Burning CDs and fidelity

[Chekhonte]

When you burn a cd from a cd is there a loss of fidelity? A friend of mine who is a questionable source said that there is but couldn't back up his claim with anything but "I read it somewhere". I'm thinking about backing up my library on CDR this week and wondering if loss of fidelity is a problem and if there is a way to prevent it. I currently can't hear any difference but my ears are constantly learning (or arguably hallucinating) new things all the time. I don't want to do it if a few years from now I can hear the difference between the two. Thanks,

Aaron

[aerius]

In my experience to date there isn't, and there can actually be a gain in sound quality in some cases. Rip the CD with EAC on secure mode, then burn the CD at between 4-16X depending on your burner and the quality of the CDR's. I've found that burning at full speed can sometimes result in read errors for my older CD players, and some newer CDP's have issues as well.

[Chekhonte]

Thanks for the reply. I'm using EAC to rip and burning it a 4x so good times. Here's to a tedious week of burning cds!

[aerius]

I know that tedious feeling all too well. A while back I walked into one of my CD racks in the dark and CD's went flying everywhere. A bunch of CD's were badly scratched up so I had to copy them onto CDR's, it took me days and I never want to do it again.

[Chekhonte]

CD cases are the scourge of all media. Who the fuck designed those pieces of shit and why weren't the publicly executed? I started keeping my CDs in books and throwing out the jewel case about 7 years ago and haven't stessed myself out with that stupid hinge since.

[Chekhonte]

as long as all the bits make it there in the right place, how could there possibly be a loss in fidelity?

That was my feeling too but I'm very ignorant in such matters and I couldn't tell you what happens from when a CD is ripped to when a CD is burned but I imagine it involves a magic carpet (or bus), a genie and one or more of the lovable puppets from H.R. Puffinstuff.

[Dusty Chalk]

The only potential problem -- and this should be overcome by most modern transports -- is that you have a higher error rate on the copy than on the original. This depends on two things: the error rate on the original, and the error rate on the copy. Measure both, and you'll find out for yourself which is better.

Funny thing: if the error rate on the copy is less than the original, you actually have a small probability of improving the fidelity upon copy.

Actually, one more problem -- on some CD's, good luck on getting 100% accuracy. I got so impatient with that, that I settle for 98.6% accuracy (or so -- I forget the exact number).

Also, it might be cheaper and more time-efficient to back them up onto external hard drives. Then all you have to do is rip, not burn. You can always burn them later.

[hYdrociTy]

I find the best way to store and play compact discs is to store them as disc images on hard drives.

This works particularly well on macs, with osx's Disk Utility capable of doing everything. You can make an image, then a checksum. I store all my cd images in an external hard drive, then if I feel like listening, I just double click the image and it is "mounted" instantly- as if physically inserted into the cd drive. All apps see it as a physical cd- they should, as it is an image of the actual cd, without actually "reading" the data. It is a low level copy of the data with validation.

You can do the same on pc's with alcohol120%. Just set read speed to low and all kinds of error correction on, and make a checksum and check against checksum of the cd.

Can't believe more "audiophiles" don't do this... It is much less flawed than all the other methods...

[Chekhonte]

that does sound like a good idea, the only problem for me personally is that HD space is scarce for me. I back up movies too much and can't bear to get rid of them. CD's in image form would be too much space. Plus music listening for me is half ritual. I kind of like puting in a cd and taking it out.

[Dusty Chalk]

Dude

And although I started out using disk images, I switched to invidual tracks in the long run, as it made it easier to convert to MP3's non-destructively (I.E. now my backup doubles as a source for my MP3 player). Using individual tracks, you don't need to fall back to MP3's, you can use FLAC or some other lossless compression format.

[riceboy]

Thanks for starting up the thread Chekhonte. I've been wondering about that very question from time to time, but thought about the bits being in the right place as Reks said . Overall, I was thinking about the disk image as well, but then decided to use FLAC. I did like the disk image idea, but the space was a issue for me ATM. In any case, I do like the idea of backing up my CDs and I'd start on it eventually

[Fitz]

I have most of my CDs ripped onto the computer as FLACs, which gets periodically synced to an external harddrive that is normally kept disconnected. Since I rarely use the original CDs (just keep them on the media shelves), I figure I'm pretty well covered as far as backups are concerned. Assuming all else being equal in the hardware chain, I don't believe in any inherent fidelity difference playing back from the original CD, a burned CD, or from the harddrive.