm streamer with built in upscaling but don't know what other models have this.

Keep it simple and enjoy.

Jerry

@navyachts are you referring to SSD drive mounted inside your N200 that contains that music library?
Few things based on my experience…it depends on the recording. Not all DSD files are by default better sounding than redbook or hi-res streaming. It also depends on the DAC. You will be able to feed the M1S2 a native DSD signal and take full advantage of the Bricasti DSD DAC.
In addition, the N200 sound quality streaming Qobuz is slightly better than Tidal (at least to my ears in my system) but in general it is on a high enough level to not have to bother with ripping CDs. I’ve tested it against CDs and most of the time preferred hi-res streaming.

To answer your question on what to use to rip 💿 - I use dbpoweramp and rip to uncompressed FLAC.

Part of the problem with streaming quality is that the services don’t care about what they upload; if the version they buy the license for is crappy, the resolution doesn’t matter.  Yes, Many CDs are crappy too, but one can often find better versions.  That might explain the differences people hear between CDs and streaming.

Thanks all, OK, I Iike the idea of streaming only then backing-up files on the HD.

I was thinking then of formatting the existing SD card (instead of purchasing a new one and starting fresh. So how do I get the file ripped files on the computer on to the SD card in the N200?

Even further to that, how can I take the files that are on the SD card that's in the N200 and move them elsewhere?

I understand that up sampling, DSD and HQ Player can even bring better sound to the table, but I'm having enough trouble with just the basics here, that stuff is way over my head. 

Meh - I find the difference there to be much less today than 30 years ago.  IMHO most of what you are hearing is a slight variation in the digital filters.

I'd like to rip a couple of my own CDs to a new SD card and try it to compare with the SD card that came with the N200. What is the best method to do this?

From a sound perspective, most tools are going to be equivalent, but from the standpoint of metadata management (author, composer, etc.) I find MediaMonkey on my PC to be superior.

@audphile1 are you referring to SSD drive mounted inside your N200 that contains that music library?

Yes.

You will be able to feed the M1S2 a native DSD signal and take full advantage of the Bricasti DSD DAC.

Where do I get this DSD signal from?

 Qobuz is slightly better than Tidal

I have tried both, some things I thought sounded better on Quboz, others on Tidal. I like the larger selection of music on Tidal. but when I get the M21 I will try again.

How do you "Highlight" your responses here on AG?

@cleeds OK, I think I know what you mean!

https://ask.aurender.com/hc/en-us/articles/360034834973-Connect-or-Mount-Aurender-to-a-Windows-Computer

Once in the N200 just copy and paste (it looks like?). I’m gonna try!

YES It’s going to work! I just need a larger flash drive (or something) to transfer the music too. Thank you!

@navyachts I thought there were some DSD albums on the SSD, no? That is where you would get native DSD over to M1S2. 

How do you "Highlight" your responses here on AG?
 

like this?

use the double quote toggle 

@navyachts 

Question. You say ‘SD card’, are you actually speaking of a USB thumb drive ‘stick’ mounted to the USB port in the rear of the N200?

The N200 has two drive bays for two separate 2.5” hard drives, which I would highly recommend utilizing in lieu of a ‘flash drive’.  4TB 2.5” drives are fairly inexpensive today, and the N200 will accept two 8TB drives. That said, the rear USB port can be used to mount an external hard drive, or ‘thumb drive’ too, so I would think Aurender engineered that port to sound as good as any internal drive you install into its drive bays.

Thus, have a feeling whatever drive was included with the N200 (assumed from a third party) may have been compromised, as previously mentioned. 
 

Ripped files (given a high quality rip) should sound every bit as good as streaming, if not better in some/most instances (DSD or HiRes PCM files).

“Even further to that, how can I take the files that are on the SD card that's in the N200 and move them elsewhere?”
@navyachts 

I hope this is a temporary move? Ideally, you want to play files stored on N200 SSD (solid state drive) not elsewhere on your network. 

You gotten some good advise, getting a better DAC would be the next logical step. Patience is the key when it comes to optimizing your streaming setup. You’re off to great start with N200. As far as hearing differences between stored vs streaming files, it would come down to original mastering and downstream components. If you’re planning to rip CD’s, I would select WAV as ripping format since WAV encoding uses no compression. Have fun! 

@audphile1 Says DSF Files not DSD files

@bkeske no, not USB thumb drive. SD cards that are inside the N200

@lalitk I don't want to play the files elsewhere on the network, I just to park them for reference, then freshly download them onto the N200 (now blank) SD card. Thanks

New DAC is on the way!

