[Kees]

Quote:

Originally Posted by gonglee /img/forum/go_quote.gif So much negativity when I am just trying to share a tweak... Just give it a try and you will see... If you burn a CDr even with the CDr burner you have, on a Taiyo yuden CDr, you will hear an improvement. When you are burning, leave the computer alone, and it will sound better. Don't even move the mouse. Feurio is the best sounding burning program - working demo version can be had for free ( google suearch for it ). Burn at the slowest speed alowed by your CDr burner.

I see a possible reason why this might work. I am going to try it.
Thanks for the tip.

 

[bigshot]

Slower speeds do not necessarily mean lower error rates. Different CD burners are optimized for different burn speeds. Usually, it's the top rated speed. If you are getting errors at that rate, odds are your hard drive is the bottleneck, not the burner.

See ya
Steve

 

[nelamvr6]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Davesrose /img/forum/go_quote.gif yeah, each upsampling scheme (be it audio or video) is just an algorithm to try to fill in the gaps where the original sample is. My CD player actually lets me switch from 16bit to upsampled 24bit. I can't hear a huge difference....very subtle, and it's all just added information from the DAC. I like my dedicated DAC best for all redbook audio....I don't attest it as being great at upsampling...it's just great at converting those 1s and 0s to sound!

I believe, and I could be wrong here, but I think the sound improvement involved with up-sampling in high-end CD players has more to do with improving the filter's ability to do it's work in a more natural fashion. This helps eliminate artifacts.

 

[StevieDvd]

Quote:

Originally Posted by gonglee /img/forum/go_quote.gif So much negativity when I am just trying to share a tweak... ....

Very good of you to try but your facts are obviously gleaned from elsewhere and a trifle confused.

It is possible for a burned CD to sound better than the original CD under certain circumstances. This is hopefully still rare though. Your average CD can read the CD bits to a certain tolerance and hence it is possible for the base CD player to mis-read a poor impression. A better quality CD player could, with the right software read all the data correctly, and this could then be burned to a new disk. You would not do this to all your CDs based on one bad CD it would be wasted effort.

If you truly have the impression that everyone of your CDs needs this treatment I'd suspect the read head of your CD needs cleaning/repairing/replacing if it only plays newly burned CDs properly. Or you have lots of dirty CDs

EAC is a better ripper as it does several passes on suspect parts of the CD and based on the average assesses if one bit is either off/on. It is less likely to bypass the error like other software - but this adds to the ripping time.

regards

Steve

 

[Davesrose]

Quote:

Originally Posted by nelamvr6 /img/forum/go_quote.gif I believe, and I could be wrong here, but I think the sound improvement involved with up-sampling in high-end CD players has more to do with improving the filter's ability to do it's work in a more natural fashion. This helps eliminate artifacts.

That could be for certain DACs....all I know is that sound reproduction is more dependant on how good your DAC is over whether it upconverts, decodes in 1 bit, 16bit, or 24bit. So many factors at play that "upconvert" does not necessarily mean better.

 

[Jahn]

believe it or not, i think gonglee makes sense. the 192 he was talking about was like this - Sampling Rates.

44 = Redbook.
48= DVD Video.
88.2 = Downsampled SACD.
96 = DVD Audio.
192 = HDDVD and SACD.

did i get that right? totally different idea than lossy compressions, like your typical 128/192/320.

as far as re-ripping a source CD into a better CD, i kid you not - IT CAN WORK. Lan had some kind of wide groove burner, so here's what he did - he took the stock CD, ripped it via EAC trying not to lose any zeros and ones, and then burned it using this nifty burner onto some primo discs. result? IT SOUNDED BETTER. i don't know why, but it did. Me, lan and Romanee all heard it, and Romanee and I heard it from different CDs (me from New Order, him from Opera).

 

[Davesrose]

but he later says 96 was his sampling rate.....and that would be too large to fit on a CD-R, and CD players wouldn't read it (since they take 16 bit CDs AFAIK). 192 would be really imposible (and I think he did mean 192kbps mp3, because that's what Windows Media Player's options are). So that's why this confuses me

As for how a CD-R can sound different then a pressed CD, maybe it's more telling about the transport you're using. Maybe some can better read a certain CD-R over a CD. But it still sounds like it's not a universal that a CD-R, directly copied from a pressed CD will always sound better.

 

[nelamvr6]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Davesrose /img/forum/go_quote.gif but he later says 96 was his sampling rate.....and that would be too large to fit on a CD-R, and CD players wouldn't read it (since they take 16 bit CDs AFAIK). 192 would be really imposible (and I think he did mean 192kbps mp3, because that's what Windows Media Player's options are). So that's why this confuses me As for how a CD-R can sound different then a pressed CD, maybe it's more telling about the transport you're using. Maybe some can better read a certain CD-R over a CD. But it still sounds like it's not a universal that a CD-R, directly copied from a pressed CD will always sound better.

In my mind a copy of a CD that doesn't sound exactly like the source CD is an imperfect copy, even if the difference is perceived as a sonic improvement.

If a copy is exactly the same as the source (bit perfect) then it should sound exactly the same.

 

[Kees]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Davesrose /img/forum/go_quote.gif but he later says 96 was his sampling rate.....and that would be too large to fit on a CD-R, and CD players wouldn't read it (since they take 16 bit CDs AFAIK). 192 would be really imposible (and I think he did mean 192kbps mp3, because that's what Windows Media Player's options are). So that's why this confuses me As for how a CD-R can sound different then a pressed CD, maybe it's more telling about the transport you're using. Maybe some can better read a certain CD-R over a CD. But it still sounds like it's not a universal that a CD-R, directly copied from a pressed CD will always sound better.

