On another thread here which discussed limitations to file transfer and storage on the UnitiServe outside of ripping in the box (and by reference also the HDX/NS0x series swell) the following responses were given to questions suggesting bit perfect rips by commercial software such as dB Poweramp or EAC should be accessible and transferrable with the same results as the internal Naim controlled rips.
Paul Stephenson:-
"Easy naim rip via our server easy db and eac good but our rip and our drive choice usually outperforms"
Phil Harris:-
"The point here is that the UnitiServe (and HDX / NS0x) are designed as a hardware and software combination that gives a good set of results without the end user having to work out and put together their own combinations of hardware - i.e. the rips should be as good as it is possible for them to be - bit perfect.
EAC or db *CAN* also achieve bit perfect rips but EAC or db are only part of the solution - there's hardware that they sit on top of and that too has to support the process. Just throwing EAC or db at a CD on its own does not guarantee a bit perfect rip if the hardware tey're running on doesn't support that.
If there are differences in the rip then there *WILL* be differences in the payback of those rips and if a rip produced by EAC or db isn't bit perfect then there's nothing that any utility written by anyone can do to make them so...
Paul Again:-
"....as Phil replies its the combination of hardware and software, the files will look identical from,db,eac or itunes but from the experiences we have had here the sound is not."
The issues for the larger digital ripping community that this raises should be answered if the above statements are taken to be correct.
1) By implication the US has a hard disk /hardware chain inside it that confers some quality of performance that is specific to Naim. Does this also apply to the SSD version and if so that MUST eliminate the HDD inside the US from this argument.
2) If the statements above are correct then by inference the use of a NAS will change the situation. Naim apparently does not say to get the best results with a digital audio chain that includes the US ( or HDX etc) a specific make of NAS hardware is required to preserve the 'Naimness' of rips made on the US. Does this mean that Naim does not include the wider field of NAS hardware in their claim.
3) Does this mean that the ripping process in a Naim server box is necessary to obtain the full benefit of the Naim rip strategy and that therefore systems without a Naim ripper in them are compromised in some fashion.
4) When it is stated the EAC or dB CAN produce bit perfect rips, but only if the hardware there running on allows it, by implication the manufacture of some CD Rom drives is so unusual that the Accurate rip database can be cheated by them and that whole section of the data storage industry happily accepts non-bit perfect archiving of files may occur.
5) How does the Naim label create its download files and are they also going to sound the same as ostensibly the same music files ripped off CDs on a US. For that matter when we download audio files from other respected sources are we missing out again.
I find it hard to believe the above is true. But if it is then it implies the wider world of ripping/storage and transfer of audio is inferior in some way.
Posted on: 01 August 2012 by james n
Interesting post Geoff - Linn don't seem to consider this an issue but Naim do. Some interesting threads on the Hi-Fi Critic forum about CD ripping and differing sound quality, even if the checksums match,,,.
My XLD test rips of a Naim label CD vs the same tracks as downloads from the Naim label sounded the same so i've not worried about it.
Keeping an open mind on this though.
Posted on: 01 August 2012 by Geoff P
Originally Posted by Phil Harris:
My answer to your question would be exactly what you've quoted me as saying previously...
As usual I will decline to answer any questions about absolute sound quality as - as I have stated previously - I'm not "golden eared" enough to make those judgements.
Phil
Hi Phil
Ok but no response from Naim to the other issues I raised? There must be a pair of golden ears involved in this somewhere in Naim esle why make the claim in the first place?.
For example Unitserve HDD vs SSD Surely they have been compared in house. Also incorporation of an AN Other NAS in to the equation.
Say I was interested in an NDS the implication is I would need to buy a US as well and re-rip over 30,000 tracks done in dB Poweramp already to get the very best result. No comment on that?
regards
Geoff
Posted on: 01 August 2012 by Phil Harris
Originally Posted by james n:
Interesting post Geoff - Linn don't seem to consider this an issue but Naim do. Some interesting threads on the Hi-Fi Critic forum about CD ripping and differing sound quality, even if the checksums match,,,.
My XLD test rips of a Naim label CD vs the same tracks as downloads from the Naim label sounded the same so i've not worried about it.
Keeping an open mind on this though.
