HDX rip better than iTunes rip?

quote:

Originally posted by PMR:


Don't worry, after another glass of wine you won't notice the difference between rips.

Enjoy your music, it's all that matters.

spot on, I am on my second glass myself, trying a new dac for fun, and really enjoying ..... iTunes, can't hear any naughty offset though

Which DAC, Harold?

quote:

Originally posted by Harry H. Wombat:
Which DAC, Harold?

Well, an interesting one. This is off topic but a good friend has lent me a tiny dac called UD-01 made by a small company called Kingrex, but what is truly impressive is the add-on matching power supply which completely transforms the little guy.

The little dac on its own is just OK, improves the dac built into the mac but so does any other dac, and I prefer the Beresford easily ( they are both same price to be fair). Add the power supply and big big difference. The Power supply is very well made and has a 48v toroid linear transformer in it so no more switchy supply baddies. I still think the cheapy beresford sounds very slightly punchier and slightly more together, but the Kingrex is, well, more good- tube-like. Smooth and warm and billowy cloud kinda but still engaging. In the end it is not for me but can see how others may love it easily. It is the power supply which interests me, and I would like to try it on the beresford but while the power specs match (12v ) the jacks on the back are different diameters and I am not going to butcher my buddies cable. Very Interesting what a good power supply does though. The Dac is only about $180 and same price for power supply.

I am not going to compare it to the others in the studio as that is just not fair, but with the PS, another good cheap dac can be added to the list of good cheap dacs. it is only USB and 16/44, but very smooth. heres a pic of the inside of the PS I took.

quote:

Originally posted by pcstockton:

how many times to i have to say this here...

ITUNES DOES NOT, and CANNOT, produce a bit perfect rip!!! Unless by blind luck.

YOU CANNOT EDIT THE READ OFFSET OF RIPPING DRIVE IN iTUNES. Period.

There seems to be some confusion about the effect of the OFFSET of a cd drive. Due to the offset the drive starts reading either to early and picks up a few samples of the lead-in before the samples of the song start, or it misses the first few samples of the song. These samples will usually be zero anyway. However the data of the samples that are being read will be the same as on the CD if the CD isn't damaged. Therefor if you do a file comparison between two rips from different drives there can be a difference but only because the samples are slightly offset in time. But once you time-align the samples the data stream is exactly the same. The author of the mentioned article does correctly align the samples before comparing them and shows the rips between Itunes and other software from different drives are exactly the same. So if a ripping program corrects for offset or not doesn't have any influence on the quality of the rip, it contains the same audio stream. So not using Itunes because it doesn't correct the offset makes no sense what so ever. On damaged CD's it is well possible though that other software can do a better job in recovering damaged data by doing several read attempts.

quote:

Originally posted by Arjan:
So not using Itunes because it doesn't correct the offset makes no sense what so ever.

That is not why I don't use iTunes. I don't use iTunes, for ripping or listening, because I have a PC and a wealth of options. Of which, iTunes is one. But I would never consider using it.

The drive offset is just 1 of 74 reasons why I use EAC. And certainly low on the list.
Log file, cue file, FLAC, are deal breakers.

If I only had my Mac, I would surely buy a PC for my ripping and playing needs.

I do like iTunes for syncing my iPhone with Outlook though.... essential.

quote:

Originally posted by pcstockton:

quote:

Originally posted by Arjan:
So not using Itunes because it doesn't correct the offset makes no sense what so ever.

That is not why I don't use iTunes. I don't use iTunes, for ripping or listening, because I have a PC and a wealth of options. Of which, iTunes is one. But I would never consider using it.

The drive offset is just 1 of 74 reasons why I use EAC. And certainly low on the list.
Log file, cue file, FLAC, are deal breakers.

If I only had my Mac, I would surely buy a PC for my ripping and playing needs.

I do like iTunes for syncing my iPhone with Outlook though.... essential.

