If ripping CDs to FLAC > ROON, any need for CD player/transport?

Although opinions on this are different, my experience is that you shouldn’t compare flac with the files read from a transport (equivalent to wav/aif). Use wav/aif also as file format to compare apples/apples.

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@terzinator, there is a plug-in for the Windows version of dBpoweramp that will decode HDCD files. Microsoft bought the rights to the technology (along with Pacific Microsonics) years ago and at one point built it into their media player and some smart guy figured out how to pull it out to use in other programs (foobar2000 also decodes HDCD and I assume it uses the same underlying tech).

Depending on which Grateful Dead box set you have it may or may not matter. They still claim to use HDCD for virtually all their releases but in fact they don’t actually use any of the HDCD features, such as peak extend. (They apparently continue to use an old Pacific Microsonics ADC, which is still considered one of the best, and the result is the files trip the HDCD flag whether or not any actual features are used.) That’s true of most, if not all, of the studio albums and all the more recent live releases. If you did use the HDCD plug-in on those, the only thing it would do is lower the playback volume by 6 dB. (You can set the HDCD plug-in to boost the level by the same 6 dB, but that should get you back to where you would be without decoding to begin with if the files don’t use peak extend.) Older live releases do use peak extend, which in effect gets a bit or two more resolution out of decoded files by compressing a portion of the undecoded files. That’s probably more than you wanted to know. (If you list or PM me the box set you have I can check it against my list when I get home if I have that set–I’ve used foobar2000 to determine which CDs do or do not use peak extend.)

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My upgraded Oppo Blu-Ray hasn’t been used for 3-4 years. I stream everything these days, except for my ripped FLACs.

Wow, thanks for all the info. It’s the Golden Road set, 1965-73.

I had most everything already, but some was on vinyl. Found it on Craigslist for a steal so I grabbed it.

Nice to have, plus it has a couple of discs special to the set.

FLAC files contain the exact same data as a WAV file. The idea that WAV files sound better than FLAC files is illogical…especially when played over a network using streamers.

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The theory (and my practical listening experience) is, that flac is a compressed, lossless PCM format, while wav/aif is a non compressed lossless format. The renderer needs add. processing effort for flac while playing the file, which seems to be responsible for degraded sound.

There are different opinions on this and Ted points out that depending on care taken when comparing, various impacts could lead to differences so he sees this critically as you can read here:
https://forum.psaudio.com/t/firmware-versions-and-digital-sources/4630/14

IMO it’s easy to try if in your setup there’s a difference, so you can judge yourself. I tried it after an early recommendation of Paul shortly after I bought the DS, heard the difference and sticked to it.

If you hear it or not might be connected to the revealingness of your setup and/or the individual conditions within your setup or of your comparison.

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Have you compared WAV rips to CD? Take the Flac question out of the equation.

The title of the thread is a bit misleading. There is no ripping to flac, rips are wavs that are then subsequently compressed into flac. One does not have to use flac at all.

No, I have no CD transport to connect to a DAC. For me a transport is out of the equation and makes no sense independent of sound quality. I just say when comparing, several measures must be taken to make the comparison as much apples/apples as possible.

I think the decision for a transport or not shouldn’t be sound related as there are so many other aspects more important for each one compared to the expected sound difference.

We’re in total agreement. My only transport is connected to my computer for ripping. I moved some years ago to completely computer-based audio.

I do buy CDs on occasion as they often are the best available and I do find a good rip can sound better than streaming from Tidal (probably different masters). I don’t believe comparing a CD or a rip or Tidal is worthwhile unless all other variables are consistent.

I see no need for a spinner other than the aforementioned USB player used for ripping.

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I could care less about any difference in sound quality… there won;t be… Why? Because I listen to more music more often having it all on my server. Done.