@navyachts 

Good, then you are speaking to an SSD hard drive in one of the two N200 Bays. 

I was a bit confused by the terms you are/were using.

OK, I have one for you all! I am trying to access the SD card in the N200. I get there but when I click on the file (Music 1) I get the Microsoft Security "Enter you credentials to connect to: (network address)

I have no username or password for this. I have gone through all the steps the internet has to offer on trouble shooting this, but nothing has fixed the problem.

Anyone have any suggestions on how to bypass the network credentials prompt?

@navyachts

sounds like a plan! And congratulations on new DAC. BTW, a DSF (DSD Stream File) is a high-resolution audio file which contains uncompressed DSD audio data along with information about how the audio data is encoded. It can also optionally include an ID3v2 tag which contains metadata about the music e.g. artist, album, etc. The N200 will play files with .dsf extension as long as your DAC is able to decode DSD files.

All Aurender streamers ships with default user name and password ….type in aurender in both places. 

@bkeske you're confused, I'm beyond confused right now (see last post) 3 hours on this issue so far, great Sunday indeed!

@lalitk thank you, but I was getting impatient and too quickly started a re-installation of Windows 10 before your advice, oh well. at least I know now, lol.

After a fresh install of Window, same thing. Yes, aurender/aurender are the credentials...UGH!

@lalitk  Once the music is all off the SD Card in the N200, is there also a way to format it (in place) so I can start transferring some newly ripped music to it (cut & paste)?

@navyachts 

The SSD drive (SD Card) doesn’t not require any formatting by end user (you). It’s done by Aurender software. Once you have transferred off all the previously stored music, you can start transferring newly ripped music (cut & paste).  One way to track your music is by creating folders in SSD drive. 
Music 1 ➡️ DSD 

Music 1 ➡️ CD rips. 
 

How to create folders….right click in Music 1 folder, click New, Folder ➡️ rename

@navyachts 

See link:

@lalitk @bkeske cool, thank you both!

@navyachts dsf are dsd files. 
I see you’re having a 💩 ton of fun. Lol. 
Just take a deep breath you’ll get there. 

For what it’s worth, I always rip my CDs to WAV files. Although less supported these days, WAV is an exact copy of the CD and is an uncompressed file. If you look, you’ll find a WAV converter out there. FLAC is a lossless compressed format and please remember ‘lossless’ is a euphemism for negligible loss. FLAC is 60% the size of the original file. Although, in most cases, you may not be able to hear the difference…with a high resolution system and good ears, the difference is there. My argument is twofold: 1) file size is not an issue these days so why compress. 2) once you convert to FLAC, there is no going back.

I really like playing my ripped CDs on my streamer. The SQ consistently is a tick above what I get from commercial services.  I listen to Classical and find that most services scramble the order of movements in a piece, which is a real PITA.

  If the OP is still interested in ripping CDs-he seems to have changed his mind mid-thread- I would recommend getting a Melco server and their dedicated Optical Player to do the rips

sandthemall

FLAC is a lossless compressed format and please remember ‘lossless’ is a euphemism for negligible loss.

No, FLAC is lossless. That is to say it can render a bit perfect copy of the original file.

FLAC is 60% the size of the original file.

Not necessarily. It depends on the degree of compression used.

... once you convert to FLAC, there is no going back ...

I’m not sure what you mean here. Certainly a FLAC file can be converted to a WAV file and if that was its original format you’ll get a bit perfect rendering. (Although, of course, you’ll lose any metadata.)

+1 @cleeds

He’s correct. There is no loss and the extracted data from FLAC, ALAC or WAV is the same.

There was a period of time when at least Stereophile was promoting the idea that the decompression process itself could result in audible effects like jitter depending on the device, CPU, algorithm, etc. and that because FLAC and ALAC used different decompression methods the three (FLAC, ALAC, WAV) could actually sound different even though they held the same data. Honestly I’ve never lent that theory much credibility. It certainly is possible that poorly implemented software with highly variable CPU performance could make for poor replay experience but I’ve never actually heard that happen.

If it did happen it would be very much replay device dependent, and in the 21st century I just can’t believe devices could overlook these issues and not mitigate them.  Decompression, buffering and clock driven DAC is just not rocket science anymore.

@erik_squires, which format would you recommend that I rip CDs Eric or does it matter?

