Hi All
I just joined this interesting forum. Great!
I would like to put a question which recently sprung to me. It is when I change amps or speakers or turntables... I can hear huge difference in sounds quality - such as previous one was very thick and heavy and dark and deep sounding. The new one could sound bright, sharp and fast...etc. Not necessarily bad or good but you know different.
But but but... when I change CD Players from one to the other, I could not tell much difference, if no difference at all in sound.
If this is the case, then I wonder, why buy expensive CDP? I have about 4 or 5 different CDPs from budget SONY to high end Mission and Arcam and Sherwood.
What do you think?
cheers
I just joined this interesting forum. Great!
I would like to put a question which recently sprung to me. It is when I change amps or speakers or turntables... I can hear huge difference in sounds quality - such as previous one was very thick and heavy and dark and deep sounding. The new one could sound bright, sharp and fast...etc. Not necessarily bad or good but you know different.
But but but... when I change CD Players from one to the other, I could not tell much difference, if no difference at all in sound.
If this is the case, then I wonder, why buy expensive CDP? I have about 4 or 5 different CDPs from budget SONY to high end Mission and Arcam and Sherwood.
What do you think?
cheers
budkor said:
I had the same feeling "at the beginning".
Either the rest of your chain isn't revealing enough,
or the players you compared are not that different.
Doing modifications/circuits yourself gives you easier access to more variations (besides other returns - fun, learning, I-did-it syndrome, etc.)
In my (humble) experience, on CD players the output stage (op-amp vs. discrete vs. passive) gave huge differences, that are audible in my "not-very-discriminating" quick-test-chain (like a Creek amplifier to Sennehiser 495 headphones).
Other things, like replacing output caps, I can only hear through Stax headphones. So I call them "second order".
I can't tell for sure, but the players you mention probably all have op-amp based output stages, i.e. "they're not that different among each other".
_
budkor said:
Welcome to the forum... Nice to see another Scot on the premises.
I'm with Pilli. Would you care to elaborate as to what you have in the rest of your system?
I personally moved out of CD players a while back and into PC based playback. But I find it hard to think that even similar players in the same price bracket dont sound different...
Blair
Re: Re: Why expensive CDP..?
Thanks. I used to have an old Yamaha Amps (AX-590), Musical Fidelity Elektra 500 Tuner, Systemdek IIx and 4 or 5 CD players (Sony, Sherwood, Arcam, Mission). Speaker wise I have KEF C45 and EPOS ES11 and Celestion Ditton 200. Recently I added a Music Angel KT88 Amp to the system.
I should have said that CD players does not seem to give that much of sound quality difference than other factors such as amps and speakers to my ears.
cheers
Jay
justblair said:
Thanks. I used to have an old Yamaha Amps (AX-590), Musical Fidelity Elektra 500 Tuner, Systemdek IIx and 4 or 5 CD players (Sony, Sherwood, Arcam, Mission). Speaker wise I have KEF C45 and EPOS ES11 and Celestion Ditton 200. Recently I added a Music Angel KT88 Amp to the system.
I should have said that CD players does not seem to give that much of sound quality difference than other factors such as amps and speakers to my ears.
cheers
Jay
Hi Budkor
I find buying the basic CD player such as the ARCAM & using it as a transport, spend the rest of your cash on an outboard DAC, at least you can changed the DAC when some new fangled fashion comes along, without forking out on a new player.
DAC's such as the benchmark 'DAC-1' for example, you will hear a difference.
I find buying the basic CD player such as the ARCAM & using it as a transport, spend the rest of your cash on an outboard DAC, at least you can changed the DAC when some new fangled fashion comes along, without forking out on a new player.
DAC's such as the benchmark 'DAC-1' for example, you will hear a difference.
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Hello,
just so you know: there's also people here who think that neither CD players nor amps nor cables have an audible influence that is worth mentioning.
That is as long as they don't have any measurable abnormalities and that they are fit for the job (e.g. amp has enough power to drive given speakers at given impedance).
Regardless of how "revealing" your system is.
If I were you, I'd just stick with my CD player and if you want to spend money buy some more CDs or upgrade your speakers.
Just stating the other camp's opinion, I don't want to start that discussion again, cause it leads to nowhere.
just so you know: there's also people here who think that neither CD players nor amps nor cables have an audible influence that is worth mentioning.
