Digital Audio for Dummies


As I have stated before, I'm a bit of an audio dinosaur.  I love simple.  I love reliable.  I love a high performance/price ratio.  So no surprise I'm still happily spinning discs.  Give me a nice CD player direct to an integrated and I'm good to go.

But it is 2018.  Reading on this forum about the demise of Oppo was a bit of a wake up call. Also the Lyngdorf 2170 has inspired me.  An elegant all in one box product that is ready to connect with many of the digital options now available.  So I'd like to get educated on what's out there and what you suggest.  Basically I would want to know about ripping all my CD's--exactly how that is done.  Dedicated audio computer?  How big of a hard drive/other considerations?  Wired vs. wireless.  And then what streaming services are out there?  Cost, quality, ease of use?

PLEASE keep things simple and don't assume the reader knows, for example, what Roon is.  I've seen it mentioned, but would want to know exactly what this does, how it functions, etc.

THANKS!
corelli
Not an expert but here's my thoughts on the best way to capture audio from a CD.

1st - when you put a CD into a computer, in the default setting the computer "knows" it's an audio CD and will choose to ignore any errors in the data stream it encounters.  It does this because there's less strain on the computers processing and the assumption is you're playing music not processing payroll checks so errors in the data can be tolerated.

You can change that default by going into the properties settings for the device.  This is true for both Macs and PCs.

When you make that change, the computer will treat the disc as though it holds data.  When it reads (rereads if necessary) the disc it performs additional steps to ensure all of the bits are read and stored correctly.  I've used this feature when ripping discs that had skips ... and if the disc is not too badly damaged, the CD player was able to recover the data and hence the digital copy had no problems playing.

Bottom line if you set your CD reader to treat the disc as data and not music you will end up with a perfect bit for bit copy.

Beyond that you need to determine the quality of the stored copy.  I choose FLAC because disc storage is cheap and FLAC is also a perfect copy.  If the size worries you, 320K recordings are quite good.  It's not too much of an issue what format/quality you choose as any decent receiver or pre/pro will have the appropriate codecs/software/hardware to decode the format.

This is not to be confused with the quality of the DAC which most definitely can make a difference in the sound.

Although I'm sure some will disagree, I find using the method above with a good fileserver (in my case Synology) is an excellent way to capture and store high quality music at minimal cost since virtually any CD reader will be able to capture the CD bit stream perfectly.

This does not apply to how the Oppo handles video.  Their upscaler is top notch.  My post only applies to audio.
Thanks myoungva.  You clearly answered one of the questions I had on capturing bit perfect data via an inexpensive CD drive.  Excellent concise info.
I just ripped my collection this past fall to a Musicvault by Sound Science- it was painless (though time consuming)- the machine did all the work and Neal was always available to help- and it automatically backed itself - in fact I have added several cds since the original ripping months- all were done quickly and backup -

corelli, while there are many good replies and suggestions to your post, I will recommend one thing, find a dealer(if you do not already have one near by)that you feel you can trust and has some options for you on the digital end of things.

Go and discuss what you want out of your system, how it will be used, and have some demonstrations of the equipment, interface etc. Make sure it is simple and useable by you and that the sound quality too will meet your expectations.

There are so many ways to skin the cat, but in the end, it has to fit you and your budget, not to mention work the way you want it to, and a good dealer should be able to provide the assistance you need! FWIW

Been there, was that guy a year or so ago...lol

Bluesound vault 2 gets my vote, bought one over a year ago and have never looked back or felt the desire to upgrade, bonus is that you need to know absolutely NOTHING about computers to use it!

As soon as I connected it to my internet cable it found my network and connected right away so I can view and access all of the ripped music on it from my pc or laptop as well. Majority of cds went and ripped with all cover art etc, a few very old obscure ones I had to use the pc to fix the metadata with an aftermarket program but even that was easy peasy.

One of the best aspects of the Vault is you can stream countless internet radio stations and paid streaming like Tidal, Spotify, Deezer etc.

I output by digital coax to my Lyngdorf 2170 as it gives me better sq than the single ended analog outputs. I also output by toslink to another system in another room so can play Tidal or my ripped cd collection on another system entirely. I use my android phone to control everything including Tidal, Bluos regularly updates both the droid software and the Vault gets regular updates over the network.

One very satisfied customer, I paid exactly $1000 for mine as an open box item. Buy a quality digital cable to use for the output and reap even bigger benefits