Computer burned CDs vs. store bought CDs

[@NeilBulk]

One very important point was missed here. The original question asks about files that are "downloaded." This opens an entire can of worms. If the files being downloaded are from legit retailers like HDTracks, Qobuz or Tidal and are 44.1/16 then yes, that should be fine. If they're downloaded from a questionable source then who knows if they'll sound better than a pressed disc.

[@CotyRiddle]

TRUE! and there is ways to tell if that lossless file you got is really lossless.

[@DorianPaige00]

@@CotyRiddle there ARE ways. Learn your English son! (LOL) I'm in a giddy mood as we are getting 2 feet of snow and I'll be clearly that tomorrow after a long day at work.

[@CotyRiddle]

@@DorianPaige00 o.0 Ohhhkay...... Congratulations on the snow. I want some here in Texas. this hot cold then wet and cold crap Sucks.

[@Assimilator702]

@@CotyRiddle You can have ALL of mine. We got 12” the other day.

[@CotyRiddle]

@@Assimilator702 that would be amazing

[@RobWhittlestone]

You bring great points regularly, Paul! I rip everything with Exact Audio Copy, compressed to FLAC - slow but exact AND lossless. Then I can copy those to SD card or USB and play it in the car. I currently have 256GB of audio in my daily driver and 128 GB in my sports car. The NAS is just waiting for the day I have a network player. Currently I play the original CDs or a "repaired" burned CD. All the best from Switzerland, Rob

[@pranavmishra5541]

I’d recommend checking out Plex. It’s a free software that can run on a NAS or computer, acting as a server. It can be played back on basically anything through their official apps. For music, there is even a separate app called Plexamp that many audiophiles love.

[@stuartneil8682]

I recall an article back in the day, where the author had measured the signal from the laser and motors in the player. The conclusion was that the burned CD was easier to track thus generating less work for the laser’s tracking motor, less electrical noise from it and fewer interpolated bits. Apparently the blank CD-R has some sort of “track” for the recording laser to follow and this was thought to help the playback laser’s tracking.

[@vdochev]

True or false, that has nothing to do with the sound quality. If it's tracking, it's tracking.

[@Jenny_Digital]

I tell you now, I loved making my own minidisc and CD-R compilations to listen to whilst I pedalled the 8 or so miles to work each day back in the day, but part of the joy of music is in the presentation. Ripping off the cellophane and opening the jewel case that has ZERO fingerprints on it to slide out the booklet as one sits down to try the new disc/whatever has always been special. Special in a way that made a difference. On a side note, my dad has always felt he needed to stick it to the man and when I bought him a litre of isopropanol to clean his eCig, I put it in an old mouthwash bottle and told him I’d pinched it from work to make him feel I’d got one over them. He had the biggest of grins. Funny how packaging makes all the difference.

[@mattrismatt]

MiniDisc - yes!

[@CDJF1]

Nothing beats opening a new record and dropping the needle for the first time. Vinyl album art beats all other media. IMO.

[@faridmaruf3102]

This is the first time I heard this "phenomenon"

[@bneyens]

It’s BS.

[@P90X_DVD]

When I used to drive Mercedes, I remember one of their technicians explaining how my burned CDs had ruined the stereo console (the entire unit, not just the disc drive). He quoted me $2800 for a replacement... And that's *one* of the many reasons I don't drive Mercedes anymore lol

[@nicmonberg5974]

This can happen you get different quality of discs and dyes. In your case I expect it's typical of these sort of people if it's not endorsed by their company it shouldn't ever be used so they make up all sorts to put people off.

[@paulroscelli2545]

What a moron

[@stephenmorrissey1254]

That's so obnoxious. I suppose if you play the wrong music it would ruin the speakers?

[@paterdoloris]

Bad mechanic, bad tech. If you look like a victim to them, they'll try to rip you off.

[@clicks59]

How can this be if the disc is being read by a laser beam and there’s literally no contact? Utter BS. The tech must work for Best Buy.

[@highcurrent1125]

Sometime you have to experience something to believe it. I once bought a used pair of speakers, and when I picked them up, the seller gave me a handfull of ripped Steely Dan discs. They sounded really really great!

[@finscreenname]

I used to rip them because outside of the house they seem to get beat up and having a safe copy at home meant you could just rip another one. On that I also found that ripped CD's seem to be a bit more fragile then the originals and for the originals the older CD's a thicker then the newer ones. Then there was the issue of if your player would even read a ripped CD..... The real question is how many of you are even buying CD's anymore. The wife's 2018 company car don't even have a CD player in it anymore and everything has to be done through your phone. Even though she spends many hours on her phone a day she wont bother to stream, "to much of a pain". I don't either if it didn't come in on my fios TV and I'm the stereo nut in out house.

[@legrandmaitre7112]

CDs are in the doldrums at present. Mainly because people are being modelled by various vested interests! Truth is CDs will will more than bounce back. Who ever thought people would chase and cherish vinyl all over again - the same will happen for CD. What you have to remember is that there's always been great music and not so great music. The great music will always be sought after no matter the format. CDs have all the indicators to become VERY collectable as the years go by.

[@DorianPaige00]

@@legrandmaitre7112 The limited edition and import titles will become collectible. Any title that wasn't "a current" when issued will hold its value because fewer were pressed of older music.

[@graxjpg]

I got a big lot of bb king, gram parsons, Stevie ray etc CDs that a guy ripped from vinyl and CD 10 years ago, and they sound incredible! I was amazed by the dynamics and the clarity of the sound.

[@stevekirby7333]

I thought this was pretty well understood in the earlier days of CDs. And the reason for large FIFO buffers in later CD players. Commercial mastering meant that the masters used to press the disks (they are embossed the same way records are and then overcoated with a reflective metallization and then clear layer) were cut in realtime or often at multiples of real time. Jitter was just being discovered in players and folks in the pressing plants weren't concerned with timing errors at all. So the pits were all over the place in time relative to where they were supposed to be. When you played this on a typical player, it sampled whatever was next when the player's clock came around. Regardless of where the timing of that bit was relative to the original file. But when you ran that into a computer, it became data and everything went back into the correct place. Then burning a disk was asynchronous. It was transferring that lined up data back onto media at whatever rate the system could manage it correctly. Now you had all the bits correctly placed in time so that a synchronous player could stream them off the disk into the DAC in a reasonable facsimile of the right bit at the right point in time. Eventually once the local jitter issues in players were tamed, larger FIFO buffers helped clean up the commercial disks mastered in timing errors and you got back to the right bit at the right point in time you were getting from your "re-mastered" disks or even better.

[@winsonip4447]

Rip the CD in EAC with C2 error correction can extract most accurate result. The pick-up just can't fix the error bits on-the-fly while listening.

