Max2 Posted September 27, 2011 Share Posted September 27, 2011 Maybe Im missing some info here. Is someone stating there is an actual audible difference between the two? I didnt mean for my link to say why or how the 95 is superior to the 93, I was just offering TK a comparison between the two and the abilty for him to do some research on both players. Its noted in the article the 95 has superior caps, Sabre vs Cirrus DACS, toro. powersupply, internal fan, better construction, etc, but 500 dollars difference? Im doubting anyone could hear a difference between the two with a basic CD, there is no way I could. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StephenM Posted September 27, 2011 Share Posted September 27, 2011 Is someone stating there is an actual audible difference between the two? No, although it has been implied that the 95 would be some incredible value if it were priced the same as the 93. TDK seemed curious as to why that would be the case, specifically with audio performance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sebrof Posted September 27, 2011 Share Posted September 27, 2011 Maybe Im missing some info here. Is someone stating there is an actual audible difference between the two? I didnt mean for my link to say why or how the 95 is superior to the 93, I was just offering TK a comparison between the two and the abilty for him to do some research on both players. Its noted in the article the 95 has superior caps, Sabre vs Cirrus DACS, toro. powersupply, internal fan, better construction, etc, but 500 dollars difference? Im doubting anyone could hear a difference between the two with a basic CD, there is no way I could. If they use different DACs I'd be surprised if there is no audible difference. You say you doubt anyone could hear a difference, and that there is no way you could. What is this based on? Have you compared different players with the same, different DACs? I'm just surprised anyone would say that about 2 different players. As far as $500 worth of difference - That depends completely on the person with or without the $500. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StephenM Posted September 27, 2011 Share Posted September 27, 2011 If they use different DACs I'd be surprised if there is no audible difference. Aside from the price of the two units, do you have any objective data/measurements that would indicate why they would sound significantly different? The measurements given at Audioholics show "benchmark performance" for even the less costly Oppo. What are they missing? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sebrof Posted September 27, 2011 Share Posted September 27, 2011 If they use different DACs I'd be surprised if there is no audible difference. Aside from the price of the two units, do you have any objective data/measurements that would indicate why they would sound significantly different? The measurements given at Audioholics show "benchmark performance" for even the less costly Oppo. What are they missing? I don't have anything, I've never even seen one. Why they would sound different is beacuse they are different. Why would they sound the same? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Panacea Engineering Posted September 27, 2011 Share Posted September 27, 2011 This guy Erik, has probably got the best CD player on the planet. It is obvious that he has doen his homework and he uses a transport out of a $50.00 dollar BoomBox. He spent his money on the DAC. If nothing else, it makes for an informative read and his craftsmanship is second to none. Just something to toss into the mix. http://theartofsound.net/forum/showthread.php?t=11349 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StephenM Posted September 27, 2011 Share Posted September 27, 2011 What makes one CD player sound different from another is the DAC built into them. Can you offer some objective measurements that illustrate what significant differences exist between say, one of the aforementioned Oppo's DAC and something a little better such as the Mac in the OP? What make one a better transport is the quality of the laser and electronics to read the disc as error free as possible. The problem I have with this statement is that in the next breath you go on to say how you can make a bit perfect rip of a CD with the CD drive of a computer. I myself made some lossless rips this morning (with error correction), a process that took a couple minutes per CD, on a drive that cost ~$20. If this el cheapo drive can read a bit perfect copy at ~20x (could potentially be faster if I had something more powerful than your average $300 netbook), why do we need a high end player to read a bit perfect copy at 1x??? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gregg357 Posted September 27, 2011 Share Posted September 27, 2011 IMO, hands down the best bang for the buck in a single slot CD player is the Sony DVP-S7000 (or the DVP-S7700). This is an old top of the line $1,000 Sony DVD player that has an excellent DAC. I bought a -S7700 within the year off Ebay for $115, delivered. I had a -S7000. The S7000 is supposed to sound a little better, with the S7700 having better video, however, with Blue Ray and such the video can be matched by other current players. But for about $100 you're not gonna find much better in CD performance. Disclaimer, Ebay is a crap shoot and I lucked out with a good seller. Sony DVP-S7000 DVD Player One-day shipping available Returns: Accepted within 7 days Buy It Now $96.75 Time left:2d 20h 31m SONY DVP-S7000 DVD/CD PLAYER W/ REMOTE CONTROL Returns: Accepted within 3 days Enlarge 0 Bids $59.99 Time left:3h 44m SONY RMT-D100A DVD REMOTE DVP5500 DVP-S70 DVP-S7000 Expedited shipping available Returns: Accepted within 7 days Buy It Now $14.95 Time left:11d 4h 4m Sony DVD Brochure, DVP-s7000, 8 pg, Specs, Info,Article Returns: Accepted within 7 days Buy It Now $12.00 Time left:22d 14h 4m Sony DVP-S7000 DVD Player Returns: Not accepted 0 Bids $39.99 Time left:5d 14h 38m Sony DVP-S7000 Single Disck DVD / CD Player Returns: Accepted within 7 days Buy It Now $75.00 Time left:25d 3h 48m Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sebrof Posted September 27, 2011 Share Posted September 27, 2011 What make one a better transport is the quality of the laser and electronics to read the disc as error free as possible. The problem I have with this statement is that in the next breath you go on to say how you can make a bit perfect rip of a CD with the CD drive of a computer. I myself made some lossless rips this morning (with error correction), a process that took a couple minutes per CD, on a drive that cost ~$20. If this el cheapo drive can read a bit perfect copy at ~20x (could potentially be faster if I had something more powerful than your average $300 netbook), why do we need a high end player to read a bit perfect copy at 1x??? I'm half guessing here (hopefully not completely guessing), but the computer can error correct when it's reading the disc until it gets it right. When the Transport is reading it's playing in closer to real time, and the more error correction the more the sound is likely to be affected. So for a transport it's more critical to get it right the first time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StephenM Posted September 27, 2011 Share Posted September 27, 2011 Why would they sound the same? Frankly, the all the measurements run by Audioholics indicate that what differences exist are purely academic. If you've got the cash burning a hole in your pocket, sure the 95 has bragging rights. But that $500 could go to much better uses such as room treatments, more CDs, etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sebrof Posted September 27, 2011 Share Posted September 27, 2011 Why would they sound the same? Frankly, the all the measurements run by Audioholics indicate that what differences exist are purely academic. If you've got the cash burning a hole in your pocket, sure the 95 has bragging rights. But that $500 could go to much better uses such as room treatments, more CDs, etc. Did they listen to them? I'd try to listen to them. It's rare to have an apples to apples measurement comparison when looking for components, so I haven't paid much attention to measurements. I'd be real curious as to how close the CDPs I've compared over the years measured. But without knowing the measurements, then comparing the sound of the players, there really is no baseline to tell how useful measurements are. IOW - If the players I've compared measured the same, I'd be inclined to say measurements are not very useful because they sounded different. If they measured differently and there was a correlation to the measurements to the sound, then I'd be inclined to say measurements are useful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StephenM Posted September 27, 2011 Share Posted September 27, 2011 When the Transport is reading it's playing in closer to real time, and the more error correction the more the sound is likely to be affected. Doesn't seem like anything a couple megabytes of buffer couldn't fix. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StephenM Posted September 27, 2011 Share Posted September 27, 2011 Did they listen to them? I'd try to listen to them. They did not; of course, conducting a blind, level matched listening test (needed to cut through biases, and to eliminate the effect that even a 0.2dB difference in volume can have) is rather time consuming. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sebrof Posted September 27, 2011 Share Posted September 27, 2011 Did they listen to them? I'd try to listen to them. They did not; of course, conducting a blind, level matched listening test (needed to cut through biases, and to eliminate the effect that even a 0.2dB difference in volume can have) is rather time consuming. Yes, unfortunately that's usually the situation. It's difficult to get to the truth. I don't think sitting the 2 players on the rack and saying "OK, here's the expensive one" and "OK, here's the cheap one" is a good way to get the truth. But neither is measuring because IMO something like music together with how our brains finagle things is far too complex to simply measure what we think we need to measure in 2011. So I'll stick to my original, "Why they would sound different is beacuse they are different. Why would they sound the same?" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StephenM Posted September 27, 2011 Share Posted September 27, 2011 But neither is measuring because IMO something like music together with how our brains finagle things is far too complex to simply measure what we think we need to measure in 2011. Here I'll disagree. A CD player has a rather straightforward job: take the digital representation of an analog waveform and convert it to voltage. The accuracy (or lack thereof) of that process is readily measured. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sebrof Posted September 27, 2011 Share Posted September 27, 2011 But neither is measuring because IMO something like music together with how our brains finagle things is far too complex to simply measure what we think we need to measure in 2011. Here I'll disagree. A CD player has a rather straightforward job: take the digital representation of an analog waveform and convert it to voltage. The accuracy (or lack thereof) of that process is readily measured. Fair enough, we will disagree. But to (someone's??) question, do the players sound the same I say not because they measured differently. From the Wrap-up: "From analog audio standpoint...The BDP-93 displayed benchmark performance while the BDP-95 exceeded that mark to the point where we were measuring the limits of our $40k Audio Precision HDMI analyzer." And, "For those utilizing HDMI outputs only, get the BDP-93. In our opinion, analogue buffs won't be able to find a better value than the BDP-95 both as a Blu-ray player and a dedicated CD player." Considering they use different DACs and different circuitry, I'm not surprised. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StephenM Posted September 27, 2011 Share Posted September 27, 2011 I noted that as well, and found it altogether amusing: they repeated over and over through the bench tests that none of the differences in measurements were likely to make any tangible audible difference... They didn't claim to listen to either player... But somehow, some way, the 95 is a better value for analog buffs. Whatever. Not planning to lose sleep over it [] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tromprof Posted September 28, 2011 Share Posted September 28, 2011 What make one a better transport is the quality of the laser and electronics to read the disc as error free as possible. The problem I have with this statement is that in the next breath you go on to say how you can make a bit perfect rip of a CD with the CD drive of a computer. I myself made some lossless rips this morning (with error correction), a process that took a couple minutes per CD, on a drive that cost ~$20. If this el cheapo drive can read a bit perfect copy at ~20x (could potentially be faster if I had something more powerful than your average $300 netbook), why do we need a high end player to read a bit perfect copy at 1x??? I'm half guessing here (hopefully not completely guessing), but the computer can error correct when it's reading the disc until it gets it right. When the Transport is reading it's playing in closer to real time, and the more error correction the more the sound is likely to be affected. So for a transport it's more critical to get it right the first time. Bingo. The computer can read and re-read the data until it is read correctly, while a CD player gets one shot at it. There are no skips, even with a bad disc, when it has been ripped with a good program like Exact Audio Copy, because the program takes the time to get it right. On some beat up discs, EAC sometimes takes an hour or more slowly going over sections of a disc, and then verifies those results. CD players can't do that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StephenM Posted September 28, 2011 Share Posted September 28, 2011 Bingo. The computer can read and re-read the data until it is read correctly, while a CD player gets one shot at it. Like I said, nothing a few megabytes of read ahead buffer and simple error correction can't fix, or at the least greatly improve. These aren't things that are terribly difficult or expensive to implement, and I'd like to think that even the lowliest engineer at Sony could figure that out. But, if I'm wrong, then... CD players can't do that. At worst, the $20 optical drive in your computer is the perfect transport. On some beat up discs, EAC sometimes takes an hour or more slowly going over sections of a disc, and then verifies those results. You need to take better care of your media [] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kaiser SET say Posted September 28, 2011 Share Posted September 28, 2011 To me "Best" CD player is as subjective as all audio gear to each's ear! With the current rate of digital going to files and files servers I would just go with an Oppo 93 and get the best bang for your buck to be able to play just about anything in the CD/DVD size format. As you can see by my signature I run an ancient transport/DAC combo which I'm very happy with to this day[] I do believe any and all digital of the future will just require a sweet DAC whether your portable listening via headphone setup, desktop or home rigs[] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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