How much of a difference in sound quality is there amongt CD players? (1 Viewer)

[Jack Gilvey]

Saurav,

What I'm impressed by ,in this instance, is that although you're obviously very well-versed in things digital, you choose that which sounds better to you, despite its technical "unimpressiveness". This is as it should be, one would think, but is quite rare. I define "better" as "giving more pleasure". I leave dubious definitions of "accuracy" to others.

I've been auditioning 'tables recently, but I'm without a funtioning one at the moment since my old Dual died. I think next I'll see if I can try a P3 2000, or maybe the new Music Hall MMF-7. I use an NAD 314 integrated, the phono stage of which is probably worth the price of the unit.

You can e-mail me on the Rava if you'd prefer, or maybe start a thread.

 

[Saurav]

I use an NAD 314 integrated, the phono stage of which is probably worth the price of the unit.

Agreed.

 

[BruceD]

I didn't have the scratch to go out and buy a SACD or DVD single or carousel player towards the end of the year 2000 (even though I wanted to), but instead bought a dealer demo Parasound carousel C/DC 1500.

The attention to detail on the analog stages, power supply, PCB, gold heavy duty output connects, chassis weight, etc. made this player a good buy for me, even though it is out of production now (warranty included).

I noticed a much higher level of detail than my previous player provided - heard more (new) detail on some of my favorite albums that I'd listened to more than 500 times before. For instance, cleaner bass notes on standup bass and electric bass guitar, shimmering brushed cymbols, etc.

Now, this isn't a high-end player, but it helps show what improvements I heard from a player that was probably 2-3 times more than my Yamaha at list.

Previously I had a Yamaha CDC 635 carousel with only analog outputs.

BruceD

 

[Jack Gilvey]

I think performance numbers are useful in narrowing down the field of choices, because there are practical limitations to trying to hear every piece of equipment that fits your needs.

I fear, though, that if you applied such a test to the "set of all possible sources", turntables wouldn't survive the first cut.

 

[KeithH]

Saurav, tubes and vinyl? Gasp! Shall I call you Mr. '50s? Just joking around.
By the way, I still haven't gotten the vintage Marantz tube gear yet. Hopefully soon.

 

[Saurav]

By the way, I still haven't gotten the vintage Marantz tube gear yet. Hopefully soon.

Ha! My Foreplay kit arrived yesterday, I'll probably beat you to it I think I'll get to it once I'm back home after Christmas... I have the first week of next year off from work. I plan to buy my tools today - digital voltmeter, more powerful soldering iron, wood glue, paint, and so on. This'll be fun

 

[KeithH]

Saurav, O.K., Mr. '60s it is. I prefer the '60s to the '50s myself, although I was born in 1970.
It's pretty sad to think that you will be able to build your own tube gear before I can get the Marantz gear from my brother. :frowning:

 

[Jack Gilvey]

True, I meant it more at the level of "set of all bookshelf speakers under $1000 list", or something like that.

I figured as much. I was just bein' a jerk.
I'm a Sgt. Pepper baby meself, and prefer the 60's also.
That Foreplay kit is calling to me, Saurav, keep me abreast of your progress.

 

[Saurav]

That Foreplay kit is calling to me, Saurav, keep me abreast of your progress.

Will do.

 

[RicP]

Well, if you know more than 3 chords and more than 2 positions for any of them, that makes you something of a master in today's day and age. And to top it off if you can play both major and minor chords...

Hey I can do all that!
P.S. I can play diminished and 7th chords too!!

 

[AntonS]

KeithH,

I understand that the quality of parts will be better in a more expensive player. I don't completely understand why is it so important in digital domain. For example, why would you care about power supply? You buy the cheapest CD-ROM for your computer, it is clanky and junky, but it still going to read those game CDs without errors, meaning that the reading part (laser and positioning) works just fine. It's all digital. There is really nothing analog. As soon as the reader does not introduce errors to the bitstream, it really does not matter after that. On the player part, there is no processing, no conversions, just read and send the bitstream away. Does the most expensive player do it better than medium-priced or even the cheapest? I really don't know, maybe it does. But I don't see at what stage there is a weak link.

Of corse if you are connecting you CD into amplifier via analog inputs, you need good DAC in you player (D it has to be converted to A at some stage anyway). But this is totally different situation. I'm talking about the situation when you already have excellent DACs and preamps in your receiver, and are running a digital line from the CD player.

