Right, that's great! A regional approach sounds like a good idea rather than have it flying all over the US. It's only a small box so postage costs are minimal (Size in mm L:120 W:78 H:43) Weight 400g - still it's inefficient to have it criss-crossing back & forth.
Tour of USB DAC & USB Converter
- Thread starter jkeny
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Right, that's great! A regional approach sounds like a good idea rather than have it flying all over the US. It's only a small box so postage costs are minimal (Size in mm L:120 W:78 H:43) Weight 400g - still it's inefficient to have it criss-crossing back & forth.
As edorr says - to rip CDs requires an old PS3 & only certain models will do it & then only with some tweaking - hardly easy & the suitable old models aren't readily available. AFAIK
It also depends on whether you think properly done PCM sounds superior to properly done DSD or the other way around?
There's no doubt that most music collections are in PCM format so the question is - is DSD superior sounding to PCM to the extent that it is worth going through the hassle of recreating your music collection in DSD format. I presume this is not currently feasible so you need a DAC whose PCM playback is great (as this is your major listening format) & DSD playback is equally great (for minimum current useage & possible future use). A tall order, I would suggest
Let's see how my DAC stacks up in the PCM stakes against other such multi-format (PCM/DSD) DACs?
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Great! Exasound (ESS ES9018 DAC) will be a good comparison. PM me your address & you are the tour list
Yamaha now uses ESS DACs in their top tier receivers.
The only reason I entertain doing it is for MCH. I'd love to have my MCH content on harddrive so I can play/control from my iPad.
For 2 channel SACDs it is not worth the hassle to me - if I want this content on my server, I can either buy the CD, or rip the CD layer from a hybrid disk. This is not a hypothetical because I have the DSD rips of my 2 channel SACDs (I did not rip them myself) and the difference playing 44/16 PCM and native DSD of the same content is small (at least on my MSB DAC). Certainly would not have been worth the hassle of ripping if I had had to do it myself.
The issue with ripping the MCH discs is I tried playing my DVD-A rips (ripping these is very easy) using network streaming through my modded Oppo, and they sounded distinctly worse than spinning the DVD-A disc in the same Oppo. This finding is making me a bit gun shy about ripping my MCH SACDs. I don't want to lose sound quality.
The easy part? Well... you put the cd into the PS3, you click on a box on the screen, and 10 minutes later you take out the cd and you are done and you have the ISO file. Then, you run a MAC or PC program (also free) which splits the ISO file indo the individual DSF files with all the names, etc. Since the extraction only requires inserting the CD into the PS3 and the extraction from ISO files to DSF takes one click, many audiophiles who have attempted this task have found it manageable.
Of course before you do this you have to have a PS3 with the correct firmware, then you run a small (free) program to modify the firmware slightly. This is also a task that many audiophiles have found they can handle. For the more timid, you can buy a PS3 already modded and checked out for, maybe, $250 or $300, thus saving approximately $15,000 over a complete Pyramix or similar setup which will also copy the DSF files to your hard drive.
If I'm not mistaken:
RX-A1030: ESS Hyperstream DAC ES9006
RX-A2030: ESS Sabre Premier DAC ES9006 x 2
RX-A3030: ESS Hyperstream DAC ES9006, ESS Sabre Ultra 32 DAC ES9016
I have no opinion yet - haven't amassed enough listening on DSD - in fact very little so I'll be interested in any comparison between DSD & my DAC
So is it or is it not legal to rip a SACD in Canada? It definitely is legal in The Netherlands.
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