"I remember when tube gear was dead, deader than dead, by the 1970's. And vinyl was "dead" after the first (then awful) CDP's came out in the early '80's.
I still have most of my LP's now, & a tube pre-amp......I'm also REALLY happy"
nec·ro·phil·i·a (nkr-fl-) also nec·rophi·lism (n-krf-lzm, n-)
1. Obsessive fascination with death |
Mlsstl - You're right. Nothing is 100% safe. I also know that backup Hard Disks tend not to fail when they are not powered. I have two backups - total of 3 1TB drives. Each costs $99 and is dead silent (no fan, heavy metal case). Somebody mentioned 5 hard disk crashes in 4 years. I had 4 PCs in last 23 years at work with no failure.
Quality of computer drive doesn't matter (many CDPs have standard Phillips CDM12 computer drive anyway). CDP has to read data in real time and cannot fail when sector is not readable. Tiniest scratch along the disk longer than 0.1" (4000 bits) makes disk unreadable. Because of that CD uses instead of regular Reed Solomon error correction code Cross Interleaved Reed Solomon that INTERPOLATES incorrect data. My computer program MAX rips CDs as data going hundreds of times to the same sector, if necessary, to get proper checksum. Once I get this on the hard drive quality never changes while CD is getting more scratches and interpolation. Is it (interpolation) audible - not to me. Amount of improvement is most likely not very significant (if any) but it is not worse than CDP.
Tvad wrote: "Theft, house fires and windstorms all apply equally to downloaded files stored on equipment on one's home."
Yes, but I keep one of backups at work. It would be pretty difficult to make copies of 2000 CDs and keep them at different location. |
CDP has advantage of being compact, simple, one piece solution - like typewriter. |
Knownothing - Original question wasn't about CD but rather CDP. I still buy CDs new and used but enjoy convenience of the server. |
"You may be one of the worst communicators I have encountered on any forum."
I might be since English is my second language but stating that is rude and immature. I don't car to answer to your posts. |
Pettyofficer - Take it easy. Nobody wants to get you or take away your CDs. I'm not sure what you call computer audio but in my setup I cannot hear the difference between computer playback over Airport Express and directly connected transport. For some reason you assume that server based system has to sound inferior.
As for SACD or DVD Audio - they don't care. We don't represent any buying power. They tried to introduce format that cannot be copied (SACD) and found out that most people are perfectly happy with MP3 and boom boxes. |
"Kijanki, I still don't know why I am NOT getting through!"
I'm still not sure what you want to improve in "Music Storage". The only parameter that counts is the jitter and it can be suppressed many different ways. My storage to DAC transimission ends-up with respectable 250ps word clock jitter that is further suppressed by asynchronous upsampling of Benchmark DAC1.
"Why the double standard whenever anyone tries to scrutinize Music Storage?" - What is wrong with music storage - say it. I'm begging you.
SACD sounds much better, according to professional reviews, (equivalent of 20/96) but only if recording measures-up. SACD died because of greed. They charged at the beginning over $30 per CD while their production cost was pretty much the same (and you cannot make backup or store on HD) and lost momentum. It is very difficult to establish new standard and make people buy new equipment - unless you make media (SACD) initially less expensive. Iomega had perfect ZIP drive but wanted too much for disks and licensing fees - ended up with fiasco. It is also case of Sony Mini-Disk that could be perfect solution for portable music (car, Boom box etc). Remember Beta VCRs? Quality has nothing to do with it.
"So don't tell me that Consumers don't make value judgements about Sound Quality!" - No they don't. Most of customers are not audiophiles and care only about music. Basic quality of MP3 is more than enough for them. Have you ever seen CD being not on the top of the charts because of the sound quality?
Am I getting through to you? |
Pettyofficer - A lot of words with a little or no sense plus unnecessary name calling. Stop using, man. |
Pettyofficer - I don't know if music or computer industries are going to do anything with CD format. My impression is that they don't care. I like CDs and buy them but use computer server just for the convenience. I use Apple Lossless format (ALAC) and program that can convert any existing format (except SACD) and most likely future formats. I have two backups and they tend not to fail when in storage.
No matter how loud we scream for quality - nobody listens. CD sales are lower since CDs are way too expensive. Many people buy MP3 downloads instead for less. Also, as I said before, 90% of customers don't care about quality. I don't like it - just stating the fact. Even mixing and music compression suggests targeting boom boxes or small stereos. My small radio at work has hard time playing piano when it brings energy in lower registers. Can you imagine what would happen if they would record it without compression (piano has about 96dB dynamics). It almost calls for two separate formats - one for popular use and one for audiophiles - or if compression is necessary why it is not built into radios or TV sets. I had big hopes for SACD but they killed it.
I don't know what's going to happen but I suspect that they not going to make 24/192 Master Tapes available for downloading in view of extended piracy in many countries. CD player won't die - just computer playback of CDs will be more popular. |
Mlsstl - 374 million CDs sold in 2009 is correct but it was 12.7% decrease from previous year. At the same time individual downloads increased by 8.3% to 1.3 billion. If you count per total number of songs then digital downloads represent only 40% but each individual download (or few) was likely bought instead of CD. Linn stopped making CDs in 2009 and I've heard rumors that biggest CD store Walmart might discontinue them.
CDs are way too expensive in my opinion. Making CD together with royalties cost in order of $1. Twentieth Century Fox was selling DVDs in China for equivalent of $2 admitting small profit (it explains region code). |
Mitch4t - Yes I remember "no floppy" scare.
It is not easy to make predictions. I remember one serious columnist claiming 20 years ago that Hard Disks will never go larger than 40MB because mechanical cost will be too prohibitive. Today we know that he made mistake 100,000 times. In percent it would be 10,000,000% (and counting). |
Timhru - I appologize. I read your post twice and didn't notice PO. I'm perhaps overly sensitive to my lack of language skills. For some reason system did not allow me to erase my previous post.
As for the speed - I use MAX and noticed that not only it changes speed during ripping sometimes slowing down to about 2x but also some CDs start really fast and some very slow. I've noticed that CDs that make vibrating noise in the drive rip very slow. On average Itunes rips much faster. I suspect that both programs adjust speed to number of errors encountered. What program do you use? |
Alex - I'm pretty sure that most of CDP don't spin faster and FIFO buffer is filled in real time just to take out jitter (while PLL keeps same average of both clocks). $19.95 Pioneer is not necessarily much worse then $6000 Esoteric since Pioneer is produced in milions. Also Esoteric drive alone doesn't cost $6000 (more like $600?).
Computer CD Drive doesn't have any particular speed during ripping process - it is program controlled and changes from 1x to about 20x on my Mac.
Server based system and mentioned Esoteric might sound different because of different electronics. Use top quality DAC in the system and to many it might sound better then Esoteric.
In my setup computer noise induced jitter doesn't make much difference since data is send to Airport Express not as a stream but as files/packets. AE decodes data and spits it out with its own clock achieving, according to Stereophile measurement 250ps word clock jitter. Dacs have usually some means of reducing jitter (like PLL). Benchmark DAC1 does even more but some people don't like upsampling or oversampling converters. |
Timrhu - Thank you. As for PO, he is overly passionate about format choice but I agree 100% with Tvad - it doesn't have to be antagonistic since formats tend to stay for a long time and are also convertible. I will expire before CDs, for sure. |
