lol. BadB. No. You are not being a PITA. And seriously - I am not really ‘suggesting’ anything. Only that this is something I stumbled across and wondered if anyone else had done this (i.e. Rip to HD Upconverted taking software conversion out of the loop). I decided to discuss what I heard here since there are so many variables - and so many smart people that hang here. :).
I thought it an interesting tidbit given from a simpleton’s view (mine) - I am feeding a different file (created by the same source) a different format to the dac. is it the resultant file creating what I hear by the software - or just how it is processed within the dac that makes a difference?
Re my flac test vs alac - since they sounded identical to me - I felt that this did prove out that my iTunes initial rip was solid and it nor iTunes was inferior in some way to the jriver rip. So I did get that out of it.
Re: AIFF. I have to find that option in jriver. It wasn’t openly apparent to me - but I am not brilliant in that regard. It does do a .wav/ APE and other formats. Maybe I’m just missing it.
Ted, you are either lucky, or with your skills, you have optimised those USB drives. When the internal drive quit working, I checked the drivers, and in properties, it claimed it was working, but I forget, I had problems with one doing burns, and one quit reading, so ripping was out. If I have to replace the Lenovo, I found a site that tested a bunch, and recommends the LG.
I don't know about luck - I've been using WD Passport USB bus powered drives for years. All of the Seagate external non-bus powered drives I ever had failed (as well as some of the WD, Toshiba, Hitachi, etc.) so I've been staying away from them on general principles. Many reviews I see for USB bus powered drives are suspect to me because people don't realize that some USB hubs don't have big enough power supplies or other limits - I read other comments, reviews, etc. from any reviewer and see if know what they are talking about in general before I put any stock in their comments. Often you can tell simply by their tone - if they are too certain or too imperious I don't trust them (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect )
A truly delicious sentence: The cognitive bias of illusory superiority derives from the metacognitive inability of low-ability persons to recognize their own ineptitude.
OK - so let me recap, because I’m trying to sort this out:
in timm’s OP, he said: "So yesterday I decided to use JRiver to rip my CD and I probably have a setting to convert everything to DSD on the rip so it created dsf files. "
…in other words, he used software to create .dsf files from his CD without actually doing any settings choices - which was why I mentioned, “the question” of how the files were converted - what the settings were, leaving aside the whole lossless vs. software upconvert deal.
Jeffstar said: “the OP is doing the conversion to DSD during the ripping process” - right - as I understand it, with JRiver.
Timm said: “(i.e. Rip to HD Upconverted taking software conversion out of the loop)” - so if I read this right, you are doing a software conversion up front, so the DS doesn’t have to do any conversion. Whereas the DS would do an on-the-fly hardware upconversion. Although it actually is upconverting EVERYTHING fed into it to 10x or 20x DSD (forget where it’s at now).
jeffstarr said
Geez Elk, more complex? Plugging a wall wart in? That is the only difference
I did not say it was difficult. But it is more stuff to keep track of - wall-wart, cable dressing, where one has an outlet (often at a premium for an audio/video system), etc. Not having a wall-wart to address is nice.
Yah. That’s it. However to me it’s more than not having the DS do the pcm->DSD conversion. I look at it as - I am sending a file that is different to the DS - i.e. Sending it a different source. So to me - it is more than that since I really have no idea if the software is providing anything else in the initial rip.
Beef, sounds right to me, although I have no idea, how he does it, and I have JRiver 21. It has been a while since I ripped anything, but it always shows an ape for my rips. They sound fine. I have wondered if I should be using DB something for CD rips. If I ever decide to rip my whole collection, I would have to do some research.
I mostly rip something for a special Playlist or as a sampler. Most of my files are LPs done in Vinyl Studio at 24/96, as that is my ADCs highest resolution.
Like I said, Timm may be on to something, I have never heard of anyone else ripping CDs as DSD files. I could do it easily in Vinyl Studio, but no idea how in JRiver.
Correction: I know there are DSD settings in Vinyl Studio, but I think you would need an ADC that did DSD, like the PSA phono stage. The few times I used VS to record concerts off of the Satellite tuner, I had to run the analog outs to my ADC. Seeing as USB is the only digital input on my laptop, no way to get the spdif output into the PC without either an ADC or something that would take coax or toslink and convert to a USB output. I have no idea if anyone makes such a converter, and for the rare times did that, not worth doing. Anyway, since I got Tidal, I never bothered to renew Sirius in the house, or the car. I just don’t drive enough to bother. I do miss the Grateful Dead 24/7 channel, but I have plenty of Dead in a variety of formats.
A truly delicious sentence: The cognitive bias of illusory superiority derives from the metacognitive inability of low-ability persons to recognize their own ineptitude.
Wow. I do enjoy this. I think I’ll say this in front of management at my next big meeting. How you think that will go??
So back to the hijack of my own thread. I have 4 seagates all powered with wall warts and plugged into a USB hub powered with a wall wart. I am in the process of getting backup drives that I could plug in if there was a failure.
