CD vs. NAS

[@bc527c]

I'm super impressed with the big brains on all you audiophile cats out there who have never designed a ground breaking DAC for calling Paul out, a guy who has, in fact, designed ground breaking DACs.... y'all are so smart and clever I think you should all open your own companies and school the world with your brilliance.

[@amb3cog]

Amen! ✌️

[@Antimonkat]

science is science, and cables don't matter :)

[@robertocalvo934]

Lol at the idea of Paul designing a groundbreaking DAC

[@thomasstambaugh5181]

@Thom Moore : A more courteous word is "spinning". The result is the same. The claims are much worse than "incorrect". They are egregiously, painfully, and -- I think -- intentionally wrong.

[@matthewgaines10]

As long as the NAS isn't doing transcoding, the information should be identical on the NAS and the device reading and converting it to audio. Jitter isn't network dependent.

[@SuspiciousAra]

absolutely NO transcoding, Synology FTW

[@joeythehat9]

Jitter is irrelevant because of buffers... There's no need for real-time.

[@Dankzzz]

@@joeythehat9 buffers is not without problems

[@Jobjoossen]

Networking 101, !st Ethernet is a "best effort" protocol. 2nd Streaming is UDP so no error correction ... some vendor should develop a "timed"protocol with error correction that resolves all of these issues and would be WAY more effective than trieing to cure the problem with $1200 Ethernet cables

[@joeythehat9]

If there's no problem with using a buffer like with audio playback, TCP or equivelent will provide 100% lossless playback. I think you mean to say Ethernet (layer 2) doesn't provide lossless transfer. That's correct, but that's not its job. The 4th layer (usually TCP but not always) is responsible for acknowledging every succesfully received packet, which as you point out it's counterpart, UDP, doesn't do (by design). What I'm trying to say is if you need literally real-time streaming, UDP is lossy and best effort but no problem on a modern wired gigabit network. If streaming 4k+ HD, the reliability but can be improved with a $1200 set of managed switches and some prioritizaion(QoS/CoS) and they use things like RTSP but there are still standards emerging. But for any normal person wihout 10gigabit switches, CAT-6 cable is just fine... I was a network engineer at a home automation company.

[@humanbass]

This is just one step away from mumbo jumbo that music stored in a hard disk sounds different than from a ssd.

[@gilgalaad80]

transients are a lot faster when played from ssd!!!11!eleven!

[@w3rdnama1]

Digital is digital. CDs are digital. Jitter isn’t an issue and hasn’t been for a very long time... 99% of the time in modern electronics that are competently designed, jitter is inaudible. Therefore NAS is the way to go. It’s 2019.

[@musicman8270]

Whenever my computer is on it shows up as a NAS on my new TV. Played music over it and it sounds like crap. Play music off of a hard drive plugged into my OPPO 205 and it sounds great. Go figure.

[@ChatGPT1111]

Billy Grinstead my calculator shows up as a sliderule on my abacus. I’m a late adopter.

[@mkygod]

For a more fair comparison, you should play and compare the local ripped WAV file and CD on the same computer to take any differences in connection, DAC, and other hardware out of the equation.

[@Antimonkat]

I've been reading and replying to these comments more than usual on youtube, normally I know better but misinformation bugs me. I'm now realizing most of the people here are having essentially 2 different conversations and there seems to be much confusion between the 2. First a few definitions. A NAS is simply a storage solution, it's a place for the data to sit until it is needed, much like a cd. It typically, outside of special applications, doesn't have a DAC and isn't connected to speakers or an amplifier directly. Files can be played from it in any number of ways, not all of which involves media player software running on a pc with it's internal dac. Same with a cd full of music, it can be played in a cd player that outputs either an audio signal directly via an internal dac to an amp or it can send raw data to an external player with it's own dac, or it could be connected to a computer again in 2 ways, digitally to the rest of the machine just like any other storage drive, or via analog audio cable to a computer's sound card (though I don't think anyone still does that). Some people here are comparing how the music sounds as played through 2 entirely different audio paths, say the cd's internal dac to an amp and a computer reading a file on a nas and outputting it via a differnt dac than the cd player either internal or external via usb or optical, which will of course have differences for any of the reasons people argue, the noise floor, lower quality components, etc. Others are arguing the actual data of the song, the 1's and 0's will sound the same regardless of where it is stored, a cd, or a local hard drive, or a network drive in a nas. That it isn't colored or voiced until it hits a dac and that given the same dac and same amp and same speakers the audio will sound the same no matter where that data is physically sitting at the time, which is the right answer. Some people are arging these together and i don't think realize it, let alone how computer storage works. Simply put, different audio paths from the dac forward can alter the sound, what the files are stored on, can not. Even if you have say a DLNA cd player, you could get different sound from a directly inserted cd vs a streamed file if they don't share the same internal signal path or depending on their logic, anything from differences in volume, internal eq's affecting diffrent sources differently, gain control, etc. However if you have a cd drive connected via sata cable to a computer and you play a track from it, in the same software as a file sitting on a nas it should be the same, but even then likely those 2 sources are controlled via different drivers/dll's/settings and you might notice some variance in presentation, that doesn't mean the storage method is to blame in either case. For me personally, since all music is created without the use of cd's I'd rather keep them out of my data chain if I can and get it from pure sources instead of an intermediate cd to rip.

[@Mark-lq3sb]

@Antimonkat Paul explained what a NAS is, why are you repeating? Maybe someone needs to explain to you what a paragraph is. Did you actually make it through school writing like this?

[@Antimonkat]

@@Mark-lq3sb well clearly enough people didn't fully understand that or I wouldn't be reading comments about how computers introduce too much noise "proving" nas as the automatic loser.

