If you burn a CD from an original; personally do you feel you lose anything?

All CDR copies will be unreadable after a few years, and then you lose everything.

 

Oh, I have many times. There was no difference.

 

Right On, Grant...

I was going to sit back with my popcorn, but I just have to speak up. The difference between 52x and 4x is obvious, as you said. I don't know if we are listening to jitter, or what. But they do not sound the same.

I have been working with CDRs since 1991, when the recorder cost $8000, and blank discs were $30 each. Taiyo Yudens were the best back then, too...

 

I wish I could lose a bit of weight each time I've made my own custom comps or a CD-R copy of something I want to take on the road. It would be great.

I have not used the MFSL CD-R's, but have read some good words about Mitsui and Taiyo Yuden, both of whom I believe have gold CD-R variations.

I don't lose anything, but am obviously aware that it is a copy. But I also know that my actual copy is at home, and if my copy breaks, I can make another for the next time.

 

...just have to backup those backups...

 

OK. So, YOU cannot hear the difference. But, just because YOU cannot hear the difference does not mean they aren't there.

 

Look everyone, if there is a slight difference in your copy, so what? Just copy the thing and enjoy it.

 

Explain how jitter causes a constant, qualifiable phenomenon? Seriously. How does it do that? Why does it do that at 52X? What in your player goes "HOLY **** THIS WAS WRITTEN AT 52X I WILL LOWER THE TREBLE!" How can *clock errors*--which, by the way, you assert are there, but may not actually be there--cause *ANY* such thing like this?

Grant, as far as Jedi mind tricks go, this is pretty lame. Yes, just because Chris cannot hear the difference doesn't mean they aren't there. I also can't, though. And something tells me--and this is a hilarious thought, but bear with me--that if you hooked your stereo up to some sort of scope that measure these things, it wouldn't hear the difference either.

You don't have the ability to assert something and then hide behind "look, if you stupid people with your stupid ears don't hear what my ears do, then just go ahead and be satisfied...but I know better." That's insulting to all of us.

So tell me. Explain your logic to me. WHY does 52X sound "worse?" And don't say jitter, because it isn't jitter. And if you do say jitter, explain to me how jitter causes anything like the constant symptoms that are always described. As a magical gremlin that exists to justify audiophile paranoia, jitter is starting to outstay its welcome.

 

I'm sure this can be decided once and for all if Steve just says "I can/can't hear a difference between a CD-R and the original CD".

 

CDRs burned at high speed can sometimes cause problems on certain CD players. "Problems" means digital noises, digital clicks (that are not on the extraced files), but not skips/glitches. When I extract those high-speed CDRs again, the extracted files are 100% correct.

In other words: There are issues on CDRs and not all CD players can handle them equally. This has nothing to do with differences in tonality or soundstage or clarity, only with error-free or erroneous playback.

 

You've obviously done comparisons, it all makes sense so I'll take your word for it and call it a night.



Reading this thread was exhausting.


I'll tune in tomorrow night just for kicks, unless there's some better fights in the hockey games on tv.

 

I don't believe there is any audible difference at all if both the original DAE and the burning was done properly. However, if mistakes are made anywhere in the chain, certainly the difference can be heard.

I have never been able to hear the difference when:

1. The original disc plays cleanly in the CD player doing the comparision (I have had some original discs that didn't track well where the copy sounded much better because it didn't have the glitches. However I have never been able to hear a difference in the sound where the audio didn't have any glitches where the error correction was obviously working overtime)
2. EAC was used to rip the original and EAC was configured properly with the correct offsets for the drive being used for the extraction and where the log in secure mode shows no errors.
3. The burn was done with decent software, on decent media without errors.
4. The original and copy disc are compared to see if they are bit accurate clones.
5. Playback done on a CD player that has no issues reading CDRs.

Now, if the rip or burn is not bit perfect, there will almost certainly be differences that can be heard between the original and the copy. However, if you compare the bits on the original and the copy, they are not bit perfect clones. Many programs used to rip audio do not produce bit accurate copies (most MP3 jukebox software like iTunes, Mustic Match, etc). I've never even been able to rip a bit perfect copy with some professional software like soundforge, which is why I only use EAC. This is also the case for many (I think most) stand alone burners and why I got rid of my stand alone unit many years ago. It was not capable of producing accurate clones where the copy had exactly the same bits as the original.

 

With regards to burning at super high speeds, I have encountered problems, but I have always found the burned copy to not be bit accurate. Sometimes the burning software shows that the disc was successfully completed, but when comparing the discs (using EAC) I have found they are not bit perfect. This is why I always burn @ x8 speed. On my system I have always been able to make bit perfect copies. At higher speeds I sometimes have problems depending upon what kind of blanks I'm using. Many of the things dealing with the burn speed are dependent upon the hardware being used for the burning or the media itself. That being said, I have never been able to hear any differences between the copy and the original AFTER running a comparison of the discs in EAC and confirming that the copy is, in fact, a bit perfect clone.

 

So, you are telling me, and all these other people, many of whom, BTW, are pro audio engineers, that they aren't really hearing what they say they hear, just because YOU, and a few others can't? OK YOU must be right, because YOU can't hear it. YOU prefer to engage in name-calling and other indults because YOU can't hear it....OK...

 

I would like to qualify what I said by saying that burn speed (as the others point out) would only come into play IF it was burned wrong and ended up not being bit identical OR the cd playback device does not handle CD-Rs properly.

Now I want to ask this...lets pretend at high speed burns or whatever that clicks and skips occurred in playback. Did that change the actual sound*? This is what we are getting at, clicks, skips, pops, etc are not affecting the actual sound*; they are just noises added because of inaccurate playback. When I hear this talk about veils added to music it just makes no sense...once again, if jitter did have some effect on the audio, how is it adding a veil? I can somehow understand pops, clicks, etc, but altering the sound is just ridiculous. Quite honestly, I want a member of the "it's not different" camp to go over to Grant's house and setup a proper double blind test and see him with around 80% up accuracy rate say which is which. If anyone can pass a blind test with a high accuracy rate I think we would all shut-up (IF the conditions were right, not I burned something and listened to it back to back with the original).

Lastly, I think if any good has come out of this thread...can we agree that the debate comes down to this: "Jitter has an effect or it doesn't ON the actual sound* (not clicks, pops, etc which are added through inaccurate playback)." Because if we can't agree on the following axiom then we have problems:
-A CD-R made properly will be bit for bit identical to the master disc it was created from.

*when I say actual sound I believe I am referring to what members have described as tonality, in essence is the sound somehow getting eq'ed or not or a "veil" is added.

 

The degredation that happens when burning a music CD-R at high speed manifests itself as smeared transients, blurred soundstage, light bass, and an genarally diffuse, edgy, or glassy sound. These are pretty much the same attributes that jitter has.

I don't know exactly how or why this happens, only that it does, and is plainly audible. There are no dropouts, not clicks and pops, but the sound difference ARE THERE.

Maybe you guys need to check for ear-wax buildup or use a better playback system, or something.

 

Perhaps this degredation could be due to errors during the burn and the audible anomolies are due to the playback rig's error correction getting a workout to a point where the glitches are not audible, but other sonic glitches are happening. However, in these cases that you raised Grant, did you in fact check to see that the clone was in fact a bit accurate copy of the original, or was this the assumption made because the burning program said the burn was successfully completed? What software did you do to make the comparission?

I guess in my opinion the observations noticing the differences are not really relevant to the topic at hand unless the extration and burning where done properly and the bits on the original and copy checked to confirm that they are, in fact, identical.

 

C'mon Grant, don't insult these guys. Chris, thinks I'm stating there's a difference because it's fact. You, I and others know it is and I don't know why or even care for that matter because I know it to be fact. Those that do not believe will continue to not believe until they can hear it for themselves and that's ok too because hopefully one day they will.

Heck, I'm still waiting for just one of these naysayers to drop by when they're travelling bringing their CD-R's burned at various different speeds so they can hear what we and others already know.

