Just bought a Linn LP12 and it's everything they say it is.

originally posted by scottreiner:
If portability is an issue, you will have to burn the CDs. Buy an iPod Classic and a good bluetooth speaker.
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In the course of researching what Tivoli to buy, it has been gently suggested that, fifteen years into the new century, perhaps it's about time I joined in. Out with the CDs, they say, and in with an iPhone that will bluetooth much-better-than-CD-quality digital music to, say, a compact Tivoli system. In the meantime, the CDs can be uploaded to the iPhone and bluetoothed to the Tivoli as well.

So, at the risk of exceeding my welcome, does that sound about right, in 2015, for the occasional user who is not a fetishist?
 
If you want better than CD quality, you will have to buy it. I don't see the point of the expense and trouble to play it through that kind of system. But I would make a lossless copy of the CD's to play from a phone or computer through such a system.
 
Better-than-CD-quality can only mean 24bit/96khz digital files. I don't know if there is any Apple platform that deals with those, and the debate whether the human ear is even capable of hearing the difference between 16/44 and 24/96 is, let's say, unsettled. Lossless CD rips should do just fine for your purposes either way. But they're not going to reside on your iPhone. (My music drive is about 400GB of data.) The missing link is a system and a control interface that grabs the music from a hard drive, server, or cloud storage and pipes it into your stereo receiver (preferably digitally). At the moment I have two systems: one using a Sonos for this purpose, and another that's just a pair of powered B&W desktop speakers USB-connected straight to a computer, and I just click on what I want to play in the Windows folders.
 
Oooh, this is starting to give me a headache. So much digital flux, when you could just be listening to some nice recycled vinyl.

I have a range of opinions. Ripping a large CD collection in lossless format (which you would definitely want to do) takes time, and opens you up to losing files with hard drive crashes etc. You move into the world of backup hard drives, etc. I would say if Oswaldo doesn't want to go real far, to actually just chill and stay with the CDs. If you really care about this stuff and want to engage at a more audiophile level, yes, rip your CDs, enter the world of HD Tracks etc., buy a DAC, etc. and enter the world of digital audiophilia. But Oswaldo if this all has turned a five minute question into a much deeper thing that you wanted, stick with CDs. Doing the ripping is only worth it if you really want to change up the quality of the audio or if you want to get into headphone listening with a Fiio or something like that. For your wine drinkers at gallery openings, not worth it. And that Tivoli will have an audio in jack so you can always do either your old CDs or just basic non audiophile MP3s bought cheap at Apple.
 
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
originally posted by scottreiner:
If portability is an issue, you will have to burn the CDs. Buy an iPod Classic and a good bluetooth speaker.
Click to expand...

In the course of researching what Tivoli to buy, it has been gently suggested that, fifteen years into the new century, perhaps it's about time I joined in. Out with the CDs, they say, and in with an iPhone that will bluetooth much-better-than-CD-quality digital music to, say, a compact Tivoli system. In the meantime, the CDs can be uploaded to the iPhone and bluetoothed to the Tivoli as well.

So, at the risk of exceeding my welcome, does that sound about right, in 2015, for the occasional user who is not a fetishist?
Click to expand...

A general comment is that you need to match the quality of the digital source with the quality of the system. There are a lot of people paying $20/album at HD Tracks that are using middling audio gear and never hear the benefit. The idea that you can hear a difference between CD or HD Track level high res files on an iPhone is, I'm sorry to say, laughable.
 
The iPhone would only be used to transmit the high res files via bluetooth to the chosen system.

This would be an opportunity to leave the world of CDs (and vinyls) and make the jump to completely non-physical media.

I have no problem with the dematerialization of art, so perhaps I shouldn't with the dematerialization of music sources.

I suppose my question was: is an iPhone as good a repository as any other for both high res files and uploaded CDs, or are some repositories "better" than others, perhaps because thir DACs are better (maybe this doesn't make sense).
 
It may well be that you don't need CD quality sound. Getting the most out of 16/44 requires pretty good gear. But it sounds as though a CD player and an iPod (or something similar) and Tivoli are about right.

I totally agree with BJ about matching the source and the system. There is no reason to deal with all the headaches involved with studio master size files without a pretty big amp and speakers, a DAC, and so forth.
 
