My cool idea.

[Kitsunexus]

Taken from this thread, where we are discussing digital audio formats, DRM, the effects of compression on dynamic range and all that good stuff:

If you've ever used Alcohol 120% to mount a virtual CD drive, you know that if you rip a CD as an ISO image and mount it in the drive, it will play just like the normal CD, ie: no compression, although the original physical media is NOT being used.

What if you could take a hard drive MP3 player (80gb preferably) and hack up a program to play ripped CD ISOs? Sure you could only fit like 20-50 CDs on the thing, but it'd be an audiophiles wetdream.

And if you were proficient enough to crack Sony's DRM on the SACD and DVD-Audio formats, even though you would only have like 13 albums, you'd have the ultimate quailty available.

Ultimate quality, no disc-swapping. Why hasn't anyone tried this before?

[FM-77]

Why would anyone want to do that? MP3 players are junk anyway, you won't notice if the audio's compressed or not.

[Kitsunexus]

MP3 players are junk anyway

Yeah, maybe your "I'm so poor I eat Wunder bread and drink Flavor-Aid for dinner" SanDisk 64MB POS gumball machine prize MP3 player is junk, but Zen and iPod owners think otherwise.

And I made a game magazine ad reference, first person to get it gets a cookie.

[Joe Redifer]

Ummm... this can already happen.  Insert the CD into your drive and when it mounts, open it up so you can see the files (tracks).  Just drag and drop the tracks that you like from the CD to the desktop into a folder.  Now you have a WAV files and they are not compressed.  Actually I don't know how you rip tracks off of a CD in Windows, but it probably isn't drag and drop since the OS isn't designed very well.  Anyway just drag and drop your WAV files onto your mounted MP3 player or whatever it is and there you go.  No need to use ISO's.  That's just... 

[Hobo Xiphas]

This is stupid.

If you want lossless audio, just use FLAC.

[Keranu]

This is stupid.

If you want lossless audio, just use FLAC.

Agreed, especially if you're like us and behind the current 300gb+ hard drive medium.

[Kitsunexus]

1. Joe, you DON'T get WAVs automatically, you get CDA... 

2. My player doesn't support FLAC...

[Joe Redifer]

In a nutshell, WAVs are the same thing when they are at 16-bit 44.1Khz stereo.  I think CDA is closer to AIF than WAV, because that's what I automatically get when I drag files off of a CD on my Mac (no conversion/transcoding is taking place to the audio).  Anyway, rip your files as WAV and there you go.  Same damn sound with no difference from the original CD.  I can't believe you haven't figured this out. 

[GUTS]

The new version of Windows Media Player pulls WAVs off of a CD, the old ones probably do too.  Just scrap that shitty mac and get a Windows PC, it'll save you having to do retarded shit like try and put ISOs on a MP3 player.

[Joe Redifer]

No, Macs drag and drop AIFF files straight from the CD, no need to launch any applications.  If you read the first post you'd see he enjoys using Alcohol 120% which is a Windows app.  No shitty Mac to scrap.

[Hobo Xiphas]

2. My player doesn't support FLAC...

It'll be tremendously easier to hack a device to play FLAC than to somehow hack it to understand CDDA.

Not to mention it will save you some space on the player.

[FM-77]

I meant Ipods. Junk. At least if you're a real "audiophile".

[Joe Redifer]

I definitely agree with that.  I still use MiniDiscs.   

[Keranu]

I bought a killer 80's Sony walkman from the thrift store the other day for only a couple of bucks. Seriously, it blows away any portable audio device I see today with it's really nice and loud speaker + headphone jack.

[FM-77]

I bought a killer 80's Sony walkman from the thrift store the other day for only a couple of bucks. Seriously, it blows away any portable audio device I see today with it's really nice and loud speaker + headphone jack.

Hell yeah. Stereo equipment from the 70's and to some extent the 80's is very powerful stuff. At least the more expensive (at that time) equipment.

This modern shit is made with very weak and tiny components but has a nice (for our time) appearance. That's why it's so expensive - it's tiny and looks fancy on the outside. The internal stuff is horrible.