 

We know you and many others are pro audio engineers. We know you have multi-thousand dollar systems. We know you have awesome hearing. That doesn't mean you are immune from placebo effects. You have everything I don't have: $$$, experience, an awesome sound system, etc. I have no or almost no respect (as I shouldn't) because I am young, poor, in college and have absolute ***** equipment. I listen to songs on $60 dollar headphones!. But I LOVE music, and I LOVE good sounding music. I want to have the equipment you guys have and maybe even get into the audio profession in some manner, thats what I want... BUT With all that said, there is something neither of us can run from. That is the facts, namely, a CD-R is bit identical to its master disc. The only thing you can argue is the jitter effect, that is it (and thats at least what Grant does).

I don't think you should lower the debate to "you guys should check for wax buildup or is your system good enough." As I already stated I listen to music on cheap headphones. And I'm not going to lower myself to wax buildup concerns because thats just an insult. The debate should be strictly on the facts, and not on who has the best system and rarest cds can tell the difference. Unlike mastering critiques, in which there is no right or wrong answer just opinion...this debate has an answer. The sound waves are the same or they are not. I don't have the equipment to analyze this, maybe someone does. Because the debate has once again reached subjective levels though I am somewhat sad, but I do have a question to ask Grant or anyone else that wants to answer: Is the difference in soundstage and overall sound quality consistent throughout, or just in certain areas? I will say this thread is kinda fun though too, and for the first time in a couple years (since I transfered out of Comp Eng) I am pretty excited about the technical details of this stuff. If anything, I am learning a lot reading various things online about jitter and what not. So let's not get to mad at each other so we can continue to talk about this topic.

 

Well, with all due respect Dave & Grant, none of the people posting that say they can hear a difference have demonstrated or even mentioned that they have verified that the copy they can hear the difference from the original on is a bit perfect clone. If it's not, then it's a moot point because they are different. None of the people making these posts have stated what equipment & software was used to make the copy, nor have they explained what testing they have done to verify that the data on the copy is a bit perfect clone of the original.

In my experience and testing, there are plenty of audible differences between copies and the original if the two are not bit accurate clones of each other. On the other hand, I've never been able to hear differences between the bit accurate copies I have made and original if the copy was bit perfect. Now, you guys can take the mickey out of me for the wax in my ears or my crap system. When I purchased my first couple of stand alone CD burners back in the late 90's I was very frustrated because the copies never sounded like the originals (first unit was a Phillips, the second was a tascam). Of course it is now well known that the copies that those machines make are not, in fact, bit perfect.

I am not saying that there are no differences. I am saying that I haven't been able to hear the difference. Now it would be very useful to move the discussion on where some of the folks who claim to hear the difference would explain how they made the copies and what they did to verify that the copy was a successful bit accurate clone.

I'd be more than happy to provide step by step instructions on how I rip and burn CDs using EAC (also how to properly configure EAC in the first place) and then how to compare the bits on the copy to the original. I'd then be very interested in hearing whether the folks that can hear the difference would have to say after running a comparison like this.

 

I use EAC and always have. I can hear differences burned at different speeds as well as a 1X copy compared to the real deal. The degredation I hear is transient, I believe this is the word I want, resolution in both the extreme top and bottom ends if that helps at all. If you did not compare it to the original most would and have said "It sounds really good to me." so I believe I have EAC configured properly. I even think it sounds good, but just missing that tiny bit of info. It's not really a bad thing, just not 100% perfect.

 

Is the CD-R copy ever better?

 

Funny you should mention this... I gave a friend a copy of a CD about a year ago, can't remember which album, and he told me he and another friend were comparing it to his friends regular factory CD and they both thought the CD-R I gave to my friend sounded better than the original. I've never noticed this personally on my system though.

 

Interesting, Dave. I'll do some more listening.

If possible (in the name of science) can you run a check to hear if one of the discs you hear a difference between your copy and the original is a bit perfect clone? I do this with EAC by using the built in compare WAV function under tools. Basically what you do:

1. Rip a track from an original to your HD
2. Burn that track onto a CDR
3. Rip that same track for the CDR you burnt back onto your HD.
4. Under EAC's tools, follow the compare wavs. That will tell you if they are the same.

If they are not the same, that means that either the EAC isn't configured properly for your drive or that something happened during the burn (that is if the EAC log doesn't show any errors).