[OT] Audiophiles: Can the audio reproduction of the CDbe equalled or bettered?

[Simon Turner]

At 04:49 AM 2/27/2004, Simon Turner wrote:
I just want to summarise this thread.
It seems to me that it is very likely that if CDs are ripped to Flac
using Exact Audio Copy in sercure mode and a good DAC is added to the
digital output of the Squeezebox then there is no real reason why the
analogue signl to a hifi amp should not be more accurate than that obtained
from a very expensive CD Player.
Hmmm... better sell my CD player quick....

Correct, except you probably don't want to talk about "more accurate" in
this
context. Better to think in terms of "exactly the same as" rather than
"more"

But I am talking about more accurate I think as the errors introduced by
the disk/laser/transport do not apply. I *am* taking about "exactly the
same" as the CD though!

And of course, accuracy is not really a goal anywhere in music.
Recording engineers select between microphones to make the music
sound "right" and to give it the proper emotional impact. If you check
the professional audio recording world, there are long discussions
about the coloring of this microphone, or preamp, or monitor. Let alone
recording studio, or concert hall acoustic signature.

Exactly. And this is what I want to hear. The sound on the CD that the
artist/engineers/producers have made/chosen.

Simon Turner
Brighton UK

[Graham Ridgway at home]

Good point, but how do you know that the reading mechanism (hardware and software) in a PC is better than in a CD player.

I would have to refuse (out of sheer audiophile principles!) to accept that the cheap CD drive in my PC plus EAC (no matter how good it is - and it is) is better at reading a digital stream from a CD than my Linn CD12!!

Mind you, I quite fancy the idea of using my CD12 as the disk drive to produce the digital source to create the flac/wav/whatever files to run a squeezbox off! So, take the CD12 off the Naim system, plug it in to the PC and then plug the squeezebox into the Naim system via an audiophile DAC! How rebellious!

So how would I take a digital output from the CD12 and 'record' it on the PC?

Graham
----- Original Message -----
From: Simon Turner
To: Slim Devices Discussion
Sent: Friday, February 27, 2004 5:56 PM
Subject: [slim] [OT] Audiophiles: Can the audio reproduction of the CDbe equalled or bettered?


But I am talking about more accurate I think as the errors introduced by the disk/laser/transport do not apply. I *am* taking about "exactly the same" as the CD though!

[Graham Ridgway at home]

hmm, just been looking at the EAC site and it has this (http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/eac13.html) utility for testing drives. Looks quite interesting on first reading.

Graham
----- Original Message -----
From: Graham Ridgway at home
To: Slim Devices Discussion
Sent: Friday, February 27, 2004 10:52 PM
Subject: [slim] [OT] Audiophiles: Can the audio reproduction of theCDbe equalled or bettered?


Good point, but how do you know that the reading mechanism (hardware and software) in a PC is better than in a CD player.

[kdf]

Quoting Graham Ridgway at home <graham (AT) ridgworld (DOT) com>:

> Good point, but how do you know that the reading mechanism (hardware and
> software) in a PC is better than in a CD player.
>
> I would have to refuse (out of sheer audiophile principles!) to accept that
> the cheap CD drive in my PC plus EAC (no matter how good it is - and it is)
> is better at reading a digital stream from a CD than my Linn CD12!!
>
> Mind you, I quite fancy the idea of using my CD12 as the disk drive to
> produce the digital source to create the flac/wav/whatever files to run a
> squeezbox off! So, take the CD12 off the Naim system, plug it in to the PC
> and then plug the squeezebox into the Naim system via an audiophile DAC! How
> rebellious!
>
> So how would I take a digital output from the CD12 and 'record' it on the
> PC?

http://www.m-audio.com/index.php?do=products.main&ID=ce4f3b6d13494004f69f07cb11070055

It does have optical inputs. CL Audigy Platinum versions also have optical
inputs that might be what you are after.

Of course, if you really want exact duplication...build yourself a pro studio
and start booking artists and make two masters as you go :)
-kdf

[Pat Farrell]

At 05:52 PM 2/27/2004, Graham Ridgway at home wrote:
>Good point, but how do you know that the reading mechanism (hardware and
>software) in a PC is better than in a CD player.
> I would have to refuse (out of sheer audiophile principles!) to accept
> that the cheap CD drive in my PC plus EAC (no matter how good it is - and
> it is) is better at reading a digital stream from a CD than my Linn CD12!!

The data on a CD is recorded with analog pits. It is only a stream
once it is in the digital domain. You can't do "better" than bit accurate.
Which is something that the Audiophile and The Absolute Sound editors
seem to not understand. Because it is read with analog means, there
is a possibility for things like wow or flutter, but the digital stream is
supposed to clock that away. Red Book audio is really a pretty
terrible format, it is amazing it works as well as it does.

I'm sure that the DAC and analog stages of your Linn are wonderful, world
class from all I've read. Does it have a digital input? One that you
could feed from the Squeezebox?

With your proposed setup, you would not need EAC or CDex, you'd use the
Linn to read the tunes. EAC and CDex are for reading the pits using a $50 PC
cd-drive.

>Mind you, I quite fancy the idea of using my CD12 as the disk drive to
>produce the digital source to create the flac/wav/whatever files to run a
>squeezbox off! So, take the CD12 off the Naim system, plug it in to the
>PC and then plug the squeezebox into the Naim system via an audiophile
>DAC! How rebellious!

Then sell the Linn to someone who isn't as smart and good looking as you.
My squeezebox is connected to a Classe amp and Sonus Faber speakers :-)

>So how would I take a digital output from the CD12 and 'record' it on the PC?

What's it got for digital outputs? Toslink optical? SPdif over coax? AES with
XLR? etc.?

