Skip to main content ↑ ↓

Notice

Please note that most of the software linked on this forum is likely to be safe to use. If you are unsure, feel free to ask in the relevant topics, or send a private message to an administrator or moderator. To help curb the problems of false positives, or in the event that you do find actual malware, you can contribute through the article linked here.
Topic: Make an exact copy (Read 15821 times) previous topic - next topic
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Make an exact copy

Reply #50 –
Do you mean that the company in Denmark who specialices in upgrading cd players are a fraud? Their business is taking cheap stationary cd-players and upgrading it with a new clock. Not very expensive but you will get better sound quality. This demands that you allready have nice hi-fi equipment or that all parts are at the same quality level.

I'm pretty sure that the clocks they are using gives you a better sound quality. I'm not that technical and can't give any technical facts but I have listened alot to nice hi-fi equipment and knows what to listen for when it comes to details and total experience.

Or is it so that all clocks give the same sound quality? Doesn't make sence

Make an exact copy

Reply #51 –
I take it that this is meant to reduce clock jitter. Jitter can be audible. Sound quality could indeed be better. But to which degree is it measurable, and where does the placebo effect set in?

Make an exact copy

Reply #52 –
Okay, I'll remember it : 52 posts in 9 hours and 3 minutes !

I won't try to quote, I'll just summarize :

-I get 97 % quality

This is very low ! It usually happens with scratched CDs that EAC tries to read during a very long time, less than 1x speed. With good CDs, the quality is usually 99.9 or 100 %.

-Which CDR to use ?

Use only brands who manufacture their own CDRs. Otherwise you'll never know what you'll get in the next box. At work, the "Niceday" brand we're using switched from Tayo Yuden to a phtalocyanine brand that I didn't pass into CDRIdentifier (I don't have it at work), but that was unburnable ! TDK is also know for melting good and bad bunches.
Mitsui, Verbatim Azo, HiSpace, Ricoh are the brands I can think of at this time, that make their own CDRs.

-The slower the better

It's often the case, but not always. Bler tests by 60 millions de consommateurs have shown some cases of bler decreasing with burning speed increasing, according to the media/burner combination.

-Can't read if burned above 16x

I was about to say that it was also reprted for ripping, therefore depending on the media quality, but I can't find back any reference to it. It was all about car playback.
Nonetheless I think it depends on the resulting quality of the burn.

-Copies sounding better than originals (link)

I read it when black CDRs were introduced : some press release told about improved sound "sometimes better than the original", but without any proof nor even backup.

-Burnproof

It allows the burner to pause the recording if there is a buffer underrun. Avoid it in your tests, this way you'll be sure that your CDRs won't have the so-called "microgaps" caused by the process.

-Offsets

Completely off topic for listening quality : you can assume in your situation that the offset is the position of the track markers. The audio data is unchanged.

-You can copy 1000 times with EAC and have no errors.

I disagree.
Example : You have in average 1 error per CD with an Hitachi GD7500 drive in secure mode. And you can have some write errors too when you burn. There is no secure burn mode, you can only burn in burst mode.
Using oversecure modes, like drive is caching, or no accurate reduces the number of errors (tested on bad Cds with many errors, but still "no errors occured") but doesn't eliminates all of them.

I never managed to get fully secure results with the following drives
Hitachi GD-7500
Memorex DVD maxx 1648
Sony DDU1621
Teac CD ROM 540e

I didn't try the Hitachi with very secure modes, but the three other managed to falsely return "no errors" with "drive caches" (exept the Teac that crashes), non accurate, no C2.

Anyway, C2, when perfectly implemented should still be fooled one time out of 1000 (http://www.digital-inn.de/showthread.php?threadid=12998). The accuracy of reading twice instead of using C2, I have no idea. It is defined by the minimum number of wrong bits a C2 error can leave in the block that EAC rereads. I have no idea of this value.

Make an exact copy

Reply #53 –
CiTay:
There might be some placebo effect but still, better clock gives better sound if you have a low quality clock. I have not upgraded mine yet so I can't tell you the difference in a $450 CD player yet.

Vibrations in any size are one of the biggest enemies when you want the "perfect" sound. Vibrations make the music play in the wrong tempo and other sideffects. That is a known fact. You want as little vibrations as possible. I have tested with my own stereo with and without special feets on my speakers/subwoofer. I won't get in to brands here because it is not af any importance in this question.