[@svenschwingel8632]

C2 error correction routines are not properly implemented in lots of computer optical drives. Plus, there is no real standard for error reporting to the extraction software. In EAC, it is best not to use C2. You can use Test & Cooy in standard mode with the AccurateRip plugin for best results.

[@janinapalmer8368]

@@svenschwingel8632 yes !

[@BlankBrain]

In many cases you can use AccurateRip to repair EAC files that have errors. I have over 650 FLAC albums on my LG V20 phone. My 256GB MicroSD card isn't nearly full. I use Syncthing app to keep my phone in sync with my laptop. My Christmas present to myself was a Synology NAS, so now I don't have to make multiple copies of my music to MicroSD cards. It would be disheartening to have to re-rip and find album art for that many albums. My next project is to rip my vinyl.

[@svenschwingel8632]

Red Book audio CD has different levels of error correction, namely C1 and C2. Or E11/E21 and E12/E22. Those errors are correctable, everything above that (CU) must be interpolated during playback. Yellow Book data CDs have an additional third level of error correction which is why they lack ~100MB in useable space on the same blank CDR compared to an audio CD. Now here's the kicker: an accurate extraction of a factory CD with a given amount of C1/C2 can actually lead to a burned CD with a much lower number of errors, given that you a) use good quality media (Taiyo Yuden was the best back then) on a b) quality burner with proper writing strategy and c) find the sweet spot for writing speed that produces the lowest amount if errors (no, slower isn't always better). Unfortunately, modern drives don't offer what the Plextor drives did back in the early 2000s with the Plextools Pro software that allowed media assessment before and after writing. You could literally measure the focus and tracking errors on a blank CDR and the C1/C2/CU error rate of a burned or bought CD. Those were interesting times back then 😬

[@timmeah]

Some very valid points there. And if you combine that with ripping a CD will repeatedly read a sector (up to a set number of re-tries), while a CD-player only read each sector once, and I think we have a pretty plausible explanation for why a correctly ripped and burned cd may sound better than a manufactured cd. Edited: another difference is also how they are produced (pressed vs. burned) that could influence how well the cd can be read. Different laser technology between a cd-burner and a cd-player would also have an effect on how well it’s able to read the cd.

[@ericmiller254]

Or you could just keep it on your drive and get bit perfect playback and even compare to other peoples rips to make sure you had everything exactly as it should be.... CD's are only useful if you need to use the DAC inside a CD player. Otherwise they're just adding distortion....If they're even doing that idk

[@bradleylowry4184]

Back then I recall reading an article that said without error correction most CDs would sound far worse than LPs and depending on the type of error correction, the results could be quite different. I think it was an article in Scientific American at the time mentioned that if large chunks were missing, then the algorithm would just repeat the previous section. Computer programs on the other hand are not so forgiving and even one bad bit in a million can crash a program, so the computer would have a lot more resources at its disposal to compute what those missing bits were. I would imagine the good algorithms are available on relatively cheap chips today, so this is probably not the issue it once was.

[@svenschwingel8632]

@@ameldaquirk3965 good times back then ... xD

[@horowizard]

Yes, Taiyo Yuden were what we and all the other studios used. You didn't want clients coming back with bum CDs! These days it's getting harder and harder to even find software that will make an audio CD, as so much of today's music delivery is downloads and streaming which I think sounds absolutely dreadful.

[@geraldford6409]

If there is a difference (and not confirmation bias or other psychological or test method issue), it may be the error correction and jitter reduction applied during the ripping process that is responsible for any perceived audio quality difference between the original cd and ripped wav or burned copy. That is, playing the original cd in a particular player may have a certain number of correctable and incorrectible errors, and a certain jitter level, due to the way the pits were pressed at the factory or maybe interaction between the disc and player. The rip process may correct those errors and jitter experienced when playing cd in realtime, so a burned cdr may have the error corrected and jitter reduced version Or not

[@donpayne1040]

I think this too.

[@geraldford6409]

www.stereophile.com/content/cd-jitter-errors-magic-page-2 Appears to support my theory, though I had never read that article before posting Mentions error correction and error concealment/ interpolation and BLER. Perhaps the cd rip process corrects concealment, interpolation errors too

[@geraldford6409]

Also kzbin.info/www/bejne/b16okJiLgqprbM0 Describes cd center hole issues that could cause less than perfect disc balance resulting in excessive laser tracking motor motion and accompanying noise, electrical and mechanical

[@joeyannece6197]

A properly burned CDR is a clone of the pressed CD. They data they hold is identical.

[@Thevikingcam]

Exactly. Its simply data. 100% accurate to last bit if its done right. And sure of hell sound 100% same. Anyone claiming anything else are totally clueless on what digital actually means.

[@lotog692]

No. Thats not true. Especially if you ripped a copy protected CD. Then your copy will most likely be w/o the copy protection mechanism, at least it should be, if done properly. And then the data already differs. Another difference would be the material of the CD and scratches, that are usually not being copied. Scratches are not data, you might say, but they can alter data, because they can alter laser light. So "the environment" plays a role. But the difference that he's referring to is probably, that if there is a part, that is difficult to read (scratches, bad manufacturing, material problems, etc.), then EAC will take about 30+ seconds per 10ms to get the best possible version out of these "damaged" bits. And you can chose different ways, to read the data. So if the first attempt didn't work, you try again, with altered settings. You can do that, because you have TIME ... Your CD player obviously can't do that, because PLAYING music is time critical. If the read data has been buffered ahead a little, maybe the CD player can take 30ms for 10ms (oversampling?) or maybe even a second or two, to get a decent result, but certainly not 30+ secs. And it can't "try again" with different settings, it has to chose a best match setting for all cases from the start. So the result of EAC will most likely be much better, than that which the CD-player has to come up with more or less "on the fly". Can you hear the difference ... in severe cases, certainly. In minor cases, maybe not. Maybe it also depends on you, your stereo system, the music you listen to etc. pp.

[@lotog692]

@Dorian Gray If your CD player couldn't play certain CDs, but their ripped version, then it probably couldn't deal with the copy protection mechanism used. That was a big problem about 15-20 years ago. The ripped version usually comes w/o the copy protection bs and is therefore playable on all players (at least in theory :).

[@Paul58069]

to Joe Yannece: it is not

[@joeyannece6197]

@@Paul58069 Technically, that may be true. As mentioned above with copy protection etc. However, take the original and do a null test with the copy. They will null. No difference in sound. 1's & 0's Paul.

[@SpeakerBuilder]

You didn't address the matter of his downloading files that may be compressed MP3's or whatever, and that this type of file will not sound as good as the full wave files used on CD's. As you mentioned, this difference will be audible in a high end system (I have heard it), but not likely on a car system. Converting the MP3 to wave for the CD format does not help as it just transfers this loss to a larger file format. Now if he were downloading wave files, then there may be no difference, depending on how the player handles the file from a thumb drive vs the CD drive, that's a different matter.

