[Konig]

In one of the earlier post abt "ultimate" computer source which i believe many ppl are pursuing, a couple of guys mentioned that lossless is missing what high end cd transports have. Can any1 describe that missing element?

 

[CSMR]

round metal discs

 

[LeonvB]

And in some cases jitter

 

[Oliver :)]

Hassle.

 

[stefan]

What CD players miss is the ritual of vinyl. Looking through a vinyl library, browsing the sleeve notes and the art, taking the LP out carefully, cleaning the vinyl, setting a strobe and letting the needle hit the groove.....

What computers miss is the ritual of CD players. Looking through a CD rack, browsing the little booklet. Taking the CD out, inspecting it for grease/dust, placing it carefully in the tray......

Clicking a mouse is easy... but not quite as much fun.


In terms of sound quality, each can sound fantastic, each can sound crap.

 

[JACK5ON]

there is absolutely NO difference whatsoever in sound quality between a CD and lossless compression. anyone who claims to hear a difference is lying. it's not a matter of opinion, it's a fact

edit:spelling

 

[thomaspf]

Strong words and actually...


If you rip your CD carefully you will liklely get better sound from your PC since you do not have to extract the bits from the optical medium in real time.

This occasionally comes with read errors which are then covered up by interpolating the missing data. Playing back tracks from hard drive will not have that problem.

Cheers

Thomas

 

[Konig]

Ok... that solves the mystery.... so its psychological..

 

[LeChuck]

People will fight to the death in order to justify their kilobuck CD transports. I think the only advantage some of these transports might have are extremely high quality digital outputs with low jitter, but high quality digital outputs are available for PC's, and furthermore whether or not jitter actually degrades audio in an audible way is debatable.

 

[mjb]

I agree that in most cases the difference bewteen computer-based lossless transport and CDP-based transport into the same DAC is psychological. This assumes of course that the computer-based system is properly configured and the original redbook was ripped properly.

I think there are many cases where people don't understand how the computer-based transport works (in a properly setup configuration) and either unknowingly botch their comparison with a flawed computer-based setup or do not understand all these new "moving parts" in their signal chain (i.e. they don't understand the parts they can ignore and the parts they need to be concerned with for sound quality) so they just dismiss it as "worse".

Some examples of this are people using the computer's cdrom drive to play the CD in real-time through the Windows Kmixer and considering that "computer audio" for their comparison. Or worse, ripping the CD to a lossy format and playing that back in their comparison.

I still use a dedicated CDP because I like the tactile/non-sound-related aspects of CDs and I'm also one of those people who "thinks" it sounds better, so it does

mjb

 

[Taosman]

It's more about the DACs used than the "transport".
But, there is the "pride of ownership" thing.
Not to be discounted!

 

[Taosman]

How many people have said,"Look at my.....uh...er..computer!"

 

[LeChuck]

I would when I show them my silent RAID-5 music server

.

 

[stefan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Konig Ok... that solves the mystery.... so its psychological..

Not really.
There are alot of psychological, tactile elements involved.
But I stress that in terms of sound quality, vinyl, CDP and PC-audio each have the potential to sound excellent, and each have the potential to sound mediocre. Depends on equipment, implementation.
I would suspect that those with high-end CDPs who say PCaudio sound rubbish have never heard a good implementation of it, and vice versa.