Couple of cd queries, model numbers later
 

On Wed, 20 Jan 2016 12:29:49 +0000, Bob Latham wrote:

In article ,
Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

It's not going to be as fast to get up and running as a CD player -
from switch on. Or you leave it running permanently?

My Music is stored on a Synology NAS which goes to sleep when not in use
and spins down the drive(s). Startup is not instantaneous if the NAS was
asleep but plays music after about 20 seconds. The NAS is configured to
go to sleep if it is not accessed for more than 20 minutes.

Ouch! or Yikes! How often do you upgrade or swap out failing disk
drives, I wonder?


Have you ripped the CDs raw - or used MP3 etc? Big difference in the
storage needed.

Even back in the day when a 500GB drive was considered a monster size, I
never bothered deleting the original wav rips. I even created 160Kbps mp3s
in addition for 'ease of use' and 'portability'. In this day and age when
you can add half a dozen Terabytes to your desktop one drive at a time,
storing your audio CD rips as 44.1 Kilo samples per second 16 bit LPCM
wave files is no longer a strain on a typical desktop's or NAS box's
storage capacity unlike how things were when I first started digitising
my modest vinyl and not so modest reel to reel tape collection almost two
decades ago.


I have ripped all of my discs to flac. To be honest, I can't imagine why
anyone would decide to use anything else, it is the obvious sensible
choice. It enables all the important tag information and is lossless
and open standard and compressed, what more could you want.

Agreed! :-)


Many computer based systems have less than perfect analogue outputs.

Possibly.

My first player was a "Sonos Connect" which has analogue (fixed and
variable) and digital (spdif) outputs. I wasn't expecting much from the
analogue output and so from the start I used the digital output into my
AV amplifier.

If you rip your music to flac and then play it back using the digital
output from a Sonos Connect, the output has been proved independently to
be bit perfect and identical to the digital output from a CD player.

You can then play around with different dacs if you so wish or buy a
product that has a better dac inside it in the first place.

Thus rendering the issue of 'less than perfect playback' moot. What
slight imperfections there may be in lesser sound chips used on more
recent hardware over the past decade, are way below what we used to
accept for the priviledge of easy listening via a transistor radio or
portable ghetto-blaster or a Walkman cassette tape player.


I've been using home network streaming now for 3 or 4 years and would
not go back to CDs. I have all of my music anywhere in the house at
any time, with no discs cluttering up the place and needing storage
space.
Biggest step forward in practical home music ever, IMHO.


If you *maintain* an archival backup of your digitised/digital music
collection, you can address the unknown durability of factory pressed
music CDs without breaking into a sweat.

--
Johnny B Good

Couple of cd queries, model numbers later
 

On Wed, 20 Jan 2016 13:52:06 +0000, Jim Lesurf wrote:

In article , Bob Latham
wrote:

I've been using home network streaming now for 3 or 4 years and would
not go back to CDs. I have all of my music anywhere in the house at
anytime with no discs cluttering up the place and needing storage
space.
Biggest step forward in practical home music ever, IMHO.

I can play a CD and hear it via the same sound systems I can use to play
files from a NAS. So have the choice. I keep the CDs I've ripped:

A) Just in case I need them again because I've lost the rips and their
backups.

B) Copyright. It seems fair enough to me to use a ripped copy for
convenience *provided* I don't sell or give away the source CDs. Doing
than and keeping the rips would be piracy in my view.

Similarly, I keep the LPs I've made files from.

It does save some space as I can forgo things like the CD cases. But
still have to store the CDs and LPs somewhere safe from damage.

Very good point regarding the issue of copyright. I think 'chucking' the
original media and accompanying 'materials' is just a step too far when
transposing the content to alternative storage formats.

Presumably, you've taken the sensible step of keeping the CDs themselves
isolated from the potentially damaging printed 'inserts' to minimise the
risk of corrosion damage to the aluminium film reflective layer from
sulphurous compound residues in the bleached paper used for the printed
covers. I would think that, for best archival storage of optical media,
the use of a special positively pressurised container filled with dry
nitrogen gas would be called for.

Vinyl, I suspect might be better stored in a distilled water container
to minimise the physical distortion effects due to gravity. More
practically, the usual "Bookcase" form of storage where they're stood
upright on edge to achieve the same result seems to be an effective
solution, with no worries over whatever sulphurous compounds might happen
to lurk within their cover sleeves.

The point is, "Never ever burn your boats".

