Been a while since I've bought a CD, now I feel like I want to buy them and rip them in a lossless format

[ctm]

I've been thinking of buying CD's, a ton of them, and converting them to a lossless format because the music I have are all in a lossy format. The problem its going to cost me a ton of cash. I dont know if its worth it...

[kumakuma]

I've been thinking of buying CD's, a ton of them, and converting them to a lossless format because the music I have are all in a lossy format. The problem its going to cost me a ton of cash. I dont know if its worth it...

 

Then buy one and see if you can tell the difference.

[ctm]

good point

[kumakuma]

The best approach would be to take the same CD and rip to both lossless and lossy formats. This would eliminate any differences in masterings.

[mwheelerk]

That's a tough thing. If you don't have the CDs you originally created your lossy files from so you could re-rip them lossless you are right that could be a costly endeavor. The only positive thing is that there are a lot of really cheap used CDs out there and hopefully a lot of what you want is in that lower cost variety. It would be cheaper than trying to buy lossless downloads and availability would be better.

 

Im lucky in that early on I discovered that lossy while okay on my iPod was not satisfactory (for me) to be played through my home audio system.

[InfernoSTi]

I love to shop Amazon and buy the cheapest used CDs...typically a few cents and then shipping takes it to $4-5. I have found great titles I always wanted but never bought...most new stuff I wait to see if it comes out on a 24 bit download before buying a CD.

 

Best,

John

[firedog]

+1

I do the same. You can find lots of discs from 1 cent to 3 bucks. Shipping is generally 4 dollars

 

 

I love to shop Amazon and buy the cheapest used CDs...typically a few cents and then shipping takes it to $4-5. I have found great titles I always wanted but never bought...most new stuff I wait to see if it comes out on a 24 bit download before buying a CD.

 

Best,

John

[DaQi]

With the Pono music store launching in a month-ish, they are claiming they will have ~2 million tracks available at at least CD quality. Won't be cheaper than acquiring used CDs but will save having to re-rip.

 

Just a thought.

[squarebab]

Not all CDs are created equal. Most music released from the early nineties and later, especially "remasters", are sonically inferior to earlier recordings. Dynamic compression and all that. I try to find the earliest CD version of a recording to purchase. Discogs is an excellent place to start. They list all versions of a recording (vinyl, tape and CD) with specific catalog numbers and dates. They also link to vendors who have those specific versions for sale. Ebay is another source for older used CDs, but most sellers do not list the relevant info necessary to know what version you are buying. GEMM is another resource for used CDs, but like Ebay it is difficult to know what year each release is.

[maxsensecs]

Right,It would be cheaper than trying to buy lossless downloads and availability would be better.thanks

[Keyser Söze]

I've been thinking of buying CD's, a ton of them, and converting them to a lossless format because the music I have are all in a lossy format. The problem its going to cost me a ton of cash. I dont know if its worth it...

 

Depending on what lossy format they're in, I wouldn't consider it the end of the world if all I had was at least a decent-sounding lossy version.

 

As for buying CD's, I have never stopped. I still buy BD and DVD too. I don't see the point in buying digital media where I have to rely on someone else to access my content. I also don't see the point in spending $10 for 256k quality when I can often spend that price or less for full lossless 16/44.1 quality and create lossy versions locally for free.

 

I wouldn't do it all at once. If you want to replace the lossy with CD's, do it a little at a time here and there, track down the good masterings and take your time. Get yourself a nice, big USB external hard drive for backup in the meantime.

[Keyser Söze]

With the Pono music store launching in a month-ish, they are claiming they will have ~2 million tracks available at at least CD quality. Won't be cheaper than acquiring used CDs but will save having to re-rip.

 

Just a thought.

 

I still am quite skeptical of the Pono Music Store. Their definition of quality seems to simply be higher numbers (i.e. 24/96, 24/192) rather than getting a good 16/44.1 recording whose dynamics are not crushed.

 

I have a bad feeling it is going to be the same mastering, just in higher resolution, which sort of defeats the purpose all together.

[DaQi]

Looks like Pono will be launching with mostly CD quality stuff but time will tell what they provide in higher resolutions and the provenance of those recordings. Based on what they are saying they want to move the market to higher resolution.

 

A bonus if you are bought your player on Kickstarter is that you get lifetime upgrades to the highest resolution.

[electronicworld]

I've been thinking of buying CD's, a ton of them, and converting them to a lossless format because the music I have are all in a lossy format. The problem its going to cost me a ton of cash. I dont know if its worth it...