[@Justwantahover]

I

[@Justwantahover]

I have a modest med fi system and I have a CD of Sada and the same recording on the CD and streamed sounded way better on the CD.

[@darkskinwhite]

nah you'll hear it in the car too, go play a cd in the car and then play the same shit on youtube lol youll absolutely notice the difference.

[@gyrgrls]

I used to download only files with lossless compression. I received a lot of FLAC for it, though.

[@LAZY_Z]

@@gyrgrls tsss, tsss, boom. :-)

[@ootrip40]

I have had an outstanding solution for years for this problem..do a blind listening test with those who claim to hear the difference. That should do the trick. Usually people don't want this. But really, it's the only way to get it settled. This also works for speakercables or interlinks.

[@anonamouse5917]

Way back when, a rep for Monster Cable tried to sell me some interlinks. I told him I would purchase them ONLY if I could bring them back after testing. He agreed. I took them home and used the right channel for Monster and the left channel for the cheapest, longest interlink I had in the house. I heard no difference and extended the cheap interlink to 20 ft. I finally heard a little hum on the left channel with no input and the gain cranked all the way. I got a refund the next day. To this day I use interlinks that cost less than $8. They have gold plated ends and aren't super thin. I won't buy the $2 ones nor the $50 cables.

[@audiophilesrilanka3508]

@@anonamouse5917 great story. thanks for sharing! Personally I don't believe in those expensive cables/DACs as well.

[@phototristan]

If you have any old CD-Rs that have a sticky label on it, re-burn those and don't put a sticky label on it, or just rip it to a file. Trust me, those stomper type labels cause issues and make the CD-R not last.

[@ChiefExecutiveOrbiter]

Good tip, Also the data is on the top of the disc, not the reflective side, cleaning the top of the disc or peeling off stickers is literally pulling the data off lol

[@CotyRiddle]

Yup data rot. the adhesive accelerates this.

[@newphilmz3605]

I used to get buy mixtapes on CD and every time it was on a sticker label CD, the data would be corrupted or unable to read. These CDs were already years old when I got them.

[@MrHBSoftware]

Legend says you should burn the cds using audiophile pure silver ide cables and preferrably on a vacuum tube powered computer

[@AlainHubert]

It should definitely sound warmer...

[@ThinkingBetter]

Nothing plays digital music like a vacuum tube computer.

[@edgararanda8722]

Hahahah “vacuum powered computer”, you made my day!!

[@laurentzduba1298]

Sometimes, it is a necessity to duplicate an extremely rare CD - especially ones that no longer exist on e-bay or nobody bothered to upload an MP3 of it online since 9/11. 😯

[@Wingnut_Stickman]

Consider this (35+ years spent as a computer geek typing here) -- CD-ROM vs CDDA (one is a computer storage medium intended for digital data, one is for digitized music) -- when you buy a blank CD it is for digital data. Digital data cannot tolerate errors like CDDA can. Nope, can't detect em, can't recover. The low tolerance for errors forces a MUCH higher standard in manufacture. In a CDDA format there are 551 bits if I recall for each sample, 44.1K samples per second. 8 bits per side and a centre bit means 17 bits for data, the remaiing bits are for hamming code based error recover if I recall correctly, it has been 30 years since I studied error detection and recovery in university) long story short, the case of an error in the 551 bits (that is so severe it cannot be fixed during decoding) means the sample is lost -- but it is only one 44,100th of a second, so, no biggie. You might not even detect it... What is the accepted error rate in CD-ROM disks? Well, it will put you out of business in a hurry if you can't recover the digital data saved on the disk. Better disk, better audio. I can't say I ever noticed it, but I am sure it is possible, as long as the source has sufficent resolution to make a difference. I am sure 1 bit lost in a hundred CD-ROM disks would be a safe error rate.

[@RC-nq7mg]

I have never done this, but I can speculate on how a quality burn might be better. the way the data stream is encoded on the disc allows CD players to fix errors on the fly to near original. Bunch of fancy math but its what makes reading a CD in real time without a buffer possible. It allows for repair of errors from dust, laser read errors, tracking and focus errors and error permanently in the pressed disc. By ripping a disc in a way that allows errors to be re read, you could theoretically restore the complete original data stream error free on the hard drive and then write it to a quality disc at slow speeds with a quality burner which could actually have less errors in the data stream than the original. And if the dye on the disc is easier for the laser to track and read (i personally never found one that was, all of my older players struggle to focus and track burns, but the dyes may have been different back then) then you could eliminate on the fly errors generated by focus and tracking issues, and get a cleaner data stream into the DAC. Just my thoughts anyway.

[@dungysphincter7974]

check out my most recent reply right after yours replying to John's remarks....your not far off the mark.

[@pancrase9048]

Funny thing happened when I used to burn flac files on my CD-R. The burning process worked but when I put into my car cd player , it would reject the disc a few times before finally reading it. I have an 04 olds' I'm surprised that it could even read flac files.

[@douglasjarnagan3835]

Does anyone know if age can impact the sound quality of a CD? All of my CDs that are new or up to 10 year old sound great. Those that are more than 20 years old sound 'thin'.

[@johnloupis2347]

I remember reading back in the 80's when I first started buying cd's they said over time ( like 30 years) cd's will deteriorate. Never heard a thing about it after that.

[@kishoregidwani9598]

Music used to be a serious hobby with the collection being stored on a cd in MP3 format or better in CDA format for the audiophile ears. Today it is all on apps with a facility to download it for offline listening but within the app itself for legit reasons. But I find that out of a thousand numbers being downloaded, hardly 20 percent of them must be getting attentive ears. And talking about ears, while music recordings have got better and better, music finds itself catering to ears only thru headphones and not the glorious towers, mostly. It is my view based on observations, anybody of free to differ please. Thnks and Merry Christmas all.

[@samanthagriffinv2.08]

It also depends on the file format you use to burn like using a lossless format will sound better then if you used a lossy format

[@vladimirpenev9127]

It's all about the CD-R copy made right. Good source, slow rip speed up to 4x, slow write speed up to 4x, good blank media, and good PC writer. That's it, long live Pioneer!

[@sts0-101]

Unless you use old CDRs and old optical drives, you might be able to burn faster than that for better resuts. My pioneer drive burns better at 32x speed than any lower speed. It's 40x speed is better than its 4x even. The drive motor and laser is optimised for high speed, as is the CDR dye. You can test your CDRs and burner with different speeds and see which is better for your setup of course.

[@marcusm5127]

Some error correction algorithms might be easier on the CD reader and decoder? I don't know I haven't studied it.

[@oysteinsoreide4323]

It's called oversampling.

