Author Topic: Taking Digital Audio Extraction to a level no one else has ever done  (Read 16302 times)

Offline P.I.

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Re: Taking Digital Audio Extraction to a level no one else has ever done
« Reply #15 on: July 22, 2020, 11:09:55 AM »
i'm a bit confused here.  wouldn't you be able to recognize the difference between a store-bought cd and one burned on a black cd-r?

for a choice of music, i'd recommend these:

- skip, hop & wobble
jerry douglas, russ barenberg, edgar meyer

- talking timbuktu
ry cooder & ali farka touré

- pontiac
lyle lovett

- the coryells
larry, julian & murali coryell
(great chesky recording)

- cafe blue
patricia barber
(nice recording)

- burbon & rosewater
jerry douglas, edgar meyer & vishwa mohan bhatt
(nice water lily acoustics recording)

besides these all being fantastic albums, i am very familiar with them, which would be helpful to me.   :mrgreen:  (altho i have pontiac and cafe blue on vinyl only. and my "the coryells" disc is a burned copy.)  if i need to buy one of the above cd's to get it included, lemme know.

doug s.
If so, suggest a recording and I will do this thing again.  The store bought CDs will be labeled #1 and #2.  Only and one other person of my choosing will know which is which.
The best way to do this test is to have an assistant put the CD's in the player.  That way it is essentially a double blind test.  Obviously a black CD is black and a dead giveaway.

The test needs to have some superbly recorded vocals and acoustic instruments.  Also, to prevent confirmation bias it is best to listen to relatively unfamiliar music.  I really don't want this to devolve into data wars, so I'm going to choose the music.  Sorry, Dan.  Sorry Doug.

An extremely well recorded album is Marc Cohn's first release.  That is the one I have chosen for this gig.  No one needs to chip in on this beyond the postage to the next participant.

Here is the list so far:

Malloy
dflee
doug s.
Barry

If you want in on this gambit post here, PM me or send me an email.

I am choosing Nick as "the Control" for this.  I will tell him which disc is the one that has the 'special sauce' so he will be able to confirm the results.

The process for reporting your findings -  DO NOT post on the open forum what you hear and the order that you would rank the discs.  We want the observation pool to be unbiased by others findings.  PM me and let me know what you think.  I will tabulate the results and when this is all over I'll then post them.  It  will be interesting to see the outcome.

Once again: it is absolutely imperative to handle the discs with care.  Any surface damage will render the test moot and it will be a waste of the participant's time.

Fair enough?
« Last Edit: July 23, 2020, 11:24:08 AM by P.I. »
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Offline rollo

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Re: Taking Digital Audio Extraction to a level no one else has ever done
« Reply #16 on: July 22, 2020, 11:16:47 AM »
  Is this not what a music server does. Rips to bit perfect then to a SSD like the Innuos Server.

charles
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Offline Nick B

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Re: Taking Digital Audio Extraction to a level no one else has ever done
« Reply #17 on: July 22, 2020, 11:51:38 AM »
i'm a bit confused here.  wouldn't you be able to recognize the difference between a store-bought cd and one burned on a black cd-r?

for a choice of music, i'd recommend these:

- skip, hop & wobble
jerry douglas, russ barenberg, edgar meyer

- talking timbuktu
ry cooder & ali farka touré

- pontiac
lyle lovett

- the coryells
larry, julian & murali coryell
(great chesky recording)

- cafe blue
patricia barber
(nice recording)

- burbon & rosewater
jerry douglas, edgar meyer & vishwa mohan bhatt
(nice water lily acoustics recording)

besides these all being fantastic albums, i am very familiar with them, which would be helpful to me.   :mrgreen:  (altho i have pontiac and cafe blue on vinyl only. and my "the coryells" disc is a burned copy.)  if i need to buy one of the above cd's to get it included, lemme know.

doug s.
If so, suggest a recording and I will do this thing again.  The store bought CDs will be labeled #1 and #2.  Only and one other person of my choosing will know which is which.
The best way to do this test is to have an assistant put the CD's in the player.  That way it is essentially a double blind test.  Obviously a black CD is black and a dead giveaway.