[@boballard6040]

Oh my, as I watched the video and then read all the comments I thought of my ssd music library laying on top of my tower pc. I can’t sleep now.

[@trevorjansen4102]

I disagree with some of the views here. There are some assumptions being made in order to arrive at this conclusion. The CD player itself has a clock, the speed at which data is read from the CD, the management of the CDs rotational speed (CLV), the tracking and corrections of the laser mechanism, the error checking and correction built into the CD, the condition of the CD, all components in the digital signal path are potential sources of jitter. Decent DACs have a buffers and clock designed to reclock digital data regardless of the source

[@Antimonkat]

sounds to me like the CD would be the worse playback scenario here then, more invovled in reading that data porobably consistency differences from run to run too.

[@trevorjansen4102]

@@Antimonkat Agreed. The thing is reading data from a CD or spinning platter in a HDD has similarities. I'd say using an SSD is probably the best solution, for a problem that doesn't really exist.

[@Antimonkat]

@@trevorjansen4102 in some ways due to near instsnt seek but the data is still segmented and fragmented amung multiple cells and chips so still had to be read and properly re sequenced in any event so similar and still non issue

[@FreudianSlipDK]

I have to say then don't use a USB DAC. The clock on USB is horrid. USB was never meant to provide a rock solid clock for external devices beyond simply being able to transfer data reliably. Timing was never part of the design criteria. Use a proper PCI soundcard with low latency ASIO drivers feeding an SPDIF interface or use HDMI. Alternately use a DAC that contains it's own buffer and internal clock to handle externally enforced jitter. These are very much issues that have real (and fairly simple) solutions. Just for the love of everything holy don't rely on USB for your clock. The design foundation for it was keyboards and printers. Everything else just got bolted on afterwards.

[@craigjackson9063]

Hey top man. Thank you so much for answering my question. One day I will get on a plane and pop over 👍

[@michielderomijn]

It's a shame his answer is total BS.

[@d0sk3y]

@@michielderomijn +1. Don't listen to this guy, he has no idea what he's blabbing about. He's a businessman, and not an engineer. Plus, every single one of his products is touched by snakeoil of sorts.

[@robertocalvo934]

Does this mean a Blue Ray looks better or more acurate than its ripped counterpart streamed fron a NAS?

[@agevenisse3252]

First of all, a NAS won't affect the signal quality at all. If it did, it wouldn't be useful for storing data. And, you don't have to play the music back using a laptop. There are many hifi media players available. They work just like a CD player, but get the signal over the network instead. When it comes to jitter, it's all up to the DAC. Any serious construction can handle quite high jitter levels (up to several nanoseconds) without distorting the signal. This can be measured, and is done frequently. The noise with very low level "torture signals" is often below -120dB, completely inaudible. Even if you choose to use a PC for playback, there are many internal PCI/PCIe-soundcards with very low jitter levels. Asus Essence ST for example, has around 400ps (independent measurement), which is comparable to good CD players. Many people seem to forget that the music they are playing back, has been recorded, mixed and mastered using a computer. Unless something is really wrong with the equipment, the difference people are hearing, are caused by different DACs being used.

[@BrentLeVasseur]

For me the biggest problem with CDs is that they can get scratched over time and when CDs get scratched that can introduce skips and errors. Same thing can happen with a NAS where the data integrity is compromised. Ideally you download a bit perfect file to your NAS which hopefully won’t corrupt your file over time. The operating system of the NAS is really key here, and I think ZFS is probably the best NAS storage solution as it constantly checks file integrity and can fix damaged files. Entropy is our biggest enemy here. Jitter is secondary after you have a perfect file that hasn’t been corrupted by either a scratched CD or a damaged file on your NAS.

[@realsigsegv]

I’m going to make some people here cringe but I’m currently using Spotify with my raspberry pi connected to a meridian dac and a nad amplifier. I also have a Berhinger digital crossover to better control my monitor audio speakers and compensate room effects. I am very satisfied with my current set up. Never had such a great sounding system.

[@ChatGPT1111]

realsigsegv Nozing beats Behringer fur die Blinkenlitez!

[@audiofun999]

This wasn’t CD vs NAS comparison, it was more about PC vs CD player as a transport. PC loses this battle because of electrical noise, we know that. But if you compare NAS + dedicated hifi network streamer vs CD player both connected to the same high quality external DAC there won’t be any sound difference. Both will have the sound of that DAC.

[@vladimirrusev468]

exactly ... or streamer will be better, because of the mechanical problems of the CD transport. Ok, perhaps we also should take the PSUs of the streamer and the CD in consideration. But still ... NAS+streamer has potential to be better than CD if we talk about transports. Often the music on NAS is also not ripped (what also cause trouble) ... its downloaded resampled or exact copy of the studio master, that is superior than any CD (even we don't talk about Hi Res)

[@warrenduffy1377]

@@vladimirrusev468 If it's a 16/44.1 recording then CD playback is the superior medium.

[@audiofun999]

@Lloyd Stout I use lossless files ripped from the CDs I own, I also buy files from the artists on the sites like Bandcamp, and use CD-quality streaming services such as Tidal and Qobuz. Everything runs on a Roon server.

[@Antimonkat]

audio noise only matters if the pc is hooked up to the amp and speakers as the playback device. if you are playing a file on a nas and going out of the pc via fiber or usb to a dac, all that noise is a non issue, thats the point of doing it that way. Sounds like that's the point you made any way though.