[@oysteinsoreide4323]

The CD also contain error correction information in case of failed reads because of scratches etc.

[@johnoakes7922]

It's all about the dyes and substrate materials used to adhere that the CD drive laser has to read through to get to the data. Taiyo Yuden and Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation Verbatim was considered tops in the field among only a couple others. With EAC you could rip at the slower speed (4x) for better accuracy. Then you could burn to a CD using a good quality CD burner, using burning software with power calibration enabled which with the help of an onboard bios (which could be updated with firmware from the CD burner manufacturer) , then have stored in an onboard index of all reported listed blank CD's on the market and everything about the disc (dye materials, and polymers...etc) this information provided by the blank disc (around the donut hole is a barcode) this tells the drive the information needed for the best power calibration for that manufacturer and model blank CD your using. There was a lot of CD and DVD " rot " going on at that time as well.....a lot of big name brands...all junk using cheap dyes and substrate materials not adhering to quality standards. I was a senior technician for a major computer company for 2 decades, issues coordinator and advisor for one of the top CD burner companies in the field during this time.

[@dungysphincter7974]

You are 100% correct! Although I no longer burn many CD's accept for using in the car. These days I just rip CD and store the audio as flac files placed on an external 2TB NVMe M.2 PCIe drive via usb, connected to the latest model raspberry pi using a Topping D10s DAC! I could use the Topping D10s as a USB/Optical converter and send the digital signal to a different DAC too as well. Really sounds nice....better than most any mass market CD drives to read from hands down....just make certain your using a high quality fiber optic cable using 240+ stands of real glass instead of the cheaper cables when connecting to a different DAC. Also use a USB cable from raspberry pi to Topping D10s DAC that has dual graphite chocks on both ends to help cut interference along the USB chain from computer to DAC. There are much better DAC's but for 70% of us, the D10's will suffice. Burning at the slower 4x speed also ensures a good burn along with power calibration.

[@QoraxAudio]

There's also a difference in lifespan. Generally, the bought CDs last longer, since those are pressed instead of burned. There are lot of exceptions of course, when original bought CDs were pressed on bad discs that started bronzing quite quickly.

[@mobilemcsmarty1466]

yes, I saw that too. but it's worth mentioning that you can really increase the lifespan overall by doing a copy. it's the copy that you then put to risk of loss or damage. when that one goes bad, you just go to your safe storage again with your white gloves and make another one B)

[@QoraxAudio]

@@mobilemcsmarty1466 Lol yeah, I did that when I was a kid, CDs were much more expensive back then so I treated the bought CD as the original master disc.

[@jimb032]

CD-Rs lifespan isn't worth discussing..it will outlive you and cd players. Cd-rw is a different story and so is laser rot, loss, damage, etc.

[@QoraxAudio]

@@jimb032 You should look up CD bronzing, pinholes, flaking and rot of CDs made by Dupont. That's the best documented issue, but there are more similar cases. It's a good example of how quick CDs can start to rot if you're having a bad quality one. Some of my old Pink Floyd CDs (from my dad actually) have started flaking on the edge too and it starts to come close to the data area. Some CDs I burned in the early 2000s are starting to flake too. The average life expectancy of CD-R is about 10 years, but can vary heavily between a few years to over two decades. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CD-R#Lifespan

[@jimb032]

@@QoraxAudio I'm well aware. Most articles cite 10 years. I had a cd burner since they first came out commercially. Even my first cd-s I've burnt have no problem. My point is - who cares really. If you yourself believe it has a 10 year lifespan and you actually think you will care about that stupid CD-R in 10-20 years, the same rule applies as in computer data security...make a backup. Again..who cares about a 10 year old CD-R....really. it's outlived it's useful life. And seriously it's not worth discussing.

[@1sostatic]

Psycho Acoustics at work here. ... at the 1 and 0 end - the electron doesn't care and will not sound better worse or anything else. ..at this point the process is "data" retrieval not "sound" retrieval.

[@Nightjar726]

Store bought CDs are actually ‘pressed’ from a master. Then they get a layer of protective lacquer on them as well. Burnt CDs at home use the laser to etch the data into the dye on the CD we use. That’s why store bought CDs last way longer.

[@svenschwingel8632]

I have 20+ years old burned CDs that can still be read back with low error rates, thanks to quality media. And I also have seen factory CDs fail after as little as 3 years due to poorly sealed edges that had oxygen and moisture creep in, destroying the reflective aluminum layer 🤷🏼‍♂️

[@georgelien]

In theory, yes. But, in the real world, there are home-made CDs that outlast commercial CDs.

[@Nightjar726]

George Lien which is super duper highly unlikely. 99% of the time an industry CD a due to its protective covering will always outlast a crappy ripped CD. There is really no comparison. One little scratch on a homemade burned CD will likely cause skips. You can scratch the hell outta an industry one and it will most of the time play.

[@timmeah]

@@Nightjar726 not if you scratch on the top where the data actually is stored.

[@Thevikingcam]

Gold-based CD-Rs can last 100 years. So yeah you are wrong.

[@laptopdragon]

The first pc I built, I spent a ton of money on a "plex-writer" and at the time, was supposedly the best. I ripped cd's to .mp3 but at 192kbps or higher, took a long time but they sounded good on my stereo and speakers from the goodwill/thrift shops... I did hear a degredation of sound when I tried 128kbps, and even at 164kbps but 192 was as good as I could hear while higher didn't do anything I could detect. Now, many microns later, I'd like to create some .flac files and wonder if they need to be on a CD or can they live in a USB/sd-card and use that as a source?

[@jimmedve8357]

Hi Paul, I just bought a pair of Linn DMS ISOBARIK SPEAKERS , how can I hook them up to my stereo amp? Do I have to rewire the crossovers? Also how many watts do I need since I’ve found out it goes down to 2 ohms? Thanks, Jim

[@edjackson4389]

I don't know what I did wrong, but I got out my mix track CD collection I made 10 years ago and they sound bad compared to the original store bought CDs I recorded them off of. Maybe it was the computer I was using.

[@NYAudioGuru]

@Fat Rat Also, dbPoweramp is great, too. Really, anything with CRC checks or error correction is better than iTunes.

[@edjackson4389]

@Fat Rat OK thanks

[@jeremytravis360]

I rip almost all my albums just incase I get CD rot.

[@legrandmaitre7112]

CD rot is very very scarce - rot is mostly a myth. You're far more likely to find your CD player has problems playing burnt CDs.

[@jeremytravis360]

@@legrandmaitre7112 I have never suffered from it myself and I have lot of CDs. I did get shown a CD with some corrosion of the outer edge of it, but I don't know how it was stored. Probably somewhere damp at a guess.

[@ChiefExecutiveOrbiter]

Smart man, cd rot does exist.

