New decade, end of the CD?

it doesn't bring distortion, and I've got a killer set of JBLs so it's not a problem

Atavachron wrote: The copies I burn (from either source discs or downloads) are comparable to the original, but; the gain - or recording volume - is noticeably diminished.  This is compensated during playback by higher gain or EQ, but it could be perceived as a 'drop in quality' or even 'harshness' I suppose.

Indeed, if you have to playback louder to get the same volume than the original, it may bring more distorsion.

it may

The copies I burn (from either source discs or downloads) are comparable to the original, but; the gain - or recording volume - is noticeably diminished.  This is compensated during playback by higher gain or EQ, but it could be perceived as a 'drop in quality' or even 'harshness' I suppose.

oliverstoned wrote: EDIT: that's why i explained that us audiophiles separate our CD source from the rest of our devices in order to avoid the specific kind of CD deck's power supplies to reject electric pollution to the others elements of the system. Imagine your CD ROM deck within your computer. It shares its power supply with all the other elements of the computer. So it's extremely polluted. That's the reason of being of home burners. But of course these differences can be heard only on a transparent system. Source: http://www.digido.com/audio-faq/j/jitter-a-clarification-of-my-article.html

^

(Edit: Dean got in before me but this is in response to the post before his).

I really think we need to define what is being compared with what here.

If you are talking about playing a CD on a computer's CD-ROM drive and using the output from the sound card then yes I can accept that there is potential for a lot of noise to be picked up.

If however we are using the computer as a server, as a source of digital files that have previously been ripped accurately and are provided to an external DAC via wi-fi or an ethernet cable (such as happens in the Squeezebox touch that I mentioned), then that DAC is receiving a bit perfect copy of the content of the CD. It can't get any better than this. The first limiting factor from there is the quality of the DAC.

As for comparing a burned copy of a CD with the original, then if they sound different on the same CD player it can only because the original rip was not successful (using EAC, or DBPoweramp with AccurateRip can eliminate this possibility), or one or the other of the CD's is not playing properly on the CD player.  If this really is an issue - and I must admit I am dubious - then again it points to using a computer as a more reliable source of the digitised music.

BTW I am all for buying music on CD and using it as my primary backup but I see few advantages in continuing to use the physical CD in order to hear its content.


Edited by ProgBob - April 05 2011 at 12:38

Some new elements:

"Power supply design, grounding, can affect the quality of these cloks, and audiophile CD transport designers pay special attention to the power supply. A poor power supply can affect the remant jitter both by contaminating the crystal clock, and the AES/EBU trasmitter in the digital output stage. Until someone examines the internal mechanisms of both reproduction systems with very sophisticated measurement equipment, we can only hypothesize. But for now, it is enough to say that the measured intrinsic jitter of a DAT reproducer is greater than 100 times the jitter of a good CD transport. We all know that shouldn't be happening... all digital reproducers should measure perfectly--right? Good thing we are able to measure those differences, or the golden ears would all be in a pickle trying to demonstrate why DAT playback just doesn't sound as good as CD playback"

You understand that the DAT quoted in this article & the CD ROM part from your computer may be similar in this optic.

EDIT: that's why i explained that us audiophiles separate our CD source from the rest of our devices in order to avoid the specific kind of CD deck's power supplies to reject electric pollution to the others elements of the system. Imagine your CD ROM deck within your computer. It shares its power supply with all the other elements of the computer. So it's extremely polluted. That's the reason of being of home burners.
But of course these differences can be heard only on a transparent system.






Source:

http://www.digido.com/audio-faq/j/jitter-a-clarification-of-my-article.html

Edited by oliverstoned - April 05 2011 at 11:35

I don't know the technical reason, it's maybe due to a jitter issue.

^ Mike's right - what Oliver is describing is impossibe. It's not subjective or objective or simple a matter of using your ears - it is physically impossible. Once the audio data is encoded into digital data nothing can affect the audio content.

No i was not even talking about MP3. I've got a very transparent
system and i've compared original CDs Vs computer copy Vs (Pionner) audiophile burner.

The result is the following: the original sounds the best, the audiophile copy doesn't sounds agressive but lacks life & dynamic.
The computer copy sounds harsh and lacks life & dynamic.

Moreover a computer is a source of electric pollution, even more than a CD player.