In principal, you connect your CD12 via a suitable cable to nearly any computer
digital input, and record it with nearly anything, from Windows Media Recorder
up thru
<http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/pressroom/pressreleases/200305/051903Syntrillium.html>Adobe
Audition™ or CakeWalk Sonar. Recording bits is trivial, there
is no quality associated with it. The incoming PCM is a wave file (.wav).
From there, you can tag the files, feed them to your slimserver, and be happy.

One major thing that this does not do is the CDDB/FreeDB lookup that CDex
and EAC
automate for you. Probably a small price to pay.

Pat

[Graham Ridgway at home]

nice one!
Graham
----- Original Message -----
From: "kdf" <slim-mail (AT) deane-freeman (DOT) com>
To: "Slim Devices Discussion" <discuss (AT) lists (DOT) slimdevices.com>
Sent: Friday, February 27, 2004 11:06 PM
Subject: [slim] [OT] Audiophiles: Can the audio reproduction of the CDbe
equalled or bettered?



> Of course, if you really want exact duplication...build yourself a pro
studio
> and start booking artists and make two masters as you go :)
> -kdf

[Graham Ridgway at home]

Yep, I understand you can't get better than bit accurate. However as far as I can see, the "cheap CD reader+software" solution used in most PC's won't get very close to "bit accurate". So that's the main problem.

The CD12 doesn't have a digi in to feed its DAC. So what I really need is to sell the CD12 (anyone?) and buy a squeezebox (sorry, got 5 slimps, but no squeezebox yet), a *proper* DAC and the best PC CD drive that money can buy.

So what's the chance of convincing the music industry to publish raw/image versions of their CDs? That wuold cut out the tedious reading stage!!!!! Not very likely I guess!

Graham
----- Original Message -----
From: Pat Farrell
To: Slim Devices Discussion
Sent: Friday, February 27, 2004 11:18 PM
Subject: [slim] [OT] Audiophiles: Can the audio reproduction of the CDbe equalled or bettered?


At 05:52 PM 2/27/2004, Graham Ridgway at home wrote:

Good point, but how do you know that the reading mechanism (hardware and software) in a PC is better than in a CD player.
I would have to refuse (out of sheer audiophile principles!) to accept that the cheap CD drive in my PC plus EAC (no matter how good it is - and it is) is better at reading a digital stream from a CD than my Linn CD12!!

The data on a CD is recorded with analog pits. It is only a stream
once it is in the digital domain. You can't do "better" than bit accurate.
Which is something that the Audiophile and The Absolute Sound editors
seem to not understand. Because it is read with analog means, there
is a possibility for things like wow or flutter, but the digital stream is
supposed to clock that away. Red Book audio is really a pretty
terrible format, it is amazing it works as well as it does.

I'm sure that the DAC and analog stages of your Linn are wonderful, world
class from all I've read. Does it have a digital input? One that you
could feed from the Squeezebox?

With your proposed setup, you would not need EAC or CDex, you'd use the
Linn to read the tunes. EAC and CDex are for reading the pits using a $50 PC
cd-drive.


Mind you, I quite fancy the idea of using my CD12 as the disk drive to produce the digital source to create the flac/wav/whatever files to run a squeezbox off! So, take the CD12 off the Naim system, plug it in to the PC and then plug the squeezebox into the Naim system via an audiophile DAC! How rebellious!

Then sell the Linn to someone who isn't as smart and good looking as you.
My squeezebox is connected to a Classe amp and Sonus Faber speakers :-)


So how would I take a digital output from the CD12 and 'record' it on the PC?

What's it got for digital outputs? Toslink optical? SPdif over coax? AES with
XLR? etc.?

In principal, you connect your CD12 via a suitable cable to nearly any computer
digital input, and record it with nearly anything, from Windows Media Recorder
up thru Adobe AuditionT or CakeWalk Sonar. Recording bits is trivial, there
is no quality associated with it. The incoming PCM is a wave file (.wav).
From there, you can tag the files, feed them to your slimserver, and be happy.

One major thing that this does not do is the CDDB/FreeDB lookup that CDex and EAC
automate for you. Probably a small price to pay.

Pat




------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Kevin O. Lepard]

>Yep, I understand you can't get better than bit accurate

Plextor used to sell CD-R drives that had special circuitry that was
supposed to produce bit-accurate reads of audio CDs. I don't know if
they advertise that in their current products or not.

Kevin
--
Kevin O. Lepard
lepard.kevin (AT) fireserve (DOT) net

Happiness is being 100% Microsoft free.

[Bhavesh Patel]

You guys should go over to www.hydrogenaudio.org to do a little reading
about what's out there. For one thing, if you are going to be converting
to MP3, you ARE going to lose some quality, and things are going to be
somewhat colored by the psychoacoustic model of the compression algorithm.
Perhaps not by much, and probably not very perceptibly. Many audiophiles
can't tell the difference between an original recording and a LAME encoded
MP3 (>224 bitrate). Musepack is a supposedly transparent compression
algorithm, and of course FLAC is lossless.

Again, I would highly recommend the M-Audio Transit DAC. It made a huge
difference in how good the music sounds. It is very accurate and as I said
before, I was able to hear things in the music that I had not heard
before. I have listened to some reference systems, and have had Naim,
Arcam, Adcom, and just this little thing makes a huge difference. Even on
MP3s that I just got off the net at 128 bits.

Regards,

Bhavesh

[jacobdp]

On Sat, 28 Feb 2004 00:26:44 -0000, you wrote:
>Yup, almost. But I'll bet you don't need the best PC CD drive that money can
>buy, just one that works and the free EAC (try reading the web site -
>www.exactaudiocopy.de).

Is there any difference in what EAC does compared to cdparanoia?