Perhaps Linn don't make an issue of it because they have avoided making their own ripping solution? (It would have been much easier for us to have gone that route but we have a "source first" ethos and so we wanted to make sure our source material was first-rate.)
One of our bigger dealers are also definitely Linn-centric as far as their staff are concerned (4 of their 5 staff are dedicated Linn-ites) but all of them use UnitiServes as sources for their home systems because they believe that they sound better than their existing ripping solutions - one of them had already ripped his 5,000 CD collection as FLACs (as he had been advised to by Linn) and yet openly admitted to me that he was re-ripping his entire collection using a UnitiServe SSD as it sounded better.
Phil
Posted on: 01 August 2012 by likesmusic
Phil, can you make it really clear.
If someone uses a sensibly set up dBpoweramp and rips to WAV will the resulting rip be the same as or different to a rip made by a Naim ripper?
Answering this question does not need "golden ears"!
Posted on: 01 August 2012 by Phil Harris
Originally Posted by likesmusic:
Phil, can you make it really clear.
If someone uses a sensibly set up dBpoweramp and rips to WAV will the resulting rip be the same as or different to a rip made by a Naim ripper?
Answering this question does not need "golden ears"!
I'll answer this by quoting from the opening post here ...
"...the UnitiServe (and HDX / NS0x) are designed as a hardware and software combination that gives a good set of results without the end user having to work out and put together their own combinations of hardware - i.e. the rips should be as good as it is possible for them to be - bit perfect.
EAC or db *CAN* also achieve bit perfect rips but EAC or db are only part of the solution - there's hardware that they sit on top of and that too has to support the process. Just throwing EAC or db at a CD on its own does not guarantee a bit perfect rip if the hardware they're running on doesn't support that."
Hopefully this should be your really clear answer...
Cheers
Phil
Posted on: 01 August 2012 by Geoff P
OK based on what has been said
1) HDD and SSD versions of the US produce the same result
2) Using a NAS will not affect the result ( a guy who has 5,000 + CDs will not get many on a 16Gb SSD US)
3) We can assume that a NAS ( which Naim will encounter as suggested above) will be fine for the rest of the world to use for storage as well.
4) We can assume that the inherent software capability of dB Poweramp, EAC and XLD acheive bit perfect rips. At least the world beyond Naim is agreed on that.
5) WAV is WAV and FLAC is FLAC and so on again as defined by the world (not Naim) so Naim has to create the same file structure as the rest of the world.
6) So I guess we are down to just the CD ROM drive and the read firmware. Since I know the dB Poweramp, at least, tests and calibrates the CD ROM drive it is interfacing with and applies correction offsets if necessary before ripping I can't see any Naim magic lurking there.
So what is left to make Naim rips different?
Posted on: 01 August 2012 by Bart
I, for one, do not see any conflict.
If any one can "hear" a music file, good luck to them. But we cannot. We take that music file and only hear it after it is processed by a whole lot of hardware.
On the Naim ripper the UnitiServe, one cannot separate the software (the bit-perfect rip) from the hardware. Mr. Stephenson's quote made this clear as he discussed "our rip and our drive choice."
So these questions get rather silly, with one camp saying "the files are exactly the same; both are bit-perfect with identical check-sum values, so they must sound the same" and the other saying "I can't possibly tell you that a db Poweramp ripped file will sound the same as a uServe ripped file, as the hardware they are played on, by necessity, is different."
For those in the former camp, you should declare victory because Phil "admitted" that db Poweramp and EAC can also create bit-perfect rips, and end the barrister impersonations.
Posted on: 01 August 2012 by Phil Harris
You guys seem to be missing the point that I'm taking great pains to repeat over and over again and which you've even quoted me as saying before, however...
IF you run EAC or dbPoweramp with the CORRECT underlying hardware, software and firmware you can get bit perfect rips ... but you have to get the combination of hardware, software, firmware etc correct. (For example, some CD/DVD ROM drives do not support secure mode which is required for accurate ripping and some have the appropriate command set to support it but don't.)
This is the information that you appear to be overlooking.
I am not claiming and have never claimed that our servers will give a more accurate rip than it is possible to get if you "roll your own" or that EAC and dpPoweramp are not capable of doing so PROVIDED they are running on a platform that allows them to do so.