The test needs to have some superbly recorded vocals and acoustic instruments.  Also, to prevent confirmation bias it is best to listen to relatively unfamiliar music.  I really don't want this to devolve into data wars, so I'm going to choose the music.  Sorry, Dan.  Sorry Doug.

An extremely well recorded album is Marc Cohn's first release.  That is the one I have chosen for this gig.  No one needs to chip in on this beyond the postage to the next participant.

Here is the list so far:

Malloy
dflee
doug s.

If you want in on this gambit post here, PM me or send me an email.

I am choosing Nick as "the Control" for this.  I will tell him which disc is the one that has the 'special sauce' so he will be able to confirm the results.

The process for reporting your findings -  DO NOT post on the open forum what you hear and the order that you would rank the discs.  We want the observation pool to be unbiased by others findings.  PM me and let me know what you think.  I will tabulate the results and when this is all over I'll then post them.  It  will be interesting to see the outcome.

Once again: it is absolutely imperative to handle the discs with care.  Any surface damage will render the test moot and it will be a waste of the participant's time.

Fair enough?

Indeed  :thumb:
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Offline P.I.

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Re: Taking Digital Audio Extraction to a level no one else has ever done
« Reply #18 on: July 22, 2020, 12:11:22 PM »
  Is this not what a music server does. Rips to bit perfect then to a SSD like the Innuos Server.

charles
It should be that way.  In practice there are some subtle differences in SQ depending upon a variety of factors. These can include:

ripping software
the drive (HDD or SSD)
the drive enclosure (actually the drive controller)
is the cable interface USB (2 or 3), Firewire, Thunderbolt or whatever
the cabling itself
the phase of the moon...

It is like all audio situations:  Everything effects everything.
"A man with an experience is never at the mercy of a man with an argument." - Hilmar von Campe

Offline malloy

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Re: Taking Digital Audio Extraction to a level no one else has ever done
« Reply #19 on: July 22, 2020, 06:21:29 PM »

Ha...that’s why we call this place home, Paul. I had a Plextor drive at one time. Worked flawlessly. That was back in the Windows OS days...
I am thinking of picking up one of these
https://www.amazon.com/Apple-MD564LL-A-USB-SuperDrive/dp/B011K4XZQ0/ref=ice_ac_b_dpb?dchild=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMImODvzprg6gIVHz2tBh3FOwpuEAAYASAAEgJa8fD_BwE&hvadid=153657847429&hvdev=t&hvlocphy=9029965&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=e&hvrand=1523329449314557044&hvtargid=kwd-34236776292&hydadcr=18032_9433277&keywords=apple+usb+superdrive&qid=1595398533&sr=8-3&tag=googhydr-20
I was also looking at this. It’s intriguing as I already have a dedicated power supply for my Auralic streamer. If so, I’d order thru Charles
https://www.tweekgeek.com/zen-mini-mk3/?sku=&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIgrD42Zvg6gIVQiCtBh2owwTVEAQYBCABEgIHovD_BwE

Hi Nick,

I was thinking of this: https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/hard-drives/External-Enclosures/Optical-DVD-CD-Bluray

That Innuos I've had my eye on for the longest time, but my wallet complained too much, being the cheapskate that I am.

I'll have to fix my cd player's transport door belt and get myself some decent interconnects. Once upon a time some 18 years ago, it was probably close to cutting edge, now it's just a large paperweight ever since the Sony streamer came in.

Paul




Offline Nick B

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Re: Taking Digital Audio Extraction to a level no one else has ever done
« Reply #20 on: July 22, 2020, 06:42:52 PM »

Ha...that’s why we call this place home, Paul. I had a Plextor drive at one time. Worked flawlessly. That was back in the Windows OS days...
I am thinking of picking up one of these
https://www.amazon.com/Apple-MD564LL-A-USB-SuperDrive/dp/B011K4XZQ0/ref=ice_ac_b_dpb?dchild=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMImODvzprg6gIVHz2tBh3FOwpuEAAYASAAEgJa8fD_BwE&hvadid=153657847429&hvdev=t&hvlocphy=9029965&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=e&hvrand=1523329449314557044&hvtargid=kwd-34236776292&hydadcr=18032_9433277&keywords=apple+usb+superdrive&qid=1595398533&sr=8-3&tag=googhydr-20
I was also looking at this. It’s intriguing as I already have a dedicated power supply for my Auralic streamer. If so, I’d order thru Charles
https://www.tweekgeek.com/zen-mini-mk3/?sku=&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIgrD42Zvg6gIVQiCtBh2owwTVEAQYBCABEgIHovD_BwE

Hi Nick,

I was thinking of this: https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/hard-drives/External-Enclosures/Optical-DVD-CD-Bluray

That Innuos I've had my eye on for the longest time, but my wallet complained too much, being the cheapskate that I am.

