Lossless Files Vs CD's

But of course ripped files are sound inferior compared to it's sourced CD. I'm talking full WAV, of course, not even mentioning other, space saving, formats. There are allot of confusion and misunderstanding in these discussions because people either do not compare apples to apples, or they biased due to their involvement with the industry. However, I do agree with Audiogoner that playback from ripped files might sound coloured, but I believe that mostly due to the playback software “audio effects”.
Let's do very simple test and compare apples to apples, that you can witness said difference for yourself. Let’s forget about all your DACs, preamps, amps, speakers etc., you don’t need it because it just confusing the issue. All you need is a computer with CD ROM (might be USB CD ROM) and a pair of headphones.
Now, using any software of your choice, let’s rip any file(s) from any CD (your choice) to the HDD or SSD of said computer (BTW, SSD do sound better than HDD, but it doesn’t matter for this test). When rip is done, insert headphones directly in to the computer audio out jack, on the back of the comp and compare the sound of CD played back from the same CD ROM and ripped file(s), played trough the same computer playback/rip software. Don’t use different softs for playing back file(s) and CD, because different softs will sound differently. If your comp doesn’t have headphone jack (don’t use the one which is on CD ROM), then you’ll obviously need some receiver or something with headphone jack. BTW, guys, make treble sure that you are indeed comparing sound of CD to the sound of files, and not CD to CD and/or files to files, it gets very tricky when you playing back over and over again, same piece of music. Very easy to mess it up. If CD and files sounds identical then most likely you do compare CD to CD and/or files to files.)))
If you done everything right, you should easily hear that ripped files have a little bit less of everything i.e. less micro musical nuances, less airiness, different voice tembres, etc., compared to CD. It is similar to Xerox copy, i.e. everything looks the same (the writing is still there :~)) but a little bit less of everything, less clarity, less contrast etc. I wish I knew what causing it and how to fix it, but unfortunately I don't. (((

Xerox copy might be good analogy, but it is different with CDs. I cannot find any difference with headphones or the speakers between original CD and the CD-R copy. If anything, copy SHOULD sound better than original because ripping program, I use, reads CD as data - meaning it will go many times to the same sector until it gets proper checksum while CDP cannot do that, working in real time (most of them), and at certain point it will interpolate missing data. Of course it doesn't make much difference when CD is brand new but it might when CD has scratches. There is so many other thing involved including ambient electrical noise, that affect playback quality that in each setup you might get different results. Again, IN MY setup I don't hear any difference between CD and CD-R.

I find this argument rather useless, but here's my post with the goal of providing my perspective to those on the fence and trying to figure this out, rather than trying to convince anybody with a preconceived notion that this cannot be so.

I've been on a computer-only system for a while now, a highly optimized PC, so can't offer current examples. However, a while back I had a Rotel RCD-1072 (or was it 1082?) and a Squeezebox Touch, both feeding a Metrum Octave DAC through SPDIF. FWIW, rest of chain was McIntosh 275, Lamm LL2, B&W 804S. Playing the CD, or the wav copy of the same CD through the SBT was indistinguishable to my ears, but provided a lot more flexibility thru the SBT, while the SBT was less than half the price of the Rotel. I kept both for about a year, but eventually realized I wasn't using the Rotel anymore and sold it. Oh, and the ripping was done with dBpoweramp following the guide put together at computeraudiophile.com.

So in my experience, there is no sound difference - at best. It could be argued that dollar for dollar a good computer source sounds better than a CD player. My experience post SBT certainly suggests this is true. An optimized PC demands a lot more involvement from the user than a CD player, and that can be a hassle, but dollar for dollar in my mind you get better sound from a computer.

I hope this helps someone, sometime.

Cheers!

05-22-14: Dvavc
But of course ripped files are sound inferior compared to it's sourced CD.... Let's do very simple test and compare apples to apples, that you can witness said difference for yourself.... Now, using any software of your choice, let’s rip any file(s) from any CD (your choice) to the HDD or SSD of said computer (BTW, SSD do sound better than HDD, but it doesn’t matter for this test). When rip is done, insert headphones directly in to the computer audio out jack, on the back of the comp and compare the sound of CD played back from the same CD ROM and ripped file(s), played trough the same computer playback/rip software. Don’t use different softs for playing back file(s) and CD, because different softs will sound differently.... If you done everything right, you should easily hear that ripped files have a little bit less of everything i.e. less micro musical nuances, less airiness, different voice tembres, etc., compared to CD. It is similar to Xerox copy, i.e. everything looks the same (the writing is still there :~)) but a little bit less of everything, less clarity, less contrast etc. I wish I knew what causing it and how to fix it, but unfortunately I don't. (((

Seconding and expanding on the point Kijanki made above about ambient electrical noise, playing back a file stored on the computer's hard drive figures to result in differences in electrical noise that is coupled from the computer's digital circuitry and its power supply into the D/A converter circuit on the computer's sound card or motherboard, compared to playback of a CD by that computer. That in turn will result in differences in timing jitter occurring in the D/A conversion process, which I suspect is the main reason for the differences you heard in making the comparison you described.

What is being discussed in this thread, however, are differences between playback of a CD in a separate CD transport or player and playback of a computer file via a digital output of the computer (e.g., USB or S/PDIF or Ethernet or Wifi). The effects of noise coupling into the computer's D/A converter circuit has no relevance to those situations.

Excellent input from Lewinski, IMO.

Regards,
-- Al

Kij - getting a difference between re-written CDROM and a commercially made CD depends on a lot of things:

1) use Mitsui Gold audio master disk
2) clean the disk well using a good treatment before burning
3) use a good reader and CD burner at 1X or 2X speed, such as Plextor or Yamaha - I used one with a Superclock modded into it.
4) Rip with dbpower amp on PC or XLD on Mac with Accurate Rip enabled

If you do all of these, you should definitely hear a big improvement in the copy, unless of course your CD player is CDROM-based and reclocking the data out of memory, like the Parasound and a couple others.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio