PC hard drive as library

[heiney]

Any members have experience using your PC hard drive as your CD library and music source? Especially in an audiophile system. Is it possible to get CD player results?

 

[kcd911]

Hard Drive for Audio.

I have played around with this, I used Windows Media Player, I tried all the resolutions, with an aftermarket audio card that has a digital Tos link output. The RCA wires out of the computer pretty much sound like crap, let your Pre/Pro covert the digital information if possible.

I found that anything under 128 kbs sounds terrible. I use the 192 kbs for everything I rip to hard drive. I have to admit that I do hear some quality loss, but the convenience of it is great. I tried a “cheap” 200 disk player to try and achieve the same thing, and I think the Windows Media player sounds better and is easier to use.

If you are a true Audiophile you will be disappointed in anything other than the transport you spent so much money on, and justified it was worth every penny!!! But the convenience of digital is easy to over look the sound loss for me, it is a small loss, but in my book anything you can hear is a loss none the less.

I am interested to see if there are more responses with other methods of achieving this, I have seen some specialty “audiophile” products, but they were several thousands of dollars, I was not that worried about it.

Good Luck, let us know what you end up with.

KCD911

 

[furrycute]

There are lots of lossless compression schemes out there, namely ape, flac, apple lossless, etc.

I primarily use ape compression to losslessly compress all my CDs and have then stored on external harddrives. You can use foobar 2000 for playback, that's the best audio player out there so far that allows you play all kinds of audio formats.

I too connect the optical out from my computer (an old laptop) to an external DAC and then link that up with my preamp/amp.

The only thing is the harddrive and computer noise. During quiet passages in a small room, you can hear the harddrive spinning and the fan noise. So maybe down the line I'll look into quieter components. But so far that's the only complaint I have about the system.

 

[AudioSeer]

I do this exclusively now using Slim Devices SqueezeBox 3. This technology can perform much -better- than any CD player if done right. The reason for this is that it doesn't suffer from the poor redbook error correction (circa 1981) found in CD players that introduce jitter and read errors.

The key is rip your CD's using Exact Audio Copy so you can get a near bit perfect and jitter free rip.

Since the SqueezeBox is able to buffer it's output, the SPDIF output has extremely low jitter as well.

You are going to want to use a lossless codec to compress your files like FLAC. That way you can save tag information (used for searching and organizing your files) directly in the files themselves and save space.

I ripped over 300 of my CD's onto my computer. There is no substitute for being able to listen to them all at command without having to get off of my couch.

The superior audio performance and extreme convenience has demonstrated to me that disc based mediums are finally on their way out.

 

[Eric Apple]

I use a Roku Soundbridge and a combination of lossless and lossy encoding depending upon the CD. The SB connects with optical and passes the data to the optical input on the preamp. With lossless encoding, it's the same as listening to the CD in the CD player.

Like the squeezebox user, I concur there is nothing like having every CD you own online and ready to play.

 

[BostonMark]

Very convenient

I use a Compaq computer with a 120 gig harddrive for a music jukebox. I used a soundblaster soundcard for digital optical out to hook it up to my Home Theater System. I love typing in a genre, or an artist and immediately bringing it on screen to play. I ripped my CDs at 128 Khz. At first I didn't notice any difference between CDs and MP3s, but then I upgraded my Receiver, by using a Rotel Amp to power my front Polk Audio speakers. Now I can hear the difference ! One of the drawbacks of upgrades. Nevertheless, MP3s sound better on good systems than bad systems, and you could record your whole collection as WAV files. I CANNOT tell the difference between an original CD and a WAV recording (lossless compression) on my hard drive. I would also be willing to bet that your friends wouldn't notice unless they did an AB comparison test and listened very closely. good luck!

btw my computer is networked to my other computer, so I have access to my whole mp3 collection in my living room and my bedroom. Both computers are optical digital connected to their respective surround sound receivers.

 

[AudioSeer]

I have tested the difference in MP3 quality by encoding a track with multiple bitrates and playing it back on my stereo system.

I rip with Exact Audio Copy and enocode with the LAME MP3 encoder. Both are generally considered among the best tools for this.

