Not sure this is the right place post this, but I have a rather general question. What are the pros and cons of using a CD player vs. ripping a CD to a lossless format (e.g., WAV, FLAC, etc.) and using that as the main source?

Is there a benefit (aside from the obvious tactile "benefits" of selecting a CD, putting it in the player, etc.) of using a CD player? I would think the benefits of having a hard drive based system is the convenience, not having to find the CD, or store them near the audio system, etc.

Am I missing something?

Although I don't really have a home audio system, I'm beginning to save for one. And in the long run, I can't see the benefit of purchasing a high-end CD player when the CD data can be stored on a hard drive based machine (not necessarily a PC) that can be used as the main source. The money saved can then be used to purchase a "better" DAC, Amp, etc.

Thoughts / comments?

It seems to me that this is the way of the future.

Thanks,

IMHO it takes a more complex Server or PC configuration to achieve similar but not the same results from many of the world-class CDPs available. Among the cons against playing off a HDD-based system:
AC noise, CPU noise, HDD noise, HDD crashes and errors, HDD file maintenance. Good luck with your decision

With any CDP, somebody has already made the choices for you as to transport, DAC, sampling rate, etc. Some newer CDPs may be software upgradable, but with most total replacement is the only upgrade path. If your CDP has digital out, then you can consider an outboard DAC. There are some very good traditional CDPs out there; you can check my profile for the ones I own and use.

I came from an "album tradition" as to recorded music. I grew up with vinyl and through the best part of rock history (1965-1980), I bought, listened to end-to-end, and became used to albums as my source of music. Most albums were both good and bad, and I did mixes to tape cassettes of the highes fidelity I could manage to get around the spotty album problem and to have music programs with mood and diversity. I never really related to 45 singles. Traditional CDs rather continue this comfortable album tradition, but with greater convenience.

I have heard some very good hard drive based audio recently. Using a wired Squeezbox through a Bel Canto DAC playing FLAC files ripped with "paranoia" software, the Minnesota Audio Society's home speaker-based system sounds wonderful; very involving, great small detail and realism. And you can organize and control your entire music collection effortlessly from your favorite chair; no more decorating with audio software. My research indicates hard drive based audio to be in a state of great development and flux. An audiophile wanting to get into high end hard drive based audio has to know computer software and hardware as well as more conventional audio technology. It should be a great hobby for some individuals.

I think I'm going to let somebody else pay the R&D and let the dust settle for the next few years with hard drive based audio. The best hard based audio systems now produce audio reproduction levels that are essentially duplications of what I have with my current LP and CDPs. But when something wears out/breaks/needs upgrade a couple of years from now, you bet I'm going to reconsider going entirely to hard drive based audio.

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AC noise, CPU noise, HDD noise dissapear as soon as you feed your DAC via WiFi (AirportXpress, Squeezebox)

HDD crashes, errors and file maintenance dissapear as soon as you have a good backup policy or a Raid setup.

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CPU noise???

AC noise - pipe the digital out from the pc into an outboard dac, no more AC noise.

HDD crashes and errors - you can store a cd losslessly with about 13 cents worth of hard disk space. Get 2 hard drives, one for use, one for backup. Now you're insulated against hard drive issues, and you're still at only 26 cents per cd. And remember, cd's can scratch, so it's not like hard drives are alone in their ability to fail.


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All it takes is a pc with a digital output to achieve the SAME results as the best cd players out there, if you use a high quality outboard DAC. IMHO, anyone who tells you that a PC can't give you the same quality as a high-end cd player probably has spent thousands of dollars on a cd player and is trying to rationalize that expense to themself.

Squeezebox is an excellent idea, and they have digital outs if you're not happy with the dac it includes.

As for software standards changing, this is true, but your library doesn't. Once you have your library on a hard drive, you're perfectly capbably of adopting to software changes as they come, that doesn't mean your library becomes obsolete.

Go for the PC solution!

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Ever try to maintain a "B" or "G" WiFi connection while using a 2.4MHz Cordless Phone? Even changing channels on the WiFi setup cannot guarantee an interruption. I am happy that WiFi works very well for you; however, it might not in every environment.

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CPU Noise, or rather, interference caused by poor motherboard/CPU designs: Why else would there be this popular warning in almost every CPU upgrade kit:

[size=xx-small]Note – This equipment has been tested and found to comply with the limits for a Class B digital device, pursuant to Part 15 of the FCC Rules. These limits are designed to provide reasonable protection against harmful interference in a residential installation. This equipment generates, uses and can radiate radio
frequency energy and, if not installed and used in accordance with the instructions, may cause harmful interference to various communications. However, there is no guarantee that interference will not occur in a particular installation.[/size]

Me spend thousands of dollars on a CDP myself???!!! LOL, I can barely afford to keep pace with the small setup I have. I would rather listen to the high end CDP setups that many here have than try to afford it myself.

Your point is well taken, but in any case, you've made an incorrect assumption that I own hi-end CDPs, when, it is one of my day-to-day responsibilities to apply HDD-based digital audio and video storage systems on servers. I know that I would rather purchase a CDP system that a manufacturer has spent considerable research and technology on to improve the SQ than try to build a PC or Server-based setup that has many more opportunities for error.