XLD can be set to fix the few samples of offset on a Mac, dolphins and bats everywhere rejoice.
It can also convert Flac files to Aiff or lossless or whatever one wishes. Also, if you just want to play Flac, there are options for that as well on Mac ( Amadeus ). Same for your other deal breakers.
Since you can install and run Windows on a Mac alongside Leopard ( very well in fact) , and run all the things one runs on Windows on it, it is actually you who has less options .... you cannot run OSX on P.C.


Not sure what your other 70 reasons are, but I think I can guess one of them, you work for Microsoft ? just kidding.

and watch out, using iTunes for synching iPhone with Outlook may not be absolutely bit-perfect

does any one here actually know the minimum # of samples needed in order to actually be heard ? ( by a human )

cheers and have good weekend all, I am going to open another Rioja and listen to some flac files ...... and vinyl (but not in iTunes of course)

Stop by the shop, Spock

quote:

Originally posted by pcstockton:


The drive offset is just 1 of 74 reasons why I use EAC. And certainly low on the list.
Log file, cue file, FLAC, are deal breakers.

If I only had my Mac, I would surely buy a PC for my ripping and playing needs.

We're still waiting for you to show us some proper evidence that iTunes cannot make bit-perfect rips.

Mr Tibbs

Thats because they can't. All evidence is clear that when error correction settings are used then it is bit perfect.

People go on about how they can 'hear' a difference, but I'm not convinced by this either. I've used a lot of the ripping software and haven't been able to convince myself that there has been any difference. So with that in mind I continue to use Itunes as it is easier than using other progs.

I would like Apple to allow the Airport Express to stream high res files but I don have a significant enough of them for this to really be a bug bear. I can convert standard flac files to aif easily enough.

Anyway, all in my opinion and also the fact that I am very happy with the sound of my system.

Ryan

Mr Tibbs hi --

I think the issue pc has is with the drive offset which means that some information could be lost at I presume the start of the CD (this as has been said is usually silence but sometimes is not) - there are previous posts in other threads on this. Some people would also claim that on a scratched or otherwise damaged CD, EAC and other rippers have a better chance of recovering the original bits. There are technical explanations for this.

It depends on individuals interpretation of bit-perfect and pcstockton I believe has the more rigorous definition - all the important bits on the entire CD bar none. This is different to the claim that an HDX rip "sounds better" (and is therefore substantially different for the entire length of the rip). I do not believe that pcstockton has ever claimed this.

Apologies to Mr Tibbs for stepping in to a personally directed question but I would hate this thread to get off track when it is not necessary. For me, it is far too important a thread.

Harry

quote:

I think the issue pc has is with the drive offset which means that some information could be lost at I presume the start of the CD

I understand the concern but I have ripped a significant(!) number of CD's and I have not seen one CD where part of the song (beginning or end) has been chopped off. I guess it just depends on your level of concern/paranoia/fear....or not.

When I get back home in a couple of weeks I am going to re-rip my entire CD collection as right now I have a whole mish mash of formats and bit rates that I have accumulated over the years and many are in MP3 as I originally just ripped for my iPod for travelling but now I use them as a source I need to get them all into high quality files. That should be fun....

Cheers

Jim

quote:

Originally posted by Harry H. Wombat:
Mr Tibbs hi --

Apologies to Mr Tibbs for stepping in to a personally directed question but I would hate this thread to get off track when it is not necessary. For me, it is far too important a thread.

No need to apologise - I'm keen to hear from anyone who can shed light on this whole issue. If iTunes cannot make perfect rips I'd be happy for pcstockton (or anyone else) to simply show the evidence.

Mr Tibbs

I agree with the past few posts and do think that this thread is very important, even though it went a little of topic. I will continue to follow it keenly .

Also, I would like to change my forum name to " MacHaroldbudd ", is this possible ?

quote:

Originally posted by haroldbudd:
I agree with the past few posts and do think that this thread is very important, even though it went a little of topic. I will continue to follow it keenly .

Also, I would like to change my forum name to " MacHaroldbudd ", is this possible ?

