Customer Reviews
The cleanest Rips and most convincing I have either done or played.
Had a good listen and comparison based on 5 familiar CDs;
Ottmar Leibert - One guitar
Ruthie Foster - Let it burn
Ben Harper - Fight for your mind
Mogwai - Come on die young
Back Door - 8th Street nites
Equipment - Melco N1ZH/2 - Vitus SCD025 - Vitus SIA025 - Kudos Super 20s - High Fidelity CT1E interconnect and CT1 speaker cables. Used stock USB supplied with the D100 to connect to Melco and Audioquest carbon USB to DAC.
Ripped all CDs First in Flac using BDpoweramp on laptop, second in Wav with Buffalo Blu-ray/Cd reader direct to Melco and Third in Wav using D100 direct to Melco.
Within the first few bars of any track it was easy to differentiate the Flac from the Wav files. There was a transparency, solidity and weight missing from the Flac files, the sound was noticeably flat and veiled with little back to front depth. In comparison to the direct Wav rips the Flac files lacked timbre, any sort of detailed resonance or note decay especially noticeable on percussion or acoustic material.
The Buffalo drive v D100 Wav files were closer and both sounded much more convincing than the Flac. Both were open, airy, solid and neutral, just much nicer and more relaxing to listen too. The more you listened to the D100 Wav rips the more the gap grew from the Buffalo. The guitar on Flight of Butterflies by Ottmar Liebert had a hollow resonance with attack and note decay that was much more engaging. The Linin track on 8th Street Nites by Back Door has a dancing snappy almost staccato quality to the bass line that under pins and drives the track, you just read this better with the D100 Rip and anticipate the changes as the rhythm repeat kicked in easier. It flowed and engaged you in a more convincing way, as did the thunderous intro bass on Ruthie Foster’s cover of “if I had a hammer “ which can catch room resonances easily, it sounded more boomy and showed a slight lack of control with the Buffalo rip v D100. Ben Harper CD tracks 5,6 and 7 are wonderfully dynamic and punchy yet nicely balanced tonally with plenty of micro detail and emotional affliction, the D100 rips were cleaner and tighter and had none of the fudged edges more evident in the Buffalo rips.
I’m not technically minded enough to offer any explanation just my subjective view based on my listening experience but my conclusion is there are definitely rips and rips. The Wav rips I have done with the D100 unit you lent me are possibly the cleanest and most convincing I have either done or played. I have also done a quick comparison with with a couple of 192Khz hi res download tracks from Bob Marley - Legend to a D100 Wav CD rip and I suspect if you played the two blind the D100 rip might just have it. So at the price the D100 ain’t cheap but it is a very, very good piece of kit, anyone with a big CD library or any of the Melco models should at least have a listen for themselves.
Only two small points to bear in mind; The Metadata is still incomplete and track led, to work 100% with say Kazoo it would need some editing. Also the D100 takes more time to rip, I managed 4-6 per hour so anyone with a large collection would need to spell and pace the ripping over a few weeks.
Many, many thanks, think you will sell more than a few of these once they hit the shelves.
Steve
Ottmar Leibert - One guitar
Ruthie Foster - Let it burn
Ben Harper - Fight for your mind
Mogwai - Come on die young
Back Door - 8th Street nites
Equipment - Melco N1ZH/2 - Vitus SCD025 - Vitus SIA025 - Kudos Super 20s - High Fidelity CT1E interconnect and CT1 speaker cables. Used stock USB supplied with the D100 to connect to Melco and Audioquest carbon USB to DAC.
Ripped all CDs First in Flac using BDpoweramp on laptop, second in Wav with Buffalo Blu-ray/Cd reader direct to Melco and Third in Wav using D100 direct to Melco.
Within the first few bars of any track it was easy to differentiate the Flac from the Wav files. There was a transparency, solidity and weight missing from the Flac files, the sound was noticeably flat and veiled with little back to front depth. In comparison to the direct Wav rips the Flac files lacked timbre, any sort of detailed resonance or note decay especially noticeable on percussion or acoustic material.
The Buffalo drive v D100 Wav files were closer and both sounded much more convincing than the Flac. Both were open, airy, solid and neutral, just much nicer and more relaxing to listen too. The more you listened to the D100 Wav rips the more the gap grew from the Buffalo. The guitar on Flight of Butterflies by Ottmar Liebert had a hollow resonance with attack and note decay that was much more engaging. The Linin track on 8th Street Nites by Back Door has a dancing snappy almost staccato quality to the bass line that under pins and drives the track, you just read this better with the D100 Rip and anticipate the changes as the rhythm repeat kicked in easier. It flowed and engaged you in a more convincing way, as did the thunderous intro bass on Ruthie Foster’s cover of “if I had a hammer “ which can catch room resonances easily, it sounded more boomy and showed a slight lack of control with the Buffalo rip v D100. Ben Harper CD tracks 5,6 and 7 are wonderfully dynamic and punchy yet nicely balanced tonally with plenty of micro detail and emotional affliction, the D100 rips were cleaner and tighter and had none of the fudged edges more evident in the Buffalo rips.
I’m not technically minded enough to offer any explanation just my subjective view based on my listening experience but my conclusion is there are definitely rips and rips. The Wav rips I have done with the D100 unit you lent me are possibly the cleanest and most convincing I have either done or played. I have also done a quick comparison with with a couple of 192Khz hi res download tracks from Bob Marley - Legend to a D100 Wav CD rip and I suspect if you played the two blind the D100 rip might just have it. So at the price the D100 ain’t cheap but it is a very, very good piece of kit, anyone with a big CD library or any of the Melco models should at least have a listen for themselves.
Only two small points to bear in mind; The Metadata is still incomplete and track led, to work 100% with say Kazoo it would need some editing. Also the D100 takes more time to rip, I managed 4-6 per hour so anyone with a large collection would need to spell and pace the ripping over a few weeks.
Many, many thanks, think you will sell more than a few of these once they hit the shelves.
Steve