The clock circuit is also of importance when you want to play your music cd's in your cd player. Well all the components are of importance but it's easier to start with the obvious ones.

Question:
If vibrations has that big of influence when you play cd's why isn't that a factor when you rip down your cd's to the hard drive. Isn't ripping in fact also reading the cd or am I mistaken here?

Also the sledge mechanism is of big importance, shouldn't that also be a factor when you rip down your cd's? Perhaps also when you burn.

Well I hope to get som good answers with some good fact background on this. I'm really curious how the ripping progress differs from playing the CD in your ordinary cd player.

My opinion right now is this:
1. Ripping: I still don't know if the CD-ROM can rip the audio and keep the quality
without any influence from riping speed and vibrations.

2. I think burning speed has some influence but I don't know how much.

3. Media has to be of some importance. I think every one in this forum agree.

I just want to know, is it possible to make a perfect audio copy with consumer products.

Make an exact copy

Reply #54 –
After some prelistening, no part of the main test, I got some static noise in the beginning of track 1 on the disc which was burned at 16X. The other two discs was burned at 4X and has no static noise in the beginning of the same track. I compared the discs which was burned frome the same wavs.

I don't want to say to much since this is not the test I'm planning to perform later on. But som interesting info in the ongoing discussion.

Make an exact copy

Reply #55 –
Quote
Originally posted by muppfarmor
If vibrations has that big of influence when you play cd's why isn't that a factor when you rip down your cd's to the hard drive. Isn't ripping in fact also reading the cd or am I mistaken here?


You should read the article about jitter at www.digido.com, and the comments in the FAQ. I'm sure you will be interested.
Here's a quote of Digido's FAQ (by Bob Katz), that answers your question :

Quote
IDE and SCSI interfaces are unclocked interfaces which pass data asynchronously. As such, "jitter" is meaningless, because there is no clock! Data is passed completely irregularly over these interfaces and jitter at these interfaces is enormous. Sometimes it comes in bursts at 2 to 8 times speed, then there are periods of silence where there is nothing. It's a "pass me data on demand" type of interface.

Then, the data goes to a new storage device, and that's that. The data stored on the new storage device (the hard disc) has no jitter. That's right. Jitter is only a question when it is introduced during the playback when a clock comes into play again. And in the case of SCSI, the hard disc system doesn't operate in a clocked manner related to the digital audio rate at all, so even on playback, you get the same "burst" situation as in the first paragraph.

So, how does this affect your audio? Not at all. The date remains identical. It has been stripped of its clock and has no memory of how many "clocks" it has passed through during the hundreds of copies previous.

Make an exact copy

Reply #56 –
Pio2001:

If the clock isn't used when ripping or burning I can believe there is a possibility of making a very exact copy of an audio disc

Make an exact copy

Reply #57 –
Quote
Originally posted by Pio2001
-Burnproof

It allows the burner to pause the recording if there is a buffer underrun. Avoid it in your tests, this way you'll be sure that your CDRs won't have the so-called "microgaps" caused by the process.

I disagree here. It was measured that the resulting gap is within the Red Book specification. With newer burners which have newer versions of Burnproof IIRC it is about 10 times smaller.

Make an exact copy

Reply #58 –
Quote
Originally posted by theduke

I disagree here. It was measured that the resulting gap is within the Red Book specification. With newer burners which have newer versions of Burnproof IIRC it is about 10 times smaller.


That's what I had read somewhere too, but I was hoping somebody with better experience will point that out. I think it was around the 100 micrometers the maximum gap between writes in the specs, and the first versions of Bunrproof/Justlink were around 40-50, but later versions brought it to around 10 or lower... Not sure about the units, though

Make an exact copy

Reply #59 –
Quote
Originally posted by muppfarmor
I want to conduct a test to see if it's possible to rip and burn an exact copy of one of my cd's at home. To do this I would like to know the following:

Q 1: Is EAC the best program for ripping the music to my hard drive?

Q 2: Which program should be used for burning? Any special settings?