- Jacob

[Daniel Cohen]

On 27/2/04 at 6:18 pm -0500, Pat Farrell wrote
>
>With your proposed setup, you would not need EAC or CDex, you'd use the
>Linn to read the tunes. EAC and CDex are for reading the pits using a $50 PC
>cd-drive.

So you are suggesting, if I understand you, plugging the Linn CD
player into the computer and playing CDs on it that would get passed
through the SlimServer to the Squeezebox. No ripping CD to disk, no
use of Winamp (or Nicecast) to broadcast in MP3 format.

Is this possible? I've asked this several times, and not got a
definitive answer. By definitive I mean either "Yes, you can play
music directly from your computer CD player or any CD player
connected to the computer, and this is how you do it" or "No,
SlimServer does not permit this". Not a suggestion of alternative
methods.

So far, Slim support have suggested alternative, which makes me think
one can't play music directly, but they haven't said this in so many
words.

And I have been able to get the track listing (as Track 1, Track 2,
and so on) of a CD to appear on my Squeezebox, but pressing the Play
button does not play the music.
--
Daniel Cohen

[Mark Bennett]

Hi Graham,

you're missing an important point - the CD reader in the PC doesn't
have to be as good as the one in your Linn.

When you're playing a CD in a normal CD player there are real-time
limitations. It can't keep re-reading the disc until it gets zero
error rates, because it needs to keep the data streaming so that
the sound is uninterrupted. In the case of a poor CD it just has
to give up and interpolate the erroneous samples. A good CD transport
will minimise the number of occasions where this happens.

If you have a fantastically accurate CD Drive, as is probably in your
Linn then this won't happen very often, but it will happen.

With EAC and a PC drive there is no real time constraint. It can keep
re-reading indefinitely until it either get's it right, or gives up
because the disc is too badly damaged, at which point it'll tell you
and you can decide to buy a new CD or ignore the problem. A better
PC drive will rip more quickly (less retries) and will probably rip
a more damaged disc that a poor drive, but otherwise they should
be pretty much the same.

I'm actually using a DVD-RW drive to do my ripping, and it has never
got a CD wrong. (Sod's law - it's just done it as I've been writing
this, so OK, almost never - second try got it right though....) A
DVD-RW drive is designed to be able to read pits on the CD almost
an order of magnitude smaller than those on a regular pressed CD,
and since it's RW with a very small difference between a '1' and
a '0'. As a result the pits on a regular CD are childs play in
comparison.

Once the CD has been ripped to hard disk it's subject to so much
error correction that it will never have a read failure until the
disk is well and truly worn out.

This gives it a theoretical advantage over your Linn. Of course,
if your Linn always reads the CD perfectly then there is no difference
in the bit stream accuracy, and the only *theoretical* difference
is the integrity of the data trasnfer to the DACS, which is almost
certainly 100% in both cases, and the jitter of the clock into the DAC.

Using your Linn as the source for the ripping is a bad idea:

1) You will have no idea when it has read a disc badly and made up
some of the samples, and so there's no way of correcting them

2) even if it never reads incorrectly you'll have to type in all
of the CD/Track information yourself rather than look it up from
CDDB

Just my analysis...

Graham Ridgway at home wrote:
> Good point, but how do you know that the reading mechanism (hardware and
> software) in a PC is better than in a CD player.
>
> I would have to refuse (out of sheer audiophile principles!) to accept
> that the cheap CD drive in my PC plus EAC (no matter how good it is -
> and it is) is better at reading a digital stream from a CD than my Linn
> CD12!!
>
> Mind you, I quite fancy the idea of using my CD12 as the disk drive to
> produce the digital source to create the flac/wav/whatever files to run
> a squeezbox off! So, take the CD12 off the Naim system, plug it in to
> the PC and then plug the squeezebox into the Naim system via an
> audiophile DAC! How rebellious!
>
> So how would I take a digital output from the CD12 and 'record' it on
> the PC?
>
> Graham

[Mark Bennett]

I don't think that any of us in this thread are talking about using
a lossy compression scheme, such as MP3.

I for one am using FLAC. Others may use WAV.

Your recommendation on a DAC that works well is welcome.

Bhavesh Patel wrote:

> You guys should go over to www.hydrogenaudio.org to do a little reading
> about what's out there. For one thing, if you are going to be converting
> to MP3, you ARE going to lose some quality, and things are going to be
> somewhat colored by the psychoacoustic model of the compression algorithm.
> Perhaps not by much, and probably not very perceptibly. Many audiophiles
> can't tell the difference between an original recording and a LAME encoded
> MP3 (>224 bitrate). Musepack is a supposedly transparent compression
> algorithm, and of course FLAC is lossless.
>
> Again, I would highly recommend the M-Audio Transit DAC. It made a huge
> difference in how good the music sounds. It is very accurate and as I said
> before, I was able to hear things in the music that I had not heard
> before. I have listened to some reference systems, and have had Naim,
> Arcam, Adcom, and just this little thing makes a huge difference. Even on
> MP3s that I just got off the net at 128 bits.
>
> Regards,
>
> Bhavesh
>
>

[Bhavesh Patel]

> I don't think that any of us in this thread are talking about using
> a lossy compression scheme, such as MP3.
>

Ooops, sorry. :) I assumed that people were thinking mp3/ogg/et al,
especially because of streaming issues over a network.

I agree with your statement in another reply that the CD drive in a PC
system does not have to be as good as an audiophile cd player,
specifically because of the ability to not be realtime.

> I for one am using FLAC. Others may use WAV.
>
> Your recommendation on a DAC that works well is welcome.
>

I'm still amazed at what a difference this little box has made. At $80, it
is definitely worth a try. And unlike expensive audio cards, this will
work with your computers as you change them or upgrade them.