[@audiofun999]

Antimonkat yep, I actually run Roon server on a very old and probably very noisy HP laptop with an attached external usb drive. However it is located in a separate room and I have a streamer + DAC in my listening room that access it over WiFi. No issues whatsoever, great sound, which I am sure I can improve further by getting a better DAC. I don’t believe changing the server in such config would make any difference,

[@jpwoodbu]

Wouldn't a little data buffer on the DAC solve the jitter concern?

[@edwardallenthree]

Almost all DACs reclock. Jitter is an issue, but it's a solved issue.

[@mypulse9]

If you have jitter issues in your DAC, a buffer will only worsen the matter.

[@cosmindumitrescu5100]

@Douglas Blake I spent the last 20 years of my life trying to solve the synchronised reading of dejitter buffers employed for audio playout. Buffers with large geographical distribution communicating over IP and having Ethernet underlying in most cases. But now, reading this comments I’m learning that jitter is not an issue. What a time waste. Gimme back that two decades!

[@klaymoon1]

When you say it’s just 0 or 1, you have absolutely no idea.. First, the signal is not a pulse but a wave. The actual signal pretty much looks like an analog signal. A quick test? Grab a digital coaxial cable from your PC and put it into an analog RCA input. Sounds crazy to put a digital to analog right? You will be shocked to hear the same music without a Dac in between because that’s how much the actual digital vs analog signals resemble each other. They also behave about the same that they are subject to same interferences to the conductor(cable) or the electromagnetism in the space. Yes, the digital file is 0 or 1 and is just that. But, the digital audio in most part, the signal transmission method is rather electrical vs what people normally think of digital as in software. Again, the signal is actually an oscillating wave and it can look differently at the receiving end for many different variables. I used to test both digital and analog signals using industrial equipment which is typically north of 50k. The best way of think about this is that digital is about software and logic. The signal transmission is about hardware and meta physics.

[@michielderomijn]

Oh man, where to start? First: have *you* ever even tried sticking an s/pdif signal into an analog input? You won't hear a damn thing, unless the sample rate of the signal is

[@klaymoon1]

My friend, did you even try it before calling something you don’t understand? Do you know even what square wave is for? It carries timing information. Square wave does not carry the musical data. Where do I even begin...

[@Phil_f8andbethere]

I play FLAC stored on a USB stick through ROON and into my DAC via USB. It sounds every bit as good as my Audiolab 6000CDT transport into same DAC. Once I have finished ripping my CDs I will sell them and the transport. I have a backup on my NAS, which I don't stream from as the wi-fi can drop out occassionally.

[@kurb1980]

I run a qnap nas that I’m using as a virtual software based switch which connects to a fanless unmanaged switch that feeds my listening setup. I’m also using ultra rendu streamer ethernet to usb for the DAC powered by a lps js-2. I’m using a MacBook as the roon core. Using a topaz ultra power isolator with cap 0.0005 pf to isolate me from the wall which is connected using a filter less power strip. I’m also shunting the smps with a ground hog for the switches.

[@trog69]

Do you have speakers or just wired up directly to the brainpan?

[@michielderomijn]

Oh please, Paul. I'm sorry to see you've sold your soul. A DAC doesn't care what the source is. The ones and zeroes are still the same ones and zeroes and can't become oneier and zeroier. And jitter and digital noise do not change the sonic properties of the sound, until you start hearing clicks, bursts of noise, silence, etc.

[@Paulmcgowanpsaudio]

If only that were true, life would be easier.

[@Paulmcgowanpsaudio]

@@michielderomijn I don't understand your cynicism. Are you so convinced you're right there's no room for other thought? Could it be you've just never experienced the difference in sound quality I speak of and therefore take the stance it doesn't exist? I have always found it best to be a little open minded. Sometimes new ideas sneak right in... :)

[@Antimonkat]

@@Paulmcgowanpsaudio Even if I took at face value that there was an audible difference, which is your preference, which is closer to ideal ? You never said which was better or cleaner or more true, just that there was some sort of difference to hear. I'd also question how severe the difference would be and how/if it would even measure. I'd be curious to hear a difference calculation of a track played via both methods.

[@harrylanza]

​@@Paulmcgowanpsaudio My God your good!! This video gave me the jitters, I'll buy 2 bottles of that snake oil.

[@bananasplitbrain476]

@@Paulmcgowanpsaudio And again, arguing with common knowledge and by rhetoric means. This is so perverted and insulting. It is you not being open to the best argument. It is pure relativism again. Anything in the brain which is going on is ontologic proof in the materialist world for you. This is circular and relaitivistic by nature. Be open minded means for your: do accept everything that has good face value and seems acceptable by some narratives or subjective standpoints. This antiintellectual, anti-critical thinking is infect prone to ideology NOT the comment you replied to.

[@thomasstambaugh5181]

Utter nonsense. I invite Mr. McGowan to offer hard data, collected at the analog output (to the speakers or headphones) that shows any measurable difference at all. This talk about "jitter" and all those things that Mr. McGowan "isn't going to get into" is nothing more than mumbo-jumbo handwaving. He has already stipulated that the digital signal is the same. It certainly ought to be the same, otherwise none of the millions of CD and DVD players used as archival backup will work. Bits are bits. That is the nature of digital. It doesn't matter how those bits are stored, encoded, decoded, transcoded, transmitted, or anything else. If the digital bit stream of two sources are identical, then the information contained in that bit stream is identical. By. Construction. That leaves analog artifacts. The apparent claim is that a bitstream from a NAS somehow for some reason has more noise than from a CD player. Again, nonsense. Mr. McGowan mentions a USB connection several times, yet there are many other choices. A much more natural choice is a hardwired or even wifi ethernet connection. Again, it's just bits. If some sort of analog noise is somehow being propagated then the hardware is badly misdesigned. I suggest that there is approximately as much difference between a bitstream delivered from NAS vs CD as between a plain old power strip and any of the super-duper "audiophile power strips" also offered by Mr. McGowan's firm (and promoted in earlier videos). Or, for that matter, between plain old zipcord (doubled or tripled if if you really care) and any of the super-duper "oxygen-free" or whatever speaker cable being promoted. The identical bitstream will sound the same regardless of the source of that bitstream, because the analog signal derived from that bitstream is identical regardless of the source. If that isn't the case, then whatever hardware is creating the analog signal is simply broken.