However, our servers have been designed with hardware, software and firmware that DO support everything required to do bit perfect ripping. They have been designed so as to be HiFi components rather than "computers" and they have been designed to give consistent performance. (i.e. they will rip discs bit perfect as long as the disc can be read.)
Phil
Posted on: 01 August 2012 by Bart
Originally Posted by james n:
No question there but i still don't see anything that proves that the Naim ripping engine is superior to ANother ripper or is it just a case of optimisation - take a certain drive and processor platform and then design the ripping engine with these in mind ?
This is where the discussion gets confusing. Some are asking to compare the digital results of ripping, and others are asking to compare "sound."
I'm not defending Phil, but to be fair he's already said that the uServe produces bit-perfect copies, and that db Powercamp and EAC can also do that.
James, I really think that you're on to something if you approach the ripping question from the opposite direction. "When db or EAC fail to make a bit-perfect copy, what is to blame? Software, or hardware?" I'd not expect Naim engineers to be prepared to answer that definitively, however, nor would be be fair for them to speculate I suppose.
Posted on: 01 August 2012 by Phil Harris
Originally Posted by Bart:
So these questions get rather silly, with one camp saying "the files are exactly the same; both are bit-perfect with identical check-sum values, so they must sound the same" and the other saying "I can't possibly tell you that a db Poweramp ripped file will sound the same as a uServe ripped file, as the hardware they are played on, by necessity, is different."
Hi Bart,
It's more a case of that I can't say that an EAC or dbPoweramp produced file will or will not be "bit perfect" because the ability to do this is not determined solely by the software but by the entire hardware platform...
If the platform is right then EAC and dbPoweramp CAN produce bit perfect rips...
...will that guarantee that they do produce bit perfect rips? Well, no, but assuming the disc can be read accurately then they will.
Phil
Posted on: 01 August 2012 by Peter_RN
Hi Geoff
How does anyone know that they have a bit perfect rip of a piece of music regardless of the method used to produce the rip?
I also use Dbpoweramp having carefully followed Mr Spoons guide to setting up the program for the two CD drives that I use. I find that on the odd occasion I am unable to copy a track accurately according to the online database, on moving the disc to the second drive will copy that track accurately. This has never failed to date.
As to the question of whether or not the online database can be fooled, well I know that I have been very careful to setup my drives as instructed, so if I then get a match with the database from drives with the same offset, I feel that it is reasonable to conclude this is valid.
Now, if I only had one CD drive I would defiantly have tracks that would not match the online database; I would regard these tracks as inaccurate. This also enforces in my mind at least that streaming is likely to be more accurate than playing the CD.
I guess it will be obvious that I think I have an accurate copy of my music collection which to me sounds better than the CD’s used to sound when these were played directly. I am very happy with this situation, could it be better if I used the Naim ripping solution? I don’t know, if it would allow me to ‘push’ the music to the player I would be far more likely to try it, as control is more of an issue for us than SQ, which as I have said is already better than playing the CD.
Just my thoughts Geoff, doesn’t answer your questions I know, Phil’s trying hard to do that and is of course in a much better position to do so.
Regards
Peter
Posted on: 01 August 2012 by Guido Fawkes
I give up ... if people want to believe in magic then that's fine.
I think these kind of arguments is why I'm beginning to think it is time for a change ...
As far as ripping goes, the hardware and software is a red herring ... if the end results are 100% identical. You can buy a £100m super computer or a £10 pocket calculator and both will tell you 10+9=19 ... once you know the answer is 19 why do you care how it was calculated or what calculated it ... you can look it up in the answer book (AccurateRip) to be sure it is right.
The US and XLD produce the same answer ... so I don't care how they did it or which one was used.
If only we could just download 24/44.1 from iTunes or Amazon we could forget all these ripping yarns and move on
Very sad that somebody had to re-rip all those CDs ... should have used XLD on a Mac then he'd have known whether his rip was right 
> "the files are exactly the same; both are bit-perfect with identical check-sum values, so they must sound the same" and the other saying "I can't possibly tell you that a db Poweramp ripped file will sound the same as a uServe ripped file, as the hardware they are played on, by necessity, is different."
This no longer the case as you can put both files on the US - you have always been able to capture a US rip and you know what when you do they sound the same as any other AccurateRip.
