Bit Perfect ZP90

I have not had a single issue since 2007 with the 15000 or so tracks I have ripped via iTunes, so I am good with it. ALAC and AAC both.

No skipping rips? No degradation of sound quality through disc rot with some (older) CDs? You've been lucky. EAC with accurip is really good for spotting dirt on discs, scratches etc that mean you need to re-rip. It covers all possibilities including minor checksum mismatches that may not be audible.

You've been lucky.
Ahh...don't I know it? In many many ways, including in the way that my HiFi/room acoustics/ear quality are such that I don't even hear any differences between say, HighNote or ECM CDs that I have ripped on iTunes using ALAC, and music from these houses that I have bought on iTunes in 256 kbps lossy AAC! That happy state of affairs allows me to also enjoy Apple music streaming just as much as music from my NAS, and to not lose any sleep about whether my zp90 is still a virgin with respect to being bit perfect. And to also be perfectly content with a 1 pair + Sub in my main listening area.

Based on all reports here, there has been no change made to zp90s, so, for what its worth, it will be bit perfect.

It is important to make a distinction between a ZP90 and a Connect. I think, as Kumar says, the ZP90 hasn't changed and will be bit-perfect (although this should actually be tested - we're only guessing at the moment). The Connect, on the other hand, has changed and become bit-imperfect. See this marathon thread. There will be a test afterwards 🙂

Thanks for this clarification. I'm beginning to wonder why the Connect exists!

You've been lucky.
Ahh...don't I know it? In many many ways, including in the way that my HiFi/room acoustics/ear quality are such that I don't even hear any differences between say, HighNote or ECM CDs that I have ripped on iTunes using ALAC, and music from these houses that I have bought on iTunes in 256 kbps lossy AAC! That happy state of affairs allows me to also enjoy Apple music streaming just as much as music from my NAS...

I know what you are saying and this is often true with unfamiliar music. However as music reveals itself on repeated listenings the differences become clear. Usually subtle and sometimes glaringly obvious. I want to be sure that the source simply plays all the data originally on the CD. I've never had a source that's done this before and now I have.

For someone that has the objective of expanding their musical horizons obtained from a CDP fed quality stereo amp + full range speakers, it is still a good way to get there, and especially so if there is also a need to expand music into other rooms via kit like Sonos play units. Provided that the amp has enough of service life left or access to cheap repairs for it.

Or for someone that wants to play a TT via a 1 pair. I can't see that it has too many other uses.

So I am pretty sure it goes head to head with the Connect Amp and perhaps the 3 unit for the title of product with the least number of unit sales.

As to things becoming clear with familiar music, I don't find that to be the case, so I doubt that any thing Sonos has done to the Connect is something I will pick out. One thing I know for a fact - I do not have golden ears.

Kumar, the mystery of our audiophile opinion differences is revealed, you do not have golden ears, and I do! Just kidding. Mine are not golden either.

Regarding ripping. I used iTunes Apple Lossless for several years, primarily because I used an iPod for portable music and played CDs on my system. When I started streaming with an Airport Express optically from my iPod I thought something was wrong. I had no idea what, just that my CDs sounded better. Also, I was getting crackling and popping. I was using a new Marantz 6005 amp. I exchanged it with Amazon. Same problem. I spoke with Amazon and a Marantz tech (Amazon can get one on the line with you) and he suggested I step up to the 7005. Same problem. It turns out that all amps that use a Crirus Logic CR4398 DAC chip have this issue with the Airport Express. Plus the Airport Express had to be reset every week or two.

In the meantime, while exchanging all these amps, I downloaded EAC and ripped a bunch of tracks, converted the Apple Lossless files to WAV files and compared them. I didn't know about the software that can do this without converting. I found that about 25% of my Apple Lossless had one or several bad areas. I assumed the EAC rip was accurate, being its reason for existence. This did not turn out to be the reason for my problem, as I have explained, but I was fed up with the mess iTunes makes trying to organize music. Cover art here, cover art embedded - sometimes - and a real chore to clean up, or even comprehend how to clean up. And relearn a new iTunes interface every major release. I had heard about dbPoweramp because it also uses the accurate rip database and it rips at least 10 times faster than EAC. I have reripped my music and cleaned it up with MP3TAG. I'm very happy with both. There is a nice batch converter that comes with dbPoweramp that lets me make Apple Lossless for a iPod or MP3s for a USB stick for my car. So, my main library is FLAC.

Nothing really controversial here, just the way I have settled in with ripped music. But I can confirm that iTunes does not accurately rip in a lot of cases. Especially older CDs that have been around the block or have peanut butter or whatever on them. I get a warning from dbPoweramp, clean the disc or deal with a scratch in most cases. I have not gone to the trouble of critically listening to see if I could spot bad rips, but a few were obvious, as xxalanxx claims. Maybe the drive in our computer, who knows?

There is a setting in iTunes to use error correction while ripping. I wonder if this is anywhere near as good as EAC?

I have only tested one track by recording the digital output directly from my CD player and comparing to the iTunes rip. They were identical.

Cheers, Peter.

If I had seen the kind of problems you did, I too would have looked for something else; I did not, so I stayed with Mac/iTunes for my ripping. And I haven't ripped more than a couple of CDs in the last 2-3 years, since I started buying music on iTunes. Which now has largely stopped because of Apple Music. So my NAS is almost stagnant in content, with a mix of ALAC/AAC 256 kbps. And works flawlessly. One reason could be that my CDs were immaculately kept.

My first foray into streaming was via AEX into my stereo; music quality was good via both optical and analog, which opened my eyes to streaming but I kept having music drops which led me to Sonos. And where I have stayed ever since, because there has been no incentive to change, because both sound quality and stable music streaming are what I need them to be.