After trying out FLAC and ALAC, and been unimpressed by them, I started looking into a music server that can store CD's in their original CDA format and then decoded it then output via SPIDIFF or digital Coax, and came upon this:

The Yamaha MCX-2000

Amazon.com: Yamaha MCX-2000 MusicCAST Digital Audio Server: Electronics

I tried a few ways of searching for comparable products, but am findings jack and crap. Apparently there's quite a cottage industry for this unit on drive upgrade, firmware upgrade, etc.

Did I somehow miss another comprably priced music server that can store music CD's in its original format? Do such things modernized for 2011 exist?

 

You're saving that you hear file degradation by ripping your music to an uncompressed format like flac? I don't think that is possible, maybe it has to do with how you were connecting/streaming your source to the speakers?

 

I have the original redbook CD played by my SCD XA9000ES SACD player via first analog and then digital out into my NAD M15HD.

And then I have the iPod in via the cambridge dock which does the proper digital out into the NAD M15HD.

I don't care what they say, it does not sound the same. And there is also an old thread where Josh and Controlit also talked about how they also heard a difference.

But I made this thread to talk about devices that can store CD's in their original file format, so if you know of any other than this Yamaha unit, would love to hear about it.

Again, not interested in ripping music when I can have the original CDA file decoded and send in PCM.

 

I've spent a lot of time listening to the differences in compressed and uncompressed formats..a stupid amount of time actually...On my system with a very high end DAC, I challenge anyone to be able to tell the 'original' CD from the flac...in fact there is quite a bit of discussion that there can be actual improvements from the original by removing some information..

I'm glad at least you care! Most people are happy with complete crap.

 

I did hear differences but found I had a setting wrong in iTunes that limited the volume...

 

stuka....look more into this on a dedicated forum for answers...there are some amazing products out there that clearly improve sound when ripping them from CD.

 

I'm a total newb to this ... but wouldn't it be easier for you to just setup a computer as an audio server? I'm guessing you'd have near-infinite flexibility in terms of software and hardware?

From some guy on the internet listening to ratty mp3s on his original ipod earbuds.

 

The ALAC ripped files on iPod is digitally extracted by cambridge, so when it reaches my NAD M15HD, it is still in 0's and 1's.

And a direct A/B between this and my CD player showed a difference that is not subtle.

And while I don't have a Wilson Puppy setup and Mark Levinson setup, on my NAD Master and Dynaudio Foci, it would still be a waste of money to play compressed music on it.

 

On avs the only thing I could found was the Yamaha.

It would seem a very simple programming thing to do to allow the system to directly store the CD music file format, but I am having trouble finding one. Even the Olive does not allow CDA filr store, only FLAC.

 

Not aware of any software that allows for the copying of CD in CDA format onto hard drive and then decode it in 0's and 1's and send it out via coax or SPIDIFF.

If you know of some, do post, would love to check it out.

And if you have not CD's played from even a modestly priced system from say Cambridge with even Altec Lansing speakers, you really are missing out.