[@legrandmaitre7112]

@Fat Rat Even so that's a pretty low percentage. I have over 3000 CDs in my collection. I also sell new and used CDs as part of my living. I'm perfectly serious when I say I've only ever seen 1 CD with rot - it had small holes in the foil - it was on the Living Era label. I've wondered if it's a climate thing. I'm in the UK. I think what worries me is that with the current craze for vinyl, people are forgetting that buying used vinyl is a minefield. Even buying new LPs, many punters are disappointed to find that poor pressings still exist, you still get LPs that are warped, etc etc. And if you buy from Amazon, the sleeve will be bent to buggery in the post. If you buy a used CD it's going to have to be pretty beaten up to affect play. If it looks a bit tatty, just put a new jewel case on it. You can even iron the artwork....

[@williamlau7179]

By design theory, a good manufactured cd can be stored for a hundred years. For "good" hifi systems, believing there is no noticeable different between the original Vs ripped, unless it is the referenced systems. Before buying 100 blank CDs, always research the cd manufacturing process and used dyes. For referenced master CDs, using audiophile grades CDs, only 2 to 3 dollars each, ok. Only rip in wav to CDs and upload to personal Nas. Each burner has jitter effect.

[@mikecoffee100]

Always look forward to these vids

[@workonesabs]

One thing I do is burn the album onto a cd-r, but add cd text to the music album. shame the technology is there, but only 2 of my pre-bought albums have cd text, and both of these are indepedant labels. So if i put the cd in the car, the track, title and album name come up on the display.

[@RealHIFIHelp]

I also heard that from some people. I don't know if it is true or not. But I did hear a sound difference doing this myself. But I could only hear that it was different, not better or worse. There are some people that like to burn their cd's on a laptop only with a battery or use a PC connected to a power conditioner, or use a special program that regulates ohm and other settings, and then burn it at a low speed.

[@justinhof6315]

I am not sure why, but when I hauled out my old cd collection a couple of years ago, none of my burnt copies would play. Most of my store bought ones did and sounded great. It could be the player as it's a cheap one from gw but I did try some of the ripped ones in the car and they wouldnt play there either.

[@kevinstaib715]

To the point of others, it will depend on the quality of the cd-r, the burner used, as well as the ripping and burning program. Also the burn speed , caching, etc can make a difference. I was surprised that the burning program could make a big difference, but I experienced this after using one program that introduced errors , but another had no issues. Also some players can read burned CDs better than others. I've had decks that can't read a burned CD without problems but can play bought CDs fine. But if everything aligns right then the final burned CD will sound great!

[@CotyRiddle]

a lot of old players had problems with tracking on CR-R discs. had a old sony that hated them and often would bang the lens on the disc leaving a ring.

[@SomeTechGuy666]

"To the point of others, it will depend on the quality of the cd-r, the burner used, as well as the ripping and burning program. Also the burn speed , caching, etc can make a difference." No. Unless the disk is scratched and is missing data, ripping and writing is an exact binary copy of the original disk. All CDr disks are equal unless your player can't read them. Burn speed and caching has nothing to do with anything. The data that is written on the disk is the same regardless of how fast it is burned or the caching that goes on during the burn process. There is no "some machines can read burned disks better than others." Either they can read the disk or they can't. It's a binary thing.

[@CotyRiddle]

@@SomeTechGuy666 I beg to differ. been there and done that. phillips drives had major issues with burned media as well as lite on back in the day.

[@birgerolovsson5203]

So true and I found it out in the middle of the 90's that copied CD's sounds better than the original and I'm curious how that can bee.

[@mariomguy]

If there is error correction in the copy software... wouldn't that improve the quality of any missing segments of audio, or any problems on the copy? Also, it's possible by reducing the bandwidth of a copy you can make it play back smoother on poorer players. I noticed FLAC sometimes skips from my phone because it sometimes doesn't decode as fast as AAC or MP3. So, more noise and static, but no skipping on poorer quality rips, or best case scenario, it sounds the same or better. Consumers don't burn as many CDs as an industrial duplicator... but I imagine industrial machines should be higher quality...

[@AlainHubert]

A digital copy is just that: a digital, bit for bit copy. It will contain exactly the same digital information as the source, nothing more, nothing less. So it is illogical to assume that such a digital copy could be any better than the original.

[@synopticdesigns7868]

That would have been my comment also based on the initial premise. However, it make more sense when he stated that it appeared that the CD players, of the time, seemed to be able to read discs burned on a CD better that discs from a commercial plant. That is possible. Even so, it wouldn't have changed the audio quality, just how playable the discs were.

[@AlainHubert]

@@synopticdesigns7868 From what I remember of my experiences with early CD players, it was the other way around, They had a harder time reading burned CDs than commercial ones. But even then, they either didn't recognize them at all, or there might have been more reading errors from burned CDs (digitally corrected via the embedded CIRC error correction system present in every CD player, which can exactly recover missing chunks of digital data). Moreover, the notion that some CDs can "sound better" than others, given they contain the exact same digital information, is ludicrous.

[@380stroker]

​@AlainHubert No it's not. We're talking about a stamper, which is only good for so many pressings of a cd being used for mass production in a commercial setting vs someone in their bedroom burning a cd from the original 16 bit file.

[@nelsono4315]

I have a turntable connected to one of my desktop computers and I am still amazed at how great the CDs I burn from vinyl sound.

[@drlodge]

Years ago a made a compilation CD for auditioning hifi . It sounded audibly worse than the originals, using lossless copying

[@rationalmartian]

Could be for myriad reasons. How familiar with the software are you? What was it? What settings or intermediate stages were applied? A reasonable quality recordable CD done on a properly functioning system should really be indistinguishable. It should essentially be a bit for bit copy. It being a compilation makes me think that some settings may have been the problem. Did you try direct straight disc to disc copy/clone? If you STILL hear a difference there my be a problem with the drive. Some are weird with extraction speed settings and can be somewhat problematic, extracting at a speed too high to read consistently, continually accurately and my lean on error correction heavily.

[@dio19892007]

You can either rip a cd or go to windows media player, set the rip settings for 320k mp3 and either make a data disc so you can store multiple cds on a single disc or copy all the mp3s to a flash drive and play them that way.

[@CotyRiddle]

WMP for ripping discs EWW!

[@CotyRiddle]

I aint no apple fan boy but Itunes would be better at that.

[@dio19892007]

Lossless wma or lossless wav or flac would be the way to go. Last I checked you can only use iTunes to rip a cd and then export it to an apple device, not to make copies of cds, or to put on a flash drive. iTunes only works with apple devices.

