HDX difficulties

Posted by: Hans Vereecken on 25 October 2009

I suspect a problem with my HDX.

Sometimes - not always - when I rip a brand new (!!) CD and play it afterwards, one or two songs have one (1) drop-out in the music. This usely occurs at second 5 or 6 from the song. When I re-rip, it disappears, but on some occasions other songs of the CD are affected.

When I play the CD in a PC or in the car, no problem. When I rip the CD with DBpoweramp, no problem.

When I rip, I never let the HDX play, never connect the HDX via the webpage and never open the windows client software. My opinion is, the HDX has to concentrate on ripping.

Has any-one seen this problem before? Is this a known feature (= bug)?

I'm waiting for the new software to rip to a NAS, so I can compare the WAV from the HDX and the WAV from DBpoweramp. This also will allow me to show the drop-out(s) on a graph.

Also, I have ripped - for testing purposes only - very bad and very scratched CD's. CD's that ought to be thrown away. The HDX ripped these without errors. DBpoweramp could not rip accurate and stopped. When I listened to the music on the HDX, I could hear all the scratches too. Accurate ripping ???

The new software should be able to rip twice and compare the results, just like DBpoweramp does if it doesn't find the CD in the accurate rip database.

Thanks.
Posted on: 25 October 2009 by js
I don't believe that the HDX uses accurip but my results have been that it's rips cannot be bettered by DBpoweramp or EAC in any mode. Probably has to do with optimization and unique instructions that it works this well without. They're close enough on my PC when ripper is offset properly and setup in accurip but better than DB, EAC etc. if not. I'll re-examine when the Naim DAC is available as I've only done this a couple times, comparing files via a SN. Have done more comparisons of PC rips.

The alternative to a scratch sound would be for it to reject the rip like DB would in accurip and not allow you access to the music. It does rescan areas if needed. In the next software, you'll be able to eliminate tracks so that most of a disk like this will be retianed with offending tracks removable. More music than other proper rippers allow in their best modes and with at least their best mode sound quality. Accurip does not fill in bad spots but retries with a compare and if bad enough shuts down. After a # of tries at a bad patch, the HDX moves on if reasonable enough to complete a rip. In the case of the HDX this doesn't appear to reflect on rip accuracy judged by listening comparisons and more of your collection can be accessed.

The drop out issue is new to me. I'd have it checked or at least email the factory for possible causation.
Posted on: 26 October 2009 by Bruce Woodhouse
Just a thought.

If you play a newly ripped album when the machine is busy ripping another (or has just finished and is updating the drives) you can occasionally get the odd drop out during playback-this appears to be a glitch when the HDX is 'multi-tasking'. I kept noticing this when ripping my entire collection in long spells of continous rip/play.

However this is not a faulty rip. When the file is played back the rest of the time it is 'complete'. Is this what you are noticing?

If this is not the case it sounds like a fault.

Bruce
Posted on: 26 October 2009 by james n
An interesting observation from Malcolm Steward on the HDX 'multi tasking'

blog

James
Posted on: 26 October 2009 by Hans Vereecken
quote:
Originally posted by Bruce Woodhouse:
Just a thought.

If you play a newly ripped album when the machine is busy ripping another (or has just finished and is updating the drives) you can occasionally get the odd drop out during playback-this appears to be a glitch when the HDX is 'multi-tasking'. I kept noticing this when ripping my entire collection in long spells of continous rip/play.

However this is not a faulty rip. When the file is played back the rest of the time it is 'complete'. Is this what you are noticing?

If this is not the case it sounds like a fault.

Bruce


No, after ripping a CD, I wait till the extra noise of the internal HDD has stabilised again to a normal level. This takes a minute or so.

The only thing I'm doing within the minute, is closing the CD-tray (without a new CD). Maybe, the HDX is multitasking during the second it tries to detect if there is a new CD in the tray.

Anyway, I will wait for the new software and if the problem persist, I will complain to NAIM.

"When the file is played back the rest of the time it is 'complete'. Is this what you are noticing?" --> NO, once the drop-out is there, it stays there. It doesn't get away anymore.