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Comment by Lazlo_Nibble | Hacker News Reader

Uh, no. Bit-perfect ripping is trivial and routine, and tools like the AccurateRip DB (which has checksums for around three million different titles you can use to verify the checksums on your own rips) and the CUEtools database (which has recovery records you can use to correct bit errors on your own rips) prove it. I routinely get bit-accurate single-pass high-speed rips--no "paranoid" settings or re-reads--of discs dating back thirty years or more, and so do hundreds of thousands of other people. If you get different checksums on successive rips of the same CD, either the disc is damaged or the drive you're using is failing.

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Oh sure, your rips may be perfect at the bit level, but how do you know that they're free of sub-bit quantization that isn't detectable by electronic circuits but can be heard by the human ear?

This sub-bit jitter and interference can travel along with a digital file and sneak right past your ordinary bit-level error detection and correction, no matter how lossless you make it. That's because these errors aren't visible in the bits. They occur at a deeper and more subtle level, in between the bits.

Even if you prove mathematically that two files contain the exact same bits, you can't prove that the human ear won't hear any difference, can you?

We've discovered digital homeopathy.

Funniest reply I've read all day.

Flawless satire.

Something about it being on HN also makes you assume a post isn't a joke starting out so I read for a lot longer before I realized what was happening.

That's also between the bits. See?

Thank you so muuuuuuuch for the uncontrollably laugh i'm having now

The decoder/player doesn't know how to read between the bits.

Same file -> same playback.

If you hear the same sound file twice (or two identical files) and hear something different, you software is broken or you're imagining things.

Ah, well, the human ear is a much more finely tuned instrument than your decoders and players. Think of the feelings you get when you hear the ocean waves, the birds sing, a thunderclap!

Can you turn this into mere "bits"? Of course not!

That's why it is so important to protect against sub-bit quantization errors, and this can only be done with proper interconnects. Ordinary cables allow the bits to travel willy-nilly until they jam up against each other creating a brittle, edgy soundstage. Quality interconnects are tuned, aligned, and harmonically shielded to keep those precious bits - and the all-important spaces between them - in a smooth flow.

And then, we can hear all of the things that make us human.

I'm very glad you stuck with the bit (har har) and didn't resort to just telling him he missed the joke. Well done.

Whooosh.

For a second I was terrified at the thought that you're being serious.

That comment is just perfect.

Interesting. I'll have to check those projects out. I have the same problem as the GP -- I have a script that rips CDs, taking multiple reads until it gets two bit-for-bit identical copies. And just about every time at least one track is silently "corrupted."

(I put the scare quotes on because I haven't actually bothered to check if there is an audible difference. But it does confirm the GP's experience.)

> bit-accurate single-pass high-speed rips

"military-grade encryption"

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