No, but it could very well be better quite often....

 

[Davesrose]

Quote:

Originally Posted by nelamvr6 /img/forum/go_quote.gif In my mind a copy of a CD that doesn't sound exactly like the source CD is an imperfect copy, even if the difference is perceived as a sonic improvement. If a copy is exactly the same as the source (bit perfect) then it should sound exactly the same.

to restate what StevieDvd has said on this thread, and the duplicate on the dedicated sources....there could be instances where a player gets more data errors from the pressed CD then a newly burned CD-R. So maybe a dirty CD that has lots of fingerprints wouldn't sound as good as a newly burned CD-R. If you have a pristine pressed CD and a pristine CD-R, they should sound identical on a good CD player.

 

[DDF]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Davesrose /img/forum/go_quote.gif to restate what StevieDvd has said on this thread, and the duplicate on the dedicated sources....there could be instances where a player gets more data errors from the pressed CD then a newly burned CD-R. So maybe a dirty CD that has lots of fingerprints wouldn't sound as good as a newly burned CD-R. If you have a pristine pressed CD and a pristine CD-R, they should sound identical on a good CD player.

I've done this trick many times: taken scratched CDs from teh library and reburned using EAC, for much better results.

I have also had more than a few instances where CDs that led to errors burned at higher speeds (52x) were then perfectly playable when burned at 8x.

OTOH (and there always is one isn't here?): CDRs are less reflective than original CDs. Some players will get MORE bit errors off the reburned CDR than teh original as a result. One case in point, the new Rega. See John Atkinson's BER measures at Stereophile.

 

[nelamvr6]

There is a really good piece written by Robert Harley in the December 2006 TAS. It's on page 121, it's a sidebar on a piece about the "Memory Player".

If a CD has errors, this will manifest itself in the form of localized errors. Either that or the thing won't play at all.

CD errors will NOT manifest themselves as generally poor sound throughout the CD.

I do not refute that there are CD's out there that sound bad. But copying these CD's will not improve their sound if all the copying process is doing is fixing localized errors.

In fact, the copying process cannot make a bad sounding CD sound better unless it is substantially changing the content of that CD.

 

[Zenja]

I think what he's talking about is burning a CD to allow for more "neatly" written bits and get a more accurate write (not in terms of the data contained but how well it's written). The end result wouldn't be reading different bits but a reduction of jitter. I've heard lots of theories of trying to reduce jitter in CDs themselves, but whether that sort of jitter would manifest down the chain is very questionable. I don't know whether it could but I'm guessing no. It's probably buffered and not just sent to the DAC as it's being read. There's probably people here that would know though.

 

[jmmtn4aj]

Quote:

Originally Posted by gonglee /img/forum/go_quote.gif -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Many think that LP still sounds better than digital. You should try this tweak to improve the sound of CDs. The CDs you buy are stamped in less than a second - if you burn it in your computer, it is done slowely, and improves the sound. The window media player can upgrade the epec to 192 kbps - left mouse click on the burn tab on top, and choose more options. Pick slow speed, and on the bottom, convert to 192 kbps. Also the CDR you use makes a difference - Taiyo yuden are about 20 cents each and sound good. Mitsui gold costs $1 and sounds a little better ( and lasts longer they say 300 years ). You can google search for the places that sell them. Fuji CDR that is made in Japan also is Taiyo Yuden - sometimes you can find these at Bestbuys. Modern CDR players won't let you burn at slow 1x speed. Plextor burners do that, and sound the best. You can get one for less than $140. If you do all that, the sound will be noticeably better. Upper fr. are smoother, and less digitally - closer to analogue, and dynamic is improved.

I'm going to call bollocks on that. Bad quality CDs will cause write errors, which you might notice as cracks or pops or skips. But good quality CDs will NOT change how the song sounds. Less analogue? Pfft. I'd bet that in a blind test you wouldn't be able to tell.

You don't know if it'll last 300 years. CDs haven't been around that long to prove that.

 

[DDF]

Quote:

Originally Posted by nelamvr6 /img/forum/go_quote.gif There is a really good piece written by Robert Harley in the December 2006 TAS. It's on page 121, it's a sidebar on a piece about the "Memory Player". If a CD has errors, this will manifest itself in the form of localized errors. Either that or the thing won't play at all. CD errors will NOT manifest themselves as generally poor sound throughout the CD.

Thats completely false. There are two types of errors on CDs which teh player will try and correct: fully correctable, and interpolated. Fully correctable ones are as teh name suggests, all bits are exactly replaced, as they were recorded. Interpolated are when bit errors are extensive enough that the red book mechanism can't correct all teh errors exactly. In this case, the player uses the companies prroprietary interpolation method to replace the dropped words with educated guesses, with ones their algorithm calculates to be the best choice. Once the bit errors get beyond this, the players usually just blank or freeze.

What often makes one transport better than another is its ability to inetrpolate in teh most natural and pleasing manner possible, for error prone discs. The latest Rega prescans the Cd and chooses from one of at least two (perhaps more, I can't recall that detail) correction algorithms, using teh one that best suits the nature of the errors found on teh CD.

I started a thread elsewhere asking for recommendations for cheap CD/DVd players, which have the best error correction schemes (to be used as a transport with digi out and a Lavry). I'm all ears for suggestions.