[vincenzo992004]

When I copy a track from a cd to my hard drive, it gets converted to a .wav file, and then when I burn it to a cd it is converted back to a .cda. Is the newly burned track on the cd 100% exactly the same quality as the original, or is there some degradation?
What about when I use on-the-fly cd copy?
Thanks

 

[joelongwood]

I'm no expert on this, but it would seem logical, that the less that is done to the original file, the better it will sound. To me, that means, a direct copy from CD to CD would be better than a conversion to .wav and then back again. Just a hunch. I'm sure others here will be able to give you a more definitive answer.

BTW.....I'll move this to the Computers as Source Forum where it might get some more responses.

 

[Head Creep]

If I understand correctly, a .wav copy of a CD track can potentially sound better due to error correction features on some CD-ROM drives and CD ripping software. I'm sure there's some way to do a bit-by-bit comparison of the original and wav file, but that's something I don't know.

 

[wit]

http://users.pandora.be/satcp/

 

[vincenzo992004]

I'm not interested in comparing the .wav to the .cda, I'm interested in knowing if a .cda file that was converted to .wav then converted back to .cda, will be the same as a file that was copied on the fly from one cd to another. I have an unconfirmed source that tells me that even an on the fly copy is actually converted to .wav in the process.

 

[commando]

I believe it is a bit perfect copy, but don't bet your house on it.

 

[wit]

Quote:

Originally Posted by vincenzo992004 I'm not interested in comparing the .wav to the .cda, I'm interested in knowing if a .cda file that was converted to .wav then converted back to .cda, will be the same as a file that was copied on the fly from one cd to another. I have an unconfirmed source that tells me that even an on the fly copy is actually converted to .wav in the process.

got that right. in order to copy music tracks (even one the fly) drive must rips tracks into wav then burn it back. to get a bit perfect or a perfect copy, AFAIK EAC is the only way to go. it's even allow you to correct your drive read/write offset.

 

[vincenzo992004]

Thanks for the info. I am looking into EAC.

Does anyone know why we cannot copy the .cda file directly to the hard drive without converting it to a .wav? Seems like we would want to avoid a conversion to a different file format if at all possible since there is usually a drop in quality when the conversion is done.

 

[lan]

WAV is just a container for the audio data. There's no loss during conversion. The only possible loss is from the quality of recorder and media and it's not because the bits are different but they affect readability and introduction of more jitter.

Non realtime copying to harddrive is better because it lets you do a more thorough check of the bits if you use a program like EAC.

 

[wit]

hmm...
correct me if i'm wrong, but i thought that the loss usually happens during extraction process (reading from cd to wav.) not from the recorder (cd burner) or media.
the main reason for using EAC is because you want to obtain a wav file that is bit perfect.

http://www.6moons.com/industryfeatures/eac/eac.html

 

[Kikkoman]

Theres an easy way to see the difference, if any, from your original cd rip and a burned copy. Just rip the original cd with EAC (preferably set to your drives specific settings) into a single track + CUE file, burn the rip to a blank cd-r, rip the burned copy, and compare the 2 ripped files. They should be the same.

 

[commando]

Quote:

Originally Posted by vincenzo992004 Does anyone know why we cannot copy the .cda file directly to the hard drive without converting it to a .wav?

The CDA construct is the way the PC shows you what's on the disk - they're not really there. They're basically just a pointer to where the music is.

 

[vincenzo992004]

Quote:

Originally Posted by commando The CDA construct is the way the PC shows you what's on the disk - they're not really there. They're basically just a pointer to where the music is.

So what file format is the music really in on the cd? Is it .wav and therefore there really is no file conversion being done when I copy the .cda to the hard drive?

 

[Mr.Radar]

On the CD it's stored as raw uncompressed PCM data. A WAV file is just a container, primarily used for uncompressed PCM data, and when you rip to WAV files it doesn't modify the data at all (unless error correction needs to be done).

 

[commando]

The raw data on the CD has loads of error checking built in too, it's decoded when it's read off the disk.