Q 3: Which brand of CD-r discs is recommended?

a1: yes, especially if your drive doesn't perform digital audio extraction very well with other audio grabbers. also, if your CDs are scratched, EAC's advanced error correction algorithm may still be able to get a perfect rip

a2: there are no quick rules here as the drive and media can play a big role in the final result. for burning audio CDs, i recommend wavelab or CD architect. speed: 2x

a3: either taiyo yuden or kodak gold or gold/silver media would be my recommendation. unfortunately, kodak made a quick exit of the CD-R media market a few months ago, so for me its kodak while supplies last and after that i'll probably use taiyo yuden discs

what i outlined to you is basically what mastering studios are doing to prepare a master: use high quality CD-R drive, high quality CD-R media, professional audio burning software is preferred (for maximum flexibility arranging the content of the CD), burning speed: 2x, stick to redbook standards (i.e. 80 minute CDs might not play very well in older CD players -- its a good idea to conform to 74 minutes), dont do anything in the background during the CD writing process, and hopefully all should be ok

Be healthy, be kind, grow rich and prosper

Make an exact copy

Reply #60 –
Quote
Originally posted by muppfarmor
If the clock isn't used when ripping or burning I can believe there is a possibility of making a very exact copy of an audio disc


Copying all bits in a given range from an audio Cd to another without any error is an easy task with EAC, its CRC checking, and its compare wav function.

Wether the resulting copy has the same sound is very controversial.
Some say yes,
Some say no
Some say it depends on the CD player.

But in many cases, it was carefully checked that all the data was the same, bit for bit, on the original and the copy, even on CDRs supposed to sound differently.

You just have to keep the wav extracted from the original and compare it to the wav extracted from the copy. If the process was error free, and it's often the case, there will be no difference, exept offset. It means that the burning of the copy and it's reading were error free.

Make an exact copy

Reply #61 –
outscape:

Thanks for your answers  Some of the differs a little from what I have heard before. I have already burned three discs using EAC for ripping, Feurio for burning on Fuji 80 min discs. I think I will burn on 74 min discs instead. Feurio warned me about 80 min discs.

Those burning programs you mentioned, are they better than Feurio or can I continue using Feurio?

I've heard that media doesn't make any difference as long as you don't use crap media with no name.

What do you think?

Make an exact copy

Reply #62 –
I'm veru excited about this test since I'm an audiophile and I'm very skeptical about burning copies and still keep the high sound quality. But after reading this forum I'm getting high hopes of being able to make an almost perfect copy.

I will publish my test and the result of it. The stereo system that will be used for listening is of high quality. I will also publish exactly which components the stereo is built with.

Make an exact copy

Reply #63 –
I'm also quite interested in the results.

Don't forget to report the drive used for extraction, EAC settings, burner used, media used, speed(s), etc.

According to the articles previously mentioned, seems that is a better bet to stay away from "certified" 32x media, and go for maximum 24x certified media, since latest batches of 32x media were seriously defective.

My humble expectations are that burning speed will not matter as long as Burnproof is turned on, that the quality that you will obtain will be as good as the original if you use a CD Player prepared to deal with CD-R's.

But my knowledge is not high enough to back this expectations with undeniable facts or astonishing paragraphs

Question: Has anybody heard anything of the slightly different laser beam spectrum (or something like that  ) the CD Player has to support to properly read CD-R's?

Make an exact copy

Reply #64 –
My intent is to publish as much facts as possible. I will also include the tracks listened to, which release and so on. Me and my brother will listen while my girlfriend will change discs without telling us which disc is playing. We will try to describe if we can here any difference but also the sound character and quality.

All this will be described in a document that will be attached with that specific entry.

As mentioned before, burning at 16X gave me some static click sounds in the beginning of the disc. Why it appeared I still don't know. The other two discs burned at 4X didn't have the static click sounds in the beginning.

Well well, all facts will be published later on. I'm just wating for my brother to be back from Italy and his vacation ... that lucky son of a ....

Make an exact copy

Reply #65 –
Quote
Originally posted by Kblood
Has anybody heard anything of the slightly different laser beam spectrum (or something like that  ) the CD Player has to support to properly read CD-R's?


I've read that CDRs reflectivity was lower than pressed CD's. I don't remember, but I think it was outside original Red Book specifications.

For my part, I expect, as well as Annuka, the results to depend on the Cd Player used.
I think a good modern CD Player won't play a different sound from originals or copies, while a very old (<1990) or crappy one (car player, portable layer) could sound different on different kinds of CDRs.
Early tests bragged that Mitsui were the best sounding CDRs. It may have been a placebo effect due to the fact that they are the lighter CDRs manufactured (the photodetector isn't supposed to see the same lightness in the infrared than our eye in the visible range).