Regards,
Bhavesh




> Bhavesh Patel wrote:
>
>> You guys should go over to www.hydrogenaudio.org to do a little reading
>> about what's out there. For one thing, if you are going to be converting
>> to MP3, you ARE going to lose some quality, and things are going to be
>> somewhat colored by the psychoacoustic model of the compression
>> algorithm.
>> Perhaps not by much, and probably not very perceptibly. Many audiophiles
>> can't tell the difference between an original recording and a LAME
>> encoded
>> MP3 (>224 bitrate). Musepack is a supposedly transparent compression
>> algorithm, and of course FLAC is lossless.
>>
>> Again, I would highly recommend the M-Audio Transit DAC. It made a huge
>> difference in how good the music sounds. It is very accurate and as I
>> said
>> before, I was able to hear things in the music that I had not heard
>> before. I have listened to some reference systems, and have had Naim,
>> Arcam, Adcom, and just this little thing makes a huge difference. Even
>> on
>> MP3s that I just got off the net at 128 bits.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Bhavesh
>>
>>

[Graham Ridgway at home]

Mark, you are absolutely right about the CD reader thing. The idea of using
the CD12 was late-night silliness!

The thing I couldn't convince myself of was whether EAC could guarantee to
get the bits of the CD exactly right or not. And if it couldn't get it
right then tell me about it. But in the cold light of day, it must be able
to do this!

So back to the plot...in my half-complete AV setup the next stage is the new
Naim DVD player plus the Naim decoder. This has a DAC that should be able
to be fed by the Squeezebox. So in theory, provided the Naim DAC is as good
(whatever that means, but let's not go there) as the one in the CD12 (or I
get a seperate one that is), then my CD12 will be redundant, although I will
have to rip any new CD to flac or wav before playing it! But could I bear
to give it up?

Any advance on #10?

Graham
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Bennett" <mark (AT) markandliz (DOT) co.uk>
To: "Slim Devices Discussion" <discuss (AT) lists (DOT) slimdevices.com>
Sent: Saturday, February 28, 2004 9:34 AM
Subject: [slim] [OT] Audiophiles: Can the audio reproduction of the
CDbeequalled or bettered?


> Hi Graham,
>
> you're missing an important point - the CD reader in the PC doesn't
> have to be as good as the one in your Linn.
>
> When you're playing a CD in a normal CD player there are real-time
> limitations. It can't keep re-reading the disc until it gets zero
> error rates, because it needs to keep the data streaming so that
> the sound is uninterrupted. In the case of a poor CD it just has
> to give up and interpolate the erroneous samples. A good CD transport
> will minimise the number of occasions where this happens.
>
> If you have a fantastically accurate CD Drive, as is probably in your
> Linn then this won't happen very often, but it will happen.
>
> With EAC and a PC drive there is no real time constraint. It can keep
> re-reading indefinitely until it either get's it right, or gives up
> because the disc is too badly damaged, at which point it'll tell you
> and you can decide to buy a new CD or ignore the problem. A better
> PC drive will rip more quickly (less retries) and will probably rip
> a more damaged disc that a poor drive, but otherwise they should
> be pretty much the same.
>
> I'm actually using a DVD-RW drive to do my ripping, and it has never
> got a CD wrong. (Sod's law - it's just done it as I've been writing
> this, so OK, almost never - second try got it right though....) A
> DVD-RW drive is designed to be able to read pits on the CD almost
> an order of magnitude smaller than those on a regular pressed CD,
> and since it's RW with a very small difference between a '1' and
> a '0'. As a result the pits on a regular CD are childs play in
> comparison.
>
> Once the CD has been ripped to hard disk it's subject to so much
> error correction that it will never have a read failure until the
> disk is well and truly worn out.
>
> This gives it a theoretical advantage over your Linn. Of course,
> if your Linn always reads the CD perfectly then there is no difference
> in the bit stream accuracy, and the only *theoretical* difference
> is the integrity of the data trasnfer to the DACS, which is almost
> certainly 100% in both cases, and the jitter of the clock into the DAC.
>
> Using your Linn as the source for the ripping is a bad idea:
>
> 1) You will have no idea when it has read a disc badly and made up
> some of the samples, and so there's no way of correcting them
>
> 2) even if it never reads incorrectly you'll have to type in all
> of the CD/Track information yourself rather than look it up from
> CDDB
>
> Just my analysis...
>
> Graham Ridgway at home wrote:
> > Good point, but how do you know that the reading mechanism (hardware and
> > software) in a PC is better than in a CD player.
> >
> > I would have to refuse (out of sheer audiophile principles!) to accept
> > that the cheap CD drive in my PC plus EAC (no matter how good it is -
> > and it is) is better at reading a digital stream from a CD than my Linn
> > CD12!!
> >
> > Mind you, I quite fancy the idea of using my CD12 as the disk drive to
> > produce the digital source to create the flac/wav/whatever files to run
> > a squeezbox off! So, take the CD12 off the Naim system, plug it in to
> > the PC and then plug the squeezebox into the Naim system via an
> > audiophile DAC! How rebellious!
> >
> > So how would I take a digital output from the CD12 and 'record' it on
> > the PC?
> >
> > Graham
>
>
>

[Pat Farrell]

At 03:22 AM 2/28/2004, Daniel Cohen wrote:
>On 27/2/04 at 6:18 pm -0500, Pat Farrell wrote
>>With your proposed setup, you would not need EAC or CDex, you'd use the
>>Linn to read the tunes. EAC and CDex are for reading the pits using a $50 PC
>>cd-drive.
>So you are suggesting, if I understand you, plugging the Linn CD player
>into the computer and playing CDs on it that would get passed through the
>SlimServer to the Squeezebox. No ripping CD to disk, no use of Winamp (or
>Nicecast) to broadcast in MP3 format.

