How To Use CD Playback and Ripping
AURALiC’s Unique CD Features
AURALiC streaming products have a unique jitter-reducing CD playback feature. By connecting a simple USB optical drive with a good external power supply, you will have a playback system that rivals many of the best high-end CD transports.
This playback feature uses our advanced Memory Cache technology to compare multiple scans of the CD data, ensuring its accuracy. This process eliminates errors and drastically reduces jitter resulting in superior performance.
When ripping, the streamer will read each data sector twice at the speed you select. If the two sets of data match, the read will be considered accurate. The streamer will save the data and move to the next sector. If the two readings do not match, the streamer will reduce its speed and re-read the data an additional 8 times. If all 8 readings are identical, then the streamer will save the data and move on to the next sector. If they are not identical, the most matched reading will be saved and the streamer will continue on.
Optical Drive Setup
To set up the USB optical drive for playing or ripping CDs connect the USB cable from the optical drive to the USB Type A connection labeled “HDD” or “USB” on the back of your streamer. To avoid serious damage to your AURALiC product, DO NOT connect it to the USB “DAC” port.
A generic USB CD or DVD optical drive that is compatible with either a Windows or Mac computer will work with your AURALiC streamer. The optical drive will most likely need an external power supply for proper operation.
For a USB optical drive with its own dedicated power supply port, please connect the USB cable to the optical drive first then connect the external power supply.
A low power USB optical drive without a dedicated power supply may work with your streamer, however, it is not guaranteed. In this case a self-powered USB hub or a USB “y” splitter cable may be used to supply the necessary power to the drive. For details on how to properly set these up, please refer to this link to our community post.
CD Playback
To begin playing, insert a CD into the drive. When the CD is detected, the Lightning DS app will display a dialog box asking if you would like to play now, click yes to play the disk. You should also see this message on your G-series product front display.
To browse CD Audio within the Lightning DS app, your currently selected music library must be the Lightning Server on the device to which the CD drive is connected. Once you have selected the correct Lightning Server library, you will be able to choose Audio CD from the main blue menu in Lightning DS. This will take you to the CD album page, where you can choose to play any, or all tracks.
You may also configure your device to play a CD automatically when inserted by turning on the “Auto Playback” option in the Library Setup menu.
In addition, a remote control can be configured to operate all of the normal CD playback functions so your streamer behaves like a CD player.
CD Ripping
In addition to superb CD playback, your AURALiC system can also rip and store music from your CDs allowing you to stream it at any time. The ripped music may be stored on a USB Drive, a shared network folder, or on the internal storage of your AURALiC streamer. Whichever destination path you choose, it will need to be connected before you can begin to rip CDs.
In the Library Setup menu you may enable Auto Ripping Mode if you would like to quickly transfer a CD to your local storage for streaming. You also have the option to rip on the fly while listening to any CD. Please be aware that with this method only tracks played all the way through will be stored as files.
Complete details of how to rip and store your music can be found in this link of this community article. AURALIC works with MusicBrainz to provide metadata support. It may not cover every CD in your collection, but your CDs may be ripped and played without the addition of metadata. Following the ripping process, you may want to update or refine some of the automatically uploaded metadata. There are many good software programs such as MusicBrainz Picard, Foobar 2000, and Tag & Rename which are specifically designed for this task.
Sound Quality
Focused on providing the best possible sound quality, we want you to get the most from your audio system.
When playing or ripping CDs, the USB optical drive’s external power supply will dramatically affect its sound quality. Low cost or poorly designed power supplies will introduce noise into your system. We recommend that you buy a good quality external power supply to experience the best possible sound quality. If available, an audiophile-grade linear power supply is the preferred option.
For more information regarding this advanced feature, please refer to this article on our community. If you have any difficulty with your AURALiC product, please contact your local dealer or email us at support@auralic.com.