Fish Posted February 5, 2007 Share Posted February 5, 2007 If the original post was can we tell a difference in digital outputs? I'll only say very little for me and the several players I've tried.If the ? is "does the analog output sound different from player to player" there is no doubt in my mind.Someone here has a Denon 2200 they said sounds the same as the 640c,they sound different to me,better or worse is personal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edwinr Posted February 5, 2007 Share Posted February 5, 2007 In my deliberations over what CD player to buy, none of it revolved around the weight of the machine. In fact the Mark Levinson, although solidly built, is quite tiny compared with other 'normall' sized machines. The Ayre CD player that I finally bought, features a TEAC CD-ROM as the transport. This is a particulalry reliable transport built by one of the best manufacturers in the world for this type of product. There is no argument that the retrieval of the 1's and 0's from the disc is relatively simple. Pretty much any transport can do that. It's what you do with the information afterwards that makes a difference. Some of the more advanced CD players fearure oversampling and upsampling. I guess these are little tricks to give the impression that the player resolves more information than a standard machine. The other thing are the DAC's. These obviously are crucial to good sound quality. What about a good power supply for the CD player. Does this not make a difference? How about the ability of the CD player to read the disc menu then go straight to the track you want with minimal delay? Unlike lots of other CD players, the Ayre provides virtually instant track access. There is no frustrating wait while the CD player whirs and deliberates - I just get instant music when I want it. Also another point. Both the Mark Levinson and the Ayre are able to play discs that are not playable on my other machines. The end result in the very high quality CD players I've auditioned as far as I can discern is an incredibly 'black' background to the sound from CD's. There is no background noise. No digital 'hash'. Just incredible detail and atmosphere. These details do not emerge with a simple few minutes of comparison. To appreciate the qualities of a good CD player I reckon you need to isten for a week. But don't plug and unplug different machines. Just listen to the one machine. Sometimes you might not initially like the sound from the machine you are listening to. This was my first reaction to the Ayre. After a week I gaurantee you will begin to hear musical detail you hadn't heard before and the initial reaction begins to change into appreciation of the qualities of the new CD player and what it can do. Now the big shock for me was switching back to my old CD player after a week. My thoughts were something like "OMG! Was I listening to that for the last few months?" My old CD player sounded congested and... almost as though it had picked up some MP3 qualities along the way. I remember a few years ago people were saying stuff like 'CD is dead', and the advice was to buy only universal disc players because of this reason. Well CD is still our primary format and the other formats have faded away. There is every indication that CD will remain our primary format for many years to come. I reckon the only time it will be replaced will be when we move into a totally different storage medium... maybe memory sticks or something like that. So don't listen to the doomsayers. Buy yourself a quality CD player and enjoy what we've got. [] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pauln Posted February 5, 2007 Share Posted February 5, 2007 If you take care of new records they don't get noisy. I have hundreds over thirty years old bought new and they are clean and quiet. If you buy used records, some of them will be noisy because many people had no clue as to how to handle records or keep them in perfect shape. One of the best things you can do to keep records clean in the long run is to get them off of the table and back into their sleeves immediately after playing. Leaving an album on the table over night just once can add noise. When I play a clean and quiet record I sit and enjoy it. When I play one that has a little noise (occasional snap, crackle, and pop) I image there is a fireplace burning gently in the room. When I play one with really noticable noise, I plug in one of my guitars (for rock), tenor sax (for jazz), or violin (for classical) and just play along with the music. Who would have guessed that the most effective acoustical vinly playback tweak is the human imagination? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maxg Posted February 5, 2007 Share Posted February 5, 2007 I dont want this to turn into a dick measuring contest but I have a funny feeling neither Robert nor Mark have heard a $20K player. I am fairly certain that if they did we would not be having this conversation. No computer internal CD drive is going to compete with it - believe me. Well - that is not actually quite true - there is one computer that pounds it into the ground - actually it probably pounds vinyl into the ground but I am working from memory and anyway am not actually supposed to ever tell anyone - suffice to say all my hints as to error correction being an issue are....well......correct. Now I am not sufficiently expert in all of this to explain anyway - but suffice to say it is not the job of error correction to merely fix the errors in the data reads - that fix must be carried out in a timely fashion - especially where there is a constant stream of data and minimal buffering. Of course - this is less important when reading computer data than it is for Red book CD. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anarchist Posted February 5, 2007 Share Posted February 5, 2007 Why bother. You are right. A cd-player built out of solid steel will of course render all lighter cd-players to their proper function as paper weights... doesn't matter if they use the same transports or not. Get your audiophile clock here to go with it. Combine the clock with the weight of your $20K player and you will have achieved audio nirvana. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sunnysal Posted February 5, 2007 Share Posted February 5, 2007 there is no doubt that 50-250 dollar players of today are as good or better than many 1,000-2,000 players of 5-10 years ago. I have auditioned many high-end players in my system (and some high-end dacs) and have not yet swapped out my currently mass market players and mid level dac BUT that does not mean I did not hear any difference, some of thsoe high-end dacs and players sounded REALLY good, decernably better than my set up, I simply did not like the price versus performance ratio nor did I like the idea of losing my precious changers (convienience). I think one can get great, stupendous sound from budget components these days, both source and amplificiation. I have also however heard what top shelf stuff can sound like both in my system and in others and it can sound better...so if I win the lottery yeah perhaps I would go for a Levinson dac, or with next years bonus upgrade to a benchmark dac-1 but I wont miss them either if I cannot swing the investment. YMMV, etc. Tony Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Lindsey Posted February 5, 2007 Share Posted February 5, 2007 All I know is I had a friend bring over a Naim CD5 with separate power supply, and it totally blew away my Denon 2900 on my rig. It was no contest! Anyone who couldn't hear the difference would have to be deaf. Mike Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
meagain Posted February 5, 2007 Share Posted February 5, 2007 Anarchist - What about these super special outlet covers. They even improve the sound on outlets that don't work! http://www.machinadynamica.com/machina44.htm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anarchist Posted February 5, 2007 Share Posted February 5, 2007 Hey Mark, You referenced Wadia. I looked at the 861. Its component list is not all that different from some mass produced machines. It does offer three software algorithms which offer their own individual compromises as you deviate from the standard (including rolling off the highs so it should appeal to vintage tube lovers). But... and here's where the money is... "its chassis is massive, constructed of thick, silky, brushed-aluminum slabs"... it has a "cool-looking blue digital readout"... and just drool over the "hefty aluminum remote." Internally, those individual power supplies for each component are a sign it is serious about appealing to the audiophile. And the copper shielding around the transport... Of course, it would be less expensive if the power cord wasn't so "heavily filtered." Of course, this was only a $10K machine. I am sure a $20K machine trumps it (are we adjusting for inflation?) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Lindsey Posted February 5, 2007 Share Posted February 5, 2007 LarryC has a Wadia that runs around $15K with power supply and isolation platform (If I'm not mistaken), and it sounds incredible! Not sure I would spring for one if I had the means thoough... Mike Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
formica Posted February 5, 2007 Share Posted February 5, 2007 I saw something on the web the other night that mentioned source frequency reponse: Records 30Hz to 50KHz CDs 20Hz to 12KHz !!!! Anyone ever see anything like that or know what this is about? I have always thought CDs went up to 22KHz.. No I haven't... probably because it's erroneous?. [] Vinyl records are limited by the RIAA curve with a high pass filter at 50Hz while CDs have no theoretical lower limit. The theoretical upper limit on CDs is half the sampling rate... which 44kHz / 2 = 22kHz on a CDa which normally passes through a low pass filter at 20kHz to avoid aliasing. As an interesting side note, moving from 10kHz to 20kHz in a single octave... same as going from 50Hz to 25Hz. ROb Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pauln Posted February 5, 2007 Share Posted February 5, 2007 You mean low pass... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ben. Posted February 5, 2007 Share Posted February 5, 2007 I saw something on the web the other night that mentioned source frequency reponse: Records 30Hz to 50KHz CDs 20Hz to 12KHz !!!! Anyone ever see anything like that or know what this is about? I have always thought CDs went up to 22KHz.. No I haven't... probably because it's erroneous?. [] Vinyl records are limited by the RIAA curve with a low pass filter at 50Hz while CDs have no theoretical lower limit. The theoretical upper limit on CDs is half the sampling rate... which 44kHz / 2 = 22kHz on a CDa which normally passes through a high pass filter at 20kHz to avoid aliasing. As an interesting side note, moving from 10kHz to 20kHz in a single octave... same as going from 50Hz to 25Hz. ROb That's not consistent with my understanding of how the RIAA compensation works. Could you elaborate or provide a reference? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pauln Posted February 5, 2007 Share Posted February 5, 2007 I found another source that said it this way: "When storing audio at, say 44.1 kHz, it is not really possible for the electronics to differentiate between a sine or square wave at above 10 kHz." I think what this means is the format only offers sine waves for the high frequencies, the harmonic detail is lost... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
formica Posted February 5, 2007 Share Posted February 5, 2007 You mean low pass... you are correct... i flipped the two in my text.. but it's now corrected Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SilverSport Posted February 5, 2007 Author Share Posted February 5, 2007 s'funny to me that when I say that the Toshiba SD 3950...or the SD 3990 for that matter sound as nice at $39 as my Cambridge Audio Azur 640c V1 at $599, I get that the Cambridge is not really a quality, good CD player...but then there are those who say that the Cambridge is the best player under $1000...hmmm...am I fooling myself that this $39 Toshiba SD 3990 is really good...or am I fooling myself into the fact that the Cambridge is really bad? ...build quality aside...the Toshys are really cheaply built...soundwise only... I should hope your $15,000 CD unit sounds better... I am not asking anyone to justify my purchase of the Toshibas or the Cambridge or any other CD players out there...I let my ears be the judge...I am curious as to why there are those with whom I trust here on this Forum who say the Toshiba 3950/3990 sounds great and also those here whom I also trust who say that they are not worth the space they take up on the planet...interesting... Bill Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jacksonbart Posted February 5, 2007 Share Posted February 5, 2007 I found another source that said it this way: "When storing audio at, say 44.1 kHz, it is not really possible for the electronics to differentiate between a sine or square wave at above 10 kHz." I think what this means is the format only offers sine waves for the high frequencies, the harmonic detail is lost... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ben. Posted February 5, 2007 Share Posted February 5, 2007 You mean low pass... you are correct... i flipped the two in my text.. but it's now corrected I assumed that and still wonder about RIAA compensation limiting potential bandwidth. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jacksonbart Posted February 6, 2007 Share Posted February 6, 2007 You mean low pass... you are correct... i flipped the two in my text.. but it's now corrected I assumed that and still wonder about RIAA compensation limiting potential bandwidth. RIAA equalization is a form of preemphasis on recording, and deemphasis on playback. A record is cut with the low frequencies reduced and the high frequencies boosted, and on playback the opposite occurs. The result is a flat frequency response, but with noise such as hiss and clicks arising from the surface of the medium itself much attenuated. The other main benefit of the system is that low frequencies, which would otherwise cause the cutter to make large excursions when cutting a groove, are much reduced, so grooves are smaller and more can be fitted in a given surface area, yielding longer playback times. This also has the benefit of eliminating physical stresses on the playback stylus which might otherwise be hard to cope with, or cause unpleasant distortion. A drawback of the system is that rumble from the playback turntable's drive mechanism is greatly amplified, which means that players have to be carefully designed to avoid this. RIAA equalization is not a simple low-pass filter. It carefully defines transition points in three places - 75 µs, 318 µs and 3180 µs, which correspond to 2122 Hz, 500 Hz and 50 Hz. Implementing this characteristic is not especially difficult, but more involved than a simple linear amplifier. The phono input of most hi-fi amplifiers have this characteristic built-in, though it is omitted in many modern designs due to the gradual obsolescence of vinyl records. A solution in this case is to buy a special preamplifier which will adapt a magnetic cartridge to a standard line-level input, and implement the RIAA equalization curve separately. Some modern turntables feature built-in preamplification to the RIAA standard. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
meagain Posted February 6, 2007 Share Posted February 6, 2007 I am not asking anyone to justify my purchase of the Toshibas or the Cambridge or any other CD players out there...I let my ears be the judge...I am curious as to why there are those with whom I trust here on this Forum who say the Toshiba 3950/3990 sounds great and also those here whom I also trust who say that they are not worth the space they take up on the planet...interesting... Bill That means you should trust no one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.