I'll have to fix my cd player's transport door belt and get myself some decent interconnects. Once upon a time some 18 years ago, it was probably close to cutting edge, now it's just a large paperweight ever since the Sony streamer came in.

Paul

Good website, Paul. Hadn’t seen that one before. I may be getting some budget friendly interconnects soon. If so, you can basically have mine for shipping costs if you want. They are quite good, but unshielded.
Having a talking wallet and being a cheapskate are good audiophile virtues to have.
Nick
Orchard Starkrimson Ultra amp
Supratek Chardonnay preamp
JMR Voce Grande speakers
Border Patrol SEi dac
Holo Red streamer
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WyWires Silver cables
TWL Digital American II p cord
Audio Envy p cords
Roon, Tidal, Qobuz
PI Audio UberBUSS

Offline P.I.

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Re: Taking Digital Audio Extraction to a level no one else has ever done
« Reply #21 on: July 22, 2020, 09:57:43 PM »

Ha...that’s why we call this place home, Paul. I had a Plextor drive at one time. Worked flawlessly. That was back in the Windows OS days...
I am thinking of picking up one of these
https://www.amazon.com/Apple-MD564LL-A-USB-SuperDrive/dp/B011K4XZQ0/ref=ice_ac_b_dpb?dchild=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMImODvzprg6gIVHz2tBh3FOwpuEAAYASAAEgJa8fD_BwE&hvadid=153657847429&hvdev=t&hvlocphy=9029965&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=e&hvrand=1523329449314557044&hvtargid=kwd-34236776292&hydadcr=18032_9433277&keywords=apple+usb+superdrive&qid=1595398533&sr=8-3&tag=googhydr-20
I was also looking at this. It’s intriguing as I already have a dedicated power supply for my Auralic streamer. If so, I’d order thru Charles
https://www.tweekgeek.com/zen-mini-mk3/?sku=&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIgrD42Zvg6gIVQiCtBh2owwTVEAQYBCABEgIHovD_BwE

Hi Nick,

I was thinking of this: https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/hard-drives/External-Enclosures/Optical-DVD-CD-Bluray

That Innuos I've had my eye on for the longest time, but my wallet complained too much, being the cheapskate that I am.

I'll have to fix my cd player's transport door belt and get myself some decent interconnects. Once upon a time some 18 years ago, it was probably close to cutting edge, now it's just a large paperweight ever since the Sony streamer came in.

Paul
The OWC Elite Pro is one of the best sounding drive enclosures available.  So says my digital guru Eric Hider.  He has listened to everything and the OWC is his choice due to the controller.  It does sound better than what I was using...
"A man with an experience is never at the mercy of a man with an argument." - Hilmar von Campe

Offline Barry (NJ)

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Re: Taking Digital Audio Extraction to a level no one else has ever done
« Reply #22 on: July 23, 2020, 07:24:50 AM »
The best way to do this test is to have an assistant put the CD's in the player.  That way it is essentially a double blind test.  Obviously a black CD is black and a dead giveaway.

The test needs to have some superbly recorded vocals and acoustic instruments.  Also, to prevent confirmation bias it is best to listen to relatively unfamiliar music.  I really don't want this to devolve into data wars, so I'm going to choose the music.  Sorry, Dan.  Sorry Doug.

An extremely well recorded album is Marc Cohn's first release.  That is the one I have chosen for this gig.  No one needs to chip in on this beyond the postage to the next participant.

Here is the list so far:

Malloy
dflee
doug s.

If you want in on this gambit post here, PM me or send me an email.