Haha! Not unless you can prove 'bit perfect' is not 'bit perfect' at all or black is white and gets killed at the next zebra crossing.

As JS said, if your in town stop by Promusica and listen.

My initial comments still stand at the start of this thread. Despite "bit perfect" copies, I have heard a significant difference and it was not subtle. I understand all of the technical arguments, wave forms, cancellation, etc..., but there was a difference. The only files which weresimilar in musical presentation were the EAC and HDX rips. If I hadn't heard the latter I'd probably be happy with the former, but I thought the HDX rips better conveyed the original music.

Why this is so, I don't know, but it was there. Many of us have heard it. We can't all be crazy. We can, but you get my drift.

[/QUOTE]I understand the concern but I have ripped a significant(!) number of CD's and I have not seen one CD where part of the song (beginning or end) has been chopped off.[/QUOTE]

Because all cd drives have different offsets and even the place where the audio begins on a CD is not officially defined and varies highly between different CDs, there is a lead-in before the audio data and a lead-out after. Every CD drive starts reading from somewhere within the lead-in depending on the offset. But the lead-in is much longer then the offset so music data will never be chopped off. The reason EAC has the possibility to correct the offset is because if you make a copy of a copy of a copy etc then eventually the lead-in can become too short and audio data will be chopped off. But doing one RIP of an original CD will never chopp off audio data what ever the offset of your drive is. And the offset has no influence on the bit perfect quality of the audio data. So people who like the conveniance of Itunes can safely use it to rip there CD's, it will contain the same audio data as EAC or any other program. But as pcstockton pointed out there might be other valid reasons for using EAC but it's not valid that Itunes cannot make an accurate RIP of the music data which in the end is all that counts.

Why is this so?

The only logical explanation is that the CD from which the RIP was made was damaged. So your hearing the effects of different levels of error recovery.

Buy a second copy of the test CD. Does its RIP sound identical to the first?

I suspect the answer is - simply look after your CD's and iTunes is fine.

So why does the HDX rip sound better?

And why do two different EAC rips made on different drives sound different?

quote:

Originally posted by David Dever:
So why does the HDX rip sound better?

And why do two different EAC rips made on different drives sound different?

That's an opinion...not a fact.

Cannot comment on the HDX

With respect to EAC rips from different drives of the same CD - repeat the process that Harry explains.

If there is a difference - then one of your drives is faulty.

If the data is the same - then it sounds the same play through the same digital audio chain.

quote:

Originally posted by Arjan:

quote:

Originally posted by David Dever:
So why does the HDX rip sound better?

And why do two different EAC rips made on different drives sound different?

That's an opinion...not a fact.

While it's an opinion, too many people have heard the differences to just brush it away.

quote:

Originally posted by paremus:

If the data is the same - then it sounds the same play through the same digital audio chain.

No it doesn't.

David and JS

Totally agree with you.

I've been involved doing lots of rips, PC and Mac, with different ripping apps.

They all sound different. A file compare using EAC's comparison utility however shows the only differences to be offset.

Offset shouldn't of course make a difference to the sound quality. Two rips with different apps done on the same drive can have the same offset and they still sound different from each other.

So far EAC and HDX rips sound the best. I have no idea why.

These are not huge, night and day, differences but some rips sound distinctly better than others.

At present, until I understand more, I am just taking the assumption that any change is probably audible if one's system is good enough.

Whether of course it's better or worse, or it even matters, is up to the listener.

quote:

Originally posted by David Dever:
So why does the HDX rip sound better?

And why do two different EAC rips made on different drives sound different?

Expectation Bias?

It affects everyone to some extent.

Certainly, unless someone can show that ripped data stored on a hard drive is somehow different depending on whether ripped by iTunes or EAC or the HDX, then it's a far more feasible explanation than "it just sounds better even though the data is exactly the same".

Mr Tibbs

Blind test eliminates bias. I also can't explain it but I've always relied on my ears when making decisions for them. The earth is flat, I guess.