Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems I'm itching.. (Superior NAS Music Playback clients)

Hi a@a

Like you, I was sure that something must be wrong, or incorrectly set up, but after exhaustive searching, testing, verification and further research, I'm 100% sure that there's nothing left to tweak or adjust, and everything is running optimally. The problem is that fully optimal ripping and streaming in this case is clearly not the same as fully optimal disc reading. No great surprise really; despite the seductive logic that "bits are bits" (and they are on the disc), by the time they exit their playback box of origin, they have already been flavoured (by accident or design) with the given manufacturer's "special sauce" (to quote a recent thread).

Differences are readily audible between a 500MkI, 500MkII, 596, 598, 206, 602, Philips 963, Pioneer 757....the list goes on. And in each case, that's setting the machine up in an otherwise identical system, same digital cable out, same mains lead, same processor/DSP input, and careful level matching. With the SB3, the difference is mainly in the bottom end and soundstaging. The perspective is rather flat compared to the sense of depth created with either the 500 or 598, and the bass is a tad woolly with less inpact. When considering the purchase of a new spinner vs an SB3 type set up, I suppose value assumptions come down to how much importance we place on the missing %. Mrs M would happily dump all of the boxes for the convenience and space saving of the SB3. I'm in the prime hifi "pre game console, pre mobile phones" demographic, which grew up with every marginal hifi gain to be much sought after, and highly coveted once gained!

Cheers

George

Never underestimate the power of the brain.

Or multiple brains! Blinded brains are better still, and find the same results...

Cheers

George

Edit: PS Having reached 500 posts again, I propose to number all my subsequent posts as follows: 500MkI, 500MkII...

This is why there is a market for third party SB mods, and indeed why the Transporter came along. With the bog standard SB you get the proof of concept, but perhaps not the ultimate performance. With the mods and Transporter, you get to wring out the final bits of performance.

In an ideal setup, the bits is bits should be true and both devices should deliver identical results. Optimal ripping thus is identical to optical disc reading (after all ripping *is* disc reading??) And one could argue that the "special sauce" is delivering something which wasn't on the disc and you are no longer comparing apples to apples and so any such comparisons are invalid...

I think of all the competition, perhaps Meridian is the toughest challenger for the SBs because of the way the Meridian disc spinners re-read and buffer the data before playing - they essential rip a bit, play a bit, rip a bit and so on... and do it all with high-end components... it's no surprise that they should sound better... but at what price... I am surprised by the Philips and Pioneer comparisons though...


Mark

Hi Tim

Building work scheduled to start mid April, projected to finish by end July. (fingers crossed!)

Thanks for the link...I'll read that up later.

Cheers

George

Are M the only company whose players re-read/buffer the data read from disc?

Mark S

No, but they're the only one I own, so...

Mark

Its an off the shelf Dell PC, about 4 months old. AMD x2 6000+, both cores are heavily used (90+, 70+) during rip. I think what makes the difference is the DVD/CD drive. Its very much faster than using the DVD writer drive. The RIP quickly ramps up to >20x in the first couple of tracks, then seems to go to >30x for the latter tracks.

I 'officially' timed a Beatles rip this morning. 1:55 to do about a 35 minute CD of which the first 15 seconds was loading the CD and accessing the Gracenote database so 1:40 to rip 35 minutes. On a later disc, which was about 12 minutes longer in play length, it took about another 20 seconds. So it seems to be ripping at about 1.5 seconds a minute on the latter tracks of a disc, 1:55 to rip 47 minutes which averages 24x speed across the disc.

Having accidentally put a disc in the DVD writer driver things are very much slower, with the rip speed reaching about 12-13x speed. So the DVD/CD drive is over twice the speed of the DVD writer and much faster than that after the first few tracks.

This was all to 192k MP3 using iTunes 7 with error correction turned on and storage on a mirrored HP MediaVault NAS box via a 100mbs NIC & gigabit uplink and switches. I did try one Apple Lossless, but it seemed slightly slower.

Ian
FWIW, my own opinion is that the biggest "hassle" (exageration) part of the ripping job is the simple process of getting the CD, taking it out of its case and then putting it back in again. This is especially true when you're working your way thru your CD collection and trying to recall which CD you have ripped etc.

For that reason, I think it's worthwhile having an "archive" of the best available quality on your Server, i.e. WAV or Lossless, rather than MP3. Once the Error Correction has been applied and the tracks ripped to your Hard Drive, it is then easy to do whatever you want

For example, once your Lossless Archive has been created and Artwork and Track Listings applied, then it is easy to create a lossy MP3 version of the same Tracks for iPod's etc. The MP3 versions will seamlessly carry across Artwork and any Ratings etc. that you apply to the Lossless version.

Given the low cost of Terrabyte storage these days, I think it makes sense to get an "ideal" copy onto the Hard Drive and then do whatever you like from there. Personally I would hate to have to repeat the whole Ripping process in a few years to achieve better "quality" (Now if I have to repeat ripping on 96/24 versions of the same CD, then that is a different issue )

Because I believe that Meridian may have more flexibility with WAV files in the future (think Aprodising filters etc) I took the extreme measure to use EAC to rip to WAV on the Hard Drives. Once it's on the Server, I then create a SEPARATE Apple Lossless archive for use on iPod's, Sonos system etc. Having Dual WAV and Lossless Archives may be extreme for some.

But I do think that having a Lossless base for current and future use is a good starting point

Why bother with error correction when you're chucking away all the fidelity anyway?

Mark

I know exactly what you mean which is why I am continuing to RIP to MP3 I ripped my entire collection of CD's about 5 years back. 260 odd albums. My storage was a 20GB hard drive that I later updated to 60GB although I unfortunately lost some with a HD failure and ended up ripping some again that I had not backed up - it is these missing few albums that I have just ripped, 5 years later.

My music collection is now on a NAS box so storage is not a problem, but my slimserver still sits on the same PC that has served me well for the last 8 years - a 500Mhz P3. This uses very little power and is on 24/7. It still runs my mail servers and until recently, my web sites, SQL server and various other bits. However, even though I have moved some of the functions off, it does not seem in the tests that I have done, have the power to support lossless audio - probably due to the transcoding from lossless apple to whatever slimserver send out native to the squeezebox - track breaks up.

As its only background listening and iPod, I'm quite happy with what I have already got as moving to lossless will require another PC and ripping all my CD's again.

Error correction is still invaluable. High bitrate MP3 does not sound poor and is only noticeable from the original when critically listening which is not what I am doing - its background music, parties and listening through a PC, iPod through F80 - its hardly chucking fidelity away when you don't get a benefit from it. However if there are errors when reading off the disc, you end up with an unusable track. I have just had to re-rip my David Bowie album for this very reason.

Its a matter of weighing up the pro's and cons. In this case, for me, the benefits of sticking with MP3 far outweigh the benefits of going lossless. That is until M come up with a solution, in which case, I may very well bite.

Sorry Ian
I hope you didn't think I was criticising, as we all do different things for our own, very good reasons

I more wrote my post for Newbie "Rippers" reading this thread as a pointer for what's possible using the Storage and Computers of today, I.e. basically Rip once to the highest possible quality and then have a SEPARATE archive for MP3

Then when MP757 comes along you can easily Batch transfer youe ENTIRE Lossless Music collection to that new format, in one fell swoop. No digging out your CD's and starting the whole process again

So hopefully you didn't take my post the wrong way

Cheers
Ronnie