I am choosing Nick as "the Control" for this.  I will tell him which disc is the one that has the 'special sauce' so he will be able to confirm the results.

The process for reporting your findings -  DO NOT post on the open forum what you hear and the order that you would rank the discs.  We want the observation pool to be unbiased by others findings.  PM me and let me know what you think.  I will tabulate the results and when this is all over I'll then post them.  It  will be interesting to see the outcome.

Once again: it is absolutely imperative to handle the discs with care.  Any surface damage will render the test moot and it will be a waste of the participant's time.

Fair enough?


I'd like to join in on the fun!
Wouldn't mind the Pink Floyd disc you'd done in the earlier iteration of this experiment. I like Pink Floyd, but I'm not familiar with that recording.
But Marc Cohn is fine  ;)
« Last Edit: July 23, 2020, 07:30:06 AM by Barry (NJ) »
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Offline P.I.

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Re: Taking Digital Audio Extraction to a level no one else has ever done
« Reply #23 on: July 23, 2020, 11:23:16 AM »
The best way to do this test is to have an assistant put the CD's in the player.  That way it is essentially a double blind test.  Obviously a black CD is black and a dead giveaway.

The test needs to have some superbly recorded vocals and acoustic instruments.  Also, to prevent confirmation bias it is best to listen to relatively unfamiliar music.  I really don't want this to devolve into data wars, so I'm going to choose the music.  Sorry, Dan.  Sorry Doug.

An extremely well recorded album is Marc Cohn's first release.  That is the one I have chosen for this gig.  No one needs to chip in on this beyond the postage to the next participant.

Here is the list so far:

Malloy
dflee
doug s.

If you want in on this gambit post here, PM me or send me an email.

I am choosing Nick as "the Control" for this.  I will tell him which disc is the one that has the 'special sauce' so he will be able to confirm the results.

The process for reporting your findings -  DO NOT post on the open forum what you hear and the order that you would rank the discs.  We want the observation pool to be unbiased by others findings.  PM me and let me know what you think.  I will tabulate the results and when this is all over I'll then post them.  It  will be interesting to see the outcome.

Once again: it is absolutely imperative to handle the discs with care.  Any surface damage will render the test moot and it will be a waste of the participant's time.

Fair enough?


I'd like to join in on the fun!
Wouldn't mind the Pink Floyd disc you'd done in the earlier iteration of this experiment. I like Pink Floyd, but I'm not familiar with that recording.
But Marc Cohn is fine  ;)
Thos discs were rendered unplayable by people that did not respect the property of other.

The Cohn discs are on their way here.

I'll add you to the list.  Thanks for playing!
"A man with an experience is never at the mercy of a man with an argument." - Hilmar von Campe

Offline Barry (NJ)

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Re: Taking Digital Audio Extraction to a level no one else has ever done
« Reply #24 on: July 23, 2020, 01:21:45 PM »
Those discs were rendered unplayable by people that did not respect the property of other.

The Cohn discs are on their way here.

I'll add you to the list.  Thanks for playing!

Pleasure and thanks for making it happen! And I was suggesting recreating the Pink Floyd discs for this go-round, but I hadn't noticed that Marc Cohn had already been chosen ;)
Happiness is when your system overcomes your nervosa ;) 
So much media, so little time... My Media Room...

Offline malloy

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Re: Taking Digital Audio Extraction to a level no one else has ever done
« Reply #25 on: July 23, 2020, 08:59:27 PM »
]The OWC Elite Pro is one of the best sounding drive enclosures available.  So says my digital guru Eric Hider.  He has listened to everything and the OWC is his choice due to the controller.  It does sound better than what I was using...

Hi Dave,

Is the matching OWC optical drive ok as well? I keep hearing some Pioneer model (that doesn't fit the OWC) as being great as well. Or is the choice of optical drive not as critical as the controller of the enclosure?

Then there is the question of the power supply and usb connection to the drive, correct?

