I have been following this thread with increasing amusement... Keep it up.
The term "Mechanical jitter" is clearly a piece of techie slang. Read errors is a better term for it clearly.
I used to sell the VRDS range from Teac. In the listening room it was the best of the transports that we sold in my branch (Think low price to midrange with excellent customer service and dayglo and you might just guess who I worked for) The VRDS transport was very very good. It produced fabulous detail even out of the cheapest DACs and there was clearly a differrence between it and the cheaper transports.
As for it all being nonsense, and I know that there are always sceptics.... why not everyone try adding a little weight to the puck on your CD player and report the results. I remember at the time being supprised that it improved the Teac CD3. Results of course may vary between transports. I used one or two pound coins and a little blue tack to "mod" mine.
I still remain sceptical it wont reduce the lifespan of a motor, but I am sure that a few minutes testing wont cause damage.
Everyone .... Post your results!
The term "Mechanical jitter" is clearly a piece of techie slang. Read errors is a better term for it clearly.
I used to sell the VRDS range from Teac. In the listening room it was the best of the transports that we sold in my branch (Think low price to midrange with excellent customer service and dayglo and you might just guess who I worked for) The VRDS transport was very very good. It produced fabulous detail even out of the cheapest DACs and there was clearly a differrence between it and the cheaper transports.
As for it all being nonsense, and I know that there are always sceptics.... why not everyone try adding a little weight to the puck on your CD player and report the results. I remember at the time being supprised that it improved the Teac CD3. Results of course may vary between transports. I used one or two pound coins and a little blue tack to "mod" mine.
I still remain sceptical it wont reduce the lifespan of a motor, but I am sure that a few minutes testing wont cause damage.
Everyone .... Post your results!
Short answer, No. Figuring the transport is not defect, that is.
I thought the idea with a transport was that it shouldn't have any sound of its own.
I have "heard" very few transports. Even if I had "heard" hundreds, it wouldn't really matter. They were "heard" in situations where I wouldn't know what did what.
It would be presumptuous of me to say a transport under no condition can make a difference. But I have a hard time seeing how. And we know a few things. "Mechanical jitter" does not exist and Burmester and Teac are scumsucking liars. But it's not easy getting to the truth with John Atkinson of Stereophile and his band of scumsucking liars for hire doing their best to deceive and betray the trust of the readers.
I thought the idea with a transport was that it shouldn't have any sound of its own.
I have "heard" very few transports. Even if I had "heard" hundreds, it wouldn't really matter. They were "heard" in situations where I wouldn't know what did what.
It would be presumptuous of me to say a transport under no condition can make a difference. But I have a hard time seeing how. And we know a few things. "Mechanical jitter" does not exist and Burmester and Teac are scumsucking liars. But it's not easy getting to the truth with John Atkinson of Stereophile and his band of scumsucking liars for hire doing their best to deceive and betray the trust of the readers.
JustBlair, Glad you're amused. Its good to be of service 
I've never really played with a VRDS transport, how do you think they compare to, say, a CDM9 or CDPro2?
Phn, I don't recall 'mechanical jitter' really being discussed in this forum.
I think reducing mechanical vibration is quite useful though.
I've never really played with a VRDS transport, how do you think they compare to, say, a CDM9 or CDPro2?
Phn, I don't recall 'mechanical jitter' really being discussed in this forum.
I think reducing mechanical vibration is quite useful though.
philpoole said:
sorry about that, just detecting the error is like "closing the gate after the horse has bolted"
I was looking providing clean stable supplies for susceptible internal processes.
being Data slicer, 2 frequency detectors, VCO and PPL.
the ram i thought was off chip, was wrong, one internal one in uProcessor.
As for importance??? hard to say unless tried.
As a lot of people have stated about a clean, stable clock and power in dac's especially and to lesser on other parts,
reclocking the decocoder has been discussed by many and provern.
even coax back to transports
Just starting at point 1
allan
yes i know making of cd's is the start but that's a bit out of my-our range
ps phn just joking
phn said:
Hmmmm.... I cant say for sure your wrong.