Tracks ripped at 128 have a noticeable degradation. Tracks ripped at 196 are better, and tracks ripped at 256 are pretty darn close to orginal. I think that you have to have a high resolution system to tell the difference between 256 and lossless. The differences manifest themselves in things like drum cymbal decay, female vocals and acoustic guitar tone.

I use FLAC exclusively because I want the best quality possible. There is no point spending thousands on audio equipment and then short changing yourself on the most important part (the recording).

 

[furrycute]

Ripping to lossless formats such as "ape, flac, etc." saves you about 40% disc space.

I use ape almost exclusively, because of the intuitive interface of its encoder, and because the compressed ape files are smaller than flac files.

 

[Hi Ho]

I have been using my PC as a jukebox for several years now. I could never go back to listening to individual CD's in a player. All of my music was ripped at 320k MP3. I can't tell a difference between that and the original. I use Windows Media Player 10 to organize it all. Everything works great.

Now, I have a Creative ZenMicro Photo MP3 player and I am using that. I have a cable connected to my receiver and all I have to do is plug in the player and I'd say it sounds better than what comes out of my PC. I believe the ZenMicro uses the same audio chip as the Audigy 2 ZS. I think the Micro Photo may even have the new X-Fi chip in it but I'm not sure. I don't have to tie up the PC anymore to play music.

About the sound quality of the PC's analog jacks, it really depends on the sound card. I have a plain old Audigy card and the analog connection definetly sounds better than the digital connection. I had a thread going on this topic a while back. My guess is that the inferior DAC's in my receiver are to blame.

 

[sts9fan]

I also use a Squeezebox3 for most of my listening and love it. I is a audiophile componet. Look at the forums at Slim Devices website.

 

[kingdaddy]

I concur with others, EAC is the ripper you need, I've tried others and there is an audible difference, always use a loss-less encoder as well, I use ape with great success. I have the ability to A/B compare on the fly and everything but this combination yielded degradation in performance compared to the redbook CD playing in a Sony 555ES player. Once you get everything up and running, you will never go back, I promise, it absolutely rocks. In addition, you can manipulate the music files by adding some EQ, which helps some files quite a bit.

 

[MDS]

I disagree about EAC. EAC is just another program that does digital audio extraction and is no better or worse than others. It has developed cult status around the internet but its main feature of 'secure' ripping where it reads multiple times and compares the results to theoretically ensure that it got the right data is a workaround for the imprecision of track:minute:second 'addressing' of audio tracks. There is no table of contents on an audio cd and you can only get to within 1/75 of a second of the actual beginning of a track. One read my get 1/75 of a second before the actual track beginning and the next may get 1/75 of a second after the actual track beginning, so reading it multiple times and taking the one that you got 9 out of 16 times is just an averaging type of guess. The firmware of modern cd drives makes that feature irrelevant today as they are highly accurate.

I have been ripping cds and editing audio for at least 10 years. I use SoundForge to do all my ripping so I can then use it to edit the audio if necessary. I have compared EAC to SF and in all cases the results were bit for bit identical. If EAC is really so wonderful, why hasn't the author felt confident enough to promote it to at least a 1.0 version when it has been in existence for more than 5 years?

It's free and it works - nothing more.

 

[kingdaddy]

I disagree about EAC. EAC is just another program that does digital audio extraction and is no better or worse than others.

I had my whole collection ripped to .wav files on my hard drive, then when comparing them to the original redbook CD's, level matched I noticed a difference between the ripped files and the CD, especially in the low end. After carefully ripping and encoding to .ape with EAC I did a direct comparison to the .wav file and the newly EAC Ripped .ape file of the same song, without a doubt, there was a difference, the EAC ripped and encoded file was superior and identical to the redbook CD. That’s all I need to know to never use another ripping engine again, it’s not worth the trouble considering I had to re-rip 400 CD over a few months.


If you have gone through the same trouble as I have to prove the difference then I would like to hear your story, otherwise I’ll stick with what I have proven to myself at great expense.

 

[MDS]

I've done the same thing. I currently have 525 CDs and a little over 5000 192 kbps MP3s. When I get a new CD, I add all of the information to my database, rip the tracks, edit the audio if necessary, and save the WAV on an external hard drive. I then transcode the WAV to MP3 and save the MP3s on a different machine.