[@AllboroLCD]

Great points, but all nuances that can only be distinguishable through the most resolving of sound gear. Honestly nothing to really be worried about for those with $5k and under systems.

[@wilcalint]

I’m agreeing with most of what Paul is saying here. His idea of output via HDMI vs SPDIF where the HDMI is likely to have less jitter in the data stream. But, I suggest that the NAS could be accessed via a very stabilized computer like a Raspberry Pi with a quality power supply and its HDMI output fed to the receiver or Preamp. The latest Pi, Ver 4, features up to 4GB of DRAM which can be used for a FIFO ( First In First Out ) serial buffer.

[@NeilDSouza7]

Hey Paul ... I disagree with there being a difference between a CD Player and a NAS - What's Important here is that the data flow should not be impaired by any break in the Ethernet Network transmission... that is say there are 50-100 rooms connected to the same NAS and they are on a 100mbps network / switch.. you can say there will be some drop-outs or buffer losses.. It would be the same as say watching a 4K video from a pen-drive using USB ver 1. (It's Digital DATA so what could go wrong ...... I'll be damned ...)

[@joeythehat9]

Its very simple--both are digital and the playback will be exactly the same 100% of the time... You just have to compare the quality of the digital signals: 1,411 kbps for CD vs 320 kbps for mp3's. I'm an audiophile and 320 is just fine for me. If you crazier you can just save your CDs to your NAS or use even higher quality audio files like .flac. Now we can all get on with our lives.

[@Antimonkat]

@@joeythehat9 flac isn't higher quality than cd, just a different way of encoding the waveform, now flac can hold better quality audio then cd is capable of if you start with a non cd source and increase the bitrate and sample rate sure, but your main point is right.

[@googoo-gjoob]

possibly a new record.....5 minutes of set-up.

[@ian_of_glos]

Thank you for your clear and detailed explanation. What I don't understand is why it is necessary to Rip the CD onto a computer drive or NAS at all. Why not just play the CD in a CD player. To me this seems like a much simpler solution and it avoids the complexity of ripping all my CDs and setting up a home network.

[@wahconah98]

It should be obvious that the convenience of having all your media accessible by multiple devices from one location instantaneously would be the primary purpose of a NAS in this case.

[@ian_of_glos]

@@wahconah98 No not really. Searching for the files adds a layer of complexity and then playing them through my amp and speakers is a difficult and complex operation. By contrast Taking a CD from my shelf, putting it in the CD player and pressing play is a relatively simple task. Also, the music never sounds quite right when it is played through a computer, especially music that should be played without gaps such as an opera. I have not been able to find any software that handles this type of gapless playback correctly.

[@wahconah98]

There are many different solutions to streaming audio from a NAS. Some are easier to deal with than others. Your software tool that can access your NAS files should be able to sort through them quickly. Start typing the name of the band or song and it'll start whittling down the matches. I'm certain that's quicker than finding the correct CD, loading it, and indexing to the right song. Gapless playback can be a stickler. CD's allow for track number and index updates without stopping the audio stream so you can get gapless playback but still quickly jump to specific sections of the performance. Most ripping software would split this into individual files that your streaming devices would handle separately causing gaps when switching from one section to another. There are ways to rip the audio so that doesn't happen but you have to be conscious of it when making the files. From a raw audio perspective, so long as you didn't convert your source data when ripping the CD, you will have the same potential audio quality as the CD itself. If your streaming device has a proper DAC and supporting analog circuitry, there won't be any perceivable differences.

[@ian_of_glos]

@@wahconah98 Well I disagree. Setting up a NAS and playing music through a decent hifi is technically very complex.You need to understand quite a lot about networks to make it work and I would not even attempt it. The best I have been able to do is to connect my laptop to the DAC in my CD player using a USB cable, but it is untidy and it can be affected by whatever else the laptop decides to do when I am listening. By contrast all my CDs are stored in alphabetical order and I have made a catalogue telling me where each one can be found. I cannot imagine a situation where I would want to play one, specific track from a CD and I always play the entire disc from start to finish. Maybe the different solutions are suited to different types of listener.

[@cbcdesign001]

Well I have CD transport connected to a DAC and a NAS with files ripped from CD's and stored in Flac format, also hard wired to the same DAC. There is no audible difference whatsoever between music played from the CD and music streamed from the DAC. My DAC can stream USB audio from a PC too using Asynconous transfer which eliminates PC jitter and clock errors.

