Ripping

Posted by: musica on 04 May 2017

While I was in my local HiFi dealers a few days ago we were talking about possible improvements to my system that would be possible without breaking the bank. One that was suggested was to add a Ripper-Server rather than continue ripping on my PC using dbpoweramp. There are now various Ripper-Servers available at reasonable cost. I was surprised at this suggestion as I thought the general consensus was this method of ripping offered no sound quality improvements. Please tell me if I am wrong. This consensus has also surprised me as ther never seems to be any point made about the transport being used for ripping which surely must have some bearing on sound quality. Is anyone aware of any research or testing being carried out to justify this consensus.

Posted on: 04 May 2017 by hungryhalibut

Dbpoweramp is excellent software and I use it on my Sony laptop quite happily. If everything is ripped a dedicated ripper seems pointless. Different server software can sound different, though not hugely so. Perhaps you could give more details of what you are using to serve the music to your system, and what the system is, come to that. 

Posted on: 04 May 2017 by Huge

Consensus is that with a disk that reads OK (i.e. the drive itself corrects any errors it detects) then there is no difference.     The problem is...  how do you know this?

dbPoweramp and EAC compare the CRCs of the ripped data to a database (AccurateRip) of values other people have found for their disks with the same disk ID, and if the vales match, then the rip of track is almost certainly accurate.

If uncorrectable errors are found these two rippers (and many others) will re-rip the suspect disk blocks multiple times and take a vote on which is the most likely value.  This will at least give a better result and may actually find the right value (which AccurateRip will confirm if the ripper uses it).

Posted on: 04 May 2017 by ChrisSU

I like my 'Ripper-Server' but I'm not going to try and kid myself that it can produce a better rip than any other bit-perfect ripping device. There may well be nice features such as convenience, looks, ease of use etc. and there may be subtle differences in sound quality. Why not take your music store to your dealer and ask him to give you a demo of something that sounds better?

Posted on: 04 May 2017 by Harry

All I can tell you is my anecdotal experience. In my systen, HDX-SSD ripping to and serving from NAS sounded inferior to dBpoweramp rips transferred to same NAS and served using Asstet. Reproducible in the same set up with Minimserver. Streamer was NDS in all cases.

This doesn't mean that something from elsewhere or more recent won't sound better now. But my motivation to explore is zero. It ain't broke. Besides which, doing it yourself is far too flexible and configurable to make me want to go back to a locked down propriety model. Although I would consider it if I thought there was a gain in musical enjoyment to be had. For that I will initially have to rely on other people's ears. Not the best source for any of us.