Paul

Offline TrueAudio

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Re: Taking Digital Audio Extraction to a level no one else has ever done
« Reply #26 on: July 23, 2020, 09:00:20 PM »
  Is this not what a music server does. Rips to bit perfect then to a SSD like the Innuos Server.

charles
That's the entire point of this thread that I started:

"99% of the copied CDs sound worse than the original when played on a quality Hi-Fi system. Is it the fault of digital extraction? How to know? Knowing whether the file has been extracted to the nearest bit 100% identical to that of the original audio CD is impossible, failing to be able to compare with the file of the master tape. Error analysis tools are simple indicators. Counting errors C2 is only an index which measures imperfections, approximations, but which does not predict musicality."

"The particular music lover lacks a tool of comparison, of reference. Only those who navigate the music industry can listen to master files to compare with their commercial CDs. Wanting to evaluate what we have extracted with what others have extracted from the same CD is in no way a guarantee of accuracy (see service accurate ripp). Getting the same number will simply mean that others have done the same and got the same. Alas the law of the greatest number is not the guarantee of a perfect extraction especially if one is looking for something as difficult to measure as the notion of musicality."

The field of ripping, digital audio extraction (DAE in English) has always been neglected, because we mistakenly believed to have identified all the parameters. This blissful self-satisfaction was so firmly anchored in people's minds that the DAE remained frozen, untouched by any innovation that took into account what really mattered, namely musicality, far beyond the illusory "Bit perfect" or other "Accurate rip ".

He's saying that there's unmeasureable (by any test equipment/software analysis, but the ear can hear the improvements) analog components of the ripped WAV file that are part of every "bit perfect" rip.  Any website that specializes in computer DAE (i.e. hydrogenaudio) will relegate such talk completely to the loony bin, but this guy set out to take his drive apart and divorce it from its factory power supply, created his own batter power supply, (IMO I think you could get great results with a 'good' supply plugged into a Digibuss, but his could be better, who knows) and constructed an elaborate vibrational dissipation system, created a faraday shield around the drive electronics within his custom chassis, as well as somehow utilizing magnets as he described.  I would hazard a guess and say that with these implementations, the ripped WAV file would be less damaged because he "created a blacker background (environment)" so-to-speak in which the digital data was extracted and laid down in its new form as magnetic storage.
« Last Edit: July 23, 2020, 09:06:09 PM by TrueAudio »

Offline P.I.

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Re: Taking Digital Audio Extraction to a level no one else has ever done
« Reply #27 on: July 23, 2020, 09:40:33 PM »
you can take my name off the list.  i have just listened to the first 7 songs of the marc cohn album; no way i could sit and listen to this even once, let alone the twice or more, necessary to do a meaningful comparison.  just not my cuppa.

thanks anyway,

doug s.
OK.  Too bad... 😔. If you want to send me two copies (preferably from the same production lot) of preferred music I’ll be happy to do my thing to them and send them back.  Just let me know.
"A man with an experience is never at the mercy of a man with an argument." - Hilmar von Campe

Offline P.I.

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Re: Taking Digital Audio Extraction to a level no one else has ever done
« Reply #28 on: July 23, 2020, 09:52:10 PM »
]The OWC Elite Pro is one of the best sounding drive enclosures available.  So says my digital guru Eric Hider.  He has listened to everything and the OWC is his choice due to the controller.  It does sound better than what I was using...

Hi Dave,

Is the matching OWC optical drive ok as well? I keep hearing some Pioneer model (that doesn't fit the OWC) as being great as well. Or is the choice of optical drive not as critical as the controller of the enclosure?

Then there is the question of the power supply and usb connection to the drive, correct?

Paul
I have no knowledge of their optical drives.  I’ll ask my guy and let you know what he knows.
"A man with an experience is never at the mercy of a man with an argument." - Hilmar von Campe

Offline P.I.

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Re: Taking Digital Audio Extraction to a level no one else has ever done
« Reply #29 on: July 23, 2020, 09:53:52 PM »
  Is this not what a music server does. Rips to bit perfect then to a SSD like the Innuos Server.

charles
That's the entire point of this thread that I started:

"99% of the copied CDs sound worse than the original when played on a quality Hi-Fi system. Is it the fault of digital extraction? How to know? Knowing whether the file has been extracted to the nearest bit 100% identical to that of the original audio CD is impossible, failing to be able to compare with the file of the master tape. Error analysis tools are simple indicators. Counting errors C2 is only an index which measures imperfections, approximations, but which does not predict musicality."