[@hansbogaert4582]

This topic is very sensitive, believers vs non believers :-) I'm a non believer. To me a nas can sound equal to a CD but that said , jitter and noise can indeed be a problem. I'm using Roon software for streaming + I've added in the network chain an optical isolation to eliminate network noise from entering my DAC I did a comparison and for my ears, on my system there's no difference in sound quality between my CD and my ripped CD on my NAS. What I do hear is a difference between compressed FLAC and uncompressed FLAC. I'm comparing uncompressed FLAC on my NAS vs a CD

[@BlankBrain]

If you use a Raspberry Pi 3 b+ and connect to your DAC using I2S via LVDS over HDMI cable (PS Audio de facto standard), you can get excellent sound quality from your NAS. This assumes that your DAC is good enough to have a precision master clock and I2S input. It also assumes that you power your Raspberry with a well regulated analog supply. Also turn off the WiFi and Bluetooth radios (or provide a shielded cable to an antenna some distance away.) The Raspberry Pi 4 promises even better performance by using separate chips for network and USB. I have a 2TB mirrored NAS, but am amazed at how many FLAC albums I can store on a 128GB micro SD. If your software player supports multiple source directories, you can store your favorite albums locally, and less frequently accessed albums on the NAS. BTW, Western Digital red drives have been running for years without problems.

[@d0sk3y]

There's absolutely NO involvement from Bluetooth and WiFi, the sound quality will stay the same. You're promoting the same "Pure Direct" BS which can be found in modern receivers, where all audiophools swear by the fact that turning off the display will make things sound better. And, as a sidenote, this guy is completely full of it, and he isn't even an engineer. He has no idea about anything he's blabbing about. "Just take my word for it".. DUDE WHAT?

[@johnsweda2999]

Why do you use spdif coaxial and not optical fibre, optical fibre or possibly toslink eliminate these problems you're talking about. I was wondering if you could use a ladder system with Photon diode? to decode optical fibre instead on board a chip, straight to analogue signal instead of square wave optical fibre does PCM can you get dsd as well in optical fibre

[@amlecciones]

Congrats on your memoirs =)

[@mistywalters]

The difference means yer dac is not good enough; being affected by input signal quality.

[@mistywalters]

Poor galvanic isolation in other words.

[@Dankzzz]

Yes!! Very funny. This confirms another prejugde I have against objectives.... If jitter and Emi is proven to objectists... It's the Gear!!! It's bad built!!! Because it won't work good on a freebee cable!..

[@bassman4632]

Another question pre-recorded CD vs. cd-r sound quality.

[@bassman4632]

@Douglas Blake one would think. however there are audiophiles that argue one is better than the other.

[@bassman4632]

@Douglas Blake I agree ... but I recognize there are some who hear things I cannot and some with more resolving equipment than me. Some in particular who are in the industry who make commercially available recordings have said the cd-r is sonically superior to the cd for reasons involving how the transport deals with data streams or some such. As academic exercise, I'm fascinated by what they have to say whether I hear it or not.

[@edwardallenthree]

@@bassman4632 Mr. Blake is correct, as usual. I do find Paul's argument that USB or HDMI is preferred over S/PDIF to be persuasive, at least in theory. I also think the idea of using an optical drive, a medium that is extremely error prone (which is why it has so much error correction) vs. a hard drive, or a solid state drive, is ridiculous. Why risk your discs? Why spin 'em for no reason? I love CDs. I love records. But let's not kid ourselves: it's nostalgia, not sound quality. That's why I can listen to a digital file, while holding the record, and have a perfectly good experience, and I won't scratch a CD or record in my cannabis induced saturday night haze.

[@bassman4632]

@@edwardallenthree perhaps but be sure to back up all your hard drives. I learned that the hard way when a 250 gb external hard drive full of rare audio and performance video crashed on me and became corupted and completely useless.

[@musicmonkey7676]

@@edwardallenthree Are you suggesting that hard drives do not also use error correction? Lol

[@stephensmith3111]

Murphy's 2nd(?) Law: Nothing is as easy as it looks. Captain Spock (STII:TWoK, translated): No one* is perfect, Saavik. * and by extension: Nothing

[@gilleslucato5531]

No difference: my Nas is connected to my amp using a chromecast and SPDIF, my CD player is connected thru SPDIF too. I never heard any difference!

[@ped-away-g1396]

here we go again with this jitter obsession. i really wonder who convinced you to believe in this mashup theory, must have been a hell of a speaker. if what you said were true, all of the music streamed through internet from servers across countries would sound like jitter hell as there's not only jitter but also latency (usually in a few to a few hundred ms range) and that's not the end of it, they also have to bounce the data around through multiple servers (that's just how internet works). seriously, when something sounds different, most of the time it's just either your imagination or sensory crosstalk. and by that, what makes the difference is not the equipment or the transmission, it's your brain. oh! here's another thing, jitter is not audible unless you listen to test tones for your entertainment. it's one of the most insignificant things in audio that worrying about it is just a waste of time and energy.

[@InsideOfMyOwnMind]

Awe, you're just a denier.🤣😛😗

[@madmax2069]

exactly

[@mypulse9]

Ped-Away-G I don’t understand this “jitter” nonsense either. While jitter is a known issue with any piece of electronics, the solution is not a rocket science. Hell, computers work in gigahertz, transferring volumes of data between different types of hardware and no one is whining about jitter. The same with networks.

[@ped-away-g1396]

@@mypulse9 it's actually a thing but it's not a problem in audio. and with today's technology, it's pretty much nonexistent.

[@CaptainEmptyhead]

Grandpa certainly never heard of a buffer.

[@tthedon2471]

that's all good if one sticks to 16/44.1 and SACD

[@stevefick3919]

Never heard of "NAS" until now. I'll have to crawl out from under my rock once in a while. Sounds like it's the way to go, not just for music but for ALL your important files.

[@amb3cog]

The Hubris is strong in the comment section today.

[@mag-wp6yt]

Never understood why people find putting a silver disc into a transport such an objectionable ordeal. The sound quality of a dedicated transport will always be superior. Sound quality trumps convenience every time.