 

As mentioned, you can find many low cost CD's on ebay and other websites. Here's the process I use and the results are outstanding:

 

1. Rip the CD to a lossless format.

2. Using Cirlinca's Audio Remaster, remaster the lossless file to 96kHz/24-bit flac

 

You have several ways to playback the remastere files:

 

1. Via your computer using Media Monkey and a good DAC

2. Creating a DVD-Audio disc

3. Using a Hi-Res audio playback device such as the FiiO X-1, X-3 and X-5

[Sal1950]

As mentioned, you can find many low cost CD's on ebay and other websites. Here's the process I use and the results are outstanding:

 

1. Rip the CD to a lossless format.

2. Using Cirlinca's Audio Remaster, remaster the lossless file to 96kHz/24-bit flac

 

You have several ways to playback the remastere files:

 

Sorry but you can't improve the quality of a redbook ripped CD by remastering into a bigger digital bucket

[mwheelerk]

As mentioned, you can find many low cost CD's on ebay and other websites. Here's the process I use and the results are outstanding:

 

1. Rip the CD to a lossless format.

2. Using Cirlinca's Audio Remaster, remaster the lossless file to 96kHz/24-bit flac

 

You have several ways to playback the remastere files:

 

1. Via your computer using Media Monkey and a good DAC

2. Creating a DVD-Audio disc

3. Using a Hi-Res audio playback device such as the FiiO X-1, X-3 and X-5

Sorry, but in my opinion that is a waste of time and space. You still have a redbook CD rip in. 24/96 wrapper.

[Audio_ELF]

Sorry, but in my opinion that is a waste of time and space. You still have a redbook CD rip in. 24/96 wrapper.

 

Depending of the DAC you may get better quality playing an upsampled file than the original CDRB quality rip. However always keep the original rip incase you want to manipulate it differently later.

 

Eloise

[mwheelerk]

Depending of the DAC you may get better quality playing an upsampled file than the original CDRB quality rip. However always keep the original rip incase you want to manipulate it differently later.

 

Eloise

I do not understand how that is possible in any way. You start with an apple. You can put an orange skin around it. It's still an apple inside. If there is a technical,explanation of how this is possible I would be interested in hearing and especially how one DAC vs another DAC could influence the playback results based on this file "transformation".

[Sal1950]

Depending of the DAC you may get better quality playing an upsampled file than the original CDRB quality rip. However always keep the original rip incase you want to manipulate it differently later.

 

Eloise

 

Never, your convincing yourself you hearing something not possible. The only possible change is a degradation due to trans code errors.

[firedog]

I do not understand how that is possible in any way. You start with an apple. You can put an orange skin around it. It's still an apple inside. If there is a technical,explanation of how this is possible I would be interested in hearing and especially how one DAC vs another DAC could influence the playback results based on this file "transformation".

 

It's certainly possible b/c given DACs can perform better at some sample rates than others. If your DAC performs better at 24/96 than 16/44.1 then it may well sound better to you. In addition, different filtering may be used on the upsampled version and different filters can certainly make the result sound different.

[Audio_ELF]

It's certainly possible b/c given DACs can perform better at some sample rates than others. If your DAC performs better at 24/96 than 16/44.1 then it may well sound better to you. In addition, different filtering may be used on the upsampled version and different filters can certainly make the result sound different.

+1

 

It's the same as some manufacturers offer you different filtering options or will include a specific up-sampling chip alongside the actual DAC chip (which in most cases carries out its own up/over sampling).

[mwheelerk]

I don't believe I have ever seen that "feature" and "performance" specified by any DAC manufacturer. Which manufacturer claims that their DAC will perform better if you resample 16/44.1 files to 24/96?

 

I am not speaking about the filtering that they might provide but specifically if you convert your files that this will enhance the performance of their DACs.

[electronicworld]

I don't believe I have ever seen that "feature" and "performance" specified by any DAC manufacturer. Which manufacturer claims that their DAC will perform better if you resample 16/44.1 files to 24/96?

 

I am not speaking about the filtering that they might provide but specifically if you convert your files that this will enhance the performance of their DACs.

 

Read the Benefits of remastering music on Cirlinca's website. Click the upsampling and upmixing links for a detailed explanation. Lastly, download the free trail and give it a shot. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

[mwheelerk]

Read the Benefits of remastering music on Cirlinca's website. Click the upsampling and upmixing links for a detailed explanation. Lastly, download the free trail and give it a shot. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

Remastering is not what is being suggested here. Remastering would be from a source material. This is simply a file ripped from a CD and then up-sampled to 24/96. That has nothing to do with remastering.

[k6davis]

For Cirlinca to call what their product does "remastering" is highly misleading marketing speak. The original master is not "improved' in any way. Instead the same master is converted to a higher resolution format via upsampling.

 

It is a mistaken impression that the point of the upsampling is to improve the source file. Done properly, it should not alter the sound of the source file. Rather, the point is to provide the DAC with a file in a format that allows it to perform at it's best.

 

It is true that DACs have an optimal sampling rate (which varies depending on the DAC) and it's generally higher than 16/44. That is why nearly all DAC's internally upsample the datastreams they are fed and a NOS (non oversampling) DAC is a rarity. A visual analogy would be a video monitor. My television is 1080p. It converts any signal it receives to 1080p internally - if it's not 1080p already. I'm surprised that there's still such a bias against upsampling. Most of the people who are opposed to it have DACs that upsample everything they listen to.

 

That said, I prefer to store all of my files in their original state. I set JRiver to upsample my music to DSD 128 in real-time as I play it.