I have to be a little vague because I've only been in the same room with a
Linn CD once, and don't remember the specifics.

If the Linn has digital outs, then you could use it as a transport to extract
CD data and send it to a computer. Whether you'd really want to is another
question.

"Ripping" is a misused term. There are at least two steps in using CD audio
in a computer environment just to get ready, and then one or more steps
to play the songs.

Ripping usually means "reading the audio CD and making an MP3 file"
or less frequently, ""reading the audio CD and making an WMA file"

This is really two steps. First, you "extract" the digial signal from the
RedBook
CD, and get a PCM file in wave (.wav) format. Then you compress
the PCM file into a format like MP3. Most "ripping" programs do both
steps at once, automatically. Many of the better ripping programs let
you compress to a number of formats, say MP3, AAC, OGG, WMA, etc.
still automatically, or at least with one click.

I always use terms "extract" and "compress" rather than "rip" because
of the confusion.

>No ripping CD to disk, no use of Winamp (or Nicecast) to broadcast in MP3
>format.

You have to get the data from the Audio CD to your computer hard disk
to use a SlimDevice to play music. Period.

MP3, broadcast, etc. are not required, but getting the data on the disk
is, even if it is only there for a second or so.

Once you have the song in a suitable format on the hard disk of your computer
network, you need a player. WinAmp, MusicMatchJuke Box, Windows Media Player
and lots of other programs will play any file from your hard disk to your
sound card.
The SlimServer (have to bring this back to the list's charter) is a player
that reads your hard disk and plays on a Slimp3 or SqueezeBox.

Technically, the SlimServer "streams" the file to the Slimp3 or SqueezeBox,
but that is really not very important, it just lets the computer and SlimDevice
be "far apart".

The original Slimp3 would only play MP3 streams. Which is why I didn't buy
one. The SqueezeBox will play either MP3 streams, or PCM (.wav) streams.
The SlimServer will automagically transcode between many assorted formats,
so you can have FLAC and it gets translated to WAV and then streamed.

Transcode is simply a term of art for translating from one format to another.
Most often it means converting from one compressed format to another
compressed
format, say OggVorbis to MP3, or WMA to MP3.

>Is this possible? I've asked this several times, and not got a definitive
>answer. By definitive I mean either "Yes, you can play music directly from
>your computer CD player or any CD player connected to the computer, and
>this is how you do it" or "No, SlimServer does not permit this". Not a
>suggestion of alternative methods.

Perhaps I'm missing something, but the whole point of a SlimServer and
SqueezeBox
is to play music from the computer that has the songs and is running the
SlimServer software to your SqueezeBox. Works great.
That is the design goal of the system.

>And I have been able to get the track listing (as Track 1, Track 2, and so
>on) of a CD to appear on my Squeezebox, but pressing the Play button does
>not play the music.

This sounds like a setup problem, which should really be in a separate thread.
If you have MP3 files on your computer and you see the listings, it worked
for my instantly. It was my WMA and FLAC files that took a little more time.

I suggest you start a thread about your specific problem, list
the kinds of files you are trying to play, and we'll try to help
debug your setup.

The reason you may not want to use something line a Linn CD12 as a computer
transport is that it is designed to sound great even when there are errors in
the CD extraction process. Audiophile units have very fancy error correction
and error masking systems, so that they make great music real time
as the song is played. With something like EAC doing the extraction, you
don't want the player to fix or fake out the errors, since EAC will simply
repeatedly read the section over until it gets the same answer.

Note, this is not saying that EAC reads the real data from the pits, just that
it got the same data after repeated reads. Usually, this is the real data, but
with some errors, repeated reads just give the same wrong answer each time.


Pat

[Daniel Cohen]

On 28/2/04 at 1:10 pm -0500, Pat Farrell wrote
>You have to get the data from the Audio CD to your computer hard disk
>to use a SlimDevice to play music. Period.
>
>MP3, broadcast, etc. are not required, but getting the data on the disk
>is, even if it is only there for a second or so.


OK. That's a specific answer. Not the one I would have liked, but
definite enough.

Is it correct, though? I ask for several reasons. First, that a
removable hard drive can be used for music, and it seems not
unreasonable (though I realise that the situations aren't quite the
same) that a CD can be regarded as a removable drive. Second, that I
note that when listening to Internet radio streams the SlimServer
manual specifically states that the computer's Energy Saver must be
set never to go to sleep (which I have certainly found necessary) -
if data is being continually written to and read from the hard drive
I would have expected that this would prevent sleep in itself.

>
>Once you have the song in a suitable format on the hard disk of your computer
>network, you need a player. WinAmp, MusicMatchJuke Box, Windows Media Player
>and lots of other programs will play any file from your hard disk to
>your sound card.
>The SlimServer (have to bring this back to the list's charter) is a player
>that reads your hard disk and plays on a Slimp3 or SqueezeBox.
>
>Technically, the SlimServer "streams" the file to the Slimp3 or SqueezeBox,
>but that is really not very important, it just lets the computer and
>SlimDevice
>be "far apart".
>
>The original Slimp3 would only play MP3 streams. Which is why I didn't buy
>one. The SqueezeBox will play either MP3 streams, or PCM (.wav) streams.
>The SlimServer will automagically transcode between many assorted formats,
>so you can have FLAC and it gets translated to WAV and then streamed.
>
>Transcode is simply a term of art for translating from one format to another.
>Most often it means converting from one compressed format to another
>compressed
>format, say OggVorbis to MP3, or WMA to MP3.
>
>>Is this possible? I've asked this several times, and not got a
>>definitive answer. By definitive I mean either "Yes, you can play
>>music directly from your computer CD player or any CD player
>>connected to the computer, and this is how you do it" or "No,
>>SlimServer does not permit this". Not a suggestion of alternative
>>methods.
>>
>
>Perhaps I'm missing something, but the whole point of a SlimServer
>and SqueezeBox
>is to play music from the computer that has the songs and is running the
>SlimServer software to your SqueezeBox. Works great.
>That is the design goal of the system.


