[JamesL]

Quote:

Originally Posted by linuxworks /img/forum/go_quote.gif there's zero technical benefit to realtime opto disc playback and in fact you get lower quality (sometimes) when you get errors that would have been fixed if you had time (buffering, non-realtime via a rip/encode process).

I have all my music on my computer but sometimes, I like just looking through my hard copy CDs and doing it the "old fashion way"

Plus, when you output digital audio from your pc, it doesn't get buffered or have error-correction. USB does this only when copying data(correct me if I'm wrong).

 

[linuxworks]

the buffering I'm referring to is the act of 'slowly' taking time for retries and multiple reads to ensure you got the same data on 2 or more reads.

once you have all the bits 'slowly' taken off the fragile error-prone opto disc you can then 'relax' knowing that EVERY SINGLE TIME you play that file you get 100.0% identical results. you can't say that about opto playback, its just way too error prone. reading unsealed media like that always has been.

once the bits are inside nice sealed disk drives, there is no opto read error that can happen.

of course, you can have disk read errors but once you have that your drive has to be replaced. this isn't the error I'm talking about and is pretty preventable via other methods.

so, I'm not talking about the usb level of buffering I'm talking about the 'slow read' style buffering and the act of 'ripping'.

I have a few thousand cd's and I've had to rip them twice (once a long time ago for mp3 and recently to redo them in flac format). I've encountered so many of my discs that could not even be read well in one drive - so I had to move them to another (different brand) drive to do the rip. THAT is the level of error that I'm talking about. if I didn't have a wide selection of drives I would not be able to read all my discs. many of my discs just show problems in some sectors with some drives.

opto reading is sloppy and very error prone. that's why buffered ripping is SO important.

(for dvd, too, but that's OT).

 

[linuxworks]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jolida302 /img/forum/go_quote.gif You're wrong. A real drive smokes any computer transport; have a look at the teac "VRDS" system: a metal glove around the disc which cancel all vibrations.

the other poster was right, I was not talking about realtime spdif out from a $20 drive. I'm talking about ide (or sata or sas or even scsi) based data reads. we call them 'rips'.

 

[Jolida302]

OK, i apologize.

 

[linuxworks]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jolida302 /img/forum/go_quote.gif OK, i apologize.

no problem, I probably wasn't clear enough in what I was saying.

ever since 'computer based rips' got very reliable, I have totally given up on 'streaming' data from opto readers. all it takes is one hard to read area of the disk and your streaming is shot to hell ;(

unreliable (in a tech sense) media needs to be done on-the-slow (batch mode) so that it can have time to re-read on retry.

 

[linuxworks]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tridacnid /img/forum/go_quote.gif Besides, you act like CD cases are hideous, huge clunky things that aren't arrangeable at all. They make CD racks for a reason.

they gather dust. seriously

I did have a large shelf in my room a long time ago for cd/dvd storage. for smaller collections its not a big problem but what about when it starts to take a whole wall in one of your rooms. I can think of MANY better uses for room space than cd storage!

I just got to the point where taking THAT much physical space up was not a good use of MY extra room space. I had to dust all that stuff (which I hate)

and when I move to a new place, packing all that physical media up is a PITA. it takes up box space, its not exactly light and its also fragile (one mover drops a box of cd's and you have a 'fun time' ahead cleaning them all up).

I can replace yards of storage of physical discs in ONE single disk drive.

the day of me being a physical librarian for little silver discs is LONG gone. I'm very glad that we can sort and shuffle thru 'files' and no longer have to wade thru plastic thingies just to get a song to play.

 

[electropop]

Ok so what about the new LD-player?

-K

 

[linuxworks]

there is one semi-downside to having all your files online and not having to do physical disc mgmt anymore.

a friend of mine told me this and it seems to ring true with me, too: we find ourselves not spending as much time 'with' the music in that we often will stop a song before its done and switch to another one - BECAUSE WE CAN!

this *has* changed my music listening habits. back in the LP days, if I went to the trouble of cleaning a disc (taking 5-10 minutes sometimes) you can be sure that I'm going to listen to the whole 'side' straight thru.

with cd's, it became less of an issue to 'interrupt' playback. but still, I was lazy and didn't want to walk across the room, eject the disc and find another I wanted to listen to. so I often let *that* disc run to completion before fetching another.

now that its all virtual files, I can setup playlists and never have to 'go find' some music. but I will stop playback on a song at the slightest whim where I never used to do that before.

so, there sort of was a change in playback style (for myself and also my friend) when shuffling thru collections became virtual instead of physical. its a change but not necessarily for the bad. but it was a change due to HOW the data was accessed.

