Whatever it takes. For me, it is value for money.
Itās to weed out noise. Witnesses are famously unreliable sources of evidence.
1 Like
2 Likes
@David_O_Higgins - it doesnāt surprise me that you heard a difference by upgrading your switch. A good friend of mine is an electronic engineer working with data - whilst he tells me a cd ripper can make no difference if bit-perfect, he is adamant that switches and Ethernet cables make a difference due to noise and, something I donāt understand, about āreclockingā.
David
Donāt let them bully you. I own a CD100 for the same reason as you. For me the point is I experimented 10 years ago and heard difference between different rips sometimes the ripping app sometimes the drive. Like you I came across people who told me I was wrong, deaf or delusional. My conclusion was to ignore them and get on with enjoying music. And one quite extra comment: the files you listened to and sent to Jacques were not identical so why expect them to sound the same. Who knows what effect metadata has on SQ. Maybe Naimās use of wav files with no metadata makes sense after all :>)
2 Likes
Hi guys,
I just wanna give my experience here.
Bought a D100 recently and checked it out.
As Iām a computer worker and studied eletronics/electrotechnics Iām familiar with subjects like this.
Plus Iām an āaudiophileā too. In a way at least .
I honestly thought Melco had developed and created an unique drive and yes generated a lot of development costs so that the device is quite expensive .
BUT
All Iāve found was a heavy case of metal containing a Pioneer BDR-209 drive from 2018
For 1200 EUR or 1100 pounds or 1400$.
I researched if Melco had motify the drives controller. Like Pioneer did with their drives buy develpoing a chip for āPure Readā method of the drives.
Nothing.
Itās pure snake oil. For uneducated audiophiles who buy every sh*** as long as it locks (and is) expensive.
So, my advice is if you need a new drive to rip, buy this one for example āPioneer BDR-S12UHTā.
Its 120 EUR . 10 times less than the Melco and you can be proud not to be fu***
Then put a heavy doorstop on the drive to reduce any self vibrations if youāre afraid of such.
And then there you areā¦
May god bless the audiophile world and
Long Live Rock 'n Roll
Cheers
5 Likes
Ian,
Did you use your ears at all during this evaluation?
David
I ripped my CD collection on an old desktop PC using dbpoweramp. Each rip was āquality assuredā by comparing it to previous rips done by other users.
I cannot see how this Melco ripper could possibly improve on thisā¦?
2 Likes
Got to agree with Martin fully here, and this can be done fairly cheaply even using $20 - $30 USB CD drive.
dbPoweramp is a powerhouse in this area especially when it comes to well loved CDs.
I have just finished ripping 50 or so badly damaged CDs I was given and dbPoweramp got about 30 of them across the line perfectly and the others went into the bin as nothing was going to save them.
2 Likes
@David_O_Higgins
Of course. I did rips with
- dbpoweramp on macOS with iMAC and MacBook Pro
- EZ-Creator on Windows
For comparison
I did the same with my old internal dvd drive in MacBook Pro from 2012
ZERO differance
Iāve got a high resolution hifi system. Not the best in the world but solid high end companys from England (power amp), Germany (Speaker) and China (pre amp/DAC/Streamer - the new Auralic Altair 2.1)
And I have many years listening experience .
I said Iām an audiophile too - IN A WAY
That means Iāve got theoretical and practical experience in electronics/eletrotechnics .
And more important: a critical mind !!!
Therefore I spend money if there is an advantage and save it for vacations or so if there isnātā¦
I was committed to buy the D100. Loved the case and high quality feeling. Its like to look at a beautiful woman. BUT - if this woman is a stupid or lying one - goodbye. I donāt need status symbols ā¦
D100 is nothing but a status symbol for audiophiles. To tell themselves and of course theirs friends how expensive it is.
So, my good old passive aggressive David.
With my ears and my brain I wanna say to you: If you like status symbols - go and get it. There is nothing wrong with that. Its a free world. But if you wanna tell me the D100 produces better rips than any other good cheap drive ā goodbyeā¦
@Martin & Michael
I agree 100%.
But I wanted to step a bit to the āsnack oil audiophilesā by recommending an a bit more expensive drive ā¦ ā¦you know for their egos to adaptā¦ (-:
Nevertheless: you may take a look ate the āPure Readā function of Pioneer. Its quite interesting . They are be able to change the angle of the laser detection for bad readable cdās for example.
Cheers
Ian
2 Likes
See here my ripping factory - not looking high end - but produces itā¦
The black bar is granite ā¦ ā¦and I love the doorstopsā¦
There are absolut zero vibrations during the ripping processā¦
ā¦like with the D100ā¦
3 Likes
Got to agree with the last few posts here, weāre talking about extracting data, not audio. If my CD rip exactly matches that of several (hundred) other people, I can sleep easy. What happens to that data next is a whole other story, but thereās no ātrust your earsā at this stage in the game.
2 Likes
Too much common sense being talked in this thread this morning.
Need to get some anarchists involved to cut down on the solid quality information being provided 
2 Likes
You are talking rubbish. Unless you use a green pen to stop reflections and an esoteric drive then the bits arenāt recorded properly to the hard drive. They are indeed stored as bots otherwise.
Iāll flag it myself to save humour failuresā¦.
1 Like
An my favorite punk anarchist rather than an audiophile anarchist steps up 
My fault I didnāt differentiate
1 Like
My hero is Loki the original anarchistā¦.
1 Like
I wonder if jpegs look better ripped using the D100? Or Excel Documents have better spreadsheets?
1 Like
I now use an old SuperDrive that also writes words on the non play side. Forgot I had it. It is heavy and large. I use the dPower software thing. Tho it refused to record the latest Adele so used Apple Music recording in AIFF.