If there's a "nasty quality" then the driver is outputting too much disturbing distortion into the room. Which is usually not the drivers' fault, it's only doing what it's told to do, by the chain preceding.
The big trick is finding what specifically is injecting that nastiness - and this can be a major battle, it can be almost anything. But rest assured it is a distortion artifact in the replay chain, you just need to put your Sherlock Holmes hat on ... 😉.
The big trick is finding what specifically is injecting that nastiness - and this can be a major battle, it can be almost anything. But rest assured it is a distortion artifact in the replay chain, you just need to put your Sherlock Holmes hat on ... 😉.
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Maybe would we "get" it if you could point a reliable way to pinpoint what you mean by "dirt", how to identify it and explain how to get rid of it in a way that makes sense.
As long as we don't have that common referrential, all you say is completely lost in translation.
Marantz CD5004 CD player Marantz CD5004 CD player Measurements | Stereophile.com . A $350 CD player. Jitter spectrum down below -125dB ref FS. Clearly that will be audible as huge amounts of dirt and hash. If your only problems are that far down you have a far better setup than I do.
I agree the big problem in all this is specifying a reliable, repeatable means of measuring this behaviour, in a completely objective way. I don't know what this what be, though I have thought many times of possible ways, by feeding in the right sort of test signals - but I'm not in a position to do so, nor have sufficient motivation at the moment to experiment.
Up to now I have relied on subjective evaluation, and that's been perfectly adequate to identify it. The key quality of "dirt" is that the higher harmonics are corrupted, distorted - a simple example related to musical instruments is hearing a solo violin being played with gusto and skill; one should hear a rich, intense interplay of the harmonics, vibrant with impact; "dirt" neuters that badly, the sound is rendered with dullness, tediousness, the listener is hoping it will go away quickly, 🙂. And this is what I typically listen for with recordings, how well sound elements like that are reproduced. So how do I know that it's not just a "bad" recording? Because I have heard that same recording coming across correctly, I "know" what I should be hearing.
This audible misbehaviour occurs in digital largely because of subtle interference mechanisms. Imperfect power supplies, shielding, grounding, isolation, connections, static behaviour - any and all could get into the act. So far, I've found the best technique is to work through all the possible causes, eliminate them one by one - I know that I've done enough when the sound clears, and the "dirt" is gone.
You can get that performance in a cheap CD player and in cheap outboard DACs. Therefore its a non-problem unless you are in the market for something that has been breathed on by a guru and sprinkled with finest marketing BS. Costs are low enough that no excuse not to have that level of performance.
Well, different media, as they say.
As a example, "London calling" with The Clash, sounds like an exiting adventure on LP, but boring on CD.
Depends on your set up, of cause.
But, the closest for long time listening enjoyment, is PCM63.
The better the output and I/V, the better the sound.
And, the opposite applies to 1-bit, or bitstream - one note type of sound, and harsh aggressive treble.
Of cause, treble sells - at least on short term listening - you hear a lot more detail, and so on, but looses in the long term listening experience.
At the moment using a Rotel RCD-971 with shortened output capacitors, and MUSES8920 at the output stage.
Not a LP player for sure, but relaxed sound.
The first improvement of digital over vinyl is in getting rid of the acoustic output from the stylus/cantilever assembly.
All turntables require soundproof covers, but 'audiophile' turntables don't have them.....go figure.
Dan.
All turntables require soundproof covers, but 'audiophile' turntables don't have them.....go figure.
Dan.
I went from (admittedly old) TDA1541 crown to 8bit DS and have never missed the CD80. But luckily the love of the old multibit dacs means I sold it which paid for the DAC after 25 years of use. So keep pushing the old tech!
Mine does have cover so not sure what you mean. Pretty sure Linn are considered audiophile as well.
I believe the problem with digital is gremlins, without gremlins how would audio move forward....
I look at the developments in electronics since CDs came out, even the changes in my own part over the years and wonder why audio seems to follow the inverse Moore law?
I look at the developments in electronics since CDs came out, even the changes in my own part over the years and wonder why audio seems to follow the inverse Moore law?
Actually, your position to assume nothing is a smokescreen. In fact, you assume that every part of the chain is possibly faulty. Your machinations then miraculously find a fault and a "fix" improves sonics.
This is classic expectation bias in action.
Funny you should mention that particular album as it is one of my all time favourites.
I've got the original vinyl and a later cd which luckily has the same dynamic range ie it has not been overly compressed like some reissues or the 24/96 HDTracks version which oddly enough are the most squashed ones of the lot.
I find the cd I have quite a bit more exciting than the vinyl version and for once I could hear the shenanigans Guy Stevens got up to during the recording which were never properly retrieved from the vinyl.
I believe they are on the vinyl but you have to have a really good set up to hear them. Not something my Denon-equipped Technics ever managed satisfactorily.
Just wish I had the very first cd issue as that is slightly more dynamic still but I didn't have a cd player back then and anyway I refused to buy a cd if I already had the vinyl. I eventually did when I put all my cds on my hard drive as it was just easier to rip cds.
Mind you if you only got a dynamically compressed cd version I imagine it would sound more boring than the lp.
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