[@dio19892007]

That is part of the reason why I don't really like apple products. All Apple seems to care about is making money by forcing the consumer to upgrade there devices before the hardware is obsolete. Apple stopped support for the iPhone 6 but Android still gives updates to the Galaxy S4. Macbooks are a little better but if something goes wrong with some of the hardware or you want to upgrade it yourself then good luck. Because the ram on the 2015 and up Macbooks is all soldered in. Most windows laptops can be worked on and upgraded easily. Apple wants you to buy there products so only they can fix them. Even the iPhone 12 is bad at this. Let's say your camera on your iPhone 12 gets cracked because you dropped it. You find a camera module for an iphone 12 and put it in yourself. Your phone will get bricked and is now useless because that camera module will not work unless it is installed by an apple technician and reprogrammed for the specific iPhone 12 it is in.

[@CotyRiddle]

@@dio19892007 actually thats not entirely true. while ripping in itunes default format is specifically tailored for Itunes and Ipads it can be used now days for other prepossess. and I do agree Apple is overpriced and basically garbage hardware wise.

[@kookamunga2458]

Two of my 25 computer burned cds won't play on any of my cd or DVD players . All my factory cds still play and I have a few hundred .

[@yogiwp_]

Hard to fathom how identical bits can sound different? Could it be less timing jitter on the copied CD for some reason?

[@380stroker]

Data CD has to only read the bits correctly. Audio red book cd has to read the bits correctly and also read the bits at the correct time.

[@leroyusa935]

Copy a poorly original store bought CD that's sounds like crap, the copy will also sound like crap.

[@oysteinsoreide4323]

CDs are not crap.

[@RobWhittlestone]

Probably down to the original recording quality. My system is merciless with poorly recorded music and close to heaven with good recordings.

[@wishusknight3009]

Any sound system will be limited by the quality of mastering in the studio. Unless you have a tonne of multi track recordings like me.. haha... But A burned cd can exceed an original if the orignial has a slight wobble or isn't quite right and a laser ends up missing a bit of the informaiton. WHich in turn gets masked by oversampling. A computer on the other hand treats it like raw data and tries to resolve every single bit, then burned at a very low speed can in fact make a laser transport resolve a higher amount of information from the CD. It is all down to pressing quality.

[@donpayne1040]

Hmm, yes agree - totally

[@jimb032]

@@oysteinsoreide4323 no one said they were. But POORLY MASTERED CDs are crap...and more than plenty existed due to the loudness wars.

[@ssgeek4515]

Been doing this for years and I find even with volume levelling on the burnt CD is always slightly lower in volume

[@TheMirolab]

Just the fact that you are messing with volume leveling means that you are not making bit-perfect copies of the original CD. If you are changing the bits, then you are potentially degrading the sound. If you make an exact copy, then the volume will NOT be different. It couldn't possibly be.

[@callumbmx9763]

I think it's just when the store CDs are being burned the burn them quickly to make more of them which in turn made them have shitter quality compaired to a slowly burned cd from your home computer. I could be wrong but that's just what I think

[@Audiophileman]

Paul may I ask how the ripped CD is better exactly? What part of the sound quality is enhanced?

[@gorter23]

i thought it had to do with the difference in rotation speed of the disc in the burner being more controlled when compared to speed of disc from store

[@svenschwingel8632]

It is more like writing strategy (laser power) and writing speed. Every burner/media combo has a sweet spot for minimal error rates. And slower isn't always better.

[@donpayne1040]

@@svenschwingel8632 Yuup. Modern "faster" dyes can sound great

[@klaustrumputin-trudeau4142]

Quite a few years ago I bought a Pioneer Elite CD Multi Player model PD-M59 which contains a technology called Legato Link Conversion which takes a 16 bit signal from the CD and upconverts it to a 24 bit signal in realtime. The player was good enough to switch from rock to classical music effortlessly. I still have it but my amplifier is 40 years old and has a nasty 60 cycle hum.

[@imkow]

Could Sir Paul from Ps Audio talk more about 2.1 channel audio systems?

[@VicOrlando]

Guys like me that build on axis , measured enclosure parameters, custom damping and RTA of car audio you'll notice for sure. High bit rates sound better always as long as the stereo can reproduce those formats.

[@ChiefExecutiveOrbiter]

Paul laughs in the face of mortals car audio

[@Mark-lq3sb]

@Fat Rat For example, your *special* chair...😜

[@legrandmaitre7112]

Here's one for you Paul. I used to have a gorgeous Marantz CD recorder, I bought it so I could make CDs to play in my sports car. That Marantz made CDs that sounded wonderful. I still play those CDR Audio dics in my main system - they're excellent. When the recorder finally gave up the ghost I started ripping CDs, burning to CD-Rs and playing those in the car. Oh dear, noticeably inferior, very noticeably! They're okay-ish in my system but I can always tell - I hear a very subtle whispy sound, cymbals and bells don't have that "ring", that colour. I also download CDs off the net, mostly rare music from blogs, mainly mp3s, some flacs - guess what, my super duper CD player refuses to play about 1 in 10 - maybe I've had some around long enough to have become temperamental. PC burnt CDs are not as everlasting as some believe - far from it. Only in the last few years have I learnt to burn CDs at the lowest speed possible - but even so the shop bought CD always sounds better. In what way? A bit like the difference between vinyl and CD - only more so. It's not so much about detail and resolution, far more to do with rhythm, texture, flow, natural colours etc - the stuff that you can't measure. The CD-R is even further removed from a natural organic sound. I think that even to this day, many audiophiles are reluctant to buy a serious CD player, or to understand that there are still physical and mechanical processes going on - leaving aside jitter. We all know the sound of vinyl can be improved and improved on, better arms, better cartridges, isolation etc. I suggest the something similar is true for CD replay. And the old "bits are bits" thing is BS from guys with brass ears!

[@NYAudioGuru]

Regarding the burned ones not sounding as good - check the format you ripped to. If you were using iTunes, as an example, the default setting is really lossy and low bit rate. Rip to wav or AIF lossless and your burned CDs (and, of course, the files) will playback excellently. I don't bother making CDs anymore, either, but do remember the burned ones always sounded at least good, if not better than the store bought CDs did. When I was I was younger and poorer, I used to copy library CDs and make burned copies with excellent results.

[@CotyRiddle]

Buy a different burner. Some are literal crap. STAY AWAY FROM MULTI BURNERS as they will have the most issues.

[@DorianPaige00]

Your program my be applying noise reduction which could account for the whispy sound.

[@donpayne1040]

You will never guess what CD_R happen to be truly archival, with a real layer of metal protection which does not influence the dye, - TDK R-80. They actually do not sound that bad also.

[@CotyRiddle]

@@donpayne1040 TDK is one of the best brands.

[@user-qr7ee2cp4y]

I used to burn backups to take but having those cds go from hot to cold in my car seemed to horten their lifetime so I just put them on an mp3 player....

