murasame_ Posted March 7, 2003 Report Share Posted March 7, 2003 Okay, my questions: I don't have an optical out so I can't record through my optical in of my MD recorder. As I don't necessarily want to spend lots of money for an optical out, I'm considering buying a gold plated 3,5mm plug connection cable. 1) does that sound like optical? 2) how important is the cable lenght (longer cable - worse quality? do you hear the difference?) 3) is the difference between gold plated and non-gold-plated very big? There's this headphone out at my CD and DVD drive (of my computer). How do I use that? It didn't seem to work, there was no signal, no matter how I changed the volume. Any special settings for that? Should I record from the CD/DVD drive's analog out or rather from my soundcard's analog out when recording a CD? Hope you can help me, thank you Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MDX-400 Posted March 7, 2003 Report Share Posted March 7, 2003 Okay, my questions: I don't have an optical out so I can't record through my optical in of my MD recorder. As I don't necessarily want to spend lots of money for an optical out, I'm considering buying a gold plated 3,5mm plug connection cable. 1) does that sound like optical? No, that sounds like a stereo (analog miniplug) but it MAY be an optical cable. Usually optical cables are referred to as Toslink and the connectors will either be standard or miniplug Toslink--also some cables come with mini-Toslink adapters. 2) how important is the cable lenght (longer cable - worse quality? do you hear the difference?) 3) is the difference between gold plated and non-gold-plated very big? The cable length shouldn't be too long, but usually anything 15feet or less should work fine. There is no difference between optical cables which have a gold plating on the mini-Toslink end. There is no electrical signal, hence the name optical. There's this headphone out at my CD and DVD drive (of my computer). How do I use that? It didn't seem to work, there was no signal, no matter how I changed the volume. Any special settings for that? Should I record from the CD/DVD drive's analog out or rather from my soundcard's analog out when recording a CD?It seems apparent that you have a confusion between analog and digital cables. Optical cables carry digital signals in the S/PDIF format (over Toslink/optical tranmission means). The headphone jack and analog out jack you refer to are just that--analog outs. They are not compatible with optical cables and they do not carry digital signals. If you are using a soundcard and you get no output from it when playing CDs, then you can do one of two things. You can set the CD ROM drive settings to enable "digital playback" in the Device Manager (assuming you are using Windows). If your sound card supports this it will get digital information from the CD-ROM drive and then the D/A conversion will be done via the soundcard and you will get the audio out the headphone jack. However if this does not work (or the "enable digital playback" is "greyed out") you have to make sure that you have an analog audio cable connecting the CD-ROM to the soundcard INSIDE the PC. Those are your two choices. But again you would not get a digital connection like that. To record to MD you would use a stereo miniplug cable (analog) instead. This is probably the cable you are looking at anyway. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
murasame_ Posted March 8, 2003 Author Report Share Posted March 8, 2003 okay, sorry, I probably wrote in a way that's easily misunderstood: I was referring all the time to analog cables. I do not have an optical out and was referring to recording analog, not digital. So, same questions again. (will try the analog CD drive out now, thanks) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bazirker Posted March 8, 2003 Report Share Posted March 8, 2003 To give a simpler answer... If you have an optical cable, use it. It'll sound the best. However, it sounds like you don't. Your next best option is to use your computer's audio out to make an analog recording. You will definetly have an audio out; that's the jack that the speakers plug into. Now whether or not to go gold plated....gold plating is supposed to sound better. I personally have never tested the differences (or lack thereof) in sound quality between gold plated and normal cables. However, I have never noticed a difference between them. If you want, go for the gold-tipped cable, it should only cost a few dollars more. It looks cooler...lol. Cable length is essentially irrelevant since I have yet to see a cable long enough to cause problems in recording quality. As MX400 said, anything less than 15 ft (5 meters) should be fine. Hope that helped! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Anonymous Posted March 8, 2003 Report Share Posted March 8, 2003 okay, sorry, I probably wrote in a way that's easily misunderstood: I was referring all the time to analog cables. I do not have an optical out and was referring to recording analog, not digital. So, same questions again. (will try the analog CD drive out now, thanks)I would say: if you're recording analog from a computer there's no way around it, soundcard outputs aren't the highest quality, and the EMF from the computer is going to add a hiss to the output. These problems will dwarf any problems about whether the sound cable is gold-plated or not. So I wouldn't worry around buying the most expensive cable out there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bazirker Posted March 8, 2003 Report Share Posted March 8, 2003 Take a look at this thread, there might be useful info on there for you. It starts giving different optical out solutions for recording from a computer. http://forums.minidisc.org/viewtopic.php?t=158 (EDIT: Like an idiot, I forgot to post the thread. So there it is.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
murasame_ Posted March 8, 2003 Author Report Share Posted March 8, 2003 'digital playback' in my CD/DVD drive settings was switched on. When I switched it off I was able to use the analog out of my drive (the one directly on the front of the drive) I guess there's no possibility that this out is a combined analog/digital out? (because it didn't work when digital playback was switched on) And I should maybe explain my question regarding this output jack again: Is there any difference if I use the analog output jack of my CD drive instead of the analog output jack of my soundcard? Maybe clearer, more original sound? Thanks for your answers. Yes, of course I've read the thread regarding the optical out solutions. But I've also read that nobody will hear a difference between a good analog recording (meaning gold plated etc.) and optical. That's the main point of this thread, is there a big difference between a good analog and a optical recording? is good analog recording (meaning one where you don't hear a difference to optical recordings) possible with a PC? is the recording better when using the CD drive output jack (when recording a CD of course)? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Anonymous Posted March 8, 2003 Report Share Posted March 8, 2003 'digital playback' in my CD/DVD drive settings was switched on. When I switched it off I was able to use the analog out of my drive (the one directly on the front of the drive) I guess there's no possibility that this out is a combined analog/digital out? (because it didn't work when digital playback was switched on) And I should maybe explain my question regarding this output jack again: Is there any difference if I use the analog output jack of my CD drive instead of the analog output jack of my soundcard? Maybe clearer, more original sound? Thanks for your answers. Yes, of course I've read the thread regarding the optical out solutions. But I've also read that nobody will hear a difference between a good analog recording (meaning gold plated etc.) and optical. That's the main point of this thread, is there a big difference between a good analog and a optical recording? is good analog recording (meaning one where you don't hear a difference to optical recordings) possible with a PC? is the recording better when using the CD drive output jack (when recording a CD of course)?The "hiss" that's mentioned when recording from computer by analog, isn't there when you record by digital. So, to put the answer as a simple yes-no statement: no, analog does not sound as good as digital. No, it's not possible to make that good an analog recording from computer. CD-ROM output is better than soundcard output. You're better off recording from a stereo, though. The hiss isn't the end of the world. But it's bad enough that you won't notice any quality difference between gold plated and not gold plated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
murasame_ Posted March 8, 2003 Author Report Share Posted March 8, 2003 Thank you very much! So, quality wise: soundcard out worse CD drive out worse stereo out ? fine... that was the answer I needed Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MDX-400 Posted March 9, 2003 Report Share Posted March 9, 2003 And I should maybe explain my question regarding this output jack again: Is there any difference if I use the analog output jack of my CD drive instead of the analog output jack of my soundcard? Maybe clearer, more original sound? Okay, here is the difference. The "analog output" on the front of your CD/DVD ROM drive is a headphone jack and therefore has a headphone amp of some sort. Note that there are TWO ways that a soundcard may get sound from the CD-ROM. One is analog and the other is digital (PCM transferred over IDE/ATAPI and through the PCI bus). If you have a cable connecting the CD-ROM to the soundcard and you DO NOT check the "digital audio" box in Device Manager, then the soundcard will use the D/A converter in the CD-ROM and use it's analog output (that is what that small cable is for if you have it inside the PC). The other way is the digital way I mentioned. If you have that box checked in Device Manager then the CD-ROM switches off all analog