Another fact : my Memorex DVDmaxx 1648, secure mode accurate no cache with C2, rips at different speeds from CD to CDs. It is very sensitive to scratches or dying CDRs.
It reads old pressed CDs from 6 to 12 (?) x
It reads new pressed  CDs from 16 to 28 x
It reads Memorex black CDR burned at 16x from 6 to 14x
It reads HiSpace Gold CDR burned at 24x from 18 to 28x (starting faster than pressed CDs)

I think it means that the HiSpace I burn have less bler (error rate) than pressed CDs for this drive. An example of copy being "better" than the original (and at 24x).
But this has nothing to do with sound.

Make an exact copy

Reply #66 –
Quote
Originally posted by muppfarmor
Those burning programs you mentioned, are they better than Feurio or can I continue using Feurio?

I've heard that media doesn't make any difference as long as you don't use crap media with no name.

What do you think?

yes, those burning programs are better than feurio!

in wavelab, for example, you can create an audio CD in a "part" of the program called audio montage. it has non-destructive editing and normalizing and multi-tracking capabilities. it really gives you maximum flexibility over the content of the CD, and no other programs (i.e. nero, feurio!, easy CD creator, etc.) have all the high quality algorithms wavelab uses

about the media part, i certainly dont agree that it doesn't make any difference unless u use "no name" brands. take BASF for example. BASF is a very well-known established company -- "we make a lot of the products you buy better" remember? you'd think that you are getting a high quality product, but this is not the case here. BASF media is made by CMC magnetics, one of the worst low quality ********* CD-R media available on the market. there are other well-known companies who do the same thing -- they market a low quality product hoping their name on the label will sell the product
Be healthy, be kind, grow rich and prosper

Make an exact copy

Reply #67 –
outscape:

So which media should I burn on? So far I have used Fuji 24X 700 mb discs and they sound pretty good. But I haven't hade the chance to listen to them on a really good hi-fi system. I don't consider my Philips DVD 960 as a good audio disc player. My brother has a good cd that's only a couple of years old. It's a Sugden and it's very good.

But why would I need advance algorithms for just burning the wavs on a disc? I'm not going to modify the wavs, just burn them. How can they be better than Feurio?

Make an exact copy

Reply #68 –
outscape:

I read somewhere in this forum that you should burn at the lowest speed that the burning program let you burn at. In my case 4X. Should I force it to burn at 2X? I mean, 4X is pretty slow anyway.

Make an exact copy

Reply #69 –
I maintain my answers of 07-17-2002 03:26 AM above, precised by theduke 5 posts below. Of course, anyone else is welcome to give other advices.

Searching for this post, I reread your account for clicks at the beginning of 16x burned CDs.
I think it means that the burning quality was very bad. You'll be safe either burning slower, either using better CDRs.

Make an exact copy

Reply #70 –
Pio2001:

I listened at the 16X cd at home and couldn't here the static click sounds. I don't know why. The 16X burn was only for testing if sound quality would be lower or the same. I still don't know if 16X burn speed will result in lower sound quality.

Make an exact copy

Reply #71 –
Quote
I listened at the 16X cd at home and couldn't here the static click sounds. I don't know why.


Some (old) cd-players and cd-roms have problems like this. Some old cd-players also doesn't read 80 min cd's.

Make an exact copy

Reply #72 –
Pri3st:

My CD-ROM is 2.5 years old and my DVD is only 1.5 years old. But these pre test results is of no importance. The final test will be held on a different system.

Make an exact copy

Reply #73 –
Quote
Originally posted by muppfarmor

I read somewhere in this forum that you should burn at the lowest speed that the burning program let you burn at. In my case 4X. Should I force it to burn at 2X? I mean, 4X is pretty slow anyway.


According to the original article with the 12x tests, this shouldn't be necessary. However, in the other article i linked to, they bring up another interesting point: http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/Articles/S...uality&index=19

Make an exact copy

Reply #74 –
Quote
Originally posted by outscape
one of the worst low quality ********* CD-R media available on the market.


Please, don't call any brand names. It seems it's becoming an easy way to earn money by suing webmasters for defamation : http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/showth...=&threadid=2366