Morning everyone

I've got a couple of questions, which are probably very naiive, but which I could do with some help with.

Earlier this year I built myself a low profile HTPC to use as the media hub in my house.

I ripped about 6000 tracks onto a hard drive using EAC and all was well...

...right up until the point where the hard drive corrupted and I lost the lot (no back up!!)

So, now I've got a new hard drive (and an external one for back up) and I'm going to start the ripping process again.

Last time I used the in built audio on the motherboard (aOpen / Realtek ALC880) and ripped to apple lossless.

I listen to the files in 2 ways - digital optical out to an arcam receiver and proac speakers, and wirelessly to a Squeezebox in another room.

The questions I have are this:

1. Bearing in mind that I'm not using the decoding facility of the on board audio, is there going to be any improvement of upgrading to a dedicated sound card?

2. I hadn't considered this previously, but will the sound card affect the quality of ripping as well as output - if so, then will upgrading from the on board Realtek chipset bring about improvements too?

3. How important is the quality of DVD rom (or CD rom) in the ripping process

4. If you recommend a dedicated sound card, what are the best options, bearing in mind I only have a low profile case to put it in - I've looked at the reviews of the new X-Fi range and also think that there is going to be a new Audiotrak card out shortly. Do M-audio etc make low profile cards?

Ultimately I know that I am making compromises by digitising my music rather than listening to the original CD's through my stereo, but I would like to get as close as possible within the limitations of what I'm doing


I hope that this makes sense and would really appreciate advice from the collective expertise on this forum

Thanks very much

Steve


I've just noticed the request to post in the correct forum - please could one of the mods move this to the hardware section

Thanks

Steve

Only if the onboard SPDIF output resamples. If it does (many do), then you might want to consider adding one that doesn't (eg. from M-Audio). This only applies to when you're feeding the digital output to your arcam receiver. Playing to the Squeezebox doesn't involve the soundcard at all.


Absolutely not. The soundcard is not involved during ripping.


You mean the drive being used to do the ripping? Somewhere between quite to very important. If you've got a decent drive that correctly reports C2 errors to EAC, then you should be fine.


If you're only ever going to use the digital output to your Arcam receiver, then the only thing you need to worry about is that the card doesn't fiddle with the bits. M-Audio can be relied upon not to do that. Creative can't (although I suspect the X-Fi range can probably be configured to be bit-transparent). You could also consider an external USB device if you can't find a card that'll fit inside the case.


There's no compromise. CDs are already digitised. If you rip correctly to a lossless codec, and use a bit-transparent digital output (or stream to the Squeezebox), then the same data as is on the CD is being played.

Hey Cliveb

Thanks very much for your comprehensive reply.

The DVD drive is reporting C2 errors to EAC - I've read about different transports giving better ripping and this would be an area I would consider upgrading (particularly when I think how much I've spent on the transport story for my CD player)

So, it seems that I just need to find out if the SPDIF is resampling - how do I manage to find this out? I've read the motherboard book and there is hardly any information in there.

Also, I have previously tried an off board sound card (terratec) but running through usb I was picking up so much noise that I had to revert to on board sound, and the receiver - I can't exactly remember now, but I think that there was even noise being transferred in the optical out from the external sound card after it had left the computer.

Cheers

Steve

Further to that last post, I know that DVD players are not as adept with replaying CDs as CD players.

Does that mean the same is true for DVD roms vs CD roms? Is there a renouned favourite for high quality ripping, and is it internal or external?

Thanks

Steve

Someone else around here might know for sure whether your Realtek onboard sound resamples the digital output. Failing that, the simplest way to check would be to rip an HDCD encoded CD then play it back into an HDCD capable DAC and see whether the HDCD light comes on. If it does, then the soundcard's digital output is bit perfect. You've got an Arcam receiver - am I correct in believing quite a lot of those have HDCD capable DACs? If not, perhaps you might be able to borrow such a DAC from a friend?

In my experiences, it hasn't seemed to have an impact. I have two Lite-On DVD-R/Ws and a Lite-On CD-R/W, and I haven't noticed any differences in rip speed or quality between them. I generally end up ripping from whatever drive I happen to not have a disc in already using EAC's Secure mode. All of my drives are easily capable of checksum-verifiable accurate rips, though there obviously might be some speed differences between them. They're all dreadfully slow as well, so investing in higher-end drives can certainly be advantageous if even only from a speed standpoint.


I'm not certain what models are preferred at the moment, but Plextor has typically been labeled the pinnacle by various communities. Most Plextor models seem to excel in both reading and writing in comparison to less-expensive models.

As for internal versus external, I'd be inclined to assume that internal drives are generally more robust, though I could very well be wrong.


The ALC880 appears to be an AC97-compliant codec, so there's a very good chance that's the case.

They resample pretty much everything that's passed through spdif to 48kHz... atleast the ALC850 does, which is also a AC97 soundcard made by realtek. I haven't tested an ALC880, so I guess I can't be 100% sure... but I'm at least 99,9999% sure the ALC880 resamples to 48kHz.

Thanks everyone for your responses.

Looks like an investment in a Plextor drive and an off board bit correct card will ensure I have the best possible sound going into the Arcam

Very much appreciated

Steve

My X-Fi XtremeGamer can do bit-matched playback, so higher end models should do it too.

Take a look at the Juli@ from ESI. It should get you a digital out put that doesn't resample.

Its onboard dacs might even be better than the Arcam's.

No need to lose quality when going the PC route.

In fact, my PC rig, featuring the Lynx 2b, sounds way better than my old $2k trans dac combo.

Thanks very much for all your replies.

I'll have a look at the recommendations you have made and I'll definitely know where to come if I need more advice.

This is a great resource

Cheers

Steve

Have you tried any data recovery software? I've had good luck with On Track Easy Recovery. The Pro version I have cost $200. There is also a Lite version for about $100, but it only allows you to recover 25 files at a time. (You'd have the run the lite program 240 times to get all 6000 files.) There is a trial version that will show you the files it can recover.

You can find other file recovery programs on the Net, and some of them are free! It might be worthwhile to spend a half-day or a day trying to recover the files before you start re-ripping 6000 tracks!

If the drive won't spin-up, sometimes you can get it rotating again by holding the drive in your hand (with it plugged-in and powered-up) and rotating it with a quick wrist-twist. This rotates the drive relative to the platters & flywheel. If it starts-up, the idea would be to transfer the data off onto another drive right away. (You've probably noticed the same thing with a stuck-fan. If you give it a push to get it started, it keeps going.)

If the drive's electronics are bad, you are probably out of luck. A data recovery expert could probably replace the PC board, but this kind of thing starts costing "real money" if you can't do it yourself. (The way to do that yourself, is to find an identical drive, perhaps on eBay, and and steal it's electronics.)

And if that doesn't work, try harder. A friend once had a hard disk that just refused to spin up, no matter what. Deciding there was nothing to lose at this stage, I whacked it (on the side) with a rubber mallet. Up she spun, and we were able to recover all the data.

Allow me to chip in with the comment that "spinrite" is also a good disc tester/fixer.