See below.

>
>>And I have been able to get the track listing (as Track 1, Track 2,
>>and so on) of a CD to appear on my Squeezebox, but pressing the
>>Play button does not play the music.
>>
>
>This sounds like a setup problem, which should really be in a separate thread.
>If you have MP3 files on your computer and you see the listings, it worked
>for my instantly. It was my WMA and FLAC files that took a little more time.

Specifically, again, this is when trying to play music direct from
the CD, not having them put on the hard drive as AIFF, MP3, etc. If
the track list couldn't even be read I would have taken it for
granted that music could not be taken direct from the CD. But the
SlimSever must be communicating with the CD in some way if it can see
the track listing.

The point is that (though the current discussion is making me feel
that I might change my mind) at present I normally want to listen to
my CDs through my CD player (with separate DAC as part of my music
system). I guess that I don't want to put the songs onto my computer
as MP3s (loss of quality), and don't want to buy a large hard drive
to make exact copies.

But some computer-created CDs won't play on my CD player. I have to
play them on my computer, which restricts me to my small computer
room rather than my sitting-room. If I could use the SlimServer and
Squeezebox to play them directly through my music system, I would be
able to listen in my sitting- room.

The other (future) reason why it would occasionally be nice to ply
CDs through computer and SlimServer is that it would allow me to use
two Squeezeboxes in different rooms and not lose the music as I moved
from room to room.

Where I am mainly using SlimServer and Squeezebox at present is not
to listen to music extracted from CDs, but either to listen to
Internet radio or to use Audio Hijack to create AIFFs from the the
BBCs 'listen again' feature.
--
Daniel Cohen

[Pat Farrell]

At 03:06 PM 2/28/2004, Daniel Cohen wrote:
>On 28/2/04 at 1:10 pm -0500, Pat Farrell wrote
>>You have to get the data from the Audio CD to your computer hard disk
>>to use a SlimDevice to play music. Period.
>>
>>MP3, broadcast, etc. are not required, but getting the data on the disk
>>is, even if it is only there for a second or so.
>
>Is it correct, though?

Is anything correct? It is as correct as I know how to make it.


>First, that a removable hard drive can be used for music, and it seems not
>unreasonable (though I realise that the situations aren't quite the same)
>that a CD can be regarded as a removable drive.

Yes, but CDdrives read disks in two separate and very unequal ways.
First, they can do a direct RedBook audio read, and feed the sound
to the headphone jack or soundcard within the computer. This by definition
can only be done at 1X speed. Second, they do a "digital extract" that
pulls the audio as data, which is what EAC, CDex, etc all do.


> Second, that I note that when listening to Internet radio streams the
> SlimServer manual specifically states that the computer's Energy Saver
> must be set never to go to sleep (which I have certainly found necessary)
> - if data is being continually written to and read from the hard drive I
> would have expected that this would prevent sleep in itself.

Really, really streaming data may not have to go thru the hard drive,
but often will if there is swapping, other activity on the computer,
buffering, etc.

Energy Saving is not compatible with actually using the computer to do
something.
Modern computers are a lot more energy efficient that they used to me.
Plus there are new low energy processors from Via and Intel specifically
designed to provide "adequate" performance with very little heat or waste.

>Specifically, again, this is when trying to play music direct from the CD,
>not having them put on the hard drive as AIFF, MP3, etc. If the track list
>couldn't even be read I would have taken it for granted that music could
>not be taken direct from the CD. But the SlimSever must be communicating
>with the CD in some way if it can see the track listing.

Direct from the RedBook audio? I can't see anyway to make that happen.

Perhaps one of the "deep in the code" developers can chime in here.


>I guess that I don't want to put the songs onto my computer as MP3s (loss
>of quality), and don't want to buy a large hard drive to make exact copies.

MP3s are evil. But I got a 200GB disk for $105, and with FLAC, there is
no lose of fidelity at all. I got about 60% compression, so I put well
over 400 CDs on the single 200GB disk. My whole collection,
about 527 CDs fits on a little over 230GB of disk.

That is well under $150 worth of disks.
There is nothing that will make me go back to getting CDs out of
jewel cases, putting them in the player, etc. when the Slim SqueezeBox
does all the management for me.

I had two jukeboxes, one 200 platter Sony and one 300 platter Pioneer Elite.
Managing the collection, finding out what CD was where, or that I even owned
a CD was a royal pain. I have about four CDs that I have two copies of
because I wanted to listen to them, and couldn't find it.


>But some computer-created CDs won't play on my CD player. I have to play
>them on my computer, which restricts me to my small computer room rather
>than my sitting-room. If I could use the SlimServer and Squeezebox to play
>them directly through my music system, I would be able to listen in my
>sitting- room.

Same here. I refuse to have a computer in my listening room.
I have 10+ others scattered all over the house, but computers are ugly
and noisey. That is why I got and love the SqueezeBox.


>The other (future) reason why it would occasionally be nice to ply CDs
>through computer and SlimServer is that it would allow me to use two
>Squeezeboxes in different rooms and not lose the music as I moved from
>room to room.

That is a standard featuer, called Synchronized playing.

>Where I am mainly using SlimServer and Squeezebox at present is not to
>listen to music extracted from CDs, but either to listen to Internet radio
>or to use Audio Hijack to create AIFFs from the the BBCs 'listen again'
>feature.