[@mantaproject]

Yes, I remember the day's I searched for (Japanese) gold recordings disc's because those sounded best, and then I learned about Taiyo Yuden (and TDK), it's al got the do with the dye of the disc, but don't know the specifics of this.

[@chrisphilhower6029]

I Rip CD's to my Win 10 computer. Played the MP3 file on my car radio. And can hear some faint noises that I don't hear playing the Actual CD. If you look at the Specs on some of the CD/DVD Burners, Some are Noisier than others.

[@ford1546]

Stupid question. It all depends on what format the music is in. is the cd disc copied in lossless format or mp3 or another formst with some audio loss? If I copy a CD in a lossless format such as wav or flac, you will not hear any difference between the original CD and the copy original CD must be copied correctly.

[@willbuckley54]

I downloaded 5 files from Paul's Pics from Amazon thinking they'd be ok and burned them to CD. They sounded fantastic. I was quite surprised.

[@javiergarcia5258]

Thanks for the Info ! Always Download Highest Quality and Trusted Sources

[@rudigerpohlmann6992]

Sorry, my english is rosty. My comment: The whole in the middle of the manufacted CDs often is not centered and the pressed trackcircuit don't fit exactly. So the mechanic of the player has difficulties to follow the track. Mistakes occured. Burned CDs get there tracks leading from the whole. In the same way as the reading process.

[@2011k1500]

Interesting

[@bobsmoot8454]

What about ripping a CD to the memory of of a SSD, does that sound different from the original CD?

[@georgemartinezza]

it sounds the same, you may have WAV files CD to Card

[@EastAngliaUK]

because there more compressed and may sound louder like FM radio

[@SuperFredAZ]

It is possible for the copy to be more error free. The CD contains Reed-Solomon encoding for error correction. The computer may have better detection and correction and may output a better file than the original.

[@lollo4711]

Information on CD is redundant. Means: the information for one bit is burnt-in several times after the other, so laser can re-read if parts of the current track are dirty. Not 100% sure, but I think the density and number of repetitions was adjustable / could vary. In mass-production duplicates are made fast, different to CD-Burners. Error-Correction finally has to conclude to stay sync and it has to be fast, costs a lot CPU-Power. Maybe this could be a reason for the Better-RIP/CD-effect. (?)

[@kevindobson6568]

How can you tell the difference between store bought cds vs burnt cds ?

[@380stroker]

Listening tests

[@kevindobson6568]

I thought it was the numbers and bar code on the back of the cd. Some cds have them and some on the back are black do figure the blank ones were burnt cds

[@michaelz6870]

:Looks up: Hmmm no, the video wasn't from April 1st....okay, not at ALL how I thought the response would go! ...lol

[@edgararanda8722]

The answer is: The original cd is a “stamped” cd. The burn cd is burned as it’s turn. Which translated to the pressed cd if any misalignments or imperfections in the pressing process get amplified when it’s played, in the other hand a burned cd it’s concentric as it could be!!

[@ajay55556]

CD burnt on MSFL. Gold disc sounds much more musical and sweeter than the store CD. Why? one reason I can think of is the Pits probably have more accurate and consistent dips so less errors while reading the GOLD disc. We need to remember the reading of the disc is mechanical - meaning there are no 1s and 0s on the disc. If the depth of the grove is inaccurate the reader can interpret it incorrectly. So GOLD usually burns more accurately and hence the depth of the grove will be prone to less error while reading.

[@CotyRiddle]

no. it literally is the quality of the disc it's self.

[@inexternalrecords]

Exact Audio Copy is what I use and it's great.

[@alphaniner3770]

I agree. The only thing is that beep when it finishes... That still gets me jump up every time

[@inexternalrecords]

@@alphaniner3770 lmao same!

[@CotyRiddle]

foobar2000 has a built in burning feature or well I can't quite exactly remember if it was something you had to add. but it did bit exact recording ignoring most features of the drive and even coming with a data base for some drives to add corrections to them. Ripped many albums this way and doing a comparison between the two with identical drives there was literally no difference aside from extra error correction bits and a data stream stating it was a burned disc. Used memorex cool colors cd's alot and they seemed to hold up pretty well aside from the green blue and *black ones* Always avoided branded blanks from company's like hp and what not as they tended to be garbage. Although I must say sony had a good reputation with them data guard discs.

[@inexternalrecords]

@@CotyRiddle I actually use foobar2000 as well lol. I see you're a man of culture.

[@anonamouse5917]

Lock the drive speed to 4X. The author of EAC claims on one page that it makes no difference as the drive slows when it needs to, but on the DAE quality page he shows a marked improvement on his old Plextor when the drive is locked at 4X. He has no explanation for this.

[@pappakilo3965]

An interesting point! Some CDs must physically vibrate and flutter more, also have a higher degree of physical warping than others and that might explain some of the difference, with more warps requiring more re-reads and/or error correction. Blank CDs from high quality manufacturers may well be made of a slightly tougher plastic material, with consistent properties. Higher quality CD players should read, pre-buffer, process, post-buffer etc data in a 'pipeline', with more buffering being a necessity to get the most out of a CD. I recall sometime in the late 1980s/early 1990s one of the UK Audio magazines discussing potential CD player developments. One of the writers said something like 'in 25 years the sound quality produced by a CD player may well depend on the effectiveness of its data processing and error correction algorithms'. I can't remember who wrote that, it's the kind of observation that Martin Colloms would make, but he's one of around 20 or 30 writers of that time that was commenting on CD player evolution. How about data stored on a USB flash drive and played direct from that medium? I don't know how many players have that facility, nor the way in which players access the stored data

[@andrewwilson8374]

This is superb picture quality for a video shot in the late 1990s

[@georgemartinezza]

I only could say: I've fixed songs to sound better. From original CD's some tracks are a mess with the audio, sometimes with the saved WAV from the oroginal CD, I just add some filters and *reduce the level* because it shows Clipping 0 dB. After save the song as a new WAV, I have a better audio file.

[@michaelw3090]

I use a Tascam writer. It burns copies at 1/1 rate, making the copy at the same speed as reading the original. This burns deeper "holes" in the layer of the copy than the original cd. Result : the copy is easier to read than the original, and will last longer. Advice : when burning cd's on a pc writer, always choose the slowest writing speed possible. Hope this helps.

[@NYAudioGuru]

Not "deeper"; but, more precisely shaped and spaced.

[@johnsimms3957]

This going to make a lot of people happy.

[@55stevieray]

Thanks Paul, I always wondered about this very subject.

[@KenIn_NH]

I watched a video on another audiophile channel discussing the potential differences between cd blanks that were molded with center hole and those that were punched. surmising that molded was not as accurate as punched and any slight wobble from slightly out of round hole would induce a certain level of error. no idea whether this has been investigated or measured but makes sense. i would also assume that mass produced recordings on cd arenusing cheaper (molded hole) blanks whereas some you might by over the counter from better manufacturers might be die cut? Just food for thought and a good engineering research project!