@navyachts if storage space is a concern you can rip in compressed FLAC. I have plenty of storage and not too many CDs left to rip so I do it in uncompressed FLAC using dbpoweramp. I haven’t compared compressed vs uncompressed but am assuming the quality won’t suffer as long as the device rendering it has capacity to do it. In your case it’s the N200 with plenty of compute so I wouldn’t anticipate any issues at all.

let’s see what @erik_squires says as well

OP:

FLAC is the most common, and offers good compression.  You can adjust the level of compression based on how fast you want it to rip.  There's only so much it can compress though, so there is also the issue of diminishing returns and that disk storage is really cheap.

Unless you are using Apple devices there's no reason to use ALAC. 

OK thanks gentlemen, FLAC it is! Further to ripping, is any old CD rom drive, like that of an old laptop OK? Or is it the better the drive, the better the rip?

OP:  Faster is better, but you do want your ripping software to validate the results. I have had situations when the speed was too fast and had to slow the ripper down to ensure reliable transfers.

@navyachts I use a $39 LG external cd-rom drive. It’s not super fast though. The dbppweramp has validation built in and will display the results if any issues. So far I ran it without any problems. 

Sounds good. I already purchased the dBpoweramp software, thanks all!

“FLAC it is”

@navyachts 

I would rip and compare FLAC vs WAV and see if you are able to tell the difference between the two files 😊

OK. 

@lalitk I ripped a CD using dBpoweramp in both WAV and FLAC and listening with on the same computer that I ripped, with a pair of earphones, I couldn't hear a difference.

Files were the same size in in a lossless uncompressed state.

Do you prefer WAV?

I have the Antipodes K10 ripper that rips straight to my Antipodes Oladra’s SSD. The Antipodes K10 triggers the ripping software in my Oladra. I place a CD in the tray and close it, and ripping starts automatically. When the CD has been ripped, the tray automatically opens. 

@ricred1 Cool, but I'm giving this a bit of second thought. Honestly (as some have suggested) with all the streaming content that's out there, there really isn't the need to rip CDs, I guess. That is unless you have something rare that can't be found online. Any other benefits you can muster?

@navyachts 

I prefer WAV…I just don’t like the notion of unnecessary decompression (unfolding) process with FLAC files. Storage (SSD) cost is no longer an issue so why bother ripping CD’s in a lossy FLAC format. 

navyachts,

"@ricred1 Cool, but I’m giving this a bit of second thought. Honestly (as some have suggested) with all the streaming content that’s out there, there really isn’t the need to rip CDs, I guess. That is unless you have something rare that can’t be found online. Any other benefits you can muster?"

I use streaming to discover new music and then purchase the cd. In my system ripped CDs sound better than streaming, but to each their own.

@ricred1 for sure, I need to experiment with all this myself first!

@navyachts so what’s the ETA on the DAC?

@audphile1 said they were waiting for parts, nothing firm as of yet. Nice thing I found out, is it's already an SE unit, so saving some a bit of coin there. It's just the M1S2 and display to do now.

there really isn't the need to rip CDs, I guess. That is unless you have something rare that can't be found online. Any other benefits you can muster?

@navyachts that is pretty much my philosophy.

The onboard hardrive is not just for ripped CD's but for music bought online you want files for. For example I can stream Patricia Barber's Clique in hi-res through Qobuz anytime, but since I wanted the highest fidelity possible I bought the DSD512 version online. I have some a few dozen Native DSD albums in .dsf format but my current DAC doesn't yield a sonic advantage to these over regular redbook or hi-res versions streamed, and using an AES cable from my streamer I cannot play them anyway, so they sit on the hard drive unused. If one has a DAC that favours DSD files like T+A gear they may want plenty of .dsf files for critical listening sessions. 

@mclinnguy so you can buy DSD files and play them as is, you don't need software to do so, just a capable DAC

@audphile1 will the M1 play DSD files? They will sound better, right?

@navyachts I’ll let @audphile1 answer the question as to whether DSD sounds better on the Bricasti or not, but looking at the specs these are your options:

https://www.bricasti.com/en/consumer/m1s2_specs.php

so yes, using USB (which you will) you can play up to 256DSD

edit: he already did answer this question: 

Few things based on my experience…it depends on the recording. Not all DSD files are by default better sounding than redbook or hi-res streaming. It also depends on the DAC. You will be able to feed the M1S2 a native DSD signal and take full advantage of the Bricasti DSD DAC.