Cd Player Vs Dvd Player - The Facts

[pezza89]

Hey All,

How are we all? Today I had a hi fi guru come to visit and he was appalled to learn that I use a dvd player for my 2 channel hi fi setup. Ive been using the DVD player to date as it matches its silver finish matches my solid state collection and for space reasons. He was absolutely addiment that the sound quality would be impacted using a DVD player as opposed to a quality cd player made in japan. Can anyone shed any thoughts on this? Does it make any difference? Is it subtle or significant? would be curious to get some feedback! Cheers, Andy

[Conrad Hoffman]

Tough question. Over here it's almost impossible to buy a traditional non-carousel player, unless you go to the upper price ranges. There are a couple Marantz players, which is what I picked up. IMO, the Marantz CD5001 is somewhat better than almost any DVD player, but the difference isn't as much as you might hope for. The higher end players are closer to $1k and up, and are certainly better than the Marantz, but are modern CDs really worth it? Lately I've been spinning old vinyl.

[myhrrhleine]

Since the focus of the 2 designs is different, so can the sound be different.
Bit sample rate
oversample conversion
jitter
etc.

[pezza89]

Thanks everyone for your responses! I think i'll invest in a marantz cd player just to compare the difference, if any. Most of my vintage hi fi set up is marantz anyway so it will be good to have it all matching. Cheers, Andy

[anatech]

Hi Andy,
For what it's worth, a good CD player is well worth having. Normally well over $1,000. Some of the upper Denon machines were excellent. My best machine is still a DCD-S10.

-Chris

[jerishi]

What about at the 'low end'? I've heard a dvd player works better for stereo playback than a cd player.... of approximate same cost. True?

[anatech]

Hi jerishi,

What about at the 'low end'? I've heard a dvd player works better for stereo playback than a cd player.... of approximate same cost. True?

I don't know why it would be expected to.

Consider that a DVD player must do more in providing video signals. Add to that more audio channels. The DVD player's servos are optimized to DVD speeds and mass (in case there is a difference).

A CD player would have more money available to provide better audio D/A converters and signal stages. The transport also runs slower and the servo constants can be optimized for CD's. This excludes the possibility of excess profit in the CD.

My direct experience is that cheap CD players last longer than cheap DVD players of similar cost on average. Everyone will be able to recall someone with a different experience. 'Tis the way of cheap to have high failure rates.

My affinity for more expensive players does not include the "high end" rip-offs. Audio Alchemy comes to mind.

-Chris

[pezza89]

sounds all interesting..without knowing the technical side, i guess it seems logical that a cd player has more research and development and money invested in delivering the best possible sound! dvd players these days are so cheap and have to focus on video and audio...hence audio quality may be impacted....i dont think i'll go overboard and invest mega $$$$ in a cd player...but a few hundred wont hurt! I'll let you all know how it pans out!

[AndrewT]

Hi,
the early CD players were dire.
They could not even achieve 16bit initially and gave 14bit output.
But, progress was fast and affordable players at 16bit started to play music.

We have had 20years to develop the technology and considering that we have had to work with 16bit 44.1ks/S the sound is pretty good.

DVD is still very new in comparison. All the effort is going into how to make the systems work with the fewest number of chips.
Some time, hopefully soon, the research will move towards extracting good sound from the higher resolution stored in the data at prices that are affordable.

I am quite impressed with the sound that comes off a movie sound track. The compression seems less obvious when starting from the high resolution data than mp3 starting from CD standard.

When will they start using DVD-A as the sound standard and MPx that to give us good downloadable music? I would even pay for a good standard like that.

[Circlotron]

Originally posted by anatech
The transport also runs slower and the servo constants can be optimized for CD's.

On my cheapo DVD player, when playing a CD it spins way faster than a CD player would, and buffers a certain amount of sound. When the buffer runs low it reads a bit more of the disc. Unlike a data CD, or a DVD for that matter, a Redbook audio CD does not have any exact way to index a particular position on the disc, the player just makes it's best guess as to where it was previously. Often I can hear the slight skip in the sound as the new reading takes place.

In short - lift the lid and watch how fast the CD spins compared with a standard CD player. That will tell you something.