I do think that it is not too far a leap in logic to say that the more stable the platter the more data gets read. The more data getting read the more information gets processed. For that reason I am not dismissive of cd transports that use mass loading.
philpoole said:JustBlair, Glad you're amused. Its good to be of service
I've never really played with a VRDS transport, how do you think they compare to, say, a CDM9 or CDPro2?
Phn, I don't recall 'mechanical jitter' really being discussed in this forum.
I think reducing mechanical vibration is quite useful though.
I couldn't compare them. The store I worked in didn't stock a lot of high end stuff. Teac and Roksan were the most exotic of transports. I did compare them to the Marantz CD63, NADS, Onkyo's etc and the only one that was similar from the lower price ranges were the pioneers with their stable platter mechanism.
It has been mentioned earlier though these are not like for like comparisons by any means so for that reason alone my experiance has little value in the great debate
The Roksan series we had at the time (and this was quite a while ago by the way I cant remember names) were top loaders and had heavy pucks that clamped the disk.
The dacs we were testing by the way were humble Dacmagics V1 and V2. I have just plugged in my Dacmagic again for the first time in years. Its been warming up for a few days and is starting to sound ok. I remember plugging it in to my CD3 and loving it. OK the CD3 had a very pedestrian sound to begin with...
The reason I suggest everybody having a go with a bit of weight is that it would move on the debate. Comparing ready made mass loaded transports is pointless as there are other factors that affect performance, a quick and dirty experiment will give a better picture. Of course I dont use CD's any more as a source so I am out of it...
tubee said:
justblair said:
Sorry... you are both wrong.
The cd is pressed (recorded) with a certain amount of data. No matter what you do, you cannot extract more data than was recorded!! ( call it detail, information, refinement, depth or whatever )
What can happen is read errors. These result in either correction due to the data redundancy on the disk, interpolation of missing data or, where the error is big, momentary muting of the output.
Corrected errors are inaudible.
Interpolation is supposed to be inaudible.
Muting can be heard.
Extra mass, stable platters, damping etc. reduces the read errors.
Andy
poynton said:
Sorry Andy, you misunderstood me. I did not say that more data existed. I said that more data gets read. ie less read errors
I took the same meaning from Tubee as I intended.
But I am in agreement with you. Though I stress I see it as a possibility... I am not smart enough on the subject to say it with certainty
justblair said:
I guess only a few can tell/ know all of this. Personally i think it's the combination of a real good mechanism (thus not a flimsy one) and a very good dac, oversampled or not, wich could sound best.
A well known german audio manufacturer uses a simple Sony plastic mechanism, but bolted it on a few kg's chuck of steel.
I'm really enjoying this debate. I hope everyone else is and its not upsetting anyone.
I suppose that is an exagerration of what I mean.
A heavily clad CDPro2 based transport will perform far better than a cheap Matsui CDP clamped to a washing machine on spin-cycle.
To a lesser extent a heavily clad CDPro2 based transport will probably perform better that a cheap Matsui CD player (which I forgot to mention has a flimsier chassis).
By perform better I mean reading data with less errors.
I do have a belief backed up by tests. I had a CD63 that couldn't read some discs, I then provided mechanical damping in the form of bitumen panels to the chassis, and the aforementioned blutak and coin in the spindle, and these CDs were readible.
If you think about it, CDs are never mounted precisely dead center, and the servo works incredibly hard to deal with following the wobbling track position as the disc rotates. Likewise, if a disc oscillates up and down, then the transport has to work hard to also focus on the disc surface as it rotates.
The harder the transport has to work at this, the more chance that errors are introduced.
A logical proposal is that, maybe, clamping the disc harder can reduce the vertical oscillation and aid focussing.
There is a minimum clamping force of 135g for the CDPro2 (it was in a link in a link earlier) - or this could happen, but 200g was the maximum (possibly due to wear and tear on the motor?).
