Ok here goes: One mans experience and opinion about the over sampling ripping of ALL HIS CDs ...

Bill Ferris

Lunatic Member
Hi, I`m a audio cynic by nature(been in the" biz" since 1973).. Since early October last year, when I was forced by the failure of my Sony 400 disc player, in which played flawlessly for nearly 5 years for running 24/7/365.. First with direct audio output L/R analog hook ups to my house`s 5 room distribution setup via Belden Media twist Cat- 5 + cabling, which is still in use. And then a S/PDIF coax feed from same player to a R.D.L DAC from same for an improved audio experience.. In which it did improve the quality, (at least to my and others ears)who were unaware and who had no idea of the change over, who heard the difference of the switchover and expressed the increased clarity.. Well, when the Sony multi CD/DVD disc player failed over night during hurricane Mathew here in N. FL., I found myself with no non-outside source music(Non-commercial like) for over 15 years as I had become used to, all day, every day all year long .. Anyway I had been pressured by some "MP3" oriented friends for years to give up on optical media playing of music for my all day daily background music fix and convert over to ripping all my CDs to a computer, in which, though owning and maintaining 10(4 lap-tops and 6 desktops, didn`t trust them for my background music daily listening pleasures(I did say that I`m a audio cynic !!).. Anyway I was forced to quickly rip all my Sony players CDs to a Dell Lap-top(the nearest lap-top), while to maintain music in the back ground.. I had while doing so was forced to engage my OPPO`s BDP103 free Pandora app. in which sound quality(or the major lack thereof IMHO) sucked the snotty end of my F--k stick !! And forced me to not have time to look into all the options of ripping(via this site`s popular considerations to ripping music to a computer).. Now to the real point to this digital audio section of AK: I ripped all my 1,000+ CDs @ 192kbps, via Win 10 OS`s media player to my lap-tops SSD.. And after listening to most of the same CDs for years all day long at 16/44.1 red book via the recently failed Sony and other decent multi disc players, I, and many others expressed that they sounded better through the exact same systems being played over sampled @ 192kbps !! Not because I/they thought they should, (remember, I didn`t think they should and didn`t trust the computer`s handling of my all very important music quality.. If it doesn`t sound better than before, then I will pursue the time, research, and money until I can make it so.. YMMV.. I`m Just a 62 year old retired highly rated(as been told by many, many others retired F.O.H. Soundman/Audio gear repairman for over 40 years who loves music reproduced as high a quality as possible.. Regards, O.K.B. (Over Kill Bill) P.S. This POST IS NOT TO EVOKE A DOG FIGHT, but as expressed: just one man`s experience & opinion, with no prior experience in the computer music delivery system.. And I certainly didn`t expect the final high quality listening test @ 192kbps results through a thumb drive playing through my OPPO BDP 103 BluRay player playing through a many carefully setup 10`s of thousands of bucks main A/V system for the final over sampling sonic evaluation with 2 trusted friends of over 5 hours of critical listening time... I`m sure I`ll be challenged to defend my observations & experience, but won`t waste my time defending the math and technical reasons why it can`t be possible .. "SHOW ME, DON`T TELL ME" !! (words in a Rush song !!)
 
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make a backup
too me the pc setup is so convenient, and sounds great tho i do use a tube buffer.
but i do fear hdd failure so have a couple back ups. if my main drive fails i would lose some stuff, but still have copies of most
 
I too have been ripping my CD's to my computer, at 24/192 and then to my Fiio. so far all is good quality and gives me a portable source to play my music on various systems/ environments I have.
 
I'm trying really hard to comprehend the OPs point, but that post is a grammatical mess. OP, can you summarize with a TL;DR (too long; didn't read) one or two sentence summary?

Out of curiosity, why would you (or anyone else) rip a file that is locked at 16/44.1 to 24/192? There isn't any data above redbook standard and chances are, if you look at the spectral view of the original CD file, the high-frequency content might never make it anywhere close to 22050 Hz. More than likely, it's that the Oppo's DAC is better than the one in the Sony. That's not that surprising since Oppo's are so highly regarded.
 
I'm trying really hard to comprehend the OPs point, but that post is a grammatical mess. OP, can you summarize with a TL;DR (too long; didn't read) one or two sentence summary?