I just use it to manage my collection of CDs.
I don't listen to radio. I do expect that i'll buy a lot more
CDs now that i can manage them and play the tracks I like.

I only bought the SqueezeBox to play FLACd files for my main
stereo.

Pat

[kdf]

Quoting Daniel Cohen <danco (AT) f2s (DOT) com>:

> On 28/2/04 at 1:10 pm -0500, Pat Farrell wrote
> >You have to get the data from the Audio CD to your computer hard disk
> >to use a SlimDevice to play music. Period.
> >
> >MP3, broadcast, etc. are not required, but getting the data on the disk
> >is, even if it is only there for a second or so.
>
>
> OK. That's a specific answer. Not the one I would have liked, but
> definite enough.
>
> Is it correct, though? I ask for several reasons. First, that a
> removable hard drive can be used for music, and it seems not
> unreasonable (though I realise that the situations aren't quite the
> same) that a CD can be regarded as a removable drive. Second, that I
> note that when listening to Internet radio streams the SlimServer
> manual specifically states that the computer's Energy Saver must be
> set never to go to sleep (which I have certainly found necessary) -
> if data is being continually written to and read from the hard drive
> I would have expected that this would prevent sleep in itself.

yes, its correct. An audio CD isn't the same as a data cd. In fact, some os's
dont even let you access an audio cd like a data one. Windows seems to pretend
they are the same. It may be possible to use something like winamp to play the
cd, then you can use the shoutcast plugin with winamp and connect the slim
player to the shoutcast stream.

as for the second, sleep timing is generally based on user input. Hard drive
activity just doesnt register like mouse and keyboard use.

-kdf

> >Once you have the song in a suitable format on the hard disk of your
> computer
> >network, you need a player. WinAmp, MusicMatchJuke Box, Windows Media
> Player
> >and lots of other programs will play any file from your hard disk to
> >your sound card.
> >The SlimServer (have to bring this back to the list's charter) is a player
> >that reads your hard disk and plays on a Slimp3 or SqueezeBox.
> >
> >Technically, the SlimServer "streams" the file to the Slimp3 or SqueezeBox,
> >but that is really not very important, it just lets the computer and
> >SlimDevice
> >be "far apart".
> >
> >The original Slimp3 would only play MP3 streams. Which is why I didn't buy
> >one. The SqueezeBox will play either MP3 streams, or PCM (.wav) streams.
> >The SlimServer will automagically transcode between many assorted formats,
> >so you can have FLAC and it gets translated to WAV and then streamed.
> >
> >Transcode is simply a term of art for translating from one format to
> another.
> >Most often it means converting from one compressed format to another
> >compressed
> >format, say OggVorbis to MP3, or WMA to MP3.
> >
> >>Is this possible? I've asked this several times, and not got a
> >>definitive answer. By definitive I mean either "Yes, you can play
> >>music directly from your computer CD player or any CD player
> >>connected to the computer, and this is how you do it" or "No,
> >>SlimServer does not permit this". Not a suggestion of alternative
> >>methods.
> >>
> >
> >Perhaps I'm missing something, but the whole point of a SlimServer
> >and SqueezeBox
> >is to play music from the computer that has the songs and is running the
> >SlimServer software to your SqueezeBox. Works great.
> >That is the design goal of the system.
>
>
> See below.
>
> >
> >>And I have been able to get the track listing (as Track 1, Track 2,
> >>and so on) of a CD to appear on my Squeezebox, but pressing the
> >>Play button does not play the music.
> >>
> >
> >This sounds like a setup problem, which should really be in a separate
> thread.
> >If you have MP3 files on your computer and you see the listings, it worked
> >for my instantly. It was my WMA and FLAC files that took a little more
> time.
>
> Specifically, again, this is when trying to play music direct from
> the CD, not having them put on the hard drive as AIFF, MP3, etc. If
> the track list couldn't even be read I would have taken it for
> granted that music could not be taken direct from the CD. But the
> SlimSever must be communicating with the CD in some way if it can see
> the track listing.
>
> The point is that (though the current discussion is making me feel
> that I might change my mind) at present I normally want to listen to
> my CDs through my CD player (with separate DAC as part of my music
> system). I guess that I don't want to put the songs onto my computer
> as MP3s (loss of quality), and don't want to buy a large hard drive
> to make exact copies.
>
> But some computer-created CDs won't play on my CD player. I have to
> play them on my computer, which restricts me to my small computer
> room rather than my sitting-room. If I could use the SlimServer and
> Squeezebox to play them directly through my music system, I would be
> able to listen in my sitting- room.
>
> The other (future) reason why it would occasionally be nice to ply
> CDs through computer and SlimServer is that it would allow me to use
> two Squeezeboxes in different rooms and not lose the music as I moved
> from room to room.
>
> Where I am mainly using SlimServer and Squeezebox at present is not
> to listen to music extracted from CDs, but either to listen to
> Internet radio or to use Audio Hijack to create AIFFs from the the
> BBCs 'listen again' feature.
> --
> Daniel Cohen
>

[Daniel Cohen]

On 28/2/04 at 3:30 pm -0500, Pat Farrell wrote
>
>Yes, but CDdrives read disks in two separate and very unequal ways.
>First, they can do a direct RedBook audio read, and feed the sound
>to the headphone jack or soundcard within the computer. This by definition
>can only be done at 1X speed. Second, they do a "digital extract" that
>pulls the audio as data, which is what EAC, CDex, etc all do.