[@Mark-lq3sb]

@mag 1981- A part of that is generational, younger people have a hard time believing in owning a 'solid object' that holds music such as a CD. To a lot of them the CD is old fashion digital, out dated. The only reason some of the younger audio buffs have a turntable & LPs is it's 'in' and a 'cool' thing to have. They never lived in the era of ONLY records & tape.

[@edwardallenthree]

If you watch the video, you will see the argument Paul makes is precisely the opposite. I agree with Paul (for once). Please explain why a $1,200 cd player that is missing a DAC is better than the $25 DVD-RW drive with a usb output that, while also missing a DAC, reads the discs faster, and more accurately. Please explain why real time data copying from an error prone medium is better than reading from a hard drive the same data.

[@ryacus]

@@Mark-lq3sb Define younger? I'm 32 I guess not exactly young or old but that depends on who you ask I love my CD's, where I grew up CD's didn't catch on until much later so maybe that's why I am an outlier

[@mypulse9]

Edward Allen you are missing one thing. The hard drive is also a error prone medium. Not only you can lose some data because of a physical damage/wearout/manufacture defect, but also due to file system errors, operation system failure, user mistake.

[@edwardallenthree]

@@mypulse9 I'm not missing that! I backup everything to dropbox. But, and this is more important, I still have the CDs. They are sitting, happy in their original jewel cases, in perfect condition, for the day I need them. A CD will error on virtually every read, and need to correct. A hard drive will eventually fail and need to be replaced, but until then, most reads will be successful.

[@Antimonkat]

Another aspect of this is how many people are ripping their own cd's to their NAS, the source of those files could be anything, seems like most people would get files from digital distribution sources of some kind which may have never even hit a cd, depending on what their source for the service was, ie studio master etc. If cd reading vs hard drive reading causes a diffrence, then I would imagine cd writing would also change the audio signature, so by extension the best way to experience the audio is to get the original (probable these days) digital computer file without ever touching a cd in the process. Seriously though at the end of the day aren't we just really splitting really tiny molecole sized hairs? Surely the audio differences from dac to dac, amp to amp, speaker to speaker are going to far out color the signal more than all but the tiniest few listeners with super hearing can detect? I'd bet money if you had a sampling of 20 audio tracks with a blind listen played on the same equipment that no one would guess the source better than 50/50 between cd, hard drive, probably even high quality streaming. That brings up another point, audio on a NAS could be far superior in bitrate and resolution to anything a standard cd can hold unless you start talking about sacd and blu ray music discs. Seams to me in all respects the cd is the losing option here in convenience, reliability, quality, longevity, and simplicity in audio chain. A file on a hard drive bypasses any of the following, reflectivity, laser alignment, foreign objects/scratches, internal player dac,/multiplexer, additional exterior cabling, If a file played from cd sounds different at all, I can only imagine it sounding worse/colored from intention of artist, not a more pure representation of the source. Of course you never said it didn't, so I'm not sure what your conclusion is beyond "there is a difference". For the record, I haven't ripped an actual cd in probably 15 years or more.

[@Mark-lq3sb]

@Antimonkat Here we go again, Mr. Run-on strikes again! Go back to school and learn English composition.

[@Antimonkat]

@@Mark-lq3sb People resort to attacks like that when they have nothing constructive to counter with, thanks :)

[@Mark-lq3sb]

@@Antimonkat I just like to point out the obvious, thank you. Doesn't take a course in English Composition to understand that it is more difficult and tiring to read your writing. If you want people to easily read and take-in your views I suggest gathering collective thoughts to multiple paragraphs. This will not only better showcase your education/interest in the subject at hand, but will show you are a well educated person too.

[@Antimonkat]

@@Mark-lq3sb neither of those are my goals or of importance to me. I'm not here to sell me, I'm just laying out facts and some opinion, read it or don't. You've choosen to, so it must be worth it to some people.

[@jamescrowther1234]

I live near Sherburn In Elmet 😀

[@sadcafe7675]

So do I......😎

[@ryacus]

Seems to be an interesting place not all that different from small towns in my area of California believe it or not especially a city called Oakdale.

[@craigjackson9063]

That’s 3 of us then 👍👍

[@craigjackson9063]

ryacus interesting is a word for sherburn. I could use more 😜

[@SuspiciousAra]

Synology FTW! Need help? Contact me! I can help you setup a Synolgy NAS to listen some nice quality DSD and FLAC. It is expensive but yeah, it is the ultimate setup for digital audio!

[@edwardallenthree]

Or you can just run JRiver on a Mac Mini, Intel Nuk, or other small computer. One 4tb hard drive should cover most of your music needs.

[@rgrtnyjjc]

How do you have your Synology setup for audio?

[@bananasplitbrain476]

A good example of authoritarians being more meaningful than the real experts and authors of some of the comments below who are repeatingly claiming and proving that the computers are not transcoding the data themselves. Jitter is a topic misunderstopd by many people bit Highenders treat it as if it way also susceptible and of the same absolute relevance. Paul argues in casualities, he is not proving anything. It is just common knowledge and the good reaspn which are so dangerous to an enlightened to become civilization.

[@cillyede]

Always intersting and helpful, danke.

[@ford1546]

you must not only look at data files. inside a computer there is a lot of noise from the power supply and processors and a computer is not made for high quality sound. You can compare a PC to a cinema amplifier or blueray player where you can do a lot but the quality of the weather stuff is not that high. a good cd player is optimized to play only audio and does a better job than the blueray player or computer does

[@Antimonkat]

you're talking at that point about 2 different things, and i think that is the problem, some are talking about the file sounding diffrent depending on what the storage medium is, and others are talking about a file sounding diffrent between 2 diffrent playback devices. A nas is not typically a playback device, just a storage solution. the file read from it doesn't have to be played on a computer. You're comparing 2 different audio paths not 2 diffrent storage solutions.