[@sonntagskind84]

Anybody here remembers the "Yamaha CD-RW F1" -- CD-Burner? It had/has an "audio-cd-mode". Which burned longer/bigger Pits&Lands onto the CD. (with a cost of capacity of course) Never heard a difference, but i think, the error-correction an reading on the play-back device worked better. If you put such a disc into a player, the CD alwas loaded faster. Even drives, that were normally not able to read CD-RWs, where able to read such a special-burned audio-disc. Still have that CD-Burner laying around. But it has a IDE-connection, so you will have to use an old computer or an adapter. And the special modes are just supported by some (now very old) versions of "Nero CD-Burning". I wish, i could use it today. For example to digitalize vinyl. ( "Oh my god, why would you want to do that!!!" :-D )

[@stanislavshokurov6532]

Paul’s right, it does sounds better, but if CD-r is quality and your CD recorder is top quality. And one more - you know how to do it . There was an old article in Stereophile magazine explaining why it’s so.

[@gpaulos]

Years ago I experienced the same phenomenon when copying CDs to CD-R. Astonishingly many of these laser copies sounded richer with better low end. My theory is that the laser-writen disks have lower 'jitter' than the pressed disks. It was quite noticeable on the 90s-era CD player that I had at the time. Jitter can reduce the apparent bass and render a hard 'digital' veil on the music. I think modern CD players have better jitter-rejection so it is likely that you would hear little difference using high-end modern equipment.

[@Hammersmash3dFace]

That Video answers so many Questions. Thanks!

[@L.Scott_Music]

Do you ever archive to M-Disk?

[@colt5189]

What blank burnable CD's do you recommend? The store bought discs are pretty crappy as the foal coating likes to flake off. I actually wouldn't mind ones that let you print onto the disc so you can print the artist and album name instead of having to use a Sharpie.

[@C--A]

It's not rocket science 🚀 very easy to do 📀

[@colt5189]

@@C--A Yeah, it's easy to burn a CD. I was asking what burnable CD's he recommends. As I've always just used what they had in the store, and they are crap as they scratch easily and the foil backing likes to flake off. Which can get in the CD player.

[@andrewleonhardt1221]

Quite a glossy answer I must say Paul, and I love the detail that you usually go into. There are many factors here and it's OK to say you don't know how they all affect the final outcome.

[@MollydogRadar]

This is off topic, but I have an old Pioneer SX-1250 that I am having professionally restored for about 800 dollars. I have had this receiver for a very long time and have enjoyed the sound it produces. But it is starting to suffer from bleed-over issues from the tuner section to the tape section. Do you think it is worth the investment, sense a comparable new receiver would cost thousands? Hope to hear from you.

[@budgetaudiophilelife-long5461]

Possibly you will find that a new receiver will give you the benefits of the advances in technology 😊 As well as the added advantage of compatibility of connections😊 Safe to say that 800 $ would easily GIVE YOU a product you would be able to enjoy for many years to come😊 I JUST REPLACED MY RECEIVER AND CAN SEE THE AND HEAR THE NOTICEABLE IMPROVEMENTS😁 I HOPE THIS HELPS YOU😊

[@MollydogRadar]

@@budgetaudiophilelife-long5461 Thank you.

[@kencohagen4967]

Thanks Paul. I was just thinking about this after another video I saw last night. As far as the results of your ripping, sometimes it’s not important to know why it does what it does, sometimes it’s better to know that it does what it does. My wife will always hit me with a why would anyone want to do that, to which I tell her it’s not important, what is important is that some people want to do that. She doesn’t like the idea idea of me wanting to race a car, and I got to that. The same thing with riding a motorcycle, and still I go back to that. Like I’ll never understand why she likes Jazz.but I’ll buy her an album if I know she likes that musician, or a band. I took her to see Dave Brubeck a while back and got seats second row right in front of the man himself. Now I also like Bruebeck, so that wasn’t painful, but when she’s wanted to see other performers I’ll buy her tickets so she can go with our oldest son who also likes Jazzs, and I took our youngest to a rock concert. She understood that I love Boston, and other rock bands so it wasn’t an issue for me!

[@jareknowak8712]

...im truly surprised.

[@cameronvinson]

I remember CD's in late 80's and early 90's byte rate used to be 320kbps, now CD's byte rate is usually 285 kbps or less.

[@marcusfred4480]

Huh? Store bought CD are now, and always have been at 44.1kHz 16-bit. If you convert that to kbps (kilo-bits per second), that equals 1411.2kbps. Now if you want that kilo-bytes per second then it comes to 176.4kBps. When you say 320kbps it sounds like your confusing it with MP3 format, not WAV format.

[@wallylafferty1166]

I did not expect that answer. 🙂

[@1959ludo]

I had a problem the laser system with my Arcam CD player, I played a lots of copies. My dealer told me that those could damage the laser. So I stopped copying and bought the original cds. I must say that I haven’t the best experience with Quality of construction with Arcam player’s. I have an Arcam AVR600 surround receiver and there I have no problems. Greetings Ludi

[@colt5189]

What CD ripping software do you recommend? I rip my CD's and then burn them on another CD and then listen to the ripped CD. Reason is because if it gets scratched or damaged, I can just burn another one while keep my original CD protected. As the newer versions of the CD, they like to remaster them and make them too loud which causes distortion. So I like sticking with the original decades old CD.

[@RobWhittlestone]

Use Exact Audio Copy, EAC. It's free and if the disc is popular, it will ensure a bit-perfect copy by comparing with previously ripped CDs. www.exactaudiocopy.de/ You're welcome! All the best, Rob

[@freibier]

I think the gold standard (and it is also the tool mentioned in the video) is Exact Audio Copy www.exactaudiocopy.de/

[@colt5189]

@@RobWhittlestone Thanks

[@colt5189]

@@freibier Thanks

[@DistroUser]

I haven't burned CD's for some time, but I do recall an audible improvement in sound quality if the recording was decent to begin with. The key to improvement involves burning with a decent application and at a slower speed with quality blank CD's. I always used dBpoweramp Music Converter and have NO complaints! Cheers

[@ufarkingicehole]

Also.. since its binary, the 1s and 0s are all there but the quality of the Disc itself could come into play. It's why a bad analog source results in bad analog recordings.

[@stimpy1226]

Paul, you mentioned a few days ago that your viewers could find the proper software to copy vinyl records to CDs. I checked all of your videos but couldn't find what you were referring to. Would you name some of the software that you recommended prior

[@bikdav]

That's good to know.

[@manardh7387]

When I play dominoes, I get out my reference and use it to space the little things perfectly so the fall will be timed perfectly for all the dominoes.