My question to you is how did you determine that 'without a doubt there was a difference'. If you determined that by listening to it, then you may just have the placebo effect - you expect a difference so you hear it.

I KNOW that tracks ripped with EAC vs tracks ripped with Sound Forge are identical because I have compared the WAV files bit for bit. If they are identical, and they are, then there cannot possibly be an audible difference.

Another thing: how can an EAC ripped file be 'superior and identical' to the redbook CD? If it is identical, it cannot be superior because it is the same.
I would expect the WAV ripped by EAC to be identical to the CD. The point is that there are plenty of other rippers that produce the exact same result.

 

[kingdaddy]

I've done the same thing. I currently have 525 CDs and a little over 5000 192 kbps MP3s. When I get a new CD, I add all of the information to my database, rip the tracks, edit the audio if necessary, and save the WAV on an external hard drive. I then transcode the WAV to MP3 and save the MP3s on a different machine.

I can't beleive you cant tell a difference between a .wav file and a 192Kbps MP3 file, I can. The 320Kbps files I cant however.

My question to you is how did you determine that 'without a doubt there was a difference'. If you determined that by listening to it, then you may just have the placebo effect - you expect a difference so you hear it.

Actually I was not expecting a difference at all, I found out by accident when I played the CD right after hearing the ripped .wav file and could tell a noticeable difference in bass impact at loud levels, then I did a direct A/B with levels matched to see if my first impressions were true, and they were. Believe me, I did not want to re-rip my entire collection, you know what a PIA it is.

I KNOW that tracks ripped with EAC vs tracks ripped with Sound Forge are identical because I have compared the WAV files bit for bit. If they are identical, and they are, then there cannot possibly be an audible difference..

This may be true, I do not doubt your personal experiences, but not all ripping engines are the same evidently. I used J Rivers MC 10 to originally rip my collection and there was a difference between that and EAC, that’s all I’m saying.

Another thing: how can an EAC ripped file be 'superior and identical' to the redbook CD? If it is identical, it cannot be superior because it is the same.
I would expect the WAV ripped by EAC to be identical to the CD. The point is that there are plenty of other rippers that produce the exact same result.

I either made a mistake in my wording or you misunderstood, I meant the EAC ripped and encoded file was superior to the MC10 ripped .wav file, the EAC file was identical to the redbook CD. I always recommend EAC because I know it will make a perfect bit for bit copy, I’m sure others can as well but I don’t have the time or inclination to chance it considering the extreme trouble and time involved in ripping a large collection, surly you can understand this.

 

[MDS]

Yes, we have a slight miscommunication problem. I never said there is no difference between WAV and 192 kbps MP3 (although for the vast majority of my collection it is difficult to tell the difference).

I was commenting solely on EAC. As I said, it works fine and does seem to be accurate, but it is not the end all - be all of digital audio extraction as many internet posts would have you believe. It produces the exact same wav files as Sound Forge. If the wavs are identical, then they sound identical. If the rip is accurate, then the wav sounds the same as the CD. Lossy compression has nothing to do with the audio extraction - different encoders can and do produce different results.

 

[krabapple]

EAC is nice because you can configure it to hand off the files to your choice of lossy or lossless compressors (I use FLAC), specifying filepaths, names, tagging, etc, plus freeDB support. It also gives you a a number of options for ripping a damaged disc, and has a pre-emphasis flag detector. And if you are so inclined you can spend hours fretting over things like cacheing, C2 errors, and offset correction. I've used it for years and am very comfortable with it now; I think its relatively extensive configurability appeals to the geekly-minded, but those with other inclinations often find it a pain to set up (you have to go searching around the web to find a good user's manual, for one thing). It's definitely not the only software that can do bit-perfect rips though. Nero is another good one.

 

[Naves74]

I use my Airport Express with Itunes from Apple. The Airport Express has a fiber out on it that I use into my reciver and I have ripped 200 gigs worth of songs using apples lossless encoding and it sounds pretty good for wireless. Its fairly easy to set up and very easy to use and pretty cheap.

Word to the wise using a PC to set-up is a pain even if you know command driven programming and networking. I just did it on my Mac after alot of headaces. Plus you can stream music from anywhere if you have a laptop or mulitple computers on a network with wireless capabilities.