Computer vs CD/SACD discs

I climbed the mountain from a computer newbee to being well versed in all
things computer audio. I climbed the sound quality ladder for computer
audio and have tasted the best of what computer audio has to offer in
sound quality.

I spent endless hours reading, ripping, backing up, upgrading, learning
more and the end of the matter is this for me. I sold it all and went back to
spinning CDs.

I simply found it too stressful for ME to deal with all the ripping, file types,
file management, RAID backup, downloads, and on and on etc...

Now I simply load a CD and relax. Until there is a simple one box solution
and it is as easy as loading a CD, I am not going back to computer based
audio.

I can find all kinds of CDs for cheap and never have to deal with computer
issues and exhausting ripping and the like.

I work on a computer all day and it is a joy to handle a CD at home. Pure
joy!

This was true for me and not all. Ask yourself if you will find all the
computer stuff a hassle or an exciting new opportunity to learn? Really
think on this as you know yourself. Nobody else can answer this for
you.....only you my audio friend.

I will say computer based audio is not easy and anyone who says
otherwise is not telling the truth. For mere computer mortals with average
to poor computer knowledge it is a challenge that demands intentional and
continuous mastery.

The sound quality is very good indeed with computer audio. No doubt.
However, my new CD spinner sounds every bit as good as my $10,000
computer audio front end.

I do miss MOG which is now gone anyway. I do have Spotify on a second
system and if all one does is listen to a music service like these, then that is
easy and quite nice really. Beyond that, what a pain for me!

I also think CDs ripped to lossless files on FLAC can sound better than the original CD, my theory being the error correction while ripping produces a more stable file (but don't have a shred of engineering background to prove this).

Austinbob, Most of CD players can read CD sector only once (since they work in real time). It can error correct for short scratches (up to about 4mm along the track) but for longer scratch (4-8mm) it interpolates. Computer rip reads CD like data and can go to the same sector multiple times (even thousands of times) until it gets proper checksum. Computer file can be better than original CD but I doubt that you can hear any difference unless original CD is badly scratched. On the other hand it can be very useful to create good CD-R copy of CDs that won't play or play with a lot of pops.

See my previous post on this subject, I made the switch to computer audio just over a year ago and could not be happier with the results. Sound quality is every bit as good as anything I have heard at various HiFi show demonstrations over the years. Irrespective of what some people will tell you, commuter audio can be very simple and you do not need to invest in expensive high end components or cables to get superb sound. My current system is a MacBook Air, running Audirvarna Plus, USB cable (nothing fancy) into an Oppo 105 for D/A conversion then a Krell HTS 7.1 (just for volume control) and a Krell TAS driving a pair of B&W N801 speakers. I use standard Blue Jeans XLR cables to connect the Oppo 105 to the HTS 7.1 and the HTS 7.1 to the Krell TAS. Speaker cables are standard Monster speaker cables, nothing fancy.

Sound quality from ripped CDs and HD 24/96 FLAC downloads from HD Tracks is as good as anything I have heard from a conventional CDP system. I am a computer audio convert/believer!

About a year ago I went from spinning cd's to a dedicated music server (Naim Uni-serve). It doesn't get any easier. Drop in a cd and it rips it to the hard drive. The only draw back with the Naim is I can't walk up to it and do anything like start - stop - skip etc. It has to be controlled through a computer or Idevice. But it does stream radio or from a NAS. I can also queue as many cd's or individual tracks as I want.

I think the biggest part is the computer savy part. If you are very computer literate, its a snap. If you have to call someone to download a program or install a printer, stick with a CD player.