Out of curiosity, why would you (or anyone else) rip a file that is locked at 16/44.1 to 24/192? There isn't any data above redbook standard and chances are, if you look at the spectral view of the original CD file, the high-frequency content might never make it anywhere close to 22050 Hz. More than likely, it's that the Oppo's DAC is better than the one in the Sony. That's not that surprising since Oppo's are so highly regarded.
Ok, since you don`t know the reason about my poor paragraph formatting , and it`s not important to me, as it`s an awkward form of communication for me !! I will explain: I`m partially paralyzed(left side hemi paresis) and type with one finger.. No sympathy asked for, just the way its been since 11/19/1981 and am well compensated.. And I choose not to try to use a pencil in my mouth to assist in setting up the paragraph.. And as to the initial reason of ripping my CDs to the maximum rate of 24/192 is I had never had any reason to read about what would be acceptable or equivalent or even better.. So, with no music other than totally unacceptable Pandora available after the Sony failed I just slid the ripping quality to max rate in Win 10 media player and started ripping.. With large SSDs in all my computers the storage space is not a issue. As to the difference in SQ between the Sony and the OPPO, The Sony 400 disc player`s coaxial S/PDIF output was fed to a Stand alone decent DAC.. Which now has been recently replaced with a very high grade multiple input(USB, optical, coaxial, ect.) with even better sound.. I don`t know why the higher rate sounds better, but it does.. It`s not like I want it to or expect it to(I don`t feel comfortable with computer audio anyway) Like I said, I have been listening to these same CDs for many years all day long though 4 background systems of varying quality everyday, so when I change anything in the loop I will notice the effect on SQ for better or worse.. Regards, OKB
 
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make a backup
too me the pc setup is so convenient, and sounds great tho i do use a tube buffer.
but i do fear hdd failure so have a couple back ups. if my main drive fails i would lose some stuff, but still have copies of most
Are storing all 10,000 song rips in 4 SSD laptops, including the music dedicated HP that`s playing right now, and also stored on 3 music dedicated thumb drives redundant enough ? :thumbsup: Regards, OKB
 
^^ If you can type all those words with one finger, surely you can insert paragraph breaks? You can say they're "not important" to you, but when I see a "wall of text" like the top post, I usually roll my eyes and move on to the next thread, and I suspect many others have similar reactions.
 
I believe that this is the tl;dr:
I ripped all my 1,000+ CDs @ 24/192 via Win 10 OS`s media player [...] and after listening [...] for years all day long at 16/44.1 red book [...] I and many others express that they [the 24/192's] sound better through the exact same systems !!

As far as I am concerned, OP is entitled to like whatever he likes.

That said, my understanding of "24/192" is that it means 24-bit, 192 kHz sample-rate FLAC and that since FLAC is a lossless format, "ripping" a 16/44 CD to 24/192 should involve no change at all to the underlying digital data except adding lots of zeros. (Who knows what the Win media player is doing, though.)

Even if one is a believer in 24/192, the potential benefit(s) should really arise only when the underlying source material has been preserved at greater than 16/44. The downside to 24/192 in a local setup is only that is uses some extra space on disk, so again, if you like it I won't tell you not to use it.

What is the file size comparison between your ripped files and the originals on CD?
 
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That said, my understanding of "24/192" is that it means 24-bit, 192 kHz sample-rate FLAC and that since FLAC is a lossless format, "ripping" a 16/44 CD to 24/192 should involve no change at all to the underlying digital data except adding lots of zeros.

If the software (or hardware) does oversampling CORRECTLY, it adds one extra bit of word length each time the sampling frequency is doubled. These bits' value is determined by interpolation, so they are averages based on the data on either side of the interpolated value. They do not add any 'real' resolution that is not present in the original 16 bit data, but the process is NOT simply padding with zeroes.

The potential audible difference comes about because of the recovery filter - which is an analogue circuit placed AFTER the D/A converter.
Oversampling with a high sampling frequency allows the use of a recovery filter with a much gentler slope (a lower order filter), less passband ripple, and less phase distortion. The 'improvement', if heard, is thus as a result of different analogue circuitry, and not the bit rate or word length itself. This is nothing new, Philips was doing it in their CD players from 1983.
 
I believe that this is the tl;dr:



As far as I am concerned, OP is entitled to like whatever he likes.

That said, my understanding of "24/192" is that it means 24-bit, 192 kHz sample-rate FLAC and that since FLAC is a lossless format, "ripping" a 16/44 CD to 24/192 should involve no change at all to the underlying digital data except adding lots of zeros. (Who knows what the Win media player is doing, though.)

Even if one is a believer in 24/192, the potential benefit(s) should really arise only when the underlying source material has been preserved at greater than 16/44. The downside to 24/192 in a local setup is only that is uses some extra space on disk, so again, if you like it I won't tell you not to use it.

