Many Questions

[rbienstock]

I've had a Kaleidescape system for some time used for movies only. I have been using an AudioRequest music server that has some very good points, but one glaring problem: the digital audio extraction that it performs does not always create a bit-for-bit copy of the original data. One can do a compare of the files on the ARQ with a bit-accurate rip done on a computer and see that error correction has inserted presumably inaudible bits where there were glitches in reading the disk. Even worse, if you rip your disk on a PC instead of the ARQ's internal drive, which I started doing when I observed that there were defects in the rips done on the ARQ's internal drive, the uploads can get corrupted and the songs get truncated. So I've been discussing with my dealer getting the new Naim HDX music server, which is perfect for my needs, has incredibly high-end audio performance, infinitely expandable storage using USB or NAS drives from any manufacturer at no extra charge other than the retail price of the drive. It will also allow me to finally play the 96/24 music discs that I have been trying to get to play on my system for the past 3 years. But my dealer has suggested that given that I already have a Kaleidescape system with several TB of free space on it that I could save a bunch of money by just using my KScape system for music, as the music player costs less than half the price of the HDX.

So I tried it out and I have a number of problems/questions:

1. There does not appear to be any way to import only selected songs from a CD, only the entire CD. Likewise, there does not appear to be any way to delete selected songs from the server once the CD was imported. From those facts, I am inferring that the Kaleidescape doesn't "rip" WAV files from the disk, but instead creates an ISO of the disk on the server in the same manner that it imports DVDs. Is that correct? If not, is there a way to selectively import or remove tracks? Even if one can't delete songs, is there a way to hide them?

2. What sort of error correction/validation is done to insure that the data on the server is a correct replica of the data on the CD?

3. It appears that the only method of getting music off the server is using Conductor, which will only run on a PC. Thus it would appear that Mac users are screwed. Is that correct?

4. It also appears that there is no way to extract music from the server in any format other than some compressed formats. What format are these extracts in, MP3, AAC or something else? Can one extract music in either FLAC, AIFF or WAV (or any other lossless format for that matter)?

5. Can one import music from any other medium other than CD? For example, if one has a CD-R or DVD-R with WAV files on it, can these be imported? What about MP3 files?

 

[JerryL]

I came from a ReQuest as well. The problem I had- and I think you are having- is not the extraction- but its actually the playback. Many of the ReQuest units use a sound card that converts the files from D-A and then back again. This is to make the music industry happy- as you are not getting an exact bit for bit copy. I could prove this because I have several DTS CDs- playing them in a regular CD player they sound like static. If you have a DTS decoder- you will get sound. Ripping DTS CDs is a great way to test if something is bit for bit accurate because if it converts to analog or resamples the resulting data (over spdif) will be corrupted and youll hear static. With my old ReQuest (and mine was one of their early models) I would get static.

With K I get beautiful playback. So while I can't give you a technical answer as to what kind of data integrity methods K uses- I can confirm its bit for bit accurate. I also do not hear any difference from 99% of the files played via the K compared to my Meridian 800 and 861. I do hear some slight advantage to the 800 (CD/DVD machine) if I am listening to Jazz or orchestral but this is a minor improvement and honestly not worth the trade off in convenience you get with K.

As to importing selected songs- youre right as far as I can find- the K will just import the whole CD. One thing you can do is burn your own custom CDs and import from those but you will lose all the good artist info and background data. What you can do is import all your music and create your own playlists of the songs you want.

We mac users do appear to be screwed this way. However this does not bother me. I have a mac with a ton of HD space for my mp3 files and networked storage also. Any new CD I get, I import it to the K, then to my main mac user account as a 192kps MP3 for my ipod etc and then I also use a different user account and my network storage and make a AIFF backup of it. Yes its more work but this works for me.

Dont know about extracting music in compressed form from the K.

I do not think the K will recognize anything but red book CDs for music import. But Ive never tried anything else. Hope this was somewhat helpful.

Ill finish off by saying I am delighted with K's music integration- honestly it is as good as their movie integration. Its very rare to find products that I do not discover some major irritant with- K is one of those rare products- I can't think of anything bothersome about it. Its just easy and I like that.

 

[DigitalStudioWerks]

5. Can one import music from any other medium other than CD? For example, if one has a CD-R or DVD-R with WAV files on it, can these be imported? What about MP3 files?

Hi,
Since Jerry L answered most of your questions I will answer #5. I am a Mac Owner with several Mini's, MacBook Pro's, Mac Pro's, Xserve's, etc. On one of our MacBook Pros I am running Windows Vista Ultimate using Boot Camp.
With that said, I have downloaded SEVERAL albums from Music Giants and burned them to CD-R and imported them to Kaleidescape. ALL the album information imported including cover art as Music Giants also downloads the cover art along with the album you purchase, artist, title, etc.

Hope that helps. Any questions let me know.

 

[rbienstock]

Jerry,

What is happening with your DTS disks really proves that the K is making a disk image copy of the CD on the server and not ripping the tracks. The ISO could still contain errors. The reason you couldn't play your DTS disks on the ARQ is because there is a flag in the TOC of the DTS CD that tells your decoder that it contains a DTS stream and not a PCM bitstream. I was actually able to get my DTS CDs to play on the ARQ, but it wasn't easy. What I had to do is buy DTS encoding software. Then I ripped each individual track to WAV files using EAC (software that makes bit-for-bit copies on a PC). Then I used the encoding software to insert the DTS header into each individual WAV file.

James,

How are you burning your MusicGiants tracks to CD? I'm pretty sure that MusicGiants delivers tracks in WMA Lossless format with DRM. When you burn them, to CD, do you create a music CD (i.e., one that will play on any CD player) or do you create a data disk (i.e., one that contains the MusicGiants tracks as individual data files)?

 

[JerryL]

Very interesting. All I can tell you is if I rip my DTS CDs to my mac using AIFF, I get bit perfect copies.

I can confirm to you that the REQ was D-A and A-D again because even regular CDs sounded wrong and my 861 reported everything was 48khz (not 44.1)... REQ even confirmed this to me......

 

[Croptop]

How are you burning your MusicGiants tracks to CD? I'm pretty sure that MusicGiants delivers tracks in WMA Lossless format with DRM. When you burn them, to CD, do you create a music CD (i.e., one that will play on any CD player) or do you create a data disk (i.e., one that contains the MusicGiants tracks as individual data files)?

If he is importing them to his Kaleidescape system, I would assume that he is burning them as audio CDs since that is the only way the server would import music. I've been doing the same thing with albums that I've purchased from iTunes.