Amazon CDs Which Are Actually CDRs

[JSngry]

"files"?

That's what they are, files.

[JSngry]

Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think you can "make" files sound "improved" . That would mean editing them.

Playback chain, tweak away. But source material stays the same, always.

[Stompin at the Savoy]

All the audio on cd's started out as, well, audio files.  They did not come from another cd.  They either came from converting analog tape or disk to digital or were recorded directly to digital files. The resulting raw files are mastered and then a cd master is created. 

There is nothing special about cds.  They are a storage medium for digital files.  The bytes of data stored on them are not different from bytes of data stored on a hard drive, memory stick, etc.  Many of us oldsters are used to files stored on cd and have better equipment to handle cds than files on other media but there is no inherent advantage to cds besides the existing stock of equipment to play them.  In fact, hi-res downloads are actually superior (more detailed) to what can be contained on a cd, which is limited to 16 bits.  (Whether these old ears can actually detect the difference is another question).

To get back to the original topic, I don't have much of a problem with CD-R.  They are cds with a slightly different creation process.  To me they are just another container for digital data.  There are reports that the quality is inferior to a regular cd or that they won't last as long as a cd.  Since I usually only play cds once while I copy the files somewhere else, this is not a big concern as long as the cd is not defective and plays ok.  When you copy a digital file from one place to another, including onto a cd, there is a lot of verification and checksum procedure to determine that each group of bytes that was just transferred matches the source.  So if the copy gets a good return code it is pretty much guaranteed to be accurate.  You can lose data after that if the cd is physically damaged, scratched etc. 

Should Amazon notify customers when they are going to get a CD-R instead of a CD?  Yes.

Edited May 22 by Stompin at the Savoy

[jazzbo]

I'm not saying anything is special about discs, cd or otherwise, but not everything is "bit perfect" in some systems, and means of playback differ and one can perceive one as better in differing degrees. I have an SACD transport (yes, I think SACD is the best digital I've heard, higher res than Redbook), a turntable, a phono preamp and a DAC that sounds better to me than a PC playing back files or a streamer in my system and I don't use those as a result.

Enjoy what you enjoy! If they sounded better to me and I didn't have to buy more equipment to make them sound better I'd invest more time and money. But I'm not going to. 

 

Edited May 22 by jazzbo

[Stompin at the Savoy]

15 minutes ago, jazzbo said:

I'm not saying anything is special about discs, cd or otherwise, but not everything is "bit perfect" in some systems, and means of playback differ and one can perceive one as better in differing degrees. I have an SACD transport (yes, I think SACD is the best digital I've heard, higher res than Redbook), a turntable, a phono preamp and a DAC that sounds better to me than a PC playing back files or a streamer in my system and I don't use those as a result.

Enjoy what you enjoy! If they sounded better to me and I didn't have to buy more equipment to make them sound better I'd invest more time and money. But I'm not going to. 

 

That does sound pretty great!  SACD, of course, is not a CD.  It's a different medium which offers very hi res files.

[jazzbo]

4 minutes ago, Stompin at the Savoy said:

That does sound pretty great!  SACD, of course, is not a CD.  It's a different medium which offers very hi res files.

Um yes, I'm very aware. I have about 500 of them. DSD is the medium which I prefer to PCM hi-res. My SACD transport will send raw DSD to my DAC and also my DAC changes Redbook to DSD before analog conversion (via transformer).

As for CDRs they don't upset me. I don't seek them out, but if I get one I just shrug. (I'll add that many Chronogical Classics sold by amazon are CDR, but are generally marked as such). I've been dealing with CDRs for about 35 years or so I think. I've had a few go bad, most of those had labels adhered to the top, and others were from one particular brand (Kodak) that I thought was good but wasn't.

Edited May 22 by jazzbo

[AllenLowe]

2 hours ago, Stompin at the Savoy said:

All the audio on cd's started out as, well, audio files.  They did not come from another cd.  They either came from converting analog tape or disk to digital or were recorded directly to digital files. The resulting raw files are mastered and then a cd master is created. 

There is nothing special about cds.  They are a storage medium for digital files.  The bytes of data stored on them are not different from bytes of data stored on a hard drive, memory stick, etc.  Many of us oldsters are used to files stored on cd and have better equipment to handle cds than files on other media but there is no inherent advantage to cds besides the existing stock of equipment to play them.  In fact, hi-res downloads are actually superior (more detailed) to what can be contained on a cd, which is limited to 16 bits.  (Whether these old ears can actually detect the difference is another question).

To get back to the original topic, I don't have much of a problem with CD-R.  They are cds with a slightly different creation process.  To me they are just another container for digital data.  There are reports that the quality is inferior to a regular cd or that they won't last as long as a cd.  Since I usually only play cds once while I copy the files somewhere else, this is not a big concern as long as the cd is not defective and plays ok.  When you copy a digital file from one place to another, including onto a cd, there is a lot of verification and checksum procedure to determine that each group of bytes that was just transferred matches the source.  So if the copy gets a good return code it is pretty much guaranteed to be accurate.  You can lose data after that if the cd is physically damaged, scratched etc. 

