CDs ripped by different drives sound different...nearly fell for it.

NO

Its only the equipment that does the conversion to analogue that makes the difference.

Bill

I dont know if different drives sound different when ripping, very likely not - however if you use DB Poweramp to Rip CD's and use SecureRip - I have noticed different drives perform different when they are reading certain disks - when it has to re-read it so many times to get a AccurateRip

Now I dont know if in this instance whether the end product is better or worse as a result of the drive quality, not tested it - especially when some come out as not accurate but still play?

Example from my experiences Laptop drive which is cheap no doubt reads the disc easy and normally - my main PC drive a Plextor struggles to read it and has to re-read several tracks.

There maybe a difference here in the end product you hear... What is the better one to use in this instance - I have only ever chosen the laptop if the main PC cannot read the disc fullstop.

interesting post sir fubar and tanks for sharing.

>I don't know why nobody has developed a CD player that rips the music to internal stored files and then plays them<

The Memory Player 64

Bill, I would agree that DACs and their analogue outputs have the most influence, but I had understood the drives themselves and indeed the ripping software can have discernible sound characteristics too.  There's an interesting article here:

http://www.enjoythemusic.com/hificritic/vol5_no3/listening_to_storage.htm

I go back far enough to remember when many people thought all that mattered was how many watts an amplifier produced or whether tapes had Dolby noise reduction.  No-one thinks that way now (or if they do then they are soon told otherwise!).  I'm far from persuaded that we understand enough about digital storage of music yet.

However, I see this topic has been done to death here already so I had better shut up.  

http://www.whathifi.com/forum/about-the-mag/can-the-hard-drive-on-which-...

Drives, no, not a chance. Ripping software, depends how badly it's been written, anything that's doing a proper Accurate Rip and checking shouldn't make any difference.

And there's an easy way to check it's been done perfectly (and indeed 'stored' correctly), the major did it. 

Although I don't think a hard disk can improve sound quality, wouldn't a poorly designed hard disk reduce sound quality from excessive vibration or electronic interference? (Assuming an all in one device like the Naim mentioned)

No, not really.  If it was an issue, I'd expect high end audio manufacturers to slap the hard drive in a seperate enclosure.

Only if you could actually hear it in the same room (I'm thinking from a NAS POV), if you were getting electronic interference running down an ethernet cable I think you'd have bigger issues than sound quality, if you meant an internal HDD in something like a Uniti then I don't know, I guess it depends on whether you think amps etc are affected by vibration, which is a completely different argument that I can't be bothered with (you guys feel free though...).

What's an example of a poorly designed HDD?

If any exist, then I'm sure manufacturers would avoid their use. Can't say that I've ever found a HDD to vibrate much and whatever vibration is evident does not affect operation or there would be all sorts of errors.

MajorFubar wrote:

nopiano wrote:

But, Major, isn't it the case that different hard drives sound different?

Funny you should say that...some of the HiFi audio players like Pure Music can be be set-up to load tracks or even whole albums into RAM* before playing them, as opposed to streaming them from the HDD, which apparently improves sound-quality... Some people also say computers with solid-state drives sound better than those with conventional HDDs... *kind of relies of you having enough spare RAM of course...

Great thread Fubar, this psychoacoustic thing is expensive.

I stream my files from RAM, simply because the hard drive isn't then whirring away, creating electrical interference that isn't grounded fully via the DAC. I doubt it has any direct effect on the digital data, but the ground hum can EDITED up quiet passges. Thankfully there is a ground lift on the DACmagic, but its not perfect, and nowehere hear as silent as say the NAD C390 I tried, or even the Chord Qute (both using USB, optical is of course an entirely different proposition)

SteveR750 wrote:

MajorFubar wrote:

nopiano wrote:

But, Major, isn't it the case that different hard drives sound different?

Funny you should say that...some of the HiFi audio players like Pure Music can be be set-up to load tracks or even whole albums into RAM* before playing them, as opposed to streaming them from the HDD, which apparently improves sound-quality... Some people also say computers with solid-state drives sound better than those with conventional HDDs... *kind of relies of you having enough spare RAM of course...

 

Great thread Fubar, this psychoacoustic thing is expensive.

 

I stream my files from RAM, simply because the hard drive isn't then whirring away, creating electrical interference that isn't grounded fully via the DAC. I doubt it has any direct effect on the digital data, but the ground hum can EDITED up quiet passges. Thankfully there is a ground lift on the DACmagic, but its not perfect, and nowehere hear as silent as say the NAD C390 I tried, or even the Chord Qute (both using USB, optical is of course an entirely different proposition)

That's why I use optical, complete electrical isolation.

Digital music production and recording has been around since the 70s, with virtually all films and music production being digital for at least 25 years, thus it is fully understood by professional production engineers and producers.

The only problems that occur are with Hi Fi enthusiasts who try and apply analogue characteristics to digital, when in actual fact there is absolutely NO similarity at all.

 Bill

if you are getting electrical ground hum from your hard drive then you've got more serious problems I would say.