"The particular music lover lacks a tool of comparison, of reference. Only those who navigate the music industry can listen to master files to compare with their commercial CDs. Wanting to evaluate what we have extracted with what others have extracted from the same CD is in no way a guarantee of accuracy (see service accurate ripp). Getting the same number will simply mean that others have done the same and got the same. Alas the law of the greatest number is not the guarantee of a perfect extraction especially if one is looking for something as difficult to measure as the notion of musicality."

The field of ripping, digital audio extraction (DAE in English) has always been neglected, because we mistakenly believed to have identified all the parameters. This blissful self-satisfaction was so firmly anchored in people's minds that the DAE remained frozen, untouched by any innovation that took into account what really mattered, namely musicality, far beyond the illusory "Bit perfect" or other "Accurate rip ".

He's saying that there's unmeasureable (by any test equipment/software analysis, but the ear can hear the improvements) analog components of the ripped WAV file that are part of every "bit perfect" rip.  Any website that specializes in computer DAE (i.e. hydrogenaudio) will relegate such talk completely to the loony bin, but this guy set out to take his drive apart and divorce it from its factory power supply, created his own batter power supply, (IMO I think you could get great results with a 'good' supply plugged into a Digibuss, but his could be better, who knows) and constructed an elaborate vibrational dissipation system, created a faraday shield around the drive electronics within his custom chassis, as well as somehow utilizing magnets as he described.  I would hazard a guess and say that with these implementations, the ripped WAV file would be less damaged because he "created a blacker background (environment)" so-to-speak in which the digital data was extracted and laid down in its new form as magnetic storage.
The differences in SQ back in the day with rips from CDs were largely influenced by the software being used.  Just making a copy from another disc produced tons of errors and they were quite obvious.

A whole new world opened up for me whan I got a Cary 306 CD player to replace my Rotel 990.  The level of detail was amazing and I could easily hear all of the SQ rip differences that the 990 had obscured.

I started doing mods to my ripping system and I built a Mini-ITX computer with a bare bones Windows XP operating system.  I started trying to get better SQ from rips when I bought a Plextor drive that was much better than the generic one in my PC.  Then rips got much better when Exact Audio Copy (EAC) came along. I built a linear supply for the Plextor and an enclosure out of Baltic birch that I damped with automotive sound deadening sheets.  Those two mods combined with shielding the ribbon cable were eye opening for me.

Then I left the Dark Side and got a late 2012 Core I7 Mac mini w/16G RAM and a Mach 2 software package. That was a completely different animal.  The mini, without a jungle of cables running around inside, produced superior results.  The Mach 2 software was revelatory.  It was like several layers of veils were removed from the recordings.  The noise floor is non-existent.  The decay of notes was amazing.  Mach 2 went away and the developer of that software package did a new build for Eric Hider (dB Audio Labs).  That package is a 'bit' better and I see no reason to move on from this.

Like I noted before drive cases has always been a place to readily hear differences.  This is due to the quality of the controller.  Presently I am using a 1TB SSD in the mini for ultimate playback and use an WD 6TB drive as mass storage.  The quality and types of cables used between the CD drive - a Mac SuperDrive - and the min as well as the WD drive is very important.  I use a TWL/PI Discreet from the SuperDrive to the mini and a Firewire 800 cable from the WD to the mini.

Some things are a tad blurry in the time domain of what happened when in my journey, but at least I hit the high points.  At 72 some things seem like they happened yesterday and somethings are iffy in order.

For streaming I have no qualms stateing that playing from files is still superior.  No, I have plan to buying a streamer that sells for the price of a good used car.  I use Tidal for general listening and when I want to preview something I might want a hard copy for.  It is just too easy.

Finally:  I have little use for hi-rez.  There are millions of titles in Redbook out there.  I have about 4 TB of them.  It is a fact that we are still getting better at getting ALL of the data encoded on disc.  Ripping at 88.2 is superior in SQ.  96kHz has decimation problems that are audible in the terms of hardness in the highs to my ears.

« Last Edit: July 24, 2020, 11:10:00 AM by P.I. »
"A man with an experience is never at the mercy of a man with an argument." - Hilmar von Campe