Tweaks for the disc itself

[SimontY]

Splitting hairs:

There's a difference between a "decent pc" and a fanless (with quietened hard disks) dedicated music server with network music interface. I'd have to do it well or not at all. And I fully intend to, just as soon as I can afford to!

Simon

[marcusdeming]

Originally posted by PauSim
Hi there,

I tried http://www.tnt-audio.com/clinica/cdcorke.html and it makes a VERY audible difference. It warms up the low-mids but I do not use it since overall sound gets a bit compressed.

Cheers

I have tried this before and there is audible differences, but it a little too warm, not sure if thats the right word

Originally posted by SimontY


Dunno about the mod you mention but I've got a blue LED "bath" around my mech. I'm not sure that it makes any obvious difference to sonics. It does look rather nice though, when the draw opens!

Simon

I am going to this when my exams are over this friday, and I want a couple of orange lights in it

[I_Forgot]

Originally posted by SimontY
Splitting hairs:

There's a difference between a "decent pc" and a fanless (with quietened hard disks) dedicated music server with network music interface. I'd have to do it well or not at all. And I fully intend to, just as soon as I can afford to!

Simon

Get a SqueezeBox. $250-300 gets the wireless networked player that plugs into your amp. You can connect an external DAC if you must. Very effective IR remote control. Completely silent. VF display that can be read across most rooms. Plays .flac files as well as lossy formats. Plays internet radio stations without a server running on PC.

Server software (slimserver) runs on almost any PC located in any room in your house (or across the web!) so PC fan noise is not an issue. Runs on Mac, Linux, and if you must, Windoze. Open source software with large community of developers. Remote control interface via web browser.

My 660 CD collection fits on a single, internal 250 GB HDD all in .flac with tags and album art. An external 250 GB HDD serves as backup (and portable party/loaner music source). I use an old tablet PC as a remote control which gives me a touch screen interface and displays cover art, disc and song title, artist, year, etc. I can also use it to browse the web for lyrics, etc. Using ubuntu linux on the server PC, it has NEVER crashed in more than a year of more or less continuous operation.

The CD is dead. I only hope windows will soon follow...

I_F

[SimontY]

I_F - that sounds like a very sensible and effective setup. This is something I need to do!

Off-topic though!

[gfiandy]

Hi, In reply to the what is changing when you make these modifications question.

What I can tell you is that the data itself is not changed, Prizm Sound did some investigation into this in the mid 90's. What they found was that the data was identical so all the 1s and 0s are correct.

What changes is the way the servo reads the disk. The servo in a CD player uses current in great big gulps and with the change to digital servos about 15 years ago this got much worse. The noise the servo introduces to the PSU then interacts with the the reconstructed clock and introduces jitter on the DAC clock reconstructing the audio samples.

Jitter levels of 150PS are audible. Systems with good linearity or 24bit playback even lower than this.

Other things that can cuase jitter are mechnical feedback from the spinning motor to the quartz crystal generating the clock and indeed the sound field in the room vibrating the crystal.

If anyone is paticullarly interested in this do a search on Julian Dunn on the web as he has done a significant amount of research into the effects of jitter and many of his papers are available free on the web. However this is extreemly technical stuff and the mathematics is complex.

Regards,
Andrew

[SimontY]

Fascinating, thanks.

[tabarddn]

Hi, Stumbled across a tip a few weeks ago about copying you CD's to BLACK CDR's. Bought a batch and they would not record (a littled pisses off, but those are the breaks). Then last week saw some Maxell Black CDR's so always a mug the second time around bought some more. All i can say ia WHOW & I mean WHOW. More of evrything, let's say the equivalent of doubling the cost of your H-Fi rig. Not all discs improve to the same degree but the good news is that they all do improve. Hunt them down and try it, you will not regret it.
Cheers.

[SimontY]

I will try it, thanks

Simon