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[guy007]

     I've often thought that the lowly DVD/CD drawer in my computer was a weak link in the chain of high end audio ripping. As an alternate, is it possible to connect the digital output from a quality CD player (mine is an older Levinson 38S with a RCA coaxial output) to a USB port on my desktop and have MC recognize my Levinson as a digital source waiting to be ripped? (I've used the Levinson output on configurations in the past, so I know it works.) The DA converter companies (Benchmark, Aire) all say they can do nothing about jitter introduced earlier, they just hope not to add any more. I'm not a computer guru, but my instinct is that the Levinson would introduce less jitter or other distortion than the cheap looking little drive that opens up in my Dell desktop.
     Second question (assuming the first is possible). My Levinson will recognize and play SACD disks, so might I be able to import an SACD file and actually use it in playback?
     Thanks for your help. Guy Foster (guy007)

[guy007]

Opps, I just realized that ripping from my CD player would mean the ripping speed would be 1:1. Taking an hour to rip one CD is not an option, so please cancel this request. Thanks. Guy

[JimH]

When MC rips, it is reading the disc digitally.  It reads exactly what is on the disc.

Check your options to make sure the copy mode is set to "secure".  MC will then re-read to make sure it gets the same results each time, so any possible errors on scratched discs are eliminated.

[guy007]

Thanks for your reply, but it was still hard for me to believe that drives made little difference, so I ran a test. I recorded the same audio file (Minnesota Orchestra's recording of Respighi's Belkis, Queen of Sheba, track two) twice using different file names and the "secure" option on both: one on a heavy duty external Plextor drive with lots of software tools to check its accuracy, and the other on a very flimsy drive on a laptop which didn't cost much more than the Plextor drive. In both cases, I used an 8x max speed. I could tell no difference listening to the two sets of tracks, but I hoped for more confirmation, so I imported both tracks into an audio analyzer, GoldWave. I zoomed out till I got a simple sound wave and the two files still looked identical. Then I took snaps of both tracks into Photoshop, removed the dark blue background and printed out the two sets of tracks (each lasting a split second). When I held the two images up to the light, they were not just approximately equal, they were exactly equal--no deviation at all anywhere in the track, absolutely none. Very impressive indeed. I am still going to use my Plextor drive to rip CDs, but my little test at least suggests that the secure mode of ripping in MC is really accurate.

[Alex B]

When audio is extracted by ripping standard audio discs using digital extraction (from CD-ROM devices) it can't be only slightly altered so that you could hear a faint difference in a critical listening test.

It is normally either correct or seriously wrong. If there was a bad sector you would usually hear a click or something else entirely different from the original audio signal. Sometimes small read errors can be audibly masked by the surrounding audio signal and the resulting file sounds fine even though the rip log shows errors.