output and does not utilise its own D/A converter (that is why you noted no audio from the headphones jack). Instead the raw digital audio goes over the IDE/ATAPI bus and through the PCI Bus to the soundcard. The soundcard then uses its own D/A converter and out goes the analog sound. Now if you do not get sound in "analog mode" out of the soundcard it simply means you don't have that analog cable connecting the CD-ROM to the soundcard. As for which one is better quality, if the soundcard is only a line-out level soundcard (as most are these days) I might tend towards the soundcard in digital mode. I would think the D/A converter is about equal in the soundcard as in the CD-ROM drive. But the CD-ROM has the added headphone amp to the signal path whereas the line-out level soundcard would not. It might also allow for a better (proper) level setting. By setting everything (CD, WAV and Master levels) in volume control to maximum, that should setup the proper full level output on the soundcard (assuming there is no amplifier in the soundcard). Plus using the soundcard would have all the audio coming out of one jack, you wouldn't need to switch around when recording from CD or audio files on the PC. The noise that is created in the computer is created mainly by the power supply as PC power supplies have no buffering or noise suppression like audio components do (that is a pity really). Anyhow since both the soundcard and the CD-ROM get power from the power supply I'd think the noise/interference from either would be similar. To test this out though you could do a test. One from the headphone out on the CD-ROM and one on the soundcard. Hook up your speakers or amplifier to either and play a silent portion (or silent track) on a CD and turn up the volume and monitor the background noise/interference in the silence (it WILL be noticeable on a PC). Whichever one sounds like it is less (soundcard w/"digital mode" or headphone out w/"analog mode") would probably be the better one to use. I do agree with the last poster in saying that analog recordings from the PC aren't the best because of the noise/interference created by the power supply and various PC components feeding noise into the power. The effect would only be really noticeable during quiet or silent portions where the MD might pickup on this background noise/EMI/RFI. It would be better to record analog CD Audio from a "regular" CD player like a portable CD player, or "home" component CD player/changer, through the analog line outs on those type of devices. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
murasame_ Posted March 9, 2003 Author Report Share Posted March 9, 2003 Thanks a lot for your detailed answer! I think I'll try analog recording from the CD deck of the stereo. If the quality is too bad I'll probably try optical recording at my friend's. And if I then find that it's not worth the trouble compared to LP2 I might just stick to LP2... But thanks to you I know about that digital setting in device manager. I always thought it works only analog with that cable from CD drive to soundcard. Thank you! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daijoubu Posted March 9, 2003 Report Share Posted March 9, 2003 That's not true dude CDROM can have both analog AND digital out (analog = cdrom dac, digital = soundcard dac) there's 2 audio connectors behind cdroms, the 2 wires one is the digital out Or you can use your computer power to read data tru the IDE/scsi bus with error correction (when you enable the option on WDM enabled driver , when using CDReader plugin for winamp or any other software who support digital reading) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MDX-400 Posted March 10, 2003 Report Share Posted March 10, 2003 That's not true dude CDROM can have both analog AND digital out (analog = cdrom dac, digital = soundcard dac) there's 2 audio connectors behind cdroms, the 2 wires one is the digital out Or you can use your computer power to read data tru the IDE/scsi bus with error correction (when you enable the option on WDM enabled driver , when using CDReader plugin for winamp or any other software who support digital reading)Correct... That 2-pin connector on the CD-ROM is a THIRD way to connect audio from the CD-ROM and that is the PCM output of the CD-ROM itself. I didn't want to confuse the matter with that though as those connectors have proven to be VERY non-standard in terms of cutting off parts of tracks and incorrect track marking if you use that output on some CD drives. However aside from that if you do enable "digital playback" in the Windows Device Manager, it does indeed disable the analog outs on the CD-ROM and the audio path is your latter description. Error correction however is not mandatory, that is another checkbox (that is located in Media Player or whatever software you are using). Most drives that are good at extracting audio data don't need the error correction done by the computer... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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