I am just really repeating what others have said.
And I don't believe in what marketeers say - that's why I build my own hifi. And by discussing and testing out myths can we establish their credibility.
Cheers,
Phil
I suppose that is an exagerration of what I mean.
A heavily clad CDPro2 based transport will perform far better than a cheap Matsui CDP clamped to a washing machine on spin-cycle.
To a lesser extent a heavily clad CDPro2 based transport will probably perform better that a cheap Matsui CD player (which I forgot to mention has a flimsier chassis).
By perform better I mean reading data with less errors.
I do have a belief backed up by tests. I had a CD63 that couldn't read some discs, I then provided mechanical damping in the form of bitumen panels to the chassis, and the aforementioned blutak and coin in the spindle, and these CDs were readible.
If you think about it, CDs are never mounted precisely dead center, and the servo works incredibly hard to deal with following the wobbling track position as the disc rotates. Likewise, if a disc oscillates up and down, then the transport has to work hard to also focus on the disc surface as it rotates.
The harder the transport has to work at this, the more chance that errors are introduced.
A logical proposal is that, maybe, clamping the disc harder can reduce the vertical oscillation and aid focussing.
There is a minimum clamping force of 135g for the CDPro2 (it was in a link in a link earlier) - or this could happen, but 200g was the maximum (possibly due to wear and tear on the motor?).
I am just really repeating what others have said.
And I don't believe in what marketeers say - that's why I build my own hifi. And by discussing and testing out myths can we establish their credibility.
Cheers,
Phil
philpoole said:
That's your assumption.
philpoole said:
Nobody can argue with that.
philpoole said:
It's true that most CDs are off-centered (though it doesn't seem like the tracks are off-centered). This seems to be at least as bad as on vinyl. And considering the higher RPM of the CD, it might be far worse. I believe a hard suspension, as that of the 47 Labs Flatfish, can be preferable. But the question remains: does it matter?
philpoole said:
Ultimately, we have nothing that supports that there are any reading errors. And I have a hard time seeing vibrations (as long as the CDM is able to read the disc) being an issue.
Meridian uses "cheap" DVD ROM drives. And if you want a transport that is guaranteed not to misread, try a CD or DVD ROM drive. They are designed to read up to 52x without missing a bit. If we believe a CDM will misread a CD, how often mustn't a DVD player misread, not to mention Blu-ray.
Edit: The 47 Labs PiTracer is probably the best built CD transport money can buy. One reviewer found that it had problem reading every tenth CD or so. This was acknowledged by Junji Kimura of 47 Labs. I believe Kimura has since improved the tolerance of the laser. Still, the PiTracer will refuse to play (or skip and stutter) more CDs than any other transport out there.
boost your clamp action...
I have installed a 1/2 inch neo ring magnet onto my disk clamp. You need to play with it a bit to get it centred then gag it into place with a little nail polish. This makes the clamp grab onto the platter with a lot more force. I would imagine that this also helps to better centre the disk to the platter. Sounds better to me. Cheap and easy to try and if you don't like the results just take it off.
I have installed a 1/2 inch neo ring magnet onto my disk clamp. You need to play with it a bit to get it centred then gag it into place with a little nail polish. This makes the clamp grab onto the platter with a lot more force. I would imagine that this also helps to better centre the disk to the platter. Sounds better to me. Cheap and easy to try and if you don't like the results just take it off.
phn said:
I am interested by the first comment I quote above. It is pretty much accepted that cd's have read errors. Its built in to the format. Interleaving, errors correction etc exist for this very reason... To minimise the effect of misread or missing information.
How cd formats work
You will notice this little gem...
A little fuzz? Surely that's what we are trying to avoid.
The point about meridian is worth exploring. Computer cd/dvd transports are engineered to travel and read at higher speeds, so using one and slowing it down is a good idea. However 52x players are also designed to work with greater levels of error correction built into the data.
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