Shooting out of 001 to burner -what's the best quality: coxial, optical, or analog?

[peter parker]

i wanted to run an external cd burner, out of the digi outs, while i bounce to disk, so i have it on file twice:
once going to BTD, and another shot to the cd burner.

whats best to shoot it out from? my cd burner has an input option of coxial, optical , and ofcourse analog.... so what should i pick?

im also assuming that the cd burner will automatically make the conversion from
the 24bit -(L1 dithered to 16bit) PT session to the cdr in the cd burner.
this should result to a good sounding product, right? then if i wanted to get the cdr redcoded i just load up the freshly burned cdr up into JAM and do it from there.....is this better than just doing a regular bounce to disk?

[img]images/icons/confused.gif[/img]

[froyo]

im also assuming that the cd burner will automatically make the conversion from
the 24bit -(L1 dithered to 16bit) PT session to the cdr in the cd burner.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Hello. The only way that 'conversion' would happen is if you went the analog route. Of course it wouldn't be a conversion, just an analog transfer of a 24 bit source to a 16 bit recorder. The digital connection wouldn't happen I assume. Check your burner specs, and you will see the coax and optical digital I/O is 16/44.1. I believe the Masterlink is the only burner available that would be able to do a 24-bit digital transfer, unless there is something new that I'm not aware of. I hope this helps. Good Luck.

[Duardo]

Best to go digital since you're there already...I've heard on several occasions that coax will sound better than optical, but I'm not sure how much truth there is to that statement.

As for your "conversion" question, the burner's not likely to convert unless it has dithering built in...otherwise it'll just truncate, but if you've already dithered to 16 bits in PT it's only truncating a bunch of zeroes. N problem there.

Same doesn't hold true for sampling rate...unless it has a sample rate converter built in, it won't work with anything but a 44.1kHz rate.

-Duardo

[guitates]

I have the HHB 830. I have called them and the unit creates ONLY 44.1/16. I got a Monster Coax cable, and have determined that the digital to digital (coaxial) is the Very Finest sound.

The HHB auto truncates any signal you send it. I do Not think that BTD is even close in quality.

I set my L2 to 24bit Ultra, and let the burner truncate down to 16...I tried 16 on the L2, but decided in Multiple tests that the 24 bit dither sounded better in my case...

I also BTD and recorded to my burner, and determined that the Best sound was to just play the song, and that when I did Both BTD and Record to HHB that the sound was Not the same/best quality...

The analog has a D/A--A/D process that is Not as good as coax...

With Optical, I started getting Pops, and I find S/PDIF--Coax much more reliable... [img]images/icons/cool.gif[/img]

[peter parker]

hey guitates,

that sounds like a good move doing the 24 bit dither and just letting the burner truncate the dithered zeros, at 16 bits. if it even works like that....it sounds like it should be way efficient in perserving the sound.

so i read that the s/pdif outs arent balanced. how do i balance them, and at what level?

after the cd is burned on the burner (im using a $350 consumer aiwa) do i just

load it back up to the g4
and use toast to extract to a folder
and then from the folder load up into Jam for redbook code
(or can i import straight from the loaded cdr into Jam?)

[img]images/icons/confused.gif[/img]

[guitates]

The HHB suggests that you keep the S/PDIF cable under 6'...Yes it is unbalanced and a longer cable is not as good...

I make my CD...Then, I make a dual mono bounce--NO conversion for MLCD or Jam...I found that the signal going to the burner is Not the same if I bounce at the same time...

I will try Toast Audio Extractor, but I have Not yet...

[froyo]

By peterparker

then if i wanted to get the cdr redcoded i just load up the freshly burned cdr up into JAM and do it from there...
...and then from the folder load up into Jam for redbook code.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">What do you mean by Red Book code or redcoded? Red Book code is 16 bit, 44.1 Khz. Unless you have a burner like the Masterlink that can handle a 24-bit, 48 Khz audio, any audio on any CD-R is Red Book. Technically it's Orange Book, because that's the one for CD-R's, but the specification is the same. Again, what do you mean by Red Book? Once you dump it to a Cd burner as an audio file, it's at 16 bit, 44.1 Khz, which is Red Book. CD-R's fall under the Orange Book specification, but like Red Book, only do audio at 16 bit, 44.1 Khz. If you want to do actual Red Book mastering, you have to have mastering software like Sonic or something similar. You can burn a data file of a session at any bit depth and sample rate, but that's just data. I'm confused about what you are asking. Why do you want to load it back up? You already have the bounced file if you need to import it to a CD burning software like Toast. I'm not sure I understand what it is you are trying to do.

[cane]

Hey,

I ve been on this one for while as well - I have found that going out coax to a cdr with a dither plug on the master fader such as the digi pow or even the L1 has been the best sound for me.
I just play the track & record on the cdr at the same time with the dither plug on the master & this is much better sounding than btd imho.
After - I just extract the song into toast to make multiple copies for distribution.
With the toast I get the exact same sound as it does no conversion - just an extraction of 0s 1s of audio.

By the way most of the time I use the digi dither plug which tested better to me than all the others but I sure would like to know of any others outhere?

[peter parker]

yeah, what i was saying about the redbook code thing...is all i know that in order to have a cd professionally manufactured (glass mastering like at discmakers or some big company like that) there needs to be a certain code in the master cdr you send them. all i know that a program like itunes doesnt produce this needed code for glass mastering, BUT JAM does. i thought i heard this code referred to as red code, but i may be wrong. but i am positive that something like that exsists.

* so pretty much my question was;
after i burn my cdr from the external burner.......i would then load it into the g4........and i was curious if there was any loss in quality if i extracted with Toast to a folder, (wait im not finished) ---AND THEN load the extracted audio files from the folder
up into JAM so i can then burn a cdr with that code needed for glass mastering.
because i dought that the external cd burner would apply this code, so i would need to get it on there with JAM.
i was just wondering if i would be loosing any quality doing it the way i just described.......so i know wether this way is well worth it.......or if i should just go back to doing a BTD, and then just load it into JAM from there.
[img]images/icons/confused.gif[/img]

[peter parker]

p.s. oh yeah, and also would i want to balance my s/pdif outs leading to the external burner, since they are not balanced.
if needed, how do i balance them?
and what do i balance them to?

thanks again.