HDX vs EAC

As the basic recordings - as a human endeavor - are to some degree flawed, then the real question is rather:

Does your ripping engine make acceptable presentations of the original, rather than is this method perfect? Perfection is not really the point as perfection cannot exist in any human endeavor...

Now I have endured imperfect recordings via CD on Sony, Naim [including CDS2 and CDS3 as well as the esteemed 555] and Marantz, and each gave pleasure.

As for ripped CDs, I will say that plain old iTunes does more than leave unforgivable foibles behind. The HDX is very pleasing, but far more expensive, and EAC is so difficult to use that getting to a successful transfer is rather difficult. I never achieved a happy result as fine as iTunes in spite of significant effort. It is not intuitive to work it ...

ATB from George

quote:

As the basic recordings - as a human endeavor - are to some degree flawed

George, it's a very fair point. But I don't think that multiplying the errors can cure up or mask the original imperfection. It will further deteriorate the sound. The rip should be as close to original CD bit line up as possible.

Perfection is absolutely possible in ripping. It is an utterly deterministic process. You either get the bits or you don't. You can prove whether or not you have the correct bits easily. Two rips can be compared bit for bit easily.

A while ago it was shown on this forum that allowing for drive-offset dBpoweramp, iTunes and EAC produced bit identical rips of a Naim cd and these rips were bit-identical to the same track downloaded from the Naim store.

Anyone can repeat this test for themselves. You can use dBpoweramp to compute checksums and compare them, or you can use foobar to bit compare the rips.

It would be interesting to see how HDX rips fare in such a comparison!

p.s. George - you should give dBpoweramp a go - it's a lot less nerdy than EAC; a feature you may like is that you can intervene in the tagging quite easily, and control the directory structure of your rips - very useful for classical music.

licemusic, I agree with you on bit perfect rip.
EAC performs checksum check up and it also checks through Acuurate Rip. When EAC reports on completion showing "no problem occurs" I think we can be sure that rip is bit-identical to original CD bit-sequence. With this point in view HDX is not better or worse but obviously more convenient.
But if you can keep up with EAC ripping you may save up a lot of dosh

AMA why is an HDX more convenient?

With dBpoweramp I can rip a cd sitting anywhere in my home or indeed anywhere in the wider world where I can take my laptop, like my garden on a sunny day. I can get a selection of tags retrieved automatically for me from 5 online databases, pick the ones I prefer, adjust them if I wish, rip to more than one useful format into a directory structure of my choosing and use a hi resolution screen to look at, select, or even create, artwork. Like EAC the rips are verified against Accuraterip. I can store these rips on modestly priced hard drives of my choosing, backed up to whatever level of security I wish, and even automatically back them up online in a military grade data-center.

So remind me why an HDX would be more convenient?

The machines that enter my listening room is either the iPad or a MacBook Air. None of them has a CD-drive. It is the sign of the times ... CD/DVD-drives is going away and if you insist they will just be another messy computer accessory at the end of a USB cable. Forget about roaming around the house getting at computers and all the hi-resolution displays and constantly updating something or other.

With the HDX: Place a CD on the tray, give it a push and pick it up a few minutes later when its ripped and ready to use. At all times - enjoy the music.

Still - I use the Air/iPad with the music system - mainly radio/spotify/itunes/discovery of new music. Playing wireless Airplay to an AppleTV2 connected to the nDac.

quote:

Originally posted by likesmusic:
why is an HDX more convenient?

quote:

So remind me why an HDX would be more convenient?

Ripping CDs on my laptop is noisy and distracting me from working or listening the music. HDX makes it in a more elegant and silent way -- with no interference with my laptop activity.
No need to exaggerate on this - it's definitely not a big deal, just a pleasant feature.

quote:

and even automatically back them up online in a military grade data-center.

That's a tough one! If you have THAT grade of data access I would refrain from annoying you in future

jlarsson, agree on HDX. I already asked you on the other thread -- can you describe HDX vs TP difference (I mean both through nDAC/XPS). Did you listen them side-by-side?

Lets not kid ourselves. The CD drive in the HDX and if no SSD the HDD are lovely noise generators just like a PC DVD rom drive.

I rip using essentially dB Poweramp via a USB attached DVD drive direct into my NAS box. The NAS box sits in the kitchen so what could be quieter than that? Just pop a new CD in when passing it gets accurate rip checked and eh volia it appears in my collection.

Accessed by just an i-pod by the listening chair.

regards
Geoff

quote:

Lets not kid ourselves. The CD drive in the HDX and if no SSD the HDD are lovely noise generators just like a PC DVD rom drive.

Geoff, HDX is sitting on the rack, quite away from my listening position-- I can't afford the same with a laptop on my table. But I'm noway about to advocate HDX ripping facilities as along as they are offered at such a ridiculous price tag. I'm using EAC and I'm fine

AMA - I use Carbonite to do online backup of all my computer files, music included. Their data centres are RAID 6, very secure, encrypted, and multiple versions are archived, so you can return to previous versions of documents. It's about £40 a year, works in the background. Worth every penny. Highly recommended.

ps If you don't want to rip on your laptop, nothing stopping you buying a cheap pc and dedicating it to ripping - and being a server too.

quote:

If you don't want to rip on your laptop, nothing stopping you buying a cheap pc and dedicating it to ripping - and being a server too.

That's what I did I bought Acer laptop and it sits right atop of Logitech Transporter, streams music from NAS and rips CDs when needed.

quote:

Originally posted by likesmusic:
AMA - I use Carbonite to do online backup of all my computer files, music included. Their data centres are RAID 6, very secure, encrypted, and multiple versions are archived, so you can return to previous versions of documents. It's about £40 a year, works in the background. Worth every penny. Highly recommended.

ps If you don't want to rip on your laptop, nothing stopping you buying a cheap pc and dedicating it to ripping - and being a server too.

Can you supply some more information about Carbonite, as I see it as an interesting option. I am curious as to whether the de-encrypted back up has the same sound quality as the original file. Assuming say they were ripped in WAV format by an nServe to a NAS and then backed up to Carbonite?

quote:

Originally posted by Michael A Simpson:
Can you supply some more information about Carbonite, as I see it as an interesting option. I am curious as to whether the de-encrypted back up has the same sound quality as the original file. Assuming say they were ripped in WAV format by an nServe to a NAS and then backed up to Carbonite?

Just look at carbonite dot com

I don't really like it because it uses a self developed program which only allows you to select certain files and file locations from your computer. You're not completely free to backup whatever you want or from whereever you want.

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aleg

I'm not sure that is quite correct Aleg; carbonite has a default set of fairly sensible locations that it will back up - Documents, Music etc. - but you are free to override or supplement this with your own choice of directories and files. The trial version doesn't back up music files, but as soon as you get a subscription it will.

And Michael - files retrieved from the backup are indiscriminable from the files backed up. Utterly totally identical. I use a pc rather than a NAS to serve my music - worth noting that Carbonite is much cheaper for a pc or laptop than a NAS though there is no storage limit on either.

I've found it to be an excellent product; my wife and I have both lost hard drives on our laptops and got all our files back from Carbonite very easily. Serious peace of mind!

if carbonite et alia were not bit perfect on recovery, then they would have gone out of business. or rather never even started, cos their solution would have been utterly useless for the task of backing up computer data files.

you might wish to believe that the recovered file sounds different, but if its the same numbers its the same numbers. there is nothing magical or mystical going on here.

or to put it another way, if it does repeatably sound different, then the replay chain is the variable issue not the data, so fix the replay chain!

quote:

Originally posted by likesmusic:

I've found it to be an excellent product; my wife and I have both lost hard drives on our laptops and got all our files back from Carbonite very easily. Serious peace of mind!

Looks interesting, thanks for sharing that. I like using a MacBook to rip and serve. All the issues I have seen people have with CA tend to have been NAS or network related - so I like the simple direct approach. This looks a tidier back up solution than my separate storage device.

Joe

quote:

Originally posted by likesmusic:
I'm not sure that is quite correct Aleg; carbonite has a default set of fairly sensible locations that it will back up - Documents, Music etc. - but you are free to override or supplement this with your own choice of directories and files. The trial version doesn't back up music files, but as soon as you get a subscription it will.
...

Likes

Does it allow backup of attached network drives / fileservers?
It doesn't allow to backup the operating system itself or so I believe.

I donot have a single machines/single drive PC.
I have a PC with four HDD's, comprising 9 logical discs and running 3 operating systems.
Besides that I also have a file server with two NFS exported logical drives and an operating system and also a NAS with several logical drives.

I understand this is not a run-of-the-mill setup but I don't believe it can all be backup-ed by Carbonite.

What I also don't like is the throttling they apply for large backups. An as you can understand my setup is quite large.

Those few things stopped me looking any further at Carnonite and make me rely on my own backups.
But I must say I like their offering, but believe it is more suited for somewhat smaller personal user PC configurations.

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aleg

Aleg - carbonite will do NAS drives, no problem, but you need to have the commercial version, which then gets pretty expensive. It should do anything on your pc though. I just happen to be using an old pc as a server, so I just pay about £40 a year for unlimited backup. Might be worth you downloading a trial for a play and reconsidering - perhaps it will see enough of your drives to have some merit. Dunno about throttling - the inital backup takes a few days obviously, but after that things seem to happen pretty much straightaway. All I can say is that me and my wife have both lost hard drives at different times on our laptops and been entirely unconcerned as all our data was on carbonite - we just restored from carbonite to the working laptop and kept working until the broken one was fixed and then restored to it. Couldn't want more. And the multiple versioning is excellent - means you can delete a file or part of it yet still go back to yesterdays, the day befores .. etc version. Not used remote access in anger yet, but there will surely be a day when we're miles from home and wish to see a file from one of our computers without them even having to be on. Kinda nice to know we can.

Thank you all for your comments, I will investigate further and have go with the trial.