iTunes does not rip accurate audio data - Page 10

More capable? Oh come on now. What is this, a kindergarten class with tit-for-tat dialogue? I'm a musician too. I've been playing guitar for 15 years. Neener Neener. Many of us are capable of hearing perfect pitch and tone. But that has absolutely nothing to do with hearing a difference in the audio coming out of my computer. Any one of you would be able to hear it.

Febs and dkjohnso:
If the waveforms are identical, perhaps the DAC is interpreting them differently due to timing error or jitter OR the transport is outputting them differently due to timing error or jitter.
But there are obvious sonic differences in the two files on my system which ANY of you would be able to hear. That is how I discovered this whole mess in the first place and why I am spending two weeks re-ripping all of my CDs.

But yes, it is interesting that the six sample offset (which I'm sure is from EAC's AccurateRip) would have any effect on the sound at all. I don't think it does because like I mentioned, the sound quality of an EAC ripped WAV vs. playing the CD in the drive are identical. It's only the iTunes rip that sounds different (and rolled off).

And thanks to everyone for your great detective work!

You can think what you want. In a thread some time ago I ABXed lossless vs. WAV and got 7 in a row correct and people still doubted (which I eventually concluded had to do with memory allocation in Vista). So you don't have to believe me. I'm perfectly okay with that. I'm not a mission to convince anyone of anything, I only share what I discover. Whether my computer is outputting faulty signals (could be due to Vista) or not, it is still outputting an audible difference. You asked for proof and I showed you the bit-compare. You asked me to upload the files and I did. I can only do so much to satisfy you, and if you're not happy with that there's nothing I can do about it. I'll ABX them later when I get a chance.

And out of curiosity, what headphone equipment are you using to listen to your music on?

If timing errors and jitter don't contribute to audio differences, why do people choose I2S over SPDIF if they are both bit-perfect? Why do people buy products from companies like Empirical Audio that re-clock? Why do people buy digital or analog RCA cables that yield different sonic flavors? They do so because it makes digital music (which is already compressed from analog) sound more like an original, live, "analog" performance. Whether you feel it sounds better or not is subjective, but there are audible differences that people can hear.

I can't say conlusively what the reason is for the sonic differences that I can hear, but I know it isn't placebo. I'm not an engineer so I can only deduce what might be causing it. Through trial and error, we learn what it might be and what it might not be. You showed that the waveforms were identical, so obviously we can rule that factor out. The only thing left that I can think of is timing error and jitter. But it gets really annoying when someone posts about something they hear and then always has it labeled as placebo just because the other person either can't hear it or repeat the results on their system. We would all be content with iBuds if audio quality wasn't subjective. There's a reason people spend tens of thousands of dollars to buy high-end audio equipment, and it isn't solely for the purpose of emptying their bank account.

One thing I've learned in this hobby is that none of us know everything there is to know about audio at any one given point at time, but that doesn't mean that we are delusional because we can hear subtle differences. Quantum physicists don't even fully understand the nature of electrons (as they have observed single electrons in multiple places at once), so surely you aren't going to tell me that what flows from one end of your system to the other is going to be identical every single time just because a file is called "bit-perfect".