[@Dankzzz]

Exactly, well said..

[@ford1546]

@@Antimonkat If you are looking for the best sound quality then uncompressed audio files that are played from a PC with digital coax to a DAC are the best! If you need to transmit audio wirelessly you can use 2 computers where one has digital output. For example, a cheap mini computer for the hi-fi system. An audio CD disc played from a good CD player to the same DAC. is the best. I don't think you're going to hear differences in a blind test.

[@Antimonkat]

@@Dankzzz you guys realize computers are used in the music making process most of the time now right? Power supply noise is less of an issue with current generations and a non issue with good shielding or external dacs. There is also inherently little difference between how a cd player reads and plays an audio cd and how a blueray reads and plays blu ray movie or music sources. To say one is more purpose built than the other is inherently incorrect.

[@Dankzzz]

@@Antimonkat sorry I lost you there? Making music??? We are talking about listening to music. That is two very different things. Microphone vs Speakers Maybe I lost you... Paul only answers a valid question.. And I totally agree with him. Of course you can make effort to better the issue.. But if you don't, most of us wont be happy. Bluray players are ok, but CD player is better. If you connect the BD player to a Dac you may better this...

[@edwardallenthree]

I will buy, with some reluctance, that USB can sound different than S/PDIF or HDMI on the same DAC. Ok. I buy that. It suggests the DAC is likely of low quality, but OK. As a side note, I find the idea of building long chains of devices in your audio path to be silly. "So let me get this straight, you have a NAS, connected to a fancy hifi network switch with hifi ethernet cables, connected via more hifi ethernet cables to a hifi "network transport" which is just a cheap raspberry pi, connected to a super expensive usb cable, connected to a de-jitter usb fob, connected to another super expensive usb cable, connected to a crazy expensive DAC, then connected to your pre amp, making sure all of your digital DC devices use linear power supplies?"

[@paulstubbs7678]

I think something has been lost here. To me the main advantage to a NAS, is that your music is now avaliable to all devices on your network, you don't need multiple copies. You can listen in your study on a PC, or stream it directily into an AV receiver (that has a network/Wi-Fi) connection, or into your TV via DLNA etc. etc. etc. There have been devices that do it all in one box, ie Teac Digital Juke Box, but they can be a pain in the end as your music is kind of trapped in there and not easily copyable to say your mobile phone etc. (or backed up to avoid any data loss)

[@joeythehat9]

Digital is digital. That digital signal is the same regardless of the technology it arrives in. Your DAC or receiver has ranges of bitrates it can work with. Default is 16-bit, 44,100 khz for CD or 48,000 khz for HDMI. You need very good montors or a great speaker setup to hear any benefit, but to be able to play higher bitrate files you simply change your settings to use something like 24-bit 192,000 khz.

[@edwardallenthree]

@@joeythehat9 I am inclined to agree, but one issue that needs to be addressed in any comparison is asynchronous error correcting connections and one way streams. S/PDIF and USB standard audio are one way connections, with no way for the client to communicate an issue back to the server. Professional devices use asynchronous USB protocols.

[@donpayne1040]

CD

Say N.A.S. Drive 3 times fast.

[@quantumchang4410]

Is that some kind of spell?

[@gizmothewytchdoktor1049]

cd=no packets created/qued/sent/reconstructed/played back.don't get me started on wlan connecrtions.... anyone see where i am going with that?

[@paulstubbs7678]

Not really, with a CD the 2 x 16 bits of audio data don't come off in a parallel format for direct conversion, the audio samples are serialised and multiplexed together into a single bit stream that is also processed for read error detection & (hopefully) correction. Then of course there is the speed the CD is rotating at, how close is it to perfect?

[@gizmothewytchdoktor1049]

paul. you have missed the point...entirely. before i go further i have to ask: are you familiar with how network packet delivery works? the only way that hd storage will be better than reading the data off the cd itself,as it were, is if the data stream is played back(d/a converter quality notwithstanding because there are so many different methods used)locally on the device that the hard drive resides on. my point about network playback is that breaking the data into packets and then reconstructing them for a dac to read and then reproduce is possibly(theoretically) the WORST method to use when reproducing the most accurate playback possible. now...with that obvious point being made add to it network protocols like QoS or the lack thereof(pending the choice of operating systems-etc) and it gets sticky fast. over a network(and especially a wireless one) you cannot guarantee bit by bit accuracy for a .jpg file much less guarantee accuracy for an audio or audio/ visual stream. it's just the nature of the beast. think steps in the chain and realize that the more steps added the more likely there is going to be errors in delivery of the data. up the bitrates of the data stream and the likelihood of data corruption increases. now to state the obvious question at hand: you have to question if the human machine listening to the reconstructed data can actually tell the differences involved with the various methods of reproduction(cd direct/ direct cd rip to chip based hd storage w/ local machine DAC playback/ network stream and reconstruction of the stream through the method of network packet delivery). it's all about the processes the hardware uses to deliver what you perceive you hear.

