CD sounds distorted, but a copy made from FLACs does not.

One of my CDs, "Money Money 2020" by The Network sounds insanely distorted when I play it on some devices. My primary CD player, which is just my Blu-Ray player (Yeah I know, a dedicated one might be better, but it sounds good enough to my ears that I can't really justify buying a dedicated CD player when it does the job), is the one having the major issue. However, my room mate's Samsung Blu-Ray player has no problems playing the original CD.

However, I made a FLAC copy and burned it. My Blu Ray player is playing the FLAC rip burned to CD-R just fine. What could be going on here? Is it likely an issue with the CD itself, which I suspect because of the rip?

 

Pre-emphasis?

 

What do you mean exactly?

 

http://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=Pre-emphasis

 

Hm, perhaps. But the CD is one from 2003, and the article there says it was used up to the 1980s. But, if that IS the case, would ripping to FLAC and burning actually solve the problem, as in my case, or should that carry over to a copy too?

 

It wouldn't, in fact if the copy was burned without the PRE flags, it would sound even worse as it wouldn't trigger the circuit on playback.

My best guess is that the pressing is ****ty enough to be marginably playable on a player sensitive enough to make the error correction kick in more than it should while playing it in real time, whereas the data was able to be reliably extracted from the disc on the computer drive (secure rip) and now is more reliably read on the freshly burned disc.

They should not (and would not) sound any different if the same data was being passed along to the DAC.

One reason why physical transports for digital audio need to go the way of the dodo file based playback is infinitely more reliable and predictable.

 

I am looking into getting into CD quality or higher quality 24-bit and only selectively purchasing CDs and vinyl. The physical collection is getting to be a bit oversized and taking up too much space. Though, I do love my physical copies of things. I put a lot more love into my vinyl playback system. Just got the Little Dot MKII tube amp today, and it sounds marvelous with the Rubber Soul mono vinyl remaster I have on the turntable right now. Think it's worth getting a decent CD player, like maybe an Onkyo? Perhaps that'd have enough error correction to deal with any problematic CDs.

 

Why not buy another used cd for $6 and test that.

 

As Rom said it is not pre-emph, that would only make it sound bright if not properly re-eq'd , plus your disc is decades away from it's last use, I agree on the error correction, especially if it worked fine on your buddy's, the Onkyo player is nice especially for a budget player

 

Not a bad idea to have a solid CD player on hand (look into a vintage laserdisc player - they can be had inexpensively, the transport and optics are way overengineered for tiny little CDs, and the better models have optical or coax s/pdif out if use of an outboard dac was desired)
But with that said - now is the time to get ripping, especially if you have a sizable collection. It doesn't necessarily have to mean the end of having the physical collection, but not having to deal with all of that is one of the major benefits. Whether you keep the discs around or not, the convenience and quality (or reliability) can't be beat. You won't look back


Personally, since that entire library and more can be stored in fully tagged and catalogued lossless files on a hard drive that fits into your pocket, I say go for it. Think of the wife approval factor!

 

I got a good chuckle over your LD player recommendation, which I'm sure you do in jest. I wouldn't recommend using one for CD's, far easier to use a transport within your PC/MAC or via USB stand alone, so as to verify your data as accurate as you rip. I've ripped quite a few LD's digital and analog data via my ADC (digital thru). They sound great. As far as expense, far cheaper and more reliable to get a transport for data retrieval than a LD player. But MrRom92 put a smile on my face.

 

100% serious, promise but I should clarify, this is NOT for ripping purposes. If one wants a standalone CD player and they have the room for it, I really don't think one could do much better than LD (having access to a library of movies not available on DVD/Blu-Ray doesn't hurt either.) my Cld-d604 does a seriously excellent job of reading even the most battered un-rippable discs that would choke up any other player. I imagine playback is a breeze if fed a well cared for (but poorly pressed) disc.



For computer-based ripping it doesn't matter much of what drive you use, but for reliablity something solid that hopefully won't crap out on you in a year will probably be your best bet. The quality of modern electronics typically isn't so good. My main drive is currently an LG M-disc capable BluRay rewriter. The tolerances necessary to write to multi-layer Blu Ray discs are very low, so as you can imagine the drive is very well built and performs excellently in all aspects. 2 years of heavy use at this point which is a good sign to me.

