Computer Storage - Best Practices

[kumakuma]

31 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 

 At the dawn of the CD age, many Audiophiles sought out the original Japan and West Germany pressed CDs, because they sounded much better than the multi generational  copies of the Masters used by the local CD manufacturers , DESPITE having the same data in most cases .

 Even in the USA , certain pressing plants were preferred by discerning Recording and Mastering Engineers because their pressings simply sounded better !

 

Fortunately, as Barry Diament has said, these differences disappear once the CDs have been ripped to disc:

 

Quote

Whether commercial CD, “special” material or process CD or a fine CD-R, my experience has consistently been that extraction to computer and playback from there (as a raw PCM file in .aif or .wav format) gets me the true sound of the master.

 

 

[kumakuma]

1 hour ago, STC said:

SandyK is offering the tracks so why not we start from there? 

 

If only things were this simple.

 

Many of us have downloaded and listened to his "identical but different" files and told him we could not hear any difference between them.

 

These negative results are then dismissed using one or more of the following explanations:

 

1. Your hearing isn't good enough.

 

2. Your system isn't good enough.

 

3. You didn't hear the differences between you don't have an open mind.

 

4. The differences disappear when the files are sent over the Internet. You need to listen to the CDs which Alex will only send you if he believes your system is good enough.

 

BTW, have YOU listened to his files?

[kumakuma]

43 minutes ago, STC said:

 

I vaguely remember chatting with him or someone on his behalf.  I have no CD player to do the trial. But there was another golden opportunity to bust the myth in another claim which the objectivists dismissed them with the excuses just like Alex's which looks less credible to subjectivists. 

 

Even here, you only addressed one issue but ignored the 2Ms encounter which neither party wants to accept the results. Science failed? So how?

 

My understanding is that different software settings was the most probable cause of the differences in that test. I'm not sure how this is science failing.

[kumakuma]

22 minutes ago, STC said:

 

No dispute there. I agree. I remember there was another thread started by @manisandher after @mansr visit to his place. Did we even have a conclusion to that? 

 

I don't think so.

 

This, of course, the best possible outcome as it allows everyone to continue to believe what they want. 👺

[kumakuma]

5 hours ago, manisandher said:

 

As for an explanation... Well, I suspect it is due to different noise profiles entering the DAC, 'on the back of' the digital signal. These different noise profiles then affect the DAC ever-so-slightly differently, at the point of digital-to-analogue conversion. No d-to-a conversion, absolutely no problem.

 

 

I can see this as a plausible explanation.

 

I would also like to highlight that this is completely different from what Alex is claiming  (identical files played under identical conditions sounding different on a consistent basis). 

 

[kumakuma]

26 minutes ago, sandyk said:

 Wake up !

 IF the saved files were identical then they would sound identical. Clearly there ARE differences that the Checksums and other Binary checks are presently incapable of showing.

It has already been recently demonstrated that even .md5 checksums  can be fooled.

 

I was referring to files that are identical when compared bit-by-bit to each others. This has nothing to do with checksums.