whell Posted April 9, 2004 Share Posted April 9, 2004 Hope that this is not construed as beating a dead horse, as this post also includes a question: I decided to take the advice of Leok and others, and bought a 963. Found it on the net, reconditioned, for around $370. My current DVD is going downstairs into a 2 channel system I'm putting in our newly refinished basement. My 963 arrived yesterday, and was hooked into my main system. I'm using the 6 channel inputs, and picked up a couple of SACD's last night for the fun of it. I did check out the SACD's first. First was James's Taylor's "JT", and it sounded, to me, close enough to my vinyl copy as to be almost indistinguishable. I checked out a couple more SACD's, and had fun with these as well. Found out that I'm still not a big fan of multi-channel music mixes, though SACD does it better than other formats, IMHO. I was astonished, however, at just how wonderful my CD's sounded on this player. This "upsampling" thing is remarkable. For example, I listened to Crosby Stills and Nash: CSN. I must say that this is probably one of those albums that has found its way to my turntable or CD's MANY, MANY times since the late '70's. Listening to it on the Philips was like I was hearing it for the first time. Question - can anyone explain to this "non-techie" what upsampling truly is, and why it has such a remarkable impact on my old CD's? I think I'm going to be hanging on to this player for some time to come! Thanks to all for their good reccomendations on this unit! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
No Disc Posted April 9, 2004 Share Posted April 9, 2004 The 963 is an excellent player and excellent value. It's not in the same league as the Sony SCD-777es, otherwise I might eneded up keeping it. - tb Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leok Posted April 9, 2004 Share Posted April 9, 2004 whell, Glad you like the Philips player. I think it does very well,and am convinced the class-A output buffers are critical. Upsampling, or oversampling (both of which I like to refer to generically as interpolation) is a way to establish a higher sampling rate so that the audio data may be digitally filtered way above the audio spectrum. Once this is done, there is plenty of frequency space between the digital filter and the audio range for analog filtering which is also almost always performed. That way filter artifacts phase skew, and response irregularities, etc. are pushed up out of the audio spectrum to a great extent. Algorithms used in the interpolation and filters have impact on the final product. Better ones more perfectly recover as much as possible out of the original 44Ks/s - 16 bit data on a CD. Leo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whell Posted April 9, 2004 Author Share Posted April 9, 2004 TBABB - at less than 1/2 the price of the Sony model you indicated, the Philips represents an outstanding value from a price/performance perspective, in my humble opinion. Leok - I think I understand a bit better now. Thank you. I played around with the upsampling settings. To me, so far, setting for 96k seems to work out better than 192K for sound quality. Does that/should that make sense? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leok Posted April 9, 2004 Share Posted April 9, 2004 I haven't done any comparison between the two upsample rates for cd. Technically the higher rate should be marginally better, but then again, technically, at those rates there should be almost no difference. Nice having CDs sound so good isn't it? Leo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
No Disc Posted April 9, 2004 Share Posted April 9, 2004 I think it's more like 1/4th the price, but who's counting? I said it was a great value.... However I also did compare them side-by-side for an extended time so I know what 4 times the price buys. Enjoy the Phillips, it's a great unit. - tb ---------------- On 4/9/2004 11:12:44 AM whell wrote: TBABB - at less than 1/2 the price of the Sony model you indicated, the Philips represents an outstanding value from a price/performance perspective, in my humble opinion. ---------------- Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whell Posted April 9, 2004 Author Share Posted April 9, 2004 ---------------- On 4/9/2004 11:31:32 AM leok wrote: Nice having CDs sound so good isn't it? Leo ---------------- Good Lord, yes!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbflash Posted April 9, 2004 Share Posted April 9, 2004 In the mail yesterday was a flyer from Music Direct. They have the Phillips on sale for 4 hundred and something. I threw it away and have only had three hours sleep so I can't remember the exact price. I don't know if this is a good price or not. Last week I was thinking about buying a SCAD player but talked myself out of it for the time being. amusicdirect.com Danny Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Audio Flynn Posted April 9, 2004 Share Posted April 9, 2004 WHELL, Since the Audio Karma show in February I picked up a GW Labs upsampler to put in before my MSB Link II DAC. It makes the high end non fatiguing, clean and more realistic. Instruments and vocals seem to have a more definite location in the soundstage. Cymbals and accoustic guitar sound great upsampled. They are my 2 tests. If 50 % of the Audio Crowd had upsampling integrated in their CD player or DAC; SACD and DVD -A would be struggling in the marketplace even more. I will try the CSN CD tonight. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whell Posted April 9, 2004 Author Share Posted April 9, 2004 Flynn - Let me know if your thoughts on this are the same as mine. Hell, even David Crosby sounded good upsampled! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tubelover Posted April 10, 2004 Share Posted April 10, 2004 ---------------- On 4/9/2004 1:00:00 PM dbflash wrote: In the mail yesterday was a flyer from Music Direct. They have the Phillips on sale for 4 hundred and something. I threw it away and have only had three hours sleep so I can't remember the exact price. I don't know if this is a good price or not. Last week I was thinking about buying a SCAD player but talked myself out of it for the time being. amusicdirect.com Danny ---------------- $388 to your door http://www.abesofmaine.com/viewproduct.asp?id=phdvd963sa&l=Pricegrabber Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deang Posted April 10, 2004 Share Posted April 10, 2004 "I think it's more like 1/4th the price, but who's counting? I said it was a great value.... However I also did compare them side-by-side for an extended time so I know what 4 times the price buys." Damn Timmy, you're starting to sound like an audio snob. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
No Disc Posted April 10, 2004 Share Posted April 10, 2004 No, just victim of circumstance. I had already ordered the Phillips, and the Sony came up for sale 5 miles from my house. The guy selling it needed cash bad ( lost his job ) so I decided, what the hell, I'll try them both. After two weeks playing them side by side, it was obvious I could not part with the Sony. It really is much closer to Vinyl than the Phillips. I really, really was hoping that would not be the case because speading $1500 on a SACD player is something I thought I would never do. Sorry to sound like a snob, I don't mean to. Once you have heard better, it's hard to be impressed with less. Does that make sense? - tb ---------------- On 4/10/2004 7:25:43 PM DeanG wrote: Damn Timmy, you're starting to sound like an audio snob. ---------------- Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mace Posted April 11, 2004 Share Posted April 11, 2004 Has anyone compared the Phillips 963 with the lowly Sony SACD 222 ES?? What were the results? Or, how does the Sony 777 compare with the 222 or 775 (el cheapo) models? Regards, Mace Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Audio Flynn Posted April 11, 2004 Share Posted April 11, 2004 Whell; I listened to the CSN CD (origonal CD release) twice over the weekend. One song for example sounded quite excellent (all sounded great upsampled). See the Changes; has a very strong Martin D-45 guitar sound (vocal harmony is exceptional as well). Up close and personal this guitar model can sound borderline "strident". Many proffessional guitarists avoid Martins; Ovation plastic guitars were the rage for a time 20 years ago; unfortunately, but much easier to play cleanly. I like this word...strident. I like real, life like, and can even stand a little bright; but Strident to me implys fatiguing. As a kid I listened to as much as 30 hours of live Martin and Gibson and Alvarez accustic guitars; never me playing, I was weak compared to my buddies. I will take a little bright if i can hear the fret buzz and sliding finger squeaks realisticly. Although the CSN CD (mine is the origonal CD release, I have never heard the remaster, I do have the CSN box set on CD)is a little too compressed for my taste, it takes on new life upsampled. Tommorrow moring I will try "Deja Vu". The CSN is good for me since i was drwn into listening to these guys (plus "Y") since 1972. A 32 year investment in listening pleasure. If a digital front end can reproduce CSN music catalog in a satisfying manner, it should be good for most all music. +++++++++++++ Funny I have never heard a bad review of any upsampler implementation form any audio manufacturer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
No Disc Posted April 11, 2004 Share Posted April 11, 2004 How exactly do you upsample a LP ? ---------------- On 4/11/2004 1:40:09 AM Audio Flynn wrote: I listened to the CSN LP twice over the weekend. One song for example sounded quite excellent (all sounded great upsampled). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Audio Flynn Posted April 11, 2004 Share Posted April 11, 2004 post corrcted i get typing fast and use CD and Lp interchangably in error. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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