[linux-audio-user] bit depth, CDs, and players

I've been following the "Companies Refusing to Release/Permit Linux Driver" and bit depth discussion. Some very good stuff there, only hoping that it all gets filed away on the archives and we can refer people to there next time.

I wanted to bring up something else here, not about recording, but playback.

We have some pretty decent CD players(the stand alone stereo component type) that I got used to listening to the CD collection around here on. A while back I started to notice how much better CDs sounded when played on my computer. We use audiophile 2496 sound cards around here in our desktop computers, and because of that we need to play a CD by ripping directly to digital and piping it to the sound card(the audiophile 2496 dosen't have analog inputs that connect to internal CD players on the computer).

Here's a few things we've noticed and have done:

Playing a CD the way explained above with the computer sounds so much better then any stand alone CD player, using the same speakers(Mackie HR824 in this case).

We decided to rip all of our CDs as loss-less flac and stick them on a couple of cobbled together externel firewire hard drives attached to a small EPIA-M computer.

We also bought a couple of "Slimserver Squeezeboxs" and set the little computer up to server files on the local network. The squeeze boxen come close to sounding as good as the audiophiles and they can be controlled by remote or just logging into the server from any computer on the local net.

Here's where it gets interesting; as we went about ripping the CD collection we noticed a lot of degregation of some of the older CDs. We managed to get good copies off of most of them, but it really hit home about how older audio CDs can and will fall apart after many years. Most of the problems were with the pressed(top side) of the CD delaminating from the plastic disk. On the ones we had problems with we could see slight variations in the troubled areas when held up to a light. We also had a couple of CDs where holes had developed through the top layer(these we couldn't copy/salvage).

Now I'm starting to understand the content providers(ok, so they're just expensive middle men/parasites) a little more. When we had records they would wear out and we'd have to buy new ones if we wanted good sound. Now it seems that the CDs are wearing out and we may have to go buy new(or used good ones) to replace them. All along the record companies have been complaining about folks coping(making good archives so we don't have to re-buy thier songs). In the near future they want to lock down our ability to make archived copies all together with DRM and the new hi-def CD/DVD. Now, I kind of wonder if these new disks will have some kind of planned obsolescense(sp) also? Since the buying public won't put up with "pay per play", the record companies need to find a new way to keep us rebuying thier music?

Ok, so that turned into a bit of a rant.

Tracey.
Received on Mon Feb 27 12:15:06 2006