Yes the same file played back on two systems will sound as different as the two systems sound from each other, but the origin of the file is a red herring.
Posted on: 01 August 2012 by Bart
Originally Posted by Guido Fawkes:
This no longer the case as you can put both files on the US - you have always been able to capture a US rip and you know what when you do they sound the same as any other AccurateRip.
Yes the same file played back on two systems will sound as different as the two systems sound from each other, but the origin of the file is a red herring.
I think that we're all in pretty violent agreement that all the bit-perfect rips (uServe, db, EAC) will sound the same when played back on identical equipment. I don't have any empirical evidence of this, but if I were a betting man I'd place that bet!
Posted on: 01 August 2012 by Julian H
Excellent thread topic Geoff
Only Tuesday night had I drafted something similar, only to delete it because I was unsure if I would get much interest.
I am very interested in the subject of ripping, due to having been disappointed with a few of my own. I don't get how a Naim U/S rip can be different to another one proclaimed to bit perfect. At one time I even believed it might be possible that Naim rips were purposely not bit perfect but tinged with errors which are "euphonic" in nature to artificially add something? Obviously this thought can be put to bed based on Phil's contribution above.
I remain skeptical that Naim rips are technically better but am open minded enough to be convinced otherwise, even if only based upon subjective listening alone. What I don't get [based on my virtually non existant knowledge of the subject] is, if a drive cannot rip properly, how does the software / photo / files on your CD/DVD work on your computer once downloaded?
Julian
Posted on: 01 August 2012 by DaveBk
I think all Naim are saying is that they build ripping & storage appliances that take all the complexity away for the vast majority of end users and deliver consistently great results. For those of us with the technical skills and inclination to follow a different path, then fine, no debate that you can get also get great results, but obviously they are not going to guarantee it.
It's a bit like using 3rd party high performance brake pads on your car - you may well get equal or better braking performance, but no manufacturer is going to stand behind this solution.
Posted on: 01 August 2012 by Geoff P
Originally Posted by DaveBk:
I think all Naim are saying is that they build ripping & storage appliances that take all the complexity away for the vast majority of end users and deliver consistently great results. For those of us with the technical skills and inclination to follow a different path, then fine, no debate that you can get also get great results, but obviously they are not going to guarantee it.
It's a bit like using 3rd party high performance brake pads on your car - you may well get equal or better braking performance, but no manufacturer is going to stand behind this solution.
Dave well put.
I was thinking maybe Naim should say something along the lines of:
"The Unitiserve in common with other Naim equipment using our proprietary Naim ripping engine will produce results equivalent to (or as good as) the bast obtainable with established ripping software such as dB Poweramp, EAC and XLD"
That would avoid the whole debate we just had though it is educational and interesting.
Posted on: 01 August 2012 by Phil Harris
Originally Posted by DaveBk:
I think all Naim are saying is that they build ripping & storage appliances that take all the complexity away for the vast majority of end users and deliver consistently great results. For those of us with the technical skills and inclination to follow a different path, then fine, no debate that you can get also get great results, but obviously they are not going to guarantee it.
Thanks Dave - I was starting to think that no-one was actually reading my replies...
Originally Posted by DaveBk:
It's a bit like using 3rd party high performance brake pads on your car - you may well get equal or better braking performance, but no manufacturer is going to stand behind this solution.
Pretty much - in our servers we have the correct combination of software, hardware and drivers to be able to create a bit perfect rip from your CDs and bit perfect is as good as you can get from a CD rip.
You are welcome to roll your own ripping solution and if you get the right software and hardware together then you too can get a rip that is bit perfect too ... if that's what you want to do then please do feel free.
Phil
Posted on: 01 August 2012 by AndyPat
Some listen and they hear............others listen and they cannot hear.
Unhappy are they who cannot hear for is it not said that if you can't fully explain it it cannot be so?
Lucky am I that Sir Isaac explained gravity. I would care not for a floating existence.
Posted on: 01 August 2012 by Guido Fawkes
Excellent so we all agree that it doesn't matter if we use XLD, dBPA, EAC or the Naim US - all bit perfect ripped music contents are the same and played back on the same system sound the same.
A consensus and two Gold medals I can go to bed happy now 
I still feel sorry for the dude who re-ripped all those CDs though.