That is as long as they don't have any measurable abnormalities and that they are fit for the job (e.g. amp has enough power to drive given speakers at given impedance).
Regardless of how "revealing" your system is.
If I were you, I'd just stick with my CD player and if you want to spend money buy some more CDs or upgrade your speakers.
Just stating the other camp's opinion, I don't want to start that discussion again, cause it leads to nowhere.
schumpe said:
Hi Schumpe,
I certainly don't want to feed that everlasting discussion either, I don't want to show off "my revealing system" (it isn't really
) and I'm saying these things in the most humble and constructive way.My intention was to suggest that comparisons with "more radical" contenders can be more accessible in a DIY approach.
Like, a DAC or CDP with an excellent, say, clock, or output stage:
you could go and buy two or three of those jewels to compare, or just tweak some cheapos and see where improvements are. Or where they are not, as you point out.
Or a class-A amplifier compared with... well, you get the idea.
(I don't have the courage to build speakers yet...
and the little I saw, is that they do make probably the biggest difference
)And yes: no cable differences were ever audible to me either, so why would I bother with that.
So I'm not pushing any "boutique exoterism".
Just wanted to encourage experimenting, learning and "touching with hand", so that choices are then more "educated".
But of course any excess is dangerous.
Cheers,
pilli
_
One person can say it doesn't make a difference, another will say the difference is obvious.
They can both be right, because the comments are contextual to their system and room.
If you have a high resolution system you should be able to hear differences between transports while using external DAC.
With SET amp and sensitive speakers its not difficult to tell.
John C.
They can both be right, because the comments are contextual to their system and room.
If you have a high resolution system you should be able to hear differences between transports while using external DAC.
With SET amp and sensitive speakers its not difficult to tell.
John C.
you can buy into this world view:
or read the 1st ~24 pages of:
http://www.acoustics.hut.fi/publications/files/theses/hirvonen_mst.pdf
and decide how much to weight opinions by the "just listen" camp
it is a lot of work to avoid well known errors in subjective testing, I discount internet forum posts of subjective differences by >>90% when there is no mention of level matching, perceptual anchors, positive and negative controls, blinding...
in casual listening it is very "difficult to tell" in a reliable, reproducible manner - too many uncontrolled psychoacoustic and internal perceptual psychological effects assure that you will almost certainly perceive difference when you try - without the careful controls
Hotsauce said:
or read the 1st ~24 pages of:
http://www.acoustics.hut.fi/publications/files/theses/hirvonen_mst.pdf
and decide how much to weight opinions by the "just listen" camp
it is a lot of work to avoid well known errors in subjective testing, I discount internet forum posts of subjective differences by >>90% when there is no mention of level matching, perceptual anchors, positive and negative controls, blinding...
in casual listening it is very "difficult to tell" in a reliable, reproducible manner - too many uncontrolled psychoacoustic and internal perceptual psychological effects assure that you will almost certainly perceive difference when you try - without the careful controls
I only have a mid-fi 2.0 System- Pioneer Vintage Pre- Power amp, Tannoy Concentric Floorstanding Speaker. And recently, I picked up a 2nd hand Onkyo CD player. Wow, the images, music texture, the huge soundstage and air ambiance it is producing outperforms my Nad, Sony, Pioneer CDP and my DVD, 3D Blu-ray players by miles. IMO, the nature of music you hear : Hard Rock or classical, small scale or large scale ( no of instruments, vocal ) has a whole lot to do with the NEEDS in your CDP. Well, the same applies to all nodes ( including interconnects, PS cables and fuses) in your Audio system. To know my needs, I constantly go to demo auditions of High End products, find my needs ( insufficiences ) and 'upgrade'. If my ears satisfify what mine is achieving or I cannot tell / appreciate the difference(s), I am settled.
To conclude, I usually identify my need(s), then research the solutions from available (usually expensive+++ ) products then 'know how' the ideas and DIY the cheap version clones if do-able . This is why I like DIY Audio web so much.
To conclude, I usually identify my need(s), then research the solutions from available (usually expensive+++ ) products then 'know how' the ideas and DIY the cheap version clones if do-able . This is why I like DIY Audio web so much.
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Most of the CDP have similar transports. Just a few selected have really out of this world laser/mechanical assy. So that is leveling the field for digital connection.