Well... don't mistunderstand me. All I'm trying to say is, if you have already bought _the most expensive_ receiver/preamp, don't buy the _most expensive player_. Better invest more in speakers. DACs and preamps in top models of Denon, Marantz, Onkyo or such can be hard to beat.

 

[John Morris]

Anton: I thought that Keith(?) had already answered this but: if you are using a digital output from a CD player, then that CD player is actually a CD transport. At this point, things get alot more complicated. The DACs in the receiver are only part of the picture. You also should now consider the tranport mechanism and pickup mechanism in the CD player and then also the connection between the CD dig out and the receiver. Finally, the DACs in the receiver only reveal part of the story for PCM decoding. See Keiths post for more...

Anyway, IMO, for good sound it is harder to match a good transport, good interconnect and good outboard DAC than just to buy a high quality CD Player and use the analog interconnects...

 

[Saurav]

Anton, please run a search for "jitter" on this board, you'll get hundreds, and I literally mean hundreds, of posts explaining why your "it's only digital" theory is flawed. Basically, digital audio has an embedded timing signal, which is 100% analog. Digital data, like game CD-ROMs, do not. That's the crucial difference, and the quality of a CD transport's power supply can conceivably make a difference to how accurately this analog timing information is sent to the receiver/DAC. If you want to learn more about how exactly this embedded timing works, there have been links posted to that on this forum too, and a search should show them.

You are right though, this will make much less of a difference than if you're using the analog outputs of a CD player. All I'm saying is, if you think it'll make zero difference because "it's all digital", then you are mistaken.

RicP, diminished chords too? You probably deserve a Lifetime Achievement Grammy already.

 

[AntonS]

John, I'm trying to understand at which stage the sound can get worse.

To me, the only possible way it can get worse is when errors (on bit level) are introduced into the bit stream. When the head did not read the CD properly. Or the cable lost some bits. Otherwise, there is no quality degradation.

Dealing with digital signal and transmitting them is a LOT easier and much more reliable than with analog signals. Voltages are not that imortant, quality of parts are not that important. Digital 1 can be 4 volts ot 5.5 volts, it does not really matter. It will not get lost. Otherwise you computer would never have worked, and the computer is way more complicated thing than a CD reader.

Ask yourself a question, why the cheapest CD readers can read your game CD ROMs without errors at amazing 50x speed (when sound is read only at 1x)? I answer - because there is not much involved. It's easy. It gets complicated only when you go to analog domain. Then you have to be very careful about what you are designing. Well, it gets complicated if you go to digital sound processing (DSP) too. But just reading and flowing data is easy.

By the way I can tell you myslef when CD readers can do better. They can try to correct (approximate) bits which are lost from a bad (scratched or dirty) CD. If such bit is not corrected, you'll hear a click. But in reality there is not too many bad bits on a CD. Just think that if there were just a single bad bit on your game CD-ROM, you would never be able to read the disk.

 

[John Tillman]

Additionally, advances like DVD-A or SACD raise the bar and provide better Redbook playback as well.

If you're going to spend some money, don't "shortchange" yourself on today's reasonably priced advances.

 

[AntonS]

Saurav, that's more like it. I mean, if there something substantially different involved in reading music CD, then I can understand that. I'll look for "jitter".

 

[John Morris]

Anton: Please read Saurav's post and literally dozens more of them over the past years here at HTF. Use the Search function and see what you can learn. Still, the problems inherent with using an outboard DAC may only become apparent sonically if you system is capable of reproducing the problems. As you continually upgrade the rest of your system, including your speakers, you may find that that source to digital translation layer is lacking... Only you can hear and decide that for yourself.

 

[Saurav]

I mean, if there something substantially different involved in reading music CD, then I can understand that.

Believe me, there is. I've posted the same explanations over and over again so many times, that I really don't want to get into the details yet again. No offense to you, I'm glad you asked, but you should be able to find the information pretty easily in the archives.

 

[Norm Strong]

If you bought a new CD player, I doubt that you could tell the difference between it and the one you currently own without peeking.

Of course I could be wrong about that--but I haven't been yet.

 

[Kevin Magee]

Hmmm, Norm do you still believe that it's not possible to hear a difference between cd and sacd. That sacd are just better recorded? I remember seeing you post this on the internet when sacd's first hit the market. What cd player do you own and which ones have you tried?