Should Amazon notify customers when they are going to get a CD-R instead of a CD?  Yes.

I return any CDR that is sold to me as a CD - I also do this on Discogs, and have never lost a complaint, which is why I always use Paypal. And also, I disagree about digital transfers - they are not always equal to the original, as I have heard on more than one occasion, including those things which are commonly sold now as collections of "greatest" albums; this could be due to various factors, they may have gone through an analog stage and used poor conversion (this is not as common as it used to be, but I have heard it on more than one occasion). This might happen on an LP transfer, but there are other ways it could happen. As a matter of fact I have heard transfers that sound like MP3s, so I suspect to save disc space they often save their catalogs in this format.

ALSO - and maybe even more important, there are a lot of cheapo crap CDRs around, and these will not last. Also, I will not pay $15-20 for a CDR that they are paying maybe 50 cents a piece for. It's corrupt. Two labels I will not buy anymore are Document and Acrobat, which do nothing but CDRs now (when I wrote to Acrobat to complain they said they would sue me, and I answered "why, for telling the truth?" That was the last I heard from them).

Edited May 22 by AllenLowe

[Stompin at the Savoy]

1 minute ago, AllenLowe said:

. And also, I disagree about digital transfers - they are not always equal to the original, as I have heard on more than one occasion, including those things which are commonly sold now as collections of "greatest" albums; this could be due to various factors, they may have gone through an analog stage and used poor conversion (this is not as common as it used to be, but I have heard it on more than one occasion). This might happen on an LP transfer, but there are other ways it could happen. As a matter of fact I have heard transfers that sound like MP3s, so I suspect to save disc space they often save their catalogs in this format.

 

I think we are talking about different things.  I was talking about copying digital files.  Straight copy.  On a computer this is the same regardless of the type of file.  It's done by the operating system.  You are talking about analog to digital transfers, I think.

[AllenLowe]

5 minutes ago, Stompin at the Savoy said:

I think we are talking about different things.  I was talking about copying digital files.  Straight copy.  On a computer this is the same regardless of the type of file.  It's done by the operating system.  You are talking about analog to digital transfers, I think.

I know that, but there is no way to confirm, on these label-issued CDRs, that they are using direct digital transfers - and I have heard some that I am certain were not done direct (though note that a direct digital conversion to and from an MP3 is still a digital copying of digital files, and still  results in sonic loss).

Edited May 22 by AllenLowe

[Stompin at the Savoy]

12 minutes ago, AllenLowe said:

I know that, but there is no way to confirm, on these label-issued CDRs, that they are using direct digital transfers - and I have heard some that I am certain were not done direct (though note that a direct digital conversion to and from an MP3 is still a digital copying of digital files, and still  results in sonic loss).

No, we are still talking about different things.  You are talking about conversions, transfers, masterings.  I'm talking about what happens when you copy a file with the operating system, which is how a cd-r is made.  You are talking about what they have decide to put on the cd-r and how it was processed beforehand.  I'm talking about the CD-R medium itself and whether the copy you are getting is identical to the source.  You are talking about the source. No doubt you are correct about the sources.

Edited May 22 by Stompin at the Savoy

[Daniel A]

This thread is derailing, but it should be noted that there might be a theoretical difference between playing a CD in real time on a CD player, which employs some kind of error correction, and ripping a CD, which might yield "better" or "worse" results depending on the software, and - obviously - the CD-ROM drive.

Given that the extracted file is bit identical to the digital output from the CD transport and it is fed through the same D/A converter etc, there cannot be any difference in sound, as it is the same series of 0:s and 1:s that has been converted.

Edited May 22 by Daniel A

[Teasing the Korean]

6 hours ago, AllenLowe said:

I know that, but there is no way to confirm, on these label-issued CDRs, that they are using direct digital transfers - and I have heard some that I am certain were not done direct (though note that a direct digital conversion to and from an MP3 is still a digital copying of digital files, and still  results in sonic loss).

This may be the case with fly-by-night budget labels that release grey-market CDRs from mp3s.  But if it is a CDR from a legit label - especially if the title had already been released by that label on a real CD - I'm sure it would be an exact clone of the CD.  Converting lossless to mp3 for a CDR would be an unnecessary step in the process. 

[jazzbo]

4 hours ago, Daniel A said:

This thread is derailing, but it should be noted that there might be a theoretical difference between playing a CD in real time on a CD player, which employs some kind of error correction, and ripping a CD, which might yield "better" or "worse" results depending on the software, and - obviously - the CD-ROM drive.

