What make low-cost DVD players good performance ?

[bordins]

Low-cost DVD players can be used as transports for PCM CD playback. I wonder what make these modern players deliver good performance, i.e. very low jitter as expensive transports in the old days. Effects of new circuitry, pick-up laser, memory buffer, etc ?

Tweaks for Geeks, IEEE Spectrum.

[tubenut]

Wishful thinking?

[phn]

People seem to not understand how CDs and jitter work.

The CD format is designed to take the CDM out of the equation. The DVD player in question will make a first-rate transport, as good as any other. It will not produce more or less jitter than any other transport. In fact, the last sentence is stupid. There's no more relation between the transport and jitter than there is between ice cream sales and shark attacks.

The D/A section is more complicated. There are so many factors starting with the PSU.

[bordins]

Originally posted by phn People seem to not understand how CDs and jitter work.

Yes. Please explain.

Originally posted by phn
The CD format is designed to take the CDM out of the equation. The DVD player in question will make a first-rate transport, as good as any other. It will not produce more or less jitter than any other transport.

So, does this imply no difference among expensive and low-cost transports ? If not the jitters, then what contribute to such audible differences ?

Originally posted by phn
In fact, the last sentence is stupid. There's no more relation between the transport and jitter than there is between ice cream sales and shark attacks.

Don't get it at all, phn. It should rather be my ignorance, IMHO.

Originally posted by phn
The D/A section is more complicated. There are so many factors starting with the PSU.

Yes, it's in the etc above.

[MatchASM]

Originally posted by phn
The DVD player in question will make a first-rate transport, as good as any other. It will not produce more or less jitter than any other transport.

In his article, Robert McNeice mentions that jitter may be reduced by mechanically damping the clock crystal. This seems a little contradictory to what you write about jitter and the transport.

I myself have never experienced any jitter improvements by damping the crystal, but are there any people out there who have measured the difference?

[phn]

Premise: Ice cream sales go up in the summer.

Premise: The number of shark attacks goes up in the summer.

Conclusion: Ice cream causes shark attacks.

That's a classic example of a logical fallacy.

"Equipped with ESOTERIC's most advanced VRDS-NEO mechanism evolved from the critically acclaimed X-01. Rigidity and vibration-resistant ability is improved by the use of a half inch-thick solid shaved-aluminum mechanism base plate," it says on the Teac web site. And it goes on to tell about all the other marvelous things the P-01 transport does.

And this tweak guy dampens a crystal.

The Teac site doesn't say what the consequences are if you don't reduce vibration, but the idea is that you are to believe they are bad. The tweak guy is more upfront. Both are equally wrong. They are simply reversing the ice cream/shark attack reasoning. They tell you that they have banned ice cream on their beaches so now you can go in the water without having to worry about sharks. Aren't you happy you are on their beaches and not on one where the sharks are?

The information on a CD (and SACD and DVD-A) is interleaved. Thus, having a stable and steady motor is meaningless. A CD is nothing like vinyl. A CD is closer to a hard drive. A CD is read one rotation at the time. After each rotation the data is sent to the first-in, first-out devised, buffered and sent to the I2S bus or whatever.

Vibrations are clearly not good if they cause the CDM to skip. But no CDM vibrates, or shakes, that much. Meridian makes perhaps the lowest jitter CD player on the planet. Meridian uses CD ROM drives. You can believe they use special "audio-grade" CD ROM drives if you want. But you will be believing wrong.

The SPDIF, on the other hand, is a source for jitter. That should mean that the easiest way to avoid jitter is to not use separate transport and DAC.

[RetroAudio]

If you Google for reviews on this particular player you'll find it has been known to have reliability problems. Not sure this is off topic or what. I can appreciate the one-board approach however and is probably what I'd look for in my next cd/dvd purchase.

[bordins]

Thanks for some explanation, phn.

Is the proof of no "transport effect" is the popularity of low-cost upscale dvd player ? Some of them offers the best video performance, like the OPPO DV-971 or the others.

No low-cost drive runs in real-time today ? All data are buffered first, like in the Merdian player ?

S/PDIF signalling is very well handled by decent commercial chips. However, we still hear difference when we use different transports to drive a decent DAC. What should be the critical points ?

So, what else are left ? The PSU, the components quality ?

[demogorgon]

Originally posted by phn
Premise: Ice cream sales go up in the summer.

Premise: The number of shark attacks goes up in the summer.

Conclusion: Ice cream causes shark attacks.

That's a classic example of a logical fallacy.

"Equipped with ESOTERIC's most advanced VRDS-NEO mechanism evolved from the critically acclaimed X-01. Rigidity and vibration-resistant ability is improved by the use of a half inch-thick solid shaved-aluminum mechanism base plate," it says on the Teac web site. And it goes on to tell about all the other marvelous things the P-01 transport does.

And this tweak guy dampens a crystal.

The Teac site doesn't say what the consequences are if you don't reduce vibration, but the idea is that you are to believe they are bad. The tweak guy is more upfront. Both are equally wrong. They are simply reversing the ice cream/shark attack reasoning. They tell you that they have banned ice cream on their beaches so now you can go in the water without having to worry about sharks. Aren't you happy you are on their beaches and not on one where the sharks are?

Dear god i loved that post

as for what causes jitter: cheap solutions

[protos]

PHN,
So you believe that vibration isolation in cd transports has absolutely no audible effect unless they are vibrating so much they are skipping?