 

If it plays fine in one player, but not in the other, and rips fine, it would seem to me that the problem is the errant player. More specifically, the errant player's DAC or output stage might just be bad. Most commercial Blu-ray/DVD players almost add CD support as an afterthought.

 

Yeah, I thought that as well but so far every other CD I've thrown at it plays fine. In any case, I might end up investing in a dedicated CD player. I might get an Onkyo or perhaps see if I can find anything good at a flea market. There's a guy there who sells vinyl & CD as well as vinyl and CD players and he lets you test them out before buying, and his prices are pretty good. Might get lucky and get something from the 80s or 90s that is good.

I'm also considering getting into digital audio such as HD Tracks. I've got a cheap android box from china with optical out, so if I hooked it up to a good DAC I could probably get some good sound of it it. I'm getting sucked more and more into the audiophile world as my funds allow, haha. I'm probably one of the younger members here (just turned 25) so I've not got quite the set up others here have. Still, with my AT-Lp120 turntable, ART DJ Pre II phono pre-amp, the new Little Dot MKII tube amp, I at least have a pretty respectable analog set up. I really like the Sony MDR-V6 studio headphones too. They are relatively flat in response as far as I can tell except for having a bit of emphasis on the high end, but the tube amp kind of softens that up a bit. It sounds pretty great. The MKII also adds a LOT of sound stage to my Sony receiver since it's giving the phono chain a lot more power behind it. Before, I'd have to set the receiver to max volume to get decent volume, but now I have a lot more control over the audio and the sound overall is very noticeably better (in terms of sound stage, bass, and detail). Whether that's merely because I've thrown in an amp, or if the tubes themselves have something to do with that, I will stay agnostic about. I do know the Little Dot MKII is wayyyy better than the little Bravo headphone amp I was using with the Sony headphones. The Bravo hybrid tube amp has really bad sound stage. The left and right channels blend together way too much. It otherwise had a great sound but if listening to anything but mono, I found the channel blending unacceptable. I mean that essentially is like changing the mix. Maybe the Little Dot by virtue of being tubes colors the sound very slightly because of the smoothing out of the high end, but I'm not really sure exactly what people mean by "warm" or tube sound, unless that's it. But it's not like the high end is really affected much, most headphones probably color the sound more than the tubes in it.

Anyway, I'm getting way off topic now, haha. I'll most likely make a DAC for my android box & a dedicated CD player the next things on my list to get. At some point I might want to get a tube driven phono pre-amp too.

 

If you get a cheap CD player you can DYNAMICALLY make it sound better with jitter correction devices like the Audio Alchemy DTI or Genesis lens. You need a CD player with digital out and an outboard DAC to use one though. Fantastic add on that makes ANY cd player sound better.

 

Put some money into a decent CD player

 

Yeah, I am thinking I honestly might just be better off splurging on a really good CD player. I just have specific needs and a limited budget. I'd IDEALLY not want to spend more than ~200 total, but if I put it on my credit card I might could squeeze in a 400$ budget at max. I'm a mere 25 year old graduate student studying neuroscience in a fairly expensive area to live, so my funds are rather limited.

My goals, to summarize, are these:

1) I want a "warm" sound. I have become accustomed to the sound of vinyl and tube amplification, for better or worse. I know it's not the most accurate sound reproduction, but it's what I like personally. So, my goal is to get the most analog, warm, sound I can get out of a digital set up.

2) I want to get into digital audio, like the 24-bit HD tracks. My CD collection is ridiculous and I honestly don't have much more room for vinyl. I prefer physical media, but whether I like it or not space is an issue so getting into 24-bit digital audio seems like a logical step for space saving while not stooping to the level of compressed Mp3s/Mp4s/AACs. I'd rather use cassette tapes than that.

3) Therefore, what I need is either a reliable CD transport of some sort to go to a good DAC (hopefully a tube based one!) that would also be hooked up to an android based media center, OR a CD player that can accept a digital input to be used as a DAC in its own right.