--
Johnny B Good

Couple of cd queries, model numbers later
 

In article , Johnny B Good
wrote:
Vinyl, I suspect might be better stored in a distilled water container
to minimise the physical distortion effects due to gravity. More
practically, the usual "Bookcase" form of storage where they're stood
upright on edge to achieve the same result seems to be an effective
solution, with no worries over whatever sulphurous compounds might
happen to lurk within their cover sleeves.

I keep most LPs stored in one of the 'window seat' type cabinets. This is
just big enough to take hundreds of them with their spines upwards. Full
enough that they are held veritical and flat.

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

Couple of cd queries, model numbers later
 

In article , Bob Latham
wrote:

I can play a CD and hear it via the same sound systems I can use to
play files from a NAS. So have the choice.

OK, but if you had ripped all of your CDs surely there would be no
reason or advantage in playing the CD, it would just be extra effort to
find the CD and put it away afterwards.

Swings and roundabouts. It also takes time to find something when stored as
a file on a NAS.

However the basic problems for me are as I said: That actually ripping CDs
and LPs takes a lot of time when you have many of them. The LPs get
priority because they also benefit from being de-clicked and can't be
played 'anywhere' as an LP. But take a lot of time because of the real-time
analogue-to-digital caputre, then de-clicking, and pest of scanning the
covers, etc. I do occasional batches of CDs, but the LPs take ages per disc
to get good results.

Some seconf-hand LPs (Jazz mainly) I bought are of particular interest, and
are a particular challenge. e,g, a Basie double LP. First had to be
recorded as 96k/24. Then declicked (hours of work over more than one day).
Then I scanned the gatefold cover and labels yesterday. (20 mins). Sometime
today I hope to carefully stitch together the A4 scans of parts of the 12 x
24 " gatefold sides. Again, takes ages.


On New Years day the BBC website carried a piece about Rachmaninov. In
the article it talked about several works that I knew well but one I
didn't, the Cello Sonata in G minor. I played the video on the BBC
website and decided I wanted it in my library.

I went to Presto classical, found a vesrion, listened to an excerpt,
purchased it and had it on my NAS in 20 minutes in CD quality flac.


I did for a while buy some high rez flac files from a certain well known
website. The purchases were backed up with a promise that, having bought,
they would always allow you to re-download the same files in future as
protection against you having lost your copy.

A few months later they had to stop offerring many labels. I guess the
rights had been bought up by someone else. From then on the ability to
re-fetch the already-purchased items evaporated.

So the moral is to ensure you keep your own backups. You can trust
commercial companies. And I include 'cloud' storage in that.


Absolutely wonderful, yet another way streaming makes playing CDs look
like gas light compared to electric. But the only proof of purchase I
have is an email, what happens if that goes missing? But then again,
having the CD doesn't prove you didn't steel it.

A few days ago I ordered copies of the Complete Brendel recordings on
Philips (114 DCs) and an Ellington Box (10 CDs) because they contain great
music and came out at about 1.50 per disc. Downloading them would have
eaten up my data bandwidth for the month, and probably cost more. And I'll
have the discs even if/when the retailer goes bust. 8-]

Interesting to see your "gas light" comment. IIRC Karajan said something
similar about analogue recordings and LPs... ;-

The bottom line is, each to what they prefer.

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

Couple of cd queries, model numbers later
 

In article ,
Bob Latham wrote:
In article ,
Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Bob Latham wrote:
In article ,
Jim Lesurf wrote:

Whereas putting a CD into a CD player isn't exactly a difficult task.

But you can't flit around your entire record collection at will without
getting out of your comfy chair or even out of bed if you're ill. You
can't make a play list for future use or allow for someone playing a
different part of the same recording somewhere else in the house at the
same time.

I appreciate that you may not wish to do those things but CDs can't do
them streaming can.

I'm not sure I want to 'flit' round my entire collection anyway.
Generally decide what I want to listen to. Rather than have it as
background music. I've got the radio for that.

That's fine, whatever floats your boat. I can't really see why you've
bothered to make the comment to be honest, seems like being negative for
the sake of it.

It's negative only in that you are recommending spending a deal of money
and time ripping every single CD (and perhaps LPs) to a computer based
system. If I wanted to listen to 'my' music via every computer here, I'd
have done it ages ago. But I don't.

More fun looking for a particular CD and perhaps coming across a
different one. And same as LPs, the picture on the case can be very
evocative.

What makes you think you can't browse the album covers in exactly the
same way with a streaming system but also have search / database
facilities to find music by Artist, Track title, Album title etc. ?

