[kuma]

Quote:

Originally posted by Sean H Hi Kuma- Actually I just open the CD and copy the aiff files onto the desktop. Is that not a good way to do it?

I had several friends send me PC ripped files to me. and they all sounded different. some worse than others.

The best one was PC ripped with EAC ( exact audio copy which mac doesn't support gracefully with iTunes )

Even with this jitter checking program, custom setting rather than using default was the best one.

Sadly, iTunes I use is not that great. A geek friend sent me a freeware EAC that sort of kind of work with mac. ( using toaster, if i recall )

but the pisser is that its user interface is not good as iTunes to access and archive the tunes. Not to mention the whole procedure was barbaric.

so, i gave up on 'making a perfect copy' for a time being. The whole excersise became too 'geeky' for me. It's still pretty far from playing an original CD from my cd player.

 

[mjg]

Quote:
presenting better highs than plastic, and copper coax better bass than either toslink - I'm not saying you're wrong in what you've heard by any means, but these are the results I would pick by the appearance and nature of these materials before ever hearing the signal passed through them.

I agree with you here. I think it is the circuitry before the optics themselves and not the cable in itself. How on earth can a digital signa be degraded? The entire point of digital is discrete representations of values that can be transmitted with ease, and at this point the signal is entirely digital. Issues like jitter can be corrected, but I know from telecom is that higher level protocols will account for error correction (issues like latency, packet loss, corrupt packets) and resend the information. I don't understand very well how the dac works, but I do assume it's buffered, and I wonder if any information or data (music in this case) is lost, is it not resent or accounted for? How can the glass actually make it sound better? Digital is digital, I mean if you are missing information that gets recieved on the other end aren't your more likely to get an anomaly in the music like a skip or something, rather then a weaker, less quality playback?


Can anyone enlighten me, with less then sophisticated engineer level jargon, thank you : ]

 

[DanT]

I think the links on this tread have the most convincing explanation

Check the Audioprecision technote post by aos.
Page 5 figure 9 especialy deal with cable jitter. Here


There is also the JohnR link to Jon M. Risch jitter explanation Here

 

[kuma]

Quote:

Originally posted by mjg Can anyone enlighten me, with less then sophisticated engineer level jargon, thank you : ]

• start reading

but, i'd suggest listen to few different cables in decent systems and find out what you hear.

Hearing is believing.
And if you don't hear the difference, consider yourself lucky.