Steven Kaplan @ Thu Aug 24, 2006 11:24 pm wrote:
I'm not technical enough to know the subtleties of how sound is generated from a computer harddrive vs a decent CD player playing a decent quality CD..
I've heard a few discuss computer just doesn't sound as good. While others have said this isn't the case. Like anything else, I'd "guess" the quality of the drive, computer components, and cords used has a lot to do with all this as well..
As things stand technologically so-far. Are there advantages to CD players sound-wise ? Has this been proven to be beyond subjective ?
Ollie, I need to head over to your site, I've been quite busy, but I have a question about the 2510 conversion ? Remember that ? I think that's what it was. Mod'ing SSB rigs.
I build computers, and am into such hardware aspects, plus I do videography which has many similar issues. I also understand audio issues for the most part.
The answer to your question is there is NO difference assuming you are using the same format (file media type) on computer versus (I assume) standalone cd player.
If you are using digital to digital with same format - basically same file they will sound the same.
Differences come into play when you choose different formats such as cdg, wav, mp3, wmv - along with recording and bitrate differences including compression.
Other things that will make them sound completely different are hardware differences such as the quality of the hifi equipment that you have hooked to your cd player, or the quality of the components in your computer, or the quality of the components that you have hooked to your computer to reproduce the sound i.e. speakers headphones or audio processing capabillities of your sound card or sound chip on the motherboard.
One example is play a cdg in your computer cd player off the cd disk and then copy that file to your hard drive and play it there. It will sound the same. The hard drive version may possibly play better without pausing because it has a lower latency and usually less resource intensive than the cd player. But basically with all computers nowadays cd players (in computers) won't bog down like that unless you are running tons of apps at the same time. You will notice this type of phenomenon though if you play a dvd disk while you are doing other stuff on your pc especially if you have a low end computer.