You've scanned in every single album cover too? And all the notes, etc?

With the possible exception of having the sleeve notes booklet in your
hand and an initial 20 seconds delay before music starts (whilst the
drive spins up), there is nothing I can think of where streaming isn't
better. You don't even need to put the discs away afterwards.

Some may like the 'event' of choosing and listening to music. And
everything that goes with it.

Someone in your household may decide they would like to have a 70s
evening and queue up all their 70s albums to play one after another or
Beethoven symphonies come to that. Then in either case there may be a
track you don't particularly like so you delete that from the queue, or
maybe change the track order - all easy with streaming without leaving
your seat.

If that were needed I'd simply drop them all onto the 360 which anyone can
use easily. ;-)

OK you may not wish to do any of those things but it isn't a negative
that you can.

The negative here is the amount of time needed to do it all. And cost too.

--
*Velcro - what a rip off!*

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

Couple of cd queries, model numbers later
 

In message , "Dave Plowman (News)"
writes

I'm not sure I want to 'flit' round my entire collection anyway. Generally
decide what I want to listen to. Rather than have it as background music.
I've got the radio for that.

Interesting comment and yes, I like to listen to complete albums at
times, rather than random tracks. Having said that, I have copied
countless albums to a player (Brennan JB7) which allows me to play
random tracks, and random tracks often inspire me to then listen to the
complete album which I may not have played or thought about for many
years.
--
Graeme

Couple of cd queries, model numbers later
 

In article ,
Bob Latham wrote:
If that were needed I'd simply drop them all onto the 360 which anyone
can use easily. ;-)

360?

360 Systems Short Cut. Basically a 'tape recorder' which uses an HD. But
allows software editing rather than a razor blade. Transport controls are
proper buttons you press. ;-)

--
*How can I miss you if you won't go away?

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

Couple of cd queries, model numbers later
 

On 20/01/2016 13:43, Jim Lesurf wrote:
The LPs take even longer to sort out! Clicks to remove from the worse
cases, and scanning 12" square covers is a real PITA. Requires a session
with GIMP to paste the scans together as I only have an A4 scanner.

I just take a digital photo and crop it appropriately, much easier than
scanning.

--
Graeme Wall
This account not read.

Couple of cd queries, model numbers later
 

In article , Graeme Wall
wrote:
On 20/01/2016 13:43, Jim Lesurf wrote:
The LPs take even longer to sort out! Clicks to remove from the worse
cases, and scanning 12" square covers is a real PITA. Requires a
session with GIMP to paste the scans together as I only have an A4
scanner.

I just take a digital photo and crop it appropriately, much easier than
scanning.

Tried that a number of times with three different cameras over the years.
Always came out lacking detail, not correctly square linear geometry, and
worse lit. Took so much faffing about that using the scanner was quicker
and easier. These days I do 300 dpi scans and twiddle them together with
GIMP.

So in my case, yes, might be quicker to just take a photo... *if* I was
happy with what the results looked like. Which, alas, I didn't.

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

Couple of cd queries, model numbers later
 

On Thu, 21 Jan 2016 06:17:48 +0000, Bob Latham wrote:

In article ,
Johnny B Good wrote:

Ouch! or Yikes! How often do you upgrade or swap out failing disk
drives, I wonder?

I have 3 NAS boxes, one of them off site. The oldest is from 2010 and
none of them has ever given any indication of a problem with their hard
drive. Rightly or wrongly I use Western Digital REDS.

Rightly, imo, provided you've addressed the 8 second head unload timeout
issue (which the lack of failure of the oldest drive could imply except I
don't know whether this is simply because you're only spinning them for
just a few hours per day).

As long as you steer clear of the Seagate rubbish, you shouldn't suffer
too many problems especially if you check the SMART stats every other
week or so and don't *just* rely on smartmonctrl sending you an email
about imminent failure. :-)


If you *maintain* an archival backup of your digitised/digital music
collection, you can address the unknown durability of factory pressed
music CDs without breaking into a sweat.

Oh yes I have more than 1 complete backup.

I'm pretty certain the 30 odd GB's worth of audio material is triplicated
across disks. It's the multimedia (movie files and freeview recordings)
that aren't so protected but I'm prepared to accept such data losses
since they're not quite as important as all that compared to the audio
and other, less bulky vital records.

Even so, I care enough to minimise the risk of premature failure of the
drives by *not* subjecting them to spin down power saving. I regard the
extra 20 odd quid a year on the electricity bill this costs me as a form
of 'insurance'.

--
Johnny B Good