As for the analog connection, most of the plain CDP use the same DAC's (CS/TI/AD). If no special DSP enhancement is involved, those DAC's will sound similar.
CDp are also plagued by cheap jelly-bean OpAmps. Especially the ones designed in Japan, where for some reason they belive that NJM5532 and NJM2068 are some kind of magic OpAmps. once in a while you might see NJM2114.
Just a few try something better like the HDAM in some Marantz (they fudge it in some thou).
Change those with top shelf modern day OpAmps and you will see a difference.
As for the analog connection, most of the plain CDP use the same DAC's (CS/TI/AD). If no special DSP enhancement is involved, those DAC's will sound similar.
CDp are also plagued by cheap jelly-bean OpAmps. Especially the ones designed in Japan, where for some reason they belive that NJM5532 and NJM2068 are some kind of magic OpAmps. once in a while you might see NJM2114.
Just a few try something better like the HDAM in some Marantz (they fudge it in some thou).
Change those with top shelf modern day OpAmps and you will see a difference.
As SoNic_real-one pointed out above, transport, DAC in CDP are all similar. I do think the analog part has a lot to do with the identity ( quality ) of the performance of CDP. My Onkyo DX-7711 (1998 model) has almost 20 transistors in the audio analog section alone. I guess it is where my huge sound stages come from. Though , this may not agree with what the lampizator believes. Anyway, I virtually have a concert hall in my living room now from Onkyo- which all my previous Players couldn't.
p.s.
SoNic_real-one:
My supplier (TI wholesaler in Hong Kong), NJM5532 is @US$0.60 !
http://hongkong01.rs-online.com/web...searchProducts&searchTerm=*NJM5532*&x=25&y=14
Thanks, I may use it as my next DIY DAC project.
p.s.
SoNic_real-one:
My supplier (TI wholesaler in Hong Kong), NJM5532 is @US$0.60 !
http://hongkong01.rs-online.com/web...searchProducts&searchTerm=*NJM5532*&x=25&y=14
Thanks, I may use it as my next DIY DAC project.
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He will see it on the board, didn't say he will necessarely that he will hear it 
.
To hear it depends of the rest of the audio chain starting with signal source and ending with his ears.
PS: I did have an argument on some other forum with somebody about the difference of flac vs mp3 files. He was saying that there is no difference. To find out after 5 posts that his speakers where a pair of Logitec PC speakers.
.To hear it depends of the rest of the audio chain starting with signal source and ending with his ears.
PS: I did have an argument on some other forum with somebody about the difference of flac vs mp3 files. He was saying that there is no difference. To find out after 5 posts that his speakers where a pair of Logitec PC speakers.
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As SoNic indicates, most CD players utilize the same transports. As has also been pointed out by others before, audible differences in disc transports can only be due to differences in jitter contribution. Going further, most mass-market players utilize the same limited set of implementation components - digital filters, DAC chips, op-amps, clock generators, and voltage regulators. This is even true of too many high-end players, excelling in build quality but not in sound quality, IMHO. The research of others, along with my own experiments, lead me to conclude that CD playback falls far short of what it could be due to the following four technical reasons:
1. Time-domain artifacts related to standard 'brickwall' image rejection (interpolation) digital-filters.
2. Conversion jitter.
3. High-frequency or slew-rate induced non-linearity in the analog stages. Particularly for feedback based circuits (i.e. op-amps).
4. Dynamic loading non-linearities, output impedance phase/phase changes, and poor high-frequency PSRR of the voltage regulators.
You'll note that those four reasons match that limited set of implementation components utilized in most CD players and DAC boxes I mentioned above. When some CD player or DAC box sounds significantly different from most others it will almost certainly be due to the fact that it's designers took a different approach for implementing one or more of those four component sections.
1. Time-domain artifacts related to standard 'brickwall' image rejection (interpolation) digital-filters.
2. Conversion jitter.
3. High-frequency or slew-rate induced non-linearity in the analog stages. Particularly for feedback based circuits (i.e. op-amps).
4. Dynamic loading non-linearities, output impedance phase/phase changes, and poor high-frequency PSRR of the voltage regulators.
You'll note that those four reasons match that limited set of implementation components utilized in most CD players and DAC boxes I mentioned above. When some CD player or DAC box sounds significantly different from most others it will almost certainly be due to the fact that it's designers took a different approach for implementing one or more of those four component sections.
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