Philips Engineers

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It was suggested by another Forum Member in another thread that there may be (ex) Philips Engineers who frequent this Forum.

If this is the case, firstly a huge thank-you for the CD !!

Also, if they are members on here then do they have and can they post any information and/or pics on CD's early mock-ups/proto-types?
And also the same of their early attempts at DAC chips.
I would be very interested to see/hear of their trials and tribulations getting it 'right'. Especially the associated problems and how they over-came them.

Also, as Non-Over-Sampling has become something of the norm, why did they continue with the process once they has a working 16 bit DAC chip?
The TDA1541/A is sooo good in NOS Mode why soldier on with feeding it Over-Sampled DATA?

Looking forward, hopefully to some excellent stories.

P.
 
Another source of Philips info is the excellent Philips Museum in Eindhoven, Netherlands. I even arranged a family holiday so we would "accidentally" drive past and then we could have a look :D. Seems to be staffed by retired Philips guys who are interesting to talk to about the various products

Brian
 
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Also, as Non-Over-Sampling has become something of the norm, why did they continue with the process once they has a working 16 bit DAC chip?
The TDA1541/A is sooo good in NOS Mode why soldier on with feeding it Over-Sampled DATA?

I have to disagree with you on this. NOS is not the norm, it's a small and vocal cult who seem to think that getting back to the original waveform is not the way forwards and accept a crippled performance in return for some mystic magic.

There are exceedingly good reasons for oversampling which is the reason everyone continued with it until DS took over.
 
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I've yet to see a non-oversampling implementation that has a steep enough output filter on. All the measurements I have seen show Aliasing hell breaking loose. I don't want to listen to that when I get get superlative performance with well engineered solutions.

I used a Marantz CD80 for 20 odd years. I don't miss it sonically and really not interested in hunting out less well implemented solutions than that.
 
But as the above poster said, have you listened to one? Measurements are not everything.

However, it was not my intention to start a OS vs non OS debate.

billshurv, are you an ex Philips Engineer, do you have any stories to tell from the early days of experiments on CD? Please tell us more if so.

P.
 
Also, as Non-Over-Sampling has become something of the norm, why did they continue with the process once they has a working 16 bit DAC chip?
The TDA1541/A is sooo good in NOS Mode why soldier on with feeding it Over-Sampled DATA?

I'm no Philips or ex-Philips engineer - I know a few people who used to work for Philips, but not on the CD - but as far as I know the phase linearity of Philips CD players was a selling point in the early 1980's. Other manufacturers used non-oversampling DACs with steep analogue reconstruction filters that had a terrible phase response. Philips used a phase-linear oversampling filter and a Bessel analogue reconstruction filter, making the whole thing nearly phase linear.
 
I have to disagree with you on this. NOS is not the norm, it's a small and vocal cult who seem to think that getting back to the original waveform is not the way forwards and accept a crippled performance in return for some mystic magic.

There are exceedingly good reasons for oversampling which is the reason everyone continued with it until DS took over.

Excellent post!
 
If this is the case, firstly a huge thank-you for the CD !!

Looking forward, hopefully to some excellent stories.

Yes, many thanks to the excellent engineers at Philips for their work. :)

They recently published a book on it (development of the CD), but it is expensive I think. There might be interesting info about the DACs as well (in said book).

Thanks,
-Alex
 
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.....They recently published a book on it (development of the CD), but it is expensive I think. There might be interesting info about the DACs as well (in said book)...........

Thanks Alex for your constructive reply. £125.00 is the cheapest I found it on ebay :eek:

If they are still alive I doubt they're going to contribute here, now it's descended into a NOS Bashing thread !! That wasn't my intention and as one poster said, I wish I hadn't mentioned it now ! ;)

So Mods, feel free to close this thread.

P.
 
The Phillips CD development project was started in 1974 with the first demonstration in 1979 and commercial introduction in 1982. Usually an R&D project of this magnitude would be lead by senior engineers and scientists and staffed with fairly experienced people. So 44 years after project start you would expect that the surviving project leaders would be well into their 80s and the bulk of the staff would at least be early to late 70s, so it's not surprising they are scarce.
 
I have to disagree with you on this. NOS is not the norm, it's a small and vocal cult who seem to think that getting back to the original waveform is not the way forwards and accept a crippled performance in return for some mystic magic.

In digital reproduction, getting back to that original waveform you brag about, so that it looks nice on an oscilloscope, completely ruins the listening pleasure... The original waveform does not exist in digital audio reproduction - it's a myth!

It disappeared forever, the moment the analog stream got sampled & encoded into digital. It cannot be reconstructed anymore. The harder one try, the worst the listening results.
 
percival007 said:
But as the above poster said, have you listened to one? Measurements are not everything.
Agreed, but maths is everything. Filterless NOS (and weak filter NOS) cannot reproduce the original signal which left the anti-aliasing filter. We can argue why some people like the resultant sound (there are reasons why it might not be too bad), but it certainly does not attempt to reproduce the orginal sound.

Extreme_Boky said:
The original waveform does not exist in digital audio reproduction - it's a myth!

It disappeared forever, the moment the analog stream got sampled & encoded into digital. It cannot be reconstructed anymore. The harder one try, the worst the listening results.
Given a good enough filter you can reproduce the original waveform to an arbitrary degree of precision. That is the wonder of digital audio; it is sad that so many people lack the mathermatical understanding to appreciate this.
 
In digital reproduction, getting back to that original waveform you brag about, so that it looks nice on an oscilloscope, completely ruins the listening pleasure... The original waveform does not exist in digital audio reproduction - it's a myth!

It disappeared forever, the moment the analog stream got sampled & encoded into digital. It cannot be reconstructed anymore. The harder one try, the worst the listening results.

Non sense. The reconstructed signal corresponds exactly to the original. It has a maximum error of 1.5*10e-5. Nobody can hear a difference there. Not even a bat.
 
Hello,

Agree with "The reconstructed signal corresponds exactly to the original. It has a maximum error of 1.5*10e-5. Nobody can hear a difference there. Not even a bat."
Some have made a religion out of anything but digital. Doesn't matter if the latest implementations work great or not, it just can't be. You are not going to dissuade them in the least by logic or reason.
If the sound isn't like what they have decided is heaven, it is not right at all.
 
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