>That helps me to understand the situation.
>>Specifically, again, this is when trying to play music direct from
>>the CD, not having them put on the hard drive as AIFF, MP3, etc. If
>>the track list couldn't even be read I would have taken it for
>>granted that music could not be taken direct from the CD. But the
>>SlimSever must be communicating with the CD in some way if it can
>>see the track listing.
>>
>
>Direct from the RedBook audio? I can't see anyway to make that happen.
>
>Perhaps one of the "deep in the code" developers can chime in here.
>
>>I guess that I don't want to put the songs onto my computer as MP3s
>>(loss of quality), and don't want to buy a large hard drive to make
>>exact copies.
>>
>
>MP3s are evil. But I got a 200GB disk for $105, and with FLAC, there is
>no lose of fidelity at all. I got about 60% compression, so I put well
>over 400 CDs on the single 200GB disk. My whole collection,
>about 527 CDs fits on a little over 230GB of disk.


Interesting. I evidently need to learn about FLAC, etc. Is this
solely a Windows format (or program). Does it give you (as MP3s do)
information about the CD (artist, album, etc)?

>
>That is well under $150 worth of disks.
>There is nothing that will make me go back to getting CDs out of
>jewel cases, putting them in the player, etc. when the Slim SqueezeBox
>does all the management for me.

This is where we differ greatly. At present I prefer physically
handling the CD, and especially looking at the detailed information
on the CD insert, photos, lyrics, musicians, etc. And I have the
space to keep lots of CDs.


--
Daniel Cohen

[Daniel Cohen]

On 28/2/04 at 12:50 pm -0800, kdf wrote
>Quoting Daniel Cohen <danco (AT) f2s (DOT) com>:
>
>> On 28/2/04 at 1:10 pm -0500, Pat Farrell wrote
>> >You have to get the data from the Audio CD to your computer hard disk
>> >to use a SlimDevice to play music. Period.
>> >
>> >MP3, broadcast, etc. are not required, but getting the data on the disk
>> >is, even if it is only there for a second or so.
>>
>>
>> OK. That's a specific answer. Not the one I would have liked, but
>> definite enough.
>>
>> Is it correct, though? I ask for several reasons. First, that a
>> removable hard drive can be used for music, and it seems not
>> unreasonable (though I realise that the situations aren't quite the
>> same) that a CD can be regarded as a removable drive. Second, that I
>> note that when listening to Internet radio streams the SlimServer
>> manual specifically states that the computer's Energy Saver must be
>> set never to go to sleep (which I have certainly found necessary) -
>> if data is being continually written to and read from the hard drive
>> I would have expected that this would prevent sleep in itself.
>
>yes, its correct. An audio CD isn't the same as a data cd. In
>fact, some os's
>dont even let you access an audio cd like a data one. Windows seems
>to pretend
>they are the same. It may be possible to use something like winamp
>to play the
>cd, then you can use the shoutcast plugin with winamp and connect the slim
>player to the shoutcast stream.
>
>as for the second, sleep timing is generally based on user input. Hard drive
>activity just doesnt register like mouse and keyboard use.
>
>-kdf

Thanks to you and others. I'll just have to listen in my computer
room occasionally, or else copy those CDs to my hard drive.
--
Daniel Cohen

[Pat Farrell]

At 05:43 PM 2/28/2004, Daniel Cohen wrote:
>On 28/2/04 at 3:30 pm -0500, Pat Farrell wrote
>>MP3s are evil. But I got a 200GB disk for $105, and with FLAC, there is
>>no lose of fidelity at all. I got about 60% compression, so I put well
>
>Interesting. I evidently need to learn about FLAC, etc. Is this solely a
>Windows format (or program). Does it give you (as MP3s do) information
>about the CD (artist, album, etc)?

FLAC is Free Lossless Audio Compression.
Part of the Sourceforge and Ogg projects.

Flac is available for all known platforms, free, etc.
http://flac.sourceforge.net/

Yes, it can have "tags" that contain album, artist
and conductor and performer, and all sorts of stuff
that you can't get with MP3 ID3 V1 tags.

There are front ends that automate is, I use FlacFrontEnd.

You might want to read a couple of pages I've written up
on my effort.
http://www.pfarrell.com/music/killthecd.html
http://www.pfarrell.com/music/slimserver/tips.html

>>There is nothing that will make me go back to getting CDs out of
>>jewel cases, putting them in the player, etc. when the Slim SqueezeBox
>>does all the management for me.
>
>This is where we differ greatly. At present I prefer physically handling
>the CD, and especially looking at the detailed information on the CD
>insert, photos, lyrics, musicians, etc. And I have the space to keep lots
>of CDs.

I have space in the basement, but not in my listening room.
I wrote a utility to fetch cover art.
http://www.pfarrell.com/music/slimsoftware.html

But that won't help if you need to fondle the color inserts.
Which is cool with me, the point is to enjoy the music,
and I am finding that I listen to a lot more music since
I got the SqueezeBox and all my CDs flac'd

Pat

[Daniel Cohen]

On 28/2/04 at 12:50 pm -0800, kdf wrote
>yes, its correct. An audio CD isn't the same as a data cd. In
>fact, some os's
>dont even let you access an audio cd like a data one. Windows seems
>to pretend
>they are the same.

I finally understand the situation. Mac OS also pretends that they
are the same. This is what was confusing me. the SlimServer can play
AIFF files. And the Mac Finder shows the tracks as AIFF files, so I
expected them to play. But naming them with the extension .aiff is
not the true description, so no wonder what I wanted can't be done.

I will either not bother, or consider using Nicecast (the Mac
streaming broadcast program).
--
Daniel Cohen

[Daniel Cohen]

On 28/2/04 at 3:30 pm -0500, Pat Farrell wrote
>
>MP3s are evil. But I got a 200GB disk for $105, and with FLAC, there is
>no lose of fidelity at all.

I found out that there is a MacFlac front end, which others may find
useful. At present I haven't got it working, but I will leave those
issues for discussion with the developer and the FLAC community, not
here.
--
Daniel Cohen