Given that the extracted file is bit identical to the digital output from the CD transport and it is fed through the same D/A converter etc, there cannot be any difference in sound, as it is the same series of 0:s and 1:s that has been converted.

I disagree a bit. At a certain point bits aren't just bits but electrical pulses traveling along metal or glass or fibre media. If the files were burned to cdr and played back in the same chain as the cd probably no discernible sound difference. But if played back from a computer etc. they would not necessarily at all be identical. Even a cable difference (in my system it would be an HDMI carrying I2S data compared to a USB from the computer) can cause a sonic difference in certain systems. If you can't hear that in a system, okay, but I have heard differences.

Edited May 22 by jazzbo

[JSngry]

You can get an HDMI output on a computer.

Or so says the internet.

[Chuck Nessa]

Way too much voodoo!

 

[jlhoots]

5 minutes ago, Chuck Nessa said:

Way too much voodoo!

 

And woo-hoo.

[JSngry]

20 minutes ago, Chuck Nessa said:

Way too much voodoo!

 

Can't read that shit, not with my mind.

[jazzbo]

1 hour ago, JSngry said:

You can get an HDMI output on a computer.

Or so says the internet.

My equipment uses a different pin-out on the HDMI and passes a signal in a different format (I2S)--the routing and signal are different even if both were sent via HDMI cable. My DAC will not decode a signal sent from a PC via HDMI.

Edited May 23 by jazzbo

[JSngry]

In time it will.

The future is in files and minimum physical storage of them.

Me, I don't give a damn, but that's where it's going. Inevitably.

And audiophillia will get drug along. Because at that point, it'll be nothing but simple engineering, and those cats can do engineering.

[jazzbo]

Um, "in time" what will? I live in the present. I have in excess of 30,000 discs. I am blessed with a system that amazes me every day, and amazing music to listen to. I don't need to make any changes. Again, whatever way one is happy to listen is fine with me--I'm in it for the music as fully listenable as I can get and respect love of music no matter what format or even genre.

Back to the CDR thang. 

At first I was annoyed getting a few Chronogical Classics in CDR form but then I realized I was happy to have the releases.

Edited May 23 by jazzbo

[Stompin at the Savoy]

57 minutes ago, JSngry said:

 

The future is in files and minimum physical storage of them.

 

Actually if it's digital audio the present is files too.  CDs contain files.  Hard drives, flash storage, etc are also containers for files.  Even a SACD contains files but in a vastly different format than CDs and requiring very different handling.  They all require some physical storage.  What you are searching for is: the distribution system and the physical file storage are moving towards no longer being the same thing. For young people that appears to already be true. IMHO that is a very good thing for the ecology of our planet.

Edited May 23 by Stompin at the Savoy

[Chuck Nessa]

"Audiophiles use music to listen to their equipment."

[JSngry]

I've learned that living in the present immediately puts you in the past.

I'd love to think that at some point I'll have everything on a server, controllable by laptop (or phone!), and available anywhere in the house. It's doable now, but hell, I was a late-is adapted to CD and didn't totally abandon cassettes until the truck stops stopped carrying them, so that ain't happening here.

But if I was a young guy, hey... I'd be going all in on that and not looking back.

Because 30,000 is a butt load of anything except dollars. And the future ain't about buttlosdd of anything except dollars.

1 hour ago, Stompin at the Savoy said:

Actually if it's digital audio the present is files too.  CDs contain files.  Hard drives, flash storage, etc are also containers for files.  Even a SACD contains files but in a vastly different format than CDs and requiring very different handling.  They all require some physical storage.  What you are searching for is: the distribution system and the physical file storage are moving towards no longer being the same thing. For young people that appears to already be true. IMHO that is a very good thing for the ecology of our planet.

I concur!

Except for this vinyl foolishness, but that lesson will be learned sooner or later. Or else become the fetished collectable that it should already be.

[jazzbo]

Well I'm very different. I don't need to be piping music all over my house. I don't need to have everything at my fingertips or command, I don't need to be hip and trendy. And no living in the present is not living in the past, sorry, don't buy the hype. Sure, if I were younger I would be approaching things differently. That's an if that has no relevance to me, I'm not younger, don't want to be younger.

I was trying to answer a few questions here and explain a bit how playback actually works as there are some errors here. And I listen to music through equipment, I spent time and money when I had the latter to set up a really nice system and I spend/spent far more on music and instruments, and value accuracy and expressiveness in playback. I get why others don't, can't, and have other needs and ideas about playback etc.  

I'm out of the discussion of this so have a nice day.

Edited May 23 by jazzbo

[mikeweil]

17 hours ago, Daniel A said:

..... as it is the same series of 0:s and 1:s that has been converted.

Not necessarily. There is always a certain low percentage of incorrectly copied  0s and 1s. That is why we need error correction and oversampling. Try copying a CD at different burning speeds and play them back. Quality of CD players has a lot to do with how accurately they read the data.