John Curl's Blowtorch preamplifier part III

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#4,741
Destroyer OS said:
... And I don't know that the noise is low between the SG. But my experience with picking up cheap transports from thrift stores is that drives begin getting errors. They all tend to have a terminal illness and you start getting audible bit loss after awhile because they just don't last. Where as I had an Arcam CD player that was much older and lasted longer than any of the DVD players I grabbed.
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I second that. Having modified a whole range of CD and ROM transports for CD Analysis duty by buffering the raw EFM signal for external use, there is a huge difference between the performance and reliability of say a Lite-On $20 drive and a $150 Pioneer drive. Performance issues are not necessarily related to recovering the data successfully; many cheap (and other) transports then contaminate the digital output with noise from the tracking and focus servos. This noise can cause decoding errors and BLER, or in worst cases E32s. And reliability comes with build quality, many cheap transports are manufactured with loose tolerance molded plastic parts and can deliver a higher BLER than one more stoutly constructed.

At WXYC we use cheap Sony players in the listening stations and merely replace them when they get tired, usually a few per year. In our Control Room where the CD players are used 24/365 we use Tascam Pro players and I refresh (replace) the full transport usually once a year. The cheap Sonys last a month or more in that service.

Cheers!
Howie
 
#4,743
Waly said:
A hell of an expensive transport. See What is an audiophile CD player? for measurements on a 10 quid salvaged Sony DVD player. Bottom line, practically at the theoretical limit of the CD recording standard. The transport does not impact at all the digital output.

Also see Matrix HiFi --> Blind testing high end full equipments for a fair (but not perfect) subjective comparison.
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I would throw it in the garbage can if it didnt cost so much to do so. And, it was not played much. I was also trying the fibre optic output to the DAC. Same results. Sounds like low rez. So something is seriously messed up with it.

If only analog, I could fix it... removing electrolytic caps. But the FO port? Now what? Now I went back to reading the fine print.... high rez is only available on the HDMI port. Oh great!

Who makes a new cheap but reasonably accurate CD player? Newest players are not so hot either and we are down to one mfr of the drives.

Oh. I still have a ALESIS CD Mastering record/play unit. Guess I'll press that into service when I want to play a CD.

Best thing to do now is to copy all my tunes into music server files.


-RM
 
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#4,745
Destroyer OS said:
But my experience with picking up cheap transports from thrift stores is that drives begin getting errors. They all tend to have a terminal illness and you start getting audible bit loss after awhile because they just don't last.
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For all I care, at 10 quid, I could afford another second hand Sony transport every week. At an at least 1:100 price ratio, you do the math what's the better deal.



Of course, a potential customer would always be pushed to consider the prestige of a brand name over any technical reasoning and/or economics. This is is how the "high end audio" priests are surviving today, without that philosophy they would for long bite the dust. Nevertheless, they will, it's only a matter of time.
 
#4,749
What can I say? Cheap transports often have high error rates when new, never mind after some run time. You want good sound, you have to start with a decent transport. The best indicator to performance is to look at the eye pattern. That typically tells the whole story.

-Chris
 
#4,755
Hi Scott,
Same here, except I did have a CB. Missed most of the silly stuff and lost interest after Smokey & the Bandit came out.

I still have some really good car CD players and cassette decks (Nakamichi TD-700) i have a Concord and a Marantz around here somewhere too.

That was when I worked at Rat Shack in the 70's while I was going to high school.

-Chris
 
#4,756
anatech said:
What can I say? Cheap transports often have high error rates when new, never mind after some run time. You want good sound, you have to start with a decent transport. The best indicator to performance is to look at the eye pattern. That typically tells the whole story.-Chris
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Bingo. And check it for stability with different discs and at multiple radii. I use this Leader EFM Jitter Analyzer to quantify transports:
https://proaudioeng.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Leader-LE1852.jpg
In the optical disc world, all errors are due to jitter when you get right down to it...a bit of debris represents a really long "T" to the EFM decoder...

Howie
 
#4,757
Hi Howie,
I used to use a Leader Jitter meter. I don't quantify it these days. I just know what's bad and ty to make it the best it can be. I do miss that meter occasionally. I can't justify buying another unless it goes cheaply.

-Chris

Edit: Yes, that looks like it
 
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