Digital Drive Upsamplers, DACs, jitter, shakes and analogue withdrawals, this is it.

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RE: Regarding CDs being dead....

Posted by cawson@onetel.com (A) on December 16, 2009 at 13:08:06

In Reply to: RE: Regarding CDs being dead.... posted by Eric B on December 16, 2009 at 06:28:45:

I agree too and yes, the prospect of messing around with a PC for music is unnecessary and abhorrent to me. However, despite my age (just picking up my pension), I accept that hard drive audio (as opposed to computer audio) has benefits. There is potentially a better sound quality and, more significantly, there is the convenience of having hundreds of CDs stored on a hard drive and instantly available from a remote control with search facilities and a screen to show the CD artwork and track details.

If I dare to mention this on the PC Audio forum I get a dozen nerdy computer anoraks saying that a PC or Mac is the way to go. I hate the notion of computers for music, in the same way I wouldn't use a computer to watch TV, but I recently put all my CDs onto a hard drive device and I'm delighted with the ease of access and the complete absence of a computer and its associated hardware "junk" and that really nasty stuff - software.

I use a device called a RipNAS. Its essentially a hard drive with a CD reader built in, connected to your home network and a Sonos (or one of its rivals) to control the system and extract the music and deliver it to a DAC. It needs no computer, monitor or anything else, and it has built-in software so it works right out of the box. The ripping process is so simple - you post each CD into the slot, wait for 4-5 minutes, then put in the next one. During this time, RipNAS identifies the CD, looks up it on the internet and stores the track details, artwork and precise bit count that should be on the CD. It reads the CD multiple times if necessary to record a bit-perfect copy that it saves on the hard drive. You can set it up for WAV or FLAC lossless files, or use grotty MP3.

To play back your music, the Sonos controller is a hand-held device with a touch screen that can be used to select or search for music by composer, genre, artist, etc. It shows you the CD cover artwork as it plays, together with track details. It's really rather brilliant, dead easy, even for use geriatric computer-haters like myself and it sounds excellent, with a serious potential upgrade path using a new product that does the jobs of the Sonos and a DAC, but very much better.

I still buy CDs (I’ve never downloaded music) and will continue to do so, but I rip them straight to RipNAS and put them back in their jewel cases to use possibly in my car, or to loan to children.

Peter

Peter

• RipNAS   (Open in New Window)

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