There is no benefit to ripping the CD's in terms of sound. It will save space and clutter at the expense of a fair amount of time for a big collection.
 
Durability is also an issue. CDs, unlike LPs or disk drives, often have relatively short shelf lives, especially if they're not carefully stored. Ripping them does offer the possibility of longer-term storage, though that requires diligent backup of your storage medium.

Mark Lipton
 
originally posted by MLipton:
Durability is also an issue. CDs, unlike LPs or disk drives, often have relatively short shelf lives, especially if they're not carefully stored. Ripping them does offer the possibility of longer-term storage, though that requires diligent backup of your storage medium.

Mark Lipton
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When I used to play LPs, they had a very short shelf life. Now I was never that careful with them, but others who were more careful still, like all of us then, took snaps, crackles and pops as the cost f doing business. I'm sure all you guys with very high end vinyl systems, have ways of making them last now, but surely it isn't easier than what one might need to do to maintain CDs. My CD collection has many fewer problems than I had with LPs, and I'm hardly careful.
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
originally posted by MLipton:
Durability is also an issue. CDs, unlike LPs or disk drives, often have relatively short shelf lives, especially if they're not carefully stored. Ripping them does offer the possibility of longer-term storage, though that requires diligent backup of your storage medium.

Mark Lipton
Click to expand...

When I used to play LPs, they had a very short shelf life. Now I was never that careful with them, but others who were more careful still, like all of us then, took snaps, crackles and pops as the cost f doing business. I'm sure all you guys with very high end vinyl systems, have ways of making them last now, but surely it isn't easier than what one might need to do to maintain CDs. My CD collection has many fewer problems than I had with LPs, and I'm hardly careful.
Click to expand...

Just to be clear, both CDs and LPs will be degraded by wear and tear, with LPs the more fragile. However, CDs will experience increasing error rates simply sitting in a warm room for a few years. LPs have a near-infinite shelf life under the same conditions (assuming that they're stored properly and don't warp).

Mark Lipton
 
It takes maybe five minutes a disk to rip a disk at full res. If you have a couple hundred disks, that's a thousand minutes, or around 17 hours. If that sounds like a fun time for you, go for it. Me, if I wasn't an audio geek, it's hard to imagine it being worth it. Maybe for a college student.

Mark, I've got to be honest, I'm dubious about serious degradation of CDs over a meaningful length of time - I have thirty year old disks - what would they lose? I've never heard of this.
 
originally posted by BJ:
It takes maybe five minutes a disk to rip a disk at full res. I you have a couple hundred disks, that's a thousand minutes, or around 17 hours. If that sounds like a fun time for you, go for it. Me, if I wasn't an audio geek, it's hard to imagine it being worth it. Maybe for a college student.

Mark, I've got to be honest, I'm dubious about serious degradation of CDs over a meaningful length of time - I have thirty year old disks - what would they lose? I've never heard of this.
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Brad, not all CDs are created equally. Since CDs have also been used for digital storage, quite a few studies have been conducted on their lifetimes. It depends on the thickness of the aluminum layer and power of the laser used to create them. Unfortunately, without some serious research it's hard to know the production values of the CDs that you own. It's very much the same with LPs, no? Quality of the vinyl, thickness, depth of the grooves, etc.

Mark Lipton
 
Vinyl may degrade gracefully as long as it's never played but it's a physical reality that every time you run a needle over it, it's going to lose something. I am sure this slows down considerably with $10,000 audiophile-grade needles but not to a standstill.

I think we are just beginning to enter the era when CD degradation is going to hit broadly. CD-Rs burned 10-15 years ago are already having serious readability problems ranging from scattered errors to complete toast. Commercial CDs will last longer, but how much longer? Unlike vinyl, they don't degrade on each play but they can't be shelved forever.

Digital is undoubtedly the superior technology but CDs were just an interim thing that only made sense when it was faster to drive to a store and back than to download 600MB.
 
I do agree 100% that moving forward CDs make zero sense - only that the case for ripping existing CDs is dependent on the variables.

Wow that was a nice scientific statement eh?
 
originally posted by BJ:
I do agree 100% that moving forward CDs make zero sense - only that the case for ripping existing CDs is dependent on the variables.

Wow that was a nice scientific statement eh?
Click to expand...

Where can one buy cd quality audio files?
E
 
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