Naim Rips -vs- Ruby Ripper Alias WAV -vs Flac!

Not necessarily - it may be bit perfect in its own terms but there may be more than one way of producing or packaging a bit perfect rip and the resulting files may vary when reproduced by different rendering apparatus.

Or in the words of a popular beverage "Probably the best bit perfect rip in the world"

Bit perfect doesn't mean sounds perfect ..to be fair I don't think it was ever going to ...

Tog

Obviously. But if two files with bit-identical audio were to vary when reproduced by the SAME rendering apparatus I would be very disappointed if I'd spent UnitiServe money on it.

Likemusic I think unitiserve is not for you in this case. Besides the rip, it indexes, serve music as well as provide a decent digital out from a quality hi Fi box as opposed to from a computer source. Those are functions that people buy it for (even though I don't have one myself!) You maybe a guru and loves to handle computers, many people do not. So the serve is an easy option for them. Without the wish of bringing on other war, but that is exactly why a Mac is more expensive than a pc. Linux maybe be yet superior but it's terribly hard to use. Being able to use it nicely and matching with a naim set really commands a premium I guess.

Anyone know how to compare PCM data on the Mac? U ask because I'm about to convert my flac to apple lossless in order to support my family members iPhone remote music access app to my nas. Would be interested to test!

Funds permitting, I'd get a Linn DS and a UnitiServe. What defines a 'bit-perfect' rip? To date I have yet to see a scientific/credible definition of this. Oh sorry, AccurateRip. So if 100 people get the result 2+2 = 5 then it must be correct right?

Simply put, I just believe some rips can be better than others. And I think UnitiServe does better rips.

What is your 'scientific/credible' evidence for the superiority of UnitiServe rips, given that others have show here the audio portion of a UnitiServe rip is no different than the audio portion of a competent rip from another ripping engine?

If it were possible to apply scientific principles to create the perfect rip that sounded perfect in all our kit we could all go home happy. It is not just the sum of mixing the computational math and electronic engineering together in some form of conclusive scientific proof as there are enough clever people out there to have done this already if it were that easy. The fun is that even with good kit, really good recordings, good company, a good day and good wine you sometimes get to hear sublime sounds.



The fact that this happens to me using Naim equipment with my cats, my wife, Death Cab for Cutie or Bill Evans in play and a glass of Sancere is one of life's joys. Far to precious to waste arguing over the quality of the rip with fellow travellers.



Remember why we do this guys.



Tog

Tog,

Of course you are right. Listening to the music is what it's all about. But this hobby always seem to push you to want to get more out of your equipment or least optimise what you have for as little expenditure as possible (well it does for me anyway). 

Cant's resist.....the PCM rip from the Unitiserve will be the same as an EAC rip (assuming no errors)

Now, where's that Sancere!

So, if you've ripped thousands of cds with EAC, you're not going to want a UnitiServe then, as it makes them sound harsh? 

Was this difference when the files were served across a network, or played straight through s/pdif into a DAC?

What would be interesting, for the reasons we discussed earlier, for those wave files created by rips from EAC and Naim, is whether the Naim waves (the extensible format) where people can hear a difference also sound 'better on non Naim playback equipment such as Linn or Mac or PC or Squeezebox etc As jack and i saw it would appear  not about so much creating 'bit perfect' rips, it's how well you get the PCM from the wave files on playback with little or no side effects.

Simon

If the same audio data is in both files, how can they sound different when served up over a network?

I can't see how network can make a difference, I am thinking more about the algorithm and it's real world implementation in a physical device of  the renderer that extracts the PCM from the wave file and either sends it to the DAC directly  or converts it into SPDIF etc

Simon

I suppose you can invent reasons involving power supplies, disc boundaries, head movements perhaps that might account for a difference via s/pdif - that still implies compromised engineering to me.

One mans "UnitiServe rips sound better" is another mans "a UnitiServe makes EAC rips sound worse". 

If the difference is real, the least I'd expect for the money is a Naim utility to reformat the audio from the foreign rips.

And what's the point of a product that looks all over your network and aggregates music if if can't then properly play the stuff it finds?

IMO, this is an excellent suggestion.  

The UnitiServe would be much more attractive to me if it had an "import" facility, and if I knew that this process would take my "legacy" rips, and optimize them for Naim-based playback.

This would also make for an interesting home demo.  Play the rip from a plain old network share.  Then import it into a Naim store, and play it again.  If it sounds better, then you buy the UnitiServe.

Since I am not going to re-rip everything, the thought of having some newer Naim rips that sound better, abut mostly older, legacy rips that sound worse, is not very appealing at all.

Hook

So how do you propose this would actually work? And what if the foreign rips have interpolated values–how do you propose to determine which values are "right" and "wrong"?

Why not rip it correctly in the first place?

How about letting AccurateRip decide?   If a non-Naim rip's PCM data is the same as a Naim rip, then import it.  If it isn't, then still allow the import, but flag the rip as non-optimal, and recommend a re-rip when convenient.   I would expect a very high percentage of non-Naim rips done with EAC to be successfully imported.

Why not rip it correctly in the first place?  In other words, why not re-rip a huge number of CD's using a UnitiServe?  Easy answer -- it takes too much time and effort.  And those of use who have used EAC and verified the results believe we have already done so.  Re-doing it all shouldn't be necessary.    Instead, why not just make it easier to migrate to Naim?   I find it hard to believe that a majority of people with large collections of digital music files are ready and willing to re-rip them all.

My thinking is that we have reached the point where this is much about the computer biz as it is about the audio biz.  In the computer world, data migration is very often the key to whether a technology upgrade is feasible.  If it is too hard to migrate the data, you don't get the deal.  IMO, it really is that simple.

Hook

Actually noone from naim has claim that unitiserve rips sounds better than other rips... So I guess that is not entirely true is it?

The most likely scenario is that a) the UnitiServe produces excellent rips that are as consistent and as accurate as you are likely to get from Redbook CDs. b) there are other ways of ripping many of which use different approaches but in their own way produce consistent and accurate rips. c) if you are aiming to maximise consistent sound quality above all else it makes sense to ensure that the UnitiServe's main music store is limited to it's own rips.



It took me a while to get my head around this but I agree with David. Limiting access to the UnitiServe's main store is their way of ensuring data consistency which is particularly important if you are tagging wav files using XML. You can still serve up your own rips from a Nas drive or computer.



My Vortexbox server allows me to store my music in one place but the correct tagging is crucial and sometimes whole albums fail to show up until you have got it right.



I think both approaches are valid and for the record I think the UnitiServe guarantees a consistently great sound in a very desirable package. I like VB, some like the Asset family and some prefer RipNas, it really doesn't matter.



Since CD will rapidly become a legacy format the crucial area for me is how the software servers and hardware renderers develop. After all rippers are irrelevant if the majority of your music is distributed electronically.



I wonder how UPnP and AirPlay will develop.



Tog

Hi Lhau -

Paul S said just yesterday:

"...Easy naim rip via our server easy db and eac good but our rip and our drive choice usually outperforms."

https://forums.naimaudio.com/di...872#3960068605414872

Not the first time that Naim has claimed either explicitly, or implicitly, that their rips were superior.   And it is true that sometimes that will be the case.  Bad hardware, poor error correction and, as Dave said, "interpolated data" can occur.  

My point is that if one goes to the trouble to ripping EAC or dbpoweramp, and then checks the result against a known reference point like AccurateRip, then it shouldn't be that hard to make those non-Naim rips peers of Naim rips, and allow them to benefit from whatever optimization Naim has built into the extended header data.  

The only assumption here is that those optimizations are real, and that they are audible during a demo.

Hook

Hi Tog -

I understand where you are coming from, but haven't we been waiting for CD and higher resolution popular music to be widely and cheaply available via download for quite a while now?   As far as I can tell, that still hasn't happened.   iTunes looks like they will be there eventually, but right now, you have to pay a premium for the convenience.

I know everyone's situation is different, but in my town, I have quite a few places that sell used CD's at bargain basement prices.  The only downside is I have to go shop for them.  So until that is no longer an option, used CD's will continue to be my main source of music distribution.   If it turns out to be anything like vinyl, then this will make sense for me for many years to come.

Hook

Although Paul Stephenson unequivocally says Naim rips are (usually) better on the thread Hook posted a link to above, Phil Harris later on in the thread is far less sure, some might think even evasive:

"However the global question of "Do you believe that a UnitiServe rip sounds better than an EAC or dBpoweramp rip?" is not really in itself possible to answer in any way that is valid - strictly speaking my "belief" may be different to your belief, my definition of "better" may be bifferent to your definition of better and the answer to the question would also probably vary depending on the specific rip being used for the comparison"

At the end of the day it seems to me that if the audio parts of two rips are identical, and no-one from Naim  has disputed that, then the UnitiServe should be able to serve them up equally and indiscriminably over a network, otherwise it has serious problems, as efffectively this would mean it cannot actually read the data in other rips correctly.

I've had this discussion with clients who have had, based on discussions with their retailer or custom integrator, their entire Compact Disc collections ripped by a third-party ripping service. You would be surprised how angry one client became when they discovered that the disc rip generated by their HDX was sonically superior to the disc ripped by their ripping service–so much so that it created a very uncomfortable situation for the retailer (and, therefore, for me).

And I disagree with your contention that this is as much about the computer business as audio–it's too naïve and data-centric an approach, and has been heartily re-buffed by many audio manufacturers over the last two decades or so–not just Naim, nor just with Compact Disc.

It's not good enough that an audio company would take the time to find the best-sounding ripping algorithm for their servers–why is that?

Is this a skepticism based on an objectivist view of data? Or is it a knee-jerk reaction to the notion that, in the audio world, there are some things that require more than a superficial level of understanding from an engineering standpoint? Or, even more challenging–that there are parameters relating to these processes that shouldn't have any effect, but do nonetheless?

Taking that skepticism further–how do you ultimately know that AccurateRIP is in fact correct? Statistically normal, perhaps–but correct?

Naim took a stand on ripping quality, developed a server, developed a streamer, and developed the applications to control them. If you feel that this exercise prohibits you from migrating to a Naim server based on objectivist data principles or other forms of orthodoxy, then maybe you're missing the point–to provide the best possible sound quality (from data acquisition to conversion to analogue).

Much of this would be obvious during a demo–but, inasmuch as your retailer lives halfway across the country, this is not an easy or obvious exercise, and I suspect you've probably never had the opportunity to do the demo.

Cheap CD? I buy them all the time. Ripping software? I use it almost every day and yes things are moving slowly in the legal world of high quality downloads. In the meantime our children are ignoring their parents moral stance about downloading from any source and getting on with a life sans CD. I don't think many of our young people get their music from CD any more so when the change happens I guess it will be quick.

My problem with this ripping debate is that it ignores the dreadful quality of most Redbook CDs and that the biggest factor in a good rip is surely the source. I think you need to demo the UnitiServe and listen for yourself. If after listening you think it makes better rips then to all intents and purposes it probably does make better rips. At least in any sense that actually matters. 

Remember "If it has fur, its not a tortoise"

My young kitten loves to chase his tail. Apparently he is not the only one.

Darn it - for the second time in 24 hours I am agreeing with what David Dever is saying again - what is going on?

Tog

Taking that skepticism further ... how do you know that Naim don't deliberately degrade third party rips in order to sound better in a dem?

If the audio bits in the rip are the same, then they should be served up the same and sound the same.

If the audio bits in the rips are different, then it is an absolutely objective matter which, if any, is correct.

Which is it?