I found an excellent recording that I have in 256 and 64 DSD. I have put three songs, same for each DSD rate in my Dropbox. If you are interested in comparing DSD64 to DSD256 send me a private message, not here in this thread please, with an actual real email address that I will use to send you access to the files. If you give me a fake email address you get nothing and you waste possibly 5 to 10 seconds of my time. This is just for those who want to see if they can actually perceive a difference. If you don’t know how to play a DSD file on your system this isn’t something you should concern yourself with at all. The 256 files are HUGE!
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I thought the worse thing that could happen in my world where I am not a streamer (even though I have a Tidal account) is waking up at 6:30 am and not having Internet. Well I was wrong. Not having Internet, cell service, or an Internet land line until 8:00 pm is even worse. I am in Southern Ontario (Canada) and we had a nation-wide outage of Roger’s Cable, one of the Country’s larger providers of Internet, TV and cell. If I was only a streamer, I would not have survived the day without my local collection.
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One of the reasons I have the top account with Qobuz is to buy copies of things I would not like to lose access to under such circumstances. I hear ya!
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Same here. Qobuz is one the best sources for downloads.
You can listen all you want and when you are ready you can purchase a download with up to 60% off.
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My brother presented me with a question that I had to reseach to find an answer. Why is it when he plays a Redbook CD locally and plays the same 16/44 CD on Qobuz, the Redbook CD almost always sounds supperior. This is a great question that has been asked and aswered several times over on other forums. Below is my response but it also ties in with people that would upsample a DSD64 and pass it off as something higher:
Question:
If there isn’t any degradation of a digital signal then why is an original CD so much better than streaming? There must be some analogue somewhere in the internet chain
Response:
I have heard the streaming companies used remastered music which is altered and compressed to save money on bandwidth. The provenance can make older CDs more valuable than the remastered junk they are pushing out in the name of profit. It’s not the technology, it’s the mastering of the music.
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I have mentioned this before…I have bought more music (CDs and SACDs) in the last five years than I had in the previous twenty.
For four, primary reasons:
- Time
- Money
- PSA digital product acquisitions (DMP, DSD & Bridge II)
- Discovery of new music and rediscovery of old favorites via this forum and my Roon - Tidal/Qobuz subscriptions (bought the Roon lifetime subscription a couple of years ago)
If I really, really enjoy something I get turned on to here or through streaming (Roon radio is a Godsend for new music discovery), then I try to make a point of looking for a way to acquire a physical copy of the recording. (I like to actually possess what I buy.)
It is not practical to buy everything I enjoy but I like to think my purchases are helping the artists and the music production industry players in some way.
FWIW, many of my purchases still sound a bit better ripped, read and streamed on/from my iMac and NAS then they do sound on the DMP/DS combo. The gap is narrow though.
Cheers.
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@Rob_W this is a big contention in the hobby. Streaming is harder to get the most out of compared to CDs. Many have a very good player with a digital connection to good DAC or the player itself has good analog output. Been doing that since 1980. Streaming is relatively new and really starting to come into its own. Even so many will say CDs sound better. Do the streaming services compress or do something? maybe, they are FLAC in most cases and its been shown its not a perfect copy of the sound. I for one just deal with it. I don’t have a large collection. Just now starting to build my hires downloads. I am too ADD to change discs or flip vinyl. I love my play lists and jumping song to song etc… Too spoiled with that now.
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In my personal setup, playing a CD in my player sounds much better than playing the files I ripped from the very same CD. No streaming involved either way. Same results.
Bits are definitely not bits.
Enjoy, don’t analyze.
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More than likely the gears used have a lot to do with it. Most do not have Al’s alien UFO ship to play CDs. With PST some CD sounded better, but a lot of AIFF ripped files from CDs sound equally good through my server.
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If I had a Gryphon Ethos CD player, I probably can say that too.
We are all trying to get the best sound we can from digital and the transport plays a big role in doing that, but also the quality of the interconnecting cables, ethernet switch boxes, power supplies, etc…
I have gotten my PST to sound more involving than streaming or file playing in the past. Things have changed. Now with DSD 256 and other hardware tweaking, my streamer is really out of reach in sound quality for my disc player. I now enjoy listening to music much more from files than CDs.
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I believe CD’s played on the PST sound better than rips from the same CD.
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That is true Al, if I ran the streamer straight to my DAC with USB. Not so if I ran to Matrix 2 with multi bucks cables, external power suppy, and I2S, not to mention SR Ethernet switch also. I know, that thousands of dollars more, but it’s only money, right?
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Aangen, when you rip a CD is it to WAV or uncompressed FLAC
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Sometimes, yes; sometimes, no - has been my experience.
FWIW.
Used to RIP to FLAC. Now I RIP to AIFF. I can also RIP to DSD but I choose not to.
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I used to rip CDs to FLAC, but now only rip to AIFF; thanks to Al’s feedback. There’s no question AIFF sounds better, and I almost done with my “remaster” 1000 CDs.
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Same here.
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Ditto. Reconstructing compressed FLAC files is not always perfect. AIFF and WAV files sounds better but take up more storage space.
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In Easy CD Audio Converter a good choice? I see AIFF | PCM is the only AIFF seection. Do you leave all the settings on ‘auto’ or predefine them?
Thanks
dBpoweramp Music Converter!
You won’t regret it. Works great and reasonably priced.
PS
I am not familiar with Easy CD Audio Converter.
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