Oh, and BTW, I had to spend yesterday resuscitating one HDD, which was in a RAID5 configuration. I guess I just would rather listen to the music than rebuild a HDD

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Fair enough, but I still don't buy into a CD player sounding any better. A cd player does three things - it optically extracts digital data from a cd, applies any necessary error correction, then it converts the digital signal to analog.

Assuming a successful rip to a hard drive, the first two are moot points. All that's left is the DAC. My point is that if you take an identical digital signal from a hard drive or from a cd, and pass them through the same DAC, they will sound identical. If you pass a digital signal from a pc into a $50 DAC, of course it won't sound as good as a $10,000 cd player. Pass it into a $10,000 DAC, and it will....

On top of that, there's good reasons why a properly-done PC audio has better sound quality than traditional CD transport.
http://www.audioasylum.com/forums/pc...ages/8425.html

It's true that the cutting-edge, SOTA PC audio takes a lot of research and effort to achieve. When I decided to go that route, I had essentially zero knowledge of PC audio, just some working general knowledge about computers like internet and Microsoft Office. It took a good effort for me to learn all the software and hardware in's and out's, but it was definitely worth it.

As usual, the cutting edge is being defined by small companies and dedicated fanatics. Some of them include:

VRS Audio. They use their proprietary software and modified Lynx soundcard along with (I'm sure) better power supply. I know they use Electraprint transformers to mod their Lynx, for example. This system is $$$ necessarily b/c of the small niche market and the after-service involved, but it sure sounds damn good.

Empirical Audio. Their USB-spdif converters sound exceedingly impressive, especially when battery-powered. Couple that to a great DAC, and PC audio is suddenly capable of beating some costly traditional transports. I understand they are unveiling the new I2S based products at CES, and preliminary user reviews have been off-the-top. Unfortunately, earlier products don't seem upgradable to I2S, and one needs to send the DAC to be used to be fitted w/ I2S as well.

Wavelength Audio. I haven't heard them yet, but even the 'budget' model Brick has received some great reviews, and Gordon has his top-of-the-line USB DAC's with tube output stage and all.

TwinDAC and TwinDAC+. Many Oris Horn users have been touting this battery-powered USB DAC solution for a while now.

Red Wine Audio. Modded squeezebox with battery power (see a trend?) with analogue or digital output. Put it together with a great DAC like Dodson 218 and see if $$$ traditional transports have any advantage..

I'm starting the process of moving to PC-based audio. I'm re-ripping my 500 CD collection into Apple Lossless (via EAC). I will stream via a Squeezebox, eventually getting a good DAC (heard the battery powered Ack Dack 2.0 and LOVED it). Whoever mentioned it above is right about 2.4 Ghz phones screwing up a wireless LAN, I had to switch to a 5.8 Ghz phone.

I bought 2 300GB drives, and use "Karen's Replicator" to keep a nightly backup (it will copy only files that are new/changed) of my music, as well as other documents. I will also create an AAC copy of my music (iTunes can create this automatically from lossless) for use on my iPod. I also grab Walmart's large album art...I like the visual of what I'm listening to.

This is definitely the future for me. Being able to have access to all my music, categorized and sorted in any way I please, at the same quality as the original CD.

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That was a very interesting article on HDD jitter vs CDP jitter. What is ironic is that the article uses jitter as the criteria to promote PC Audio; however today's advanced higher end CDPs employ crystal oscillators that are isolated from any noisy motors or components in the CDP. This provides for a consistent acquisition of digital data, since the reference used is immune to surrounding noise.

This is an example of technology that has been designed specifically for the accurate acquisition of audio data on higher end CDPs, and is generally not present on the CD Drives on PCs.

I'm don't know much about this subject. But say you have the original source music before it is copied onto CD, and it is a file on your PC. Then wouldn't this PC be superior to a CD-player playing from the CD? Is this right, assuming they use equal or very similar DACs?

cotdt, that's correct.

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article287-page1.html

stevesurf, you might want to read it as well.

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That overlooks the jitter problem.
What we need for PC basd audio is jitter immune DAC--then everything is a simple.
Such DACs are said to already exist. Since we don't have a complete understanding of the audibility of jitter-induced distrotion, I can't say if they are really jitter immune. But the goal of digital audio should be building jitter-immune DACs, instead of building $5k transports weighing like rocks and using double-oven crystals. However, in hi-end audio exotic transports are still being designed and built, which only shows how these companies have little ability to resolve the jitter rejection problem in their DACs.

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This is a comprehensive article, yet one that has not considered all issues. Yes, I understand the equality of a noise-free PC system for playback, but my issue is that PCs are not necessarily reading the CDs original data as accurately and jitter-free as a high-end transport! If you are not timing your CD drive correctly, you are, quite simply NOT getting all the audio information.

Also, the article is very pro-Squeezebox and is not objective about any dropouts that could occur by a strong nearby device operating at 2.4GHz.

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First, you're assuming that everyone is using a wireless network for digital audio. I use a wired network, I don't have any of these issues.

But even if I did... If my wireless network was suffering interference from my phone, I wouldn't solve the problem by buying a $5000 cd player, I'd buy a new $50 phone!