[@Antimonkat]

plus you realize the cd isn't just one continuous waveform let alone one long file right? the CD has a file system and file format, it has bits, it has packets, it has extra data encoded, tracks, clusters. The file transfer speed on even a rudimentary network beats the max read of a cd especially during playback, you know, lans don't skip if you bump them too hard :)

[@Antimonkat]

@@gizmothewytchdoktor1049 still wrong, a nas link can be faster than even local storage, but aside from that, typically if not always, you aren't reading a file "in real time" from the server where a wayward packet or 20 is going to cause a glitch in your pristine listening experience, the file is requested from the playback device and it is transferred to the player as quickly as possible (multiples of real time in near all cases) into as much of that players buffer as it can handle/is configured for up to and including the entire thing, so in plenty of cases, that file is loaded entirely on to the players hardware before or shortly after it starts to play, the network at that point is no longer a contributing factor to the playback. To further contradict you, error checking exists and bit verification/confirmation of packet delivery is a thing so yeah you can guarantee a bit by bit accuracy of the transmitted file otherwise you'd never be able to move or copy anything around a computer ever, including from storage media to memory and back, computers wouldn't be able to exist. And the higher the bitrate (and lower the compression) of the data stream the less impact a little data corruption will have as each bit is now representing less information and the player should be able to compensate with little if any impact.

[@gizmothewytchdoktor1049]

fundamental flaw in your statement. where do you derive your source file is from if not from a chip based hard drive? it's impossible for a nas link to be faster than local storage unless the computer you are using is significantly below the mean modern speed threshold(single core) in regards to processor speed and ram speed and using a magnetic based hard drive. local machine playback is inherently faster and more accurate in regards to file reproduction than any network based file transfer and reproduction method. you cannot defy the laws of physics which your statement is attempting to do. don't get me started on buffer over/underrun conditions. to add....the higher the bitrate more packet data is being sent and does so in the network handshake time clock/time frame thus multiplying the chances for data corruption. NAS is a user convenience item. not the proprietary accuracy protocol as it seems to be marketed as. i refer you (and others) back to my original response.

[@andrzejjesswein7349]

Load of rubbish - any decent network setup will supersede the local drive which will ultimately run into mechanical issues - bit rate needed for cd especially with buffering is negligible with current networks

[@soring5880]

I see a lot of negative comments and all I can say is that in my home, on my setup same album played on my CD player sounds better than played from my Nas which again sounds much better than tidal masters. If cd is 10, Nas is an 8-9 and tidal is 6-7. Spotify is not even worth mentioning.

[@fidelizer.]

Most people who disagree with Paul's finding never have decent CD Transport to test and compare with.

[@LanciaD50]

Absolutely agree with you

[@fidelizer.]

@@LanciaD50 Thank you. :)

[@cengeb]

But what did you have for lunch?

[@juliaset751]

I use the PS Audio LAN Rover on my LAN with a good quality CAT 6A cable. One of my best audio related investments.

[@SuspiciousAra]

the cat. of the cable matters not in digital world. the bandwidth does. rarely need gigabit network

[@michielderomijn]

@Pete is never wrong Better in what way?

[@michielderomijn]

@Pete is never wrong Seems to me there was an earth fault in the old cabling. A buzz is always a fault in the *analog* domain. The Most important thing is you solved it! :)

[@ThinkingBetter]

Forget about CD players. They are prone to errors due to this very fragile media getting scratched. The exact same data from a NAS can be consistently error free and data can be converted to digital completely “on demand” by a superior DAC with a precise master clock eliminating jitter being even a topic worth bothering about. Yes, make sure any digital noise is not leaking into the analog side of your gear and you got yourself an unbeatable system. Don’t listen to any snake oil talk about expensive transport including CD players. Actually a US$5 USB flash drive will easily beat a US$20,000 CD player on every parameter concerning audio quality because it does everything much better on data integrity and read speed.

[@mypulse9]

ThinkingBetter people who work in data protection business would laugh hysterically in your face :-)

[@ThinkingBetter]

Denis This one can store 700 of your CDs with much superior performance: Samsung 512GB 100MB/s (U3) MicroSDXC Evo Select Memory Card with Adapter (MB-ME512... www.amazon.com/dp/B07MKSGZM6/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_c_api_i_2bmpDb87YCJMT

[@TheMqyable]

Guys, really, we are just before time were we could use high quality flash drives, like ssd, almost everywhere. They becomes so cheap that you can get 2-3 of them make raid1 in your nas.

[@Dankzzz]

Great explanation Paul, exactly the same I've discovered!! The non believers must live on another planet, maybe a planet of holy undisturbed 0-1s ;)

[@gurratell7326]

Yes, he is right, they will sound way different because of all the 0,04s, -0,12s, 0,992s and 0,84948s.

[@Dankzzz]

@@gurratell7326 yes that is jitter.. A thing sceptics think don't exist

[@gurratell7326]

@@Dankzzz That's not really how it works. And jitter ain't a problem at all nowadays anyway.

[@Dankzzz]

@@gurratell7326 yes that was exactly what I said people like you believe. Jitter exists, that's why a Nas and new Dac often sounds worse than an old cd player... The only explanation is jitter because of noise. Noise and jitter the wall-mart sceptics don't believe in. They believe in holy unaffected 0 and 1 with a free printer cable.

[@gurratell7326]

@@Dankzzz Jitter exists yes, but it's so far below what humans can hear that it doesn't matter anymore. But people like Paul still wants you to believe it does so they can sell more of their overpriced gear. But also, IF jitter still would matter playing from a NAS, CD-transport or whatever wouldn't matter anyway since networking doesn't affect jitter what so ever. And also, most DAC nowadays are asynchronous which makes them complately unaffected of jitter from the other gear earlier in the chain.

[@GustoTheGamer]

First 😆

[@thegrimyeaper]

I bet that's what you always say to the girls in bed.

[@johngarbutt]

I really am not impressed with some of the comments below. Seems to me that Paul has far more knowledge of the issues than the cloth eared cynics we have here. Keep up the good work Paul and as for the cynics well plenty of other channels you can go and look at.