What I'm currently considering is one of the old Yamaha natural sound DVD players that can upconvert CD audio through analog outs, and just getting a FiiO DAC for the android media center. The other alternative I am currently considering is splurging on one the YAQIN SD-30A CD player. It's really expensive, a little over my maximum budget of 400, but might overall make me the happiest in the long run. However, I am iffy on this because I don't know how well received that player is, or how reliable Yaquin's products are. 4-500 dollars is a lot to spend on something that I could end up having a broken CD tray or dead laser in a year or two's time. I want this purchase to be for the long haul. Unfortunately, that seems to be one of the only tube amplified CD players out there. The Music Hall C-DAC15.3 seems to actually satisfy the desire for the ability to upconvert/upsample CD audio AND has digital inputs for use as a DAC. It doesn't have tubes, but I've heard a lot of good things about Music Hall so I'm sure I'd be happy with the sound. I could always throw in a Yaquin tube buffer for 200$ later on after I'd recuperate funds, but the C-DAC15.3 is over 500. I simply can't afford that right now. Even if I put it in my credit card I'm not sure I'd be comfortable.

The set up that all this would be integrated into is this: The new digital equipment would, in the end, be wired into an AV switch which connects multiple components to the Little Dot MKII phono amp, which in turn is feeding out to my Sony surround system (which I keep in stereo mode when playing music, for the record. None of that artificial surround sound nonsense!) .


Unless someone has some suitable equipment they are looking to sell at a price in my budget that satisfies my needs, I might be SOL :/

 

Sorry for the double post, but it won't let me edit the last post.

Good news. I discovered that the Maverick Audio D2 exist. Seems to have good reviews. Has tube output AND transistor output. I will most likely use the tube output, but it might make for some fun blind A/B comparing with my room mate. Now I just need a CD transport that outputs over coaxial digital cable and, if possible, is capable of upscaling CD audio before sending it out over coax. Preferably cheap and not likely to have issues reading the CD I posted about here.

 

If it were me, I wouldn't worry about the CD player, and keep ripping my CD's. Save up for something decent in the future rather than buying something average. Audio playback from an HD is much better in my experience that playing disks.

 

I have several hundred CDs. Ripping them would take up far too much time and even as cheap as digital storage is nowadays, it would cost too much to get the storage and be inconvenient and bulky with the hard drives.

The Maverick Audio Tube Magic D2 is a really good DAC from what I've read, so I just need a good, reliable, CD transport to take the music to the DAC with a coaxial cable. I wanted the upsampling on it for the extra detailed quality. Unless someone thinks that is unnecessary or even damaging to sound quality and convinces me of why it's not good or pointless. But, assuming the player doesn't upconvert the CD audio, all it would be doing is reading the CD and not processing any data. So all I'd really need at minimum is just something with a reliable drive that has no problems reading random problematic CDs (for the record, the CD in question has absolutely no scratches or fingerprints. It's brand new)

 

You can buy 1TB external drives for $60. Just saying. Do what you want, of course.

 

Up converting is debatable and best left to other threads , since your going with a separate DAC, grab a Sony multi format player (SACD/DVD-A etc...) they can be had for cheap and then you have the ability to play those other formats if you later decide to dabble with them, or if not, just grab that Onkyo from Amazon and be done with it

 

right, but I still don't want to spend all that time ripping hundreds of CDs. I'm grad student with a pretty busy schedule, and plus I'd probably need to either get a several terabyte drive up front if I took on that project or end up with multiple smaller drives. Plus I tend to be iffy about external drives. I have bad luck with them failing.

Since I spent a good bit on the DAC (probably worth it in the long run though) I'm holding off on the CD player for now, but I'll start digging into the Sony models to see what's up. I only have one SACD, the hybrid Alice Cooper's Billion Dollar Babies disc that Steve Hoffman mastered, so it'd be cool to play that. I might also hit up the local flea market, see what kind of goodies I can find. I can always google the models I'm coming across there to see if they're any good.

 

http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/4-sale-philips-795sa-5-disc-changer-dvd-sacd-remote.459253/

nice player in our forum right now, plus you can get on tot he SACD train real cheap. I have ripped more than 700 CDs....sure it takes time but an external HD is much smaller than a shelf for 700 CDs.

 

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