 

[electropop]

Quote:

Originally Posted by linuxworks /img/forum/go_quote.gif there is one semi-downside to having all your files online and not having to do physical disc mgmt anymore. a friend of mine told me this and it seems to ring true with me, too: we find ourselves not spending as much time 'with' the music in that we often will stop a song before its done and switch to another one - BECAUSE WE CAN! this *has* changed my music listening habits. back in the LP days, if I went to the trouble of cleaning a disc (taking 5-10 minutes sometimes) you can be sure that I'm going to listen to the whole 'side' straight thru. with cd's, it became less of an issue to 'interrupt' playback. but still, I was lazy and didn't want to walk across the room, eject the disc and find another I wanted to listen to. so I often let *that* disc run to completion before fetching another. now that its all virtual files, I can setup playlists and never have to 'go find' some music. but I will stop playback on a song at the slightest whim where I never used to do that before. so, there sort of was a change in playback style (for myself and also my friend) when shuffling thru collections became virtual instead of physical. its a change but not necessarily for the bad. but it was a change due to HOW the data was accessed.

This somehow backs up the point one of the threaders brought forth..

It's a matter of feeling in the end. You feel much more captured with the music itself, rather than being distracted by many of the distractions a computer brings in front of you. I find it much more enjoyable to sit on a comfortable sofa/chair, switching on a concrete cd-player and just being there for the music. You give the music absolute value. Now I think, while not neglecting the fact that most hi-fi cdp's do sound better as sources than my computer for example, that this is what most Hifiers are looking for. It's different to turn on your computer and play stuff randomly on the background, while possibly feeling the need to do other things at the same time.
Actually most of us don't have that much free time on our hands and the respect towards music, that we would/could do this. I just hope you eye this issue objectively. I actually envy these people.

At the very moment, of course i'm listening to music while typing this, but it's a completely different issue.. Ah..

Peace

-K

 

[krmathis]

Interesting!
Wrap the transport in a nice solid aluminum case, with power supply and all. Then we will see...

 

[fdhfdy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mrfloopy /img/forum/go_quote.gif Notwithstanding all of this, does anyone know any more about the alleged new CD transport and DAC from Little Dot? I've been looking for a good-value, non-DIY CD transport for some time, and something that offers value as a good as a Little Dot headphone amplifier could be a real contender.

No more info for the cdt atm. The dac part will be built with WM8740 which is a high quality decoding chip (it's been using by Arcam cd 36 as well). The dac will support upsampling from 44 to 192. It sounds not bad but only can tell until it shows up.

 

[wudai_e]

Quote:

Originally Posted by linuxworks /img/forum/go_quote.gif I ask this seriously: can you explain to me why you'd rather get up, shuffle thru physical stacks of possibly dusty media to insert into tray, wait for it to load (etc etc) - compared to being able to browse jukebox style on some gui with ALL your music (even video) on a nas in some other room (maybe in the basement where you can't even hear its drives noise)? have you TRIED such a system?

What you just described, as a matter of fact, is the reason why CDs are still better than their digital counter part. It's part of the musical experience for many people to flip through their collection and found their album and artist and songs that they want to listen. The physical effort to locate the music you want to listen enforce the enjoyment because the moment you putting in you cds, you know exactly what are you listening to, instead of shuffling your digital collections mindlessly playing each piece for 10sec max untill you find the right music.

 

[jrosenth]

I use a music server for work and appreciate the ease of loading up lists and skipping around

for relaxing at home i prefer a cd player as it changes my listening habits, kind of forces me to listen to an album from a-z - not something i would do with a music server but something I end up preferring - if that makes sense

 

[linuxworks]

Quote:

Originally Posted by wudai_e /img/forum/go_quote.gif What you just described, as a matter of fact, is the reason why CDs are still better than their digital counter part. It's part of the musical experience for many people to flip through their collection and found their album and artist and songs that they want to listen.

this is just a technical problem, though

doesn't apple (I'm not an apple fanboy so I don't run their software) have some kind of coverflow thingie that lets you leaf thru cover art?

in fact, if you really think about it you can do a BETTER job with software in 'picking your next song'. you can do so much with some auto selection tools (based on lots of taggable criteria), reshuffle your playlist right in the middle (while its playing), add more to the 'queue' and so on.

I've wanted to find 2 copies of a certain song (maybe a live and a studio version). in my database driven system I can run a quick command, find the song(s) and queue them up easily. how long would that take me to search cd by cd to do a similar search?

on the computer you could simulate 'flipping thru covers' and you can do more. but in the real physical world you can only do so much. its more limited in meatspace vs cyberspace

 

[jrosenth]

linuxworks, i probably shouldn't mention this but the are folks here who prefer even vinyl!

how's that for difficulty of use and a anti 2008