Do CD players vary in sound quality?

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by hellion, Apr 7, 2014.

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  1. ElvisCaprice

    ElvisCaprice Forum Resident

    Location:
    Jaco, Costa Rica
    Or it could be that those who are caught up in the digital front end game, fear the complexity of the PC/Apple solution as the front end due to the learning curve. I'm thinking this is one of the major reasons for the stand alone option and the makers are playing right into this crowd.
     
    Billy Infinity likes this.
  2. ElvisCaprice

    ElvisCaprice Forum Resident

    Location:
    Jaco, Costa Rica
    Okay, I follow this thought, but, why doesn't a cheap CD transport also create jitter when copying audio files from a CD to a hard drive. If jitter is an issue wouldn't there be a difference in the check sums of each CD transport? Or would you claim the operating system has complete control of the clock and there never is a "handoff" in the case of a transport? Or is it different when handing digital to an operating system "clock wise" as opposed to an operating system handing off to a stand alone?
    Or is it that when measuring the check sum, you are not checking the jitter because the file is now in a stationary point?
     
    Last edited: Apr 