For ripping, I use EAC… as long as it is bit-for-bit, you win. I ripped… I don;t even know how many CDs… two walls worth. Took literally months. I use WAV, all bit-for-bit and uncompressed. For ripping, my cd drive in my desktop. For playing on the network, I use my Accuphase cd player… where I can send a digital out to my DS or play directly to my integrated… but I don’t bother with it. I almost never turn it on.

BTW, storage gets nothing but cheaper and transport gets nothing but faster. Why compress?

Peace
Bruce in Philly

Compression isn’t the only reason to use flac. flac contains a checksum of the music data that’s independent of the metadata. You player will let you know if the music has been corrupted (or you got a bad read/bad network packet…) You can scan your music collection to look for bit-rot (which is more and more likely to happen to each of us as the shear amount of data we have grows.) More often I find problems caused by disk errors caused by power outages, etc. but it’s still good to check your whole collection now and then.

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Hi, Ted

How does one scan music for errors?

From the moment i bought the Melco and ripped my cd’s direct with it’s FLAC Uncompressed encoding option (which stores audio uncompressed, for those who want WAVE PCM with better Tagging), spinning cd’s on the PWT has no added value.

Foobar2000 can scan any playlist or library search result (right click/Utilities/Verify Integrity). dBpoweramp can scan a file selection in Windows Explorer or you can use it’s (hairy) batch select and then scan (right click/Convert To/Test Conversion). I’m pretty sure JRiver also supports it and probably any other reasonable player.

When they aren’t scanning flac’s or other formats that have checksums they by default perform a file read looking for read errors.

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Neat.

Thanks, Ted. I was wholly unaware of these featuers even though I regularly use Foobar and dBpoweramp.

I need to pay more attention.

I’m pretty sure the discs I tested for those albums came from that box set (certainly the extra’s, like Birth of the Dead). They are all “fake HDCD.” No HDCD features are enabled so they should sound the same with and without decoding, except the decoded files would be 6dB quieter, which is not exactly desirable. You won’t lose anything if you rip them using the Mac version of dBpoweramp without the HDCD decoder.

Ted, can dBpoweramp also check a whole library with the Accuraterip function, which also works for all other file formats by checksum comparison with their database during ripping?

At first I thought of saving all first file versions (no matter which format) to a backup I wouldn’t touch, as the flac checksum helps to identify errors, but not to get the files back. But together with the constant backup cycle this would mean 3x16TB in my case…too much. If your whole collection is from still available discs at home, it’s another case.

So I decided to pass on that checksum argument for flac and converted all to aif/dsf and took the risk of loosing without recognizing single file consistencies in case. So far I at least didn’t recognize any by sound problems.

I think at the end flac just helps to identify and recognize…all the rest of the problem fixing is the same for all formats, isn’t it?

I know the dbpoweramp product PerfectTUNES can.

https://www.dbpoweramp.com/perfecttunes.htm

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Yes dbPoweramp can check Accuraterip with a scan (or when ripping), But that doesn’t help with non-ripped files. CueTools can help heal bad rips or corrupted files ripped from known CDs. I’m always confused by it’s interface, but I’ve used it successfully for CDs that wouldn’t rip with no errors.

I definitely find a file or two with problems now and then, I’ve always been able to get it off one of the backups. I back up my NAS to both a sea of USB 4T drives formatted with ReFS configured with two way mirroring and online with CrashPlan. The selfhealing of ReFS seems to be better than the NAS’s RAID scrub recovery in my system from an empirical point of view.

To me helping to identify corruption is clearly the biggest part of the problem. Also it’s helpful in detecting when some part of my hardware is failing… (Network, disk, ram…) Usually these problems give flac checksum errors sporadically and I’ve not lost any data from them as far as I know. I also keep md5 checksums of all of my .iso files, but that takes forever to check…

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Do those wrong checksums result in dropouts?

Well, streaming also has it’s downsides it seems. I guess all this backup/checksum effort possibly is too much to be implemented by Paul into the Octave server as a set it and forget it solution.