Abbey Road - How do you rip a CD with pre-emphasis to the hard drive ??

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by tomken22, Mar 29, 2006.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. tomken22

    tomken22 Senior Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    S.F. Bay Area
    Hi Guys,

    I have a Japan Abbey Road CD with PRE-EMPHASIS. I've searched the threads
    and I can use EAC to copy and burn a new cd-r with the pre-emphasis flags.

    But I would like to have the cd tracks on my HARD DRIVE, and be able to play
    the tracks on the computer speakers (or whatever), and have the tracks sound correct.
    (I'm sure others are also interested in this process).

    How do you rip a CD with pre-emphasis to the hard drive ??

    Thanks,

    Tom Kennedy
     
  2. RicP

    RicP All Digital. All The Time.

    You can't. You'd need to find an audio filter that can DE-emphasize the WAV file. Software based CDDA decoders cannot decode PE, the only solution is to alter the actual PCM data.
     
  3. Zoo Station

    Zoo Station Senior Member

    Location:
    Rochester, NY
    I've got an impulse file for the Foobar convolver DSP called 50-15_De-Emphasis.wav that supposedly de-emphasizes pre-emphasized wav files. I uploaded it to yousendit.com I don't know if it's allowed, but I'll post the link to it if anyone wants.
     
  4. psubliminal

    psubliminal Forum Resident

    Location:
    Westland, MI
  5. JPartyka

    JPartyka I Got a Home on High

    Location:
    USA
    Rip it to WAV files using iTunes. It works.

    I wouldn't have believed it myself, but I read about it recently on the Hydrogen Audio forums: iTunes compensates for pre-emphasis, if present, during ripping. I've successfully ripped the Toshiba Abbey Road, the old C2K The Wall, and the Harvest non-TO DSOTM, all of which have pre-emphasis, to my hard drive (and iPod) with iTunes. The resulting files sound great and just as they should. :thumbsup:
     
  6. barzzz

    barzzz Forum Resident

    Location:
    rochester ny
    What is pre-emphasis, and how would you know if a disc has it?
     
  7. John Carsell

    John Carsell Forum Resident

    Location:
    Northwest Illinois
    Just find someone with a home audio CD recorder and do it that way.
     
  8. .
     
  9. KevinP

    KevinP Forum introvert

    Location:
    Daejeon
    I'd like to know too.
     
  10. Andreas

    Andreas Senior Member

    Location:
    Frankfurt, Germany
    How does that work? Does it impose an automatic equalization curve?
     
  11. JPartyka

    JPartyka I Got a Home on High

    Location:
    USA
    Apparently, yes. Here's the thread at the Hydrogen Audio forums where I first read of this. It contains a graphic (see post #38) illustrating a before-and-after frequency sweep.
     
  12. Andreas

    Andreas Senior Member

    Location:
    Frankfurt, Germany
    The problem is: Such an automatic digital equalization de-emphasis is not necessarily accurate. It will essentially generate a remastered version. In the best case, it will sound very close to the original CD.

    The question is, would a burned CDR of the de-emphasized .wav files be audibly different from the original? Has this been demonstrated?
     
  13. JPartyka

    JPartyka I Got a Home on High

    Location:
    USA
    The files do sound close to the original CDs to my ears. I've noticed no differences; if there are any, they're insignificant to me.

    Good question; I haven't tried this. If I were to burn CD-Rs of these albums, I would just use EAC with the PE flags set.
     
  14. krisbee

    krisbee Forum Resident

    K3B, which is for linux, will burn any wav file and add pre-emphasis flag... don't know if that helps at all.

    --Kris
     
  15. Andreas

    Andreas Senior Member

    Location:
    Frankfurt, Germany
    The question is how to apply de-emphasis to the .wav or .aiff file without burning it.
     
  16. RicP

    RicP All Digital. All The Time.

    Well I'll be damned. I never noticed that before.

    Do you know if it compensates for PE when it is playing the CD as well as ripping it?

    That's pretty nifty. :)
     
  17. JPartyka

    JPartyka I Got a Home on High

    Location:
    USA
    I just popped in my PE'd The Wall, and yes, it does.
     
  18. Zoo Station

    Zoo Station Senior Member

    Location:
    Rochester, NY
  19. McLover

    McLover Senior Member

    Hi all,

    I tried ripping some PE compact discs on ITunes. This does work and gets the preemphasis decoded right. The best and easiest solution for ripping such discs.
     
  20. heliokt

    heliokt Forum Resident

    Location:
    Brazil
    Hi,

    Maybe a stupid question, but regular cd players and/or discmans are able to de-emphasize or read/play correctly a Japanese Abbey Road CD with pre-emphasis? :confused:

    Thanks,
    Helio
     
  21. tomken22

    tomken22 Senior Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    S.F. Bay Area
  22. Mal

    Mal Phorum Physicist

    I'm lucky since my DAC gives me the option to apply the de-emphasis curve (50/15µs) manually if the flag is not picked up in the subcode. Since the flag is lost when ripping to .wav I need this feature to be able to play my pre-emphasis encoded CDs that I have ripped to my hard drive for playback with the Squeezebox. I like to use EAC and would never use iTunes for ripping......

    The only downside is that the de-emphasis is performed in the digital domain in the DAC. Since I am of the opinion that invasive DSP of a PCM encoded waveform breaks the cardinal rule of digital audio (ie don't change the samples in the digital domain) I would rather have a high end analogue de-emphasis circuit. Anyone know of one?!

    I must admit that the "de-emphasised" tracks sound pretty damn good despite the DSP - but I do wonder if they would sound better if de-emphasised was applied after D/A conversion.

    Does anyone know if most CD players perform de-emphasis in the analogue or digital domain?

    De-emphasis is a redbook standard so all players are supposed to be able to read the pre-emphasis flag and de-emphasise the audio if the flag is set. Having said that I gather that there are one or two players out there that don't do this. However, the vast majority of players will apply de-emphasis to a CD encoded with pre-emphasis.

    You should be able to tell if it is not being applied when it should be as the audio will be thin and toppy sounding - more so than even the worst mastering would normally allow.

    :)
     
  23. JPartyka

    JPartyka I Got a Home on High

    Location:
    USA
    I feel the same way, but I do now make an exception for PE-encoded discs. I only have about four of those in my collection anyway ... I've ripped them with iTunes and I have no problems with how the files turned out.
     
  24. Mal

    Mal Phorum Physicist

    If I didn't have the option to implement de-emphasis on my DAC I'd probably do the same :thumbsup:.
     
  25. tomken22

    tomken22 Senior Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    S.F. Bay Area
    Hi Guys,

    I downloaded iTunes and it worked fine (sure, I'd rather use EAC but it doesn't work for the pre-emphasis discs).

    A few tips:

    After you insert the disc, go to:

    Edit, Preferences, Advanced, Importing, Import Using > select WAV encoder.

    That will rip the cd tracks to the HD in WAV files.

    Click the IMPORT CD button in the upper right corner. After ripping, your WAV files will be
    located at:

    MY DOCUMENTS, My Music, iTunes, iTunes Music, The Beatles, Abbey Road.

    WAH LAH !! The tracks are right there for your non-pre-emph musical enjoyment.

    BTW, you can then burn cd's using iTunes, or whatever ripper you use.

    And special thanks to Jeff aka PSYCHFAN for the EZ fix with iTunes tip! :righton:

    Tom Kennedy
     
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.

Share This Page

molar-endocrine