What is the file size comparison between your ripped files and the originals on CD?
No FLAC used in ripping, as didn`t know anything about computer ripping/streaming audio when forced to rapidly regain my addicted to the CD daily background music fix.. My OPPO`s free Pandora app. SQ was so bad that I didn`t concern myself with stopping to research the best, most efficient methods of ripping via this site.. I didn`t care about that.. I just slid to max rate without concern of waste, I inherently knew that doing so that it couldn`t be less quality then 16/44.1.. I imagine that my ripped songs are larger in size then their 16/44.1 would be, but don`t care.. I have thought about a "probable" analogy to this: FWIW, I have high resolution 1080P flat screen TV`s in 5 rooms of my house and a Sony 4K projector in my living room.. I only watch DVDs, both reg. and BluRay and no outside programing at all.. I watch various quality movies and my systems expose the best or worst of the original source, but I won`t drop the display resolution to the lesser quality DVD films/TV series, but just watch warts and all.. Since going over to over sampled ripped music I have noticed the same effect: If the CD was well recorded it shines even better than it did when played through various quality CD Players, and the same for the exposure of lesser quality ones limitations, but I was not expecting that it will be better sounding, but ended up for whatever reason .. But I love my music, and take the lesser recording quality with the better.. And if Win 10`s Media player program is screwing up/with my music files, well it can keep doing on doing it.. Less then 1% corruption of 1,000 + CD files during 2 full days of ripping, only because Win 10 was trying to update in the back ground while ripping, and I wasn`t aware.. I think from reading a butt load of posts/threads afterwards here that it(Win Media player) get`s an unfair bad rap.. I have tried a few others and only use EAC to repair borrowed scratched CDs from friends that are messed up and won`t play well and or rip. YMMV. It works for me and I would change it if it didn`t, as I have the time and resources to pursue.. Regards, OKB.
 
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^^ If you can type all those words with one finger, surely you can insert paragraph breaks? You can say they're "not important" to you, but when I see a "wall of text" like the top post, I usually roll my eyes and move on to the next thread, and I suspect many others have similar reactions.
Fair enough, as I sometimes do insert breaks/space during a re-read before sending, if I think it helps.. OKB
 
If the software (or hardware) does oversampling CORRECTLY, it adds one extra bit of word length each time the sampling frequency is doubled. These bits' value is determined by interpolation, so they are averages based on the data on either side of the interpolated value. They do not add any 'real' resolution that is not present in the original 16 bit data, but the process is NOT simply padding with zeroes.

I misspoke but so have you, steerpike2. Doubling the sampling frequency doubles the number of words (not adding just one bit per word). And yes, as you point out those added bits are not all zeros (although those added in going from 16 to 24 bits at a given sampling rate are). There are any number of ways of doing the "interpolation" but doing it optimally ensures that the resulting signal is zero at the higher frequencies that are included as a result of increasing the sampling rate and the same as the original at lower frequencies. (An FFT of the upsampled data would have zeros for the higher frequencies.) And yes, depending on how the DAC functions, those same interpolated bits may be being generated as part of the digital to analog conversion anyway.
 
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No FLAC used in ripping...

FLAC was an assumption I made because 24/192 doesn't mean anything to me outside of the "24/192" that is being promoted by Mr. Young, which is FLAC.

If you are ripping to MP3, then maybe you are mixing your terms and you just mean the 192 kbps setting? That's not an unreasonable setting for ripping and storing a large music collection although most would say that it is less than CD quality.

Whatever works for you, that's great. Same goes for your posting style...it's OK by me.
 
Glad you've found some better ways to experience your music.

Yes, a grammatical break helps us whose eyes aren't so good anymore. Take care, and love your strong will and attitude, keep kicking life in the dick, Bill.
Thank you onwardsjames Sir; kind words indeed, though this computer music situation was thrust upon me. Kind regards, OKB.
 
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FLAC was an assumption I made because 24/192 doesn't mean anything to me outside of the "24/192" that is being promoted by Mr. Young, which is FLAC.

If you are ripping to MP3, then maybe you are mixing your terms and you just mean the 192 kbps setting? That's not an unreasonable setting for ripping and storing a large music collection although most would say that it is less than CD quality.

Whatever works for you, that's great. Same goes for your posting style...it's OK by me.
And a kind thank you audiotemp Sir. for your response too. No MP 3 EVER CONSIDERED Here, after tasting some friends music files a few years ago !! "3/4`s" of the music just doesn't make it with my anal sonic perception and demands.. And mucho kind regards Sir. OKB
 
You're quite welcome, OKB. It's always interesting to hear what others are doing and to see what can be learned from that.
 
I use Windows Media Player version 12. I do not see a rip setting for 24/192. How do you do this?

It depends on what you're using for an ADC and on whatever application you're using for ripping. WMP is not particularly versatile.
 
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