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

Alright, I think from the last couple of posts we can reduce the question down to: does jitter consistently alter the sound wave, create temporary voltage changes which create clicks and pops, a combination of 1 & 2, or does it do nothing audible?

 

Mostly I'd say I end up missing the nice package of artwork like booklets inside the jewel case and the back artwork or inside artwork also in the jewel case. Oh and if it's a CD-R that's a real good needledrop, I sure miss those wicked nicely printed "APPLE" Labels that my pal puts on his for me!!

 

Perhaps jitter could explain what is going on when folks hear a difference. I wonder if it is some sort of error correction that may be screwing things up (jitter or perhaps something else).

Have any of you folks compared a properly ripped WAV to the original track read from the CD? I think something like this would be interesting (but I don't have a working d/a converter at the moment to try it myself):

1. Rip track via properly configured EAC (offset for your drive) in secure model.
2. Patch digital signal from computer to external d/a converter
3. Patch digital signal from cd player/transport to the same d/a converter that the computer is patched into.
4. Compare ripped wav to original cd track.

 

Would we send both analog signals to an oscilloscope? I assume we should use a cd and a cd-r on the same cd transport and send the analog signal to an oscilloscope and see what differences arrive, if any, between the two. Do we use an external a/d convertor for quality reasons?

 

Well, the test I proposed above was to check if there is an audible difference between a track from an orginal CD to a properly done DAE of that track. I proposed running them through the same d/a converter to minimize variables.

 

how would it be possible for the cd-r copy to sound better?

not counting if the original is scratched up or has some problem.....

 

Gotcha ya. Do you know if there is any program that will accept digital signals and record them perfectly. I want to play two discs through a cd player into my computer through the digital outs and compare them. I am uncertain though if this will find jitter errors though. I think it would have to be able to tell me the clock differences too and not just the 1 and 0s. This is why I want to compare everything on an oscilloscope. Everything I am saying may sound totally idiotic (I don't know); I am having some bad flashbacks of prof trick explaining some crap in ece , lol.

 

I'll do this tomorrow to see and report back.

 

Great, Dave. I'm looking forward seeing your findings posted.

I'll also do some more careful listening tests on solo piano recordings to see if I can catch any audible differences. I'll listen for the anomolies that you mentioned you hear on copies. I'm not going to burn at high speeds though, as that's caused problems for me in the past (although in those cases testing proved that the copies were not bit perfect).

My system is actually pretty transparent. It's a bit weak on the dynamics (the bane of the maggies).

 

I usually use more rock orientated tracks myself. On that note what I hear is missing top end definition on the cymbals and bottom end definition the bass drum. Very subtle and not bold, but still there.

 

I just did a comparison with a Beck song that I had burnt to a compilation disc from my original: Original>WAV>CDR>WAV

I compared the left channel of the 1st .wav with the left channel 2nd .wav and they were a PERFECT match. I did this by taking the original .wav and substituting its right channel with the left channel from the second .wav made from the CDR, creating perfect mono. I then used the "Out of Phase" feature in my editing software on the file and as we all know, perfect mono cancels out perfectly

Nothing is gained or lost in burning music to another cd, unless there is a read or write error (and usually these are VERY noticeable big digital blips)

 

Yes, we have established there is no digital difference (i.e. the 1s and 0s are the same), the thing left to do is compare the analog outputs (as this is what is affected by jitter).

 

What I'm speaking of does not involve jitter at all so please do not confuse me with what Grant mentioned. I burn only at 1X only BTW. Besides, I don't believe jitter could be so isolated as to effect only the top and bottom extremes and leave the midrange sounding like a twin to the source. To top that off if I change my extraction method, I use B the most ie. 99.9% of the time, and choose A I get the top end much closer to the sound of the source, but the bottom suffers more and if I use C I get the bottom end closer sounding to the source, but the top end suffers more.

 

Besides jitter, how could it be different if two discs are bit identical?

 

Happens all the time between regular and MFSL Gold CD pressings, why not CD-R's?

 

I believe the only plausible explanation the "there is a difference" camp can use is jitter. On a technical level this is the only factual based and objective response I have read about too.

 

Oh! I use Roxio EZ CD Cretor 7.5. How's that?

I always take the default when I make a CD-R. I don't change anything. Or; haven't yet, anyway. And; anything that goes to my MP3 Player is at 128.

And; when talking about taking these CD-Rs to a vehicle, we know it isn't as important. I've always thought they sound excellent in my cars, or truck. The same as my originals? I guess, to me, they do. And; as I said at the beginning of this thread, I have not done an A-B test in the house. My audio system is only about a $1500 one. But; if there's a difference, I think a normal person should detect it.

I know, I don't like, and won't take these higher $$$ CDs to the road. The Japan Victor Mini's, and such. The CD-Rs are the only option in that case.

I'm going to check my MFSL "Tales of Mystery..." Gold disc to a CD-R copy here in the house. It would seem to me, and maybe this is the wrong way to look at it, that if you are going to hear a discernable difference between the source and a copy, doing so with a high-end source CD would reveal it. But; if it's bit for bit, I guess that wouldn't matter anyway.

 

I'm not so sure about that. I think it is possible that there are other things going on that have nothing to do with clock-jitter. I think there may be other situation where it is difficult for the transport to accurately read the data stream causing the error correction to kick in that have nothing to do with the time domain. Perhaps in some cases the transport is unable to read all the data on the disc causing the error correction to make guesses that are not entirely correct.

 

I've had bad luck with the Roxio product. I usually burn with EAC using the cue sheet I have it generate when doing the original rip. I've also heard good things about burrnnn and a few other programs.

 

Interesting experiment and I would expect the same results. I'm curious, did you actually manage to end up with perfect silence (complete cancelation)?

Like I mentioned before, I haven't been able to hear the difference between a CDR I burn from the original that I rip and confim to be a bit perfect copy. That being said, I've only done the listening tests on my reference CD player. Perhaps I am fortunate that this player reads the bit stream from my CDRs acurrately. It may be possible that some cd players have more trouble locking on to the stream causing error correction to kick in thus resulting in audible differences to the orignal CD. Comments?

 

Interesting. I've been using Roxio EZ Creator for years. No issues.

Now; When I'm ripping for my iRiver MP3 Player, I use Windows Media Player 10. Then; Sync from there. It's a snap!

 

The last time (not so long ago) when we had thread about this very same issue somebody posted link to this study. Recommended reading!

As it says in the study, the explanation that jitter causes audible differences between numerically identical discs is based on misunderstanding the way CD players operate. However, the guys who made the study were able to detect measurable differences between numerically identical disc. Basically the conclusion of the study is that various servo motors (tracking, focusing, spindle) cause disturbances to the reference voltage of the D/A converter, and this shows as amplitude modulation in the output of the D/A converter.

 

Hehe! Oddly enough, a couple of weeks when moaning about the traffic in Sheffield (England), I had a female colleague, a Brit who'd lived in Baltimore for 15 years, inform me that it's just as bad there.

It's sort of comforting in a perverse way, to know that wherever you go, there is little difference.

 

Thanks for the link. This is very interesting reading.

 

It's interesting, but kinda long...and there are some parts that I don't understand. Can someone post a summary if they've read the whole thing?

Thanks