Digitised music vs CD

Posted by: TwoTonTed on 06 April 2017

Sorry if this has been endlessly debated but I'm new on here!

Like many I have now downloaded all my CDs to the PC where they sit in i-Tunes.  I therefore no longer have a need for my Naim CDX player which still has a street value on eBay.  

Via the audio output on the PC, I have connected the Naim amp (NAC 92R) and power amp (NAP 90) which are pretty out of date, admittedly! I can play my music library through the system's Nautilus speakers and it sounds pretty decent.

However, the production quality seems poor compared to the old way of doing things, as the system was designed!  I'm thinking that CD to amp to speaker is the most efficient way of sound reproduction.

Could someone confirm that I am listening to substandard output, or is it just me?  If it is poorer, is there a better way of connecting the PC with the old kit I have? 

Maybe I should not be selling the CDX player?!

Many thanks 

Posted on: 06 April 2017 by Simon-in-Suffolk

Sorry, a little confused, digitised music is CD which I think Huge points out as well????

With digitised music you have often have a choice of media encoding types... and perhaps that is more your query?

Posted on: 06 April 2017 by Huge

Err didn't you get that the wrong way round?  i.e. CD is digitised music.

Posted on: 06 April 2017 by Simon-in-Suffolk

Not really it's a canonical assertion 

Posted on: 06 April 2017 by Huge

I don't think this is quite the right forum in which to argue the limits of provable veracity within formal logic or mathematical systems!

Posted on: 06 April 2017 by Eoink
TwoTonTed posted:
Huge posted:

Odd.  I used to use it and could select WAVE output.

FLAC is also a good choice, if you're using a PC and a DAC as a rendered than you won't notice any difference between FLAC and WAVE.

It at a later stage you move to a Naim streamer, then you can convert (or transcode) FLAC to WAVE losslessly anyway (many, myself and Naim themselves included, think Naim streamers sound slightly better fed a diet of WAVE streams).

hum, looks very difficult to use!  Have inserted a CD and it doesnt recognise anything about the content; Artist, Title, Track names etc.  What happens now?  Guess I have to copy the CD to my hard drive somehow?

If you Google "ripping CDs using EAC", one of the top hits is a step by step guide to using EAC on the Squeezebox site. Looking at that, you need a bit of up-front configuration, then it should work quite simply. The  guide looks pretty comprehensive, I don't use it myself so can't give advice from experience. 

Posted on: 06 April 2017 by Allante93

Sorry, late to the party, thought this thread wouldn't pertain to me. Wrong! 

Ok, I sold my LP 12 a couple of years ago, main source Cdx2 MK I. 

Great, so the challenge for me was to compare iTunes rips off MM, with my Cdx2. 

First off I wasn't using the highest bit rate, what ever that means, but one was 256, whilst AIFF was 1,411kbps.

I guess that's faster which means better. Could I tell the difference, maybe!!!! 

Anyhow, my original comparison was done by timing the CD and the Ripped version, and seeing if I could detect the difference! 

No problem, the Cdx2 was more Dynamic, and lively, if that's a word! 

So, when I want some Dynamic, lively Music,  I go through the hassle of loading my Cdx2, But then I'm in Flat Room! 

Otherwise iTunes ain't bad when I'm not doing serious listening.  Endless number of playlist, over 1K tunes, control from my android phone using Remote Application.  

I don't know if I'm Streaming, but it doesn't  cost me one red cent! 

MM>Airport Extreme>Airport Express>282>HCDR>3 x 250.2>Briks ~ Flat Room

MM>....>Emotiva Dac 1>Primare Pre 30 > Arcam P1 Mono Blocks> Vienna Acoustic Baby Grands ~ Round Room

MM>.......Emotiva UMC 1> Arcam P35> Klisph Speakers, I think, can't spell a lick. ~ Rec Room

Question: If invested in an Ethernet output in the Flat Room, Additional MM >Ndac >282, would that rival my Cdx2?