Hi all,

i'm struggeling with ripping my Cactus Shield 200 protected cds (trying to do it with EAC of course). Got a PlexWriter 12/10/32A and a LiteOn DVD LTD-165H, but it doesn't work really well.
So i'm looking forward to by a good Soundcard with digital in to plug in my Sony CDP-XE500 (standalone CD-Player) to get the correct wave files.

Any suggestions, corrections, problems would be very appreciated

thanks in advance,

Bacu

Terratec Aureon (Sky or Space, ~120 resp. 150$/€) supports digital in (optical) and has good analog quality.

http://www.terratec.net/products/Aureon_sp...ace_details.htm

thanx for the fast reply,

i would like to go for a DMX XFire 1024 or SoundSystem SiXPack 5.1+ , cause it's cheaper and i don't need all the additional features, just a simple digital in.

How are those two?

IIRC, the Trust 514DX has proper, non-upsampling digital in. Don't know where you're from... in America i believe its called Zoltrix or so. Digit-life has a review of it.

It's mucho cheaper than Terratec.

DMX Xfire 1024 will never give you wavs identical to the source : if I remember correctly, it is 48 kHz fixed, so the 44.1 kHz input will be resampled to 48 kHz, then to 44.1 again. I'm not sure about the 6pack, but I don't think it can either.

The key feature to look at if you want to virtually "rip" from a standalone player is setting the clock (or master clock) to SPDIF input (or slave). You can usually find the existence of this setting in the user manual, that you can download from the official website.

Have a look at Terratec DMX soundSystem, DMX 6fire, EWX, Aureon ; M-Audio Audiophile 2496, Revolution, Midiman Delta DIO 2448, Guillemot MaxiStudio Isis, Echo Mia, Hoontech DSP 2496, Marian Marc 2 (it does, for sure)

Edit : by the way, never forget to set the clock in slave mode, and to bypass the mixer, when you record a CD. You can also record twice, remove null samples, and compare wavs in order to get secure copies.

I'm from Europe, i have some difficulties to find exactly the model you refer to.
Could you post a link?

Thanks in advance

Zoltrix Nightingale review, by Oliver Friedman : http://groups.yahoo.com/group/eac/message/6634

the post above refers to Patsoe.

@Pio: I will have a look at models you listed, thanks

Me too B)

No, only the digital output is fixed to 48kHz. You can record 32kHz; 44,1kHz and 48kHz. But the card isn´t produced anymore, there are newer one in the same price range.

Pio, from your link it seems the card can't lock onto a messy signal. You could argue that it's a flaw in the DAT recorder design. From the same review:


Bacu, see http://www.trust.nl/products/frame-product...htm?artnr=12950 and http://www.digit-life.com/articles/zoltrix...pro6/index.html

It's priced 49 euros at the shop around the corner. If you're also going to use the soundcard for listening, this one is too cheap perhaps. One of Pio's recommendations would do better then I think, but they come at a steeper price.

Oh and Pio: from digging through DIO 2448 specs and manuals lately, I can confirm it works well on spdif in (you put up a questionmark). As to the Marian Marc I wanted to have: I lost bidding on it

The SBlive too can record 32, 44.1 and 48 kHz, and the recording is not bit exact, by far. There is some ASRC performed from 44.1 kHz source to a 44.1 kHz file (slow beat effect recording a constant 22 kHz sine), and dither applied (noise recording digital silence), and leveling (either louder or quieter than the source)...

I just remembered, the Aureon Fun has the same chip as the Trust 514DX. So it, too, sucks at analog playback, but digital optical in should be bit-transparent. Other than the Trust, it has no coaxial digital i/o, but those of the Trust were bad anyway (connection to ground improperly or something).

It is available for 40 euro here.

Edit: in fact, one of my friends has an Aureon Fun. I might get him to test optical loop out-in with rmaa...

That would be awsome, if you could check it with the aureon fun!

THanks anyway a lot for all the help and advices! Very much appreciated!

Just found this one in a store over here:

http://www.pcp.ch/artikel.cfm/Terratec.Aur...op.2/index.html

cu

Hmmm sorry, he didn't want to cooperate. I got told I was a nerd when I mentioned RMAA ... Me? A nerd?

thanks anyway.

get someone more information about the aureon fun?

I know someone who succeeded in ripping Cactus Data Shield protected CDs with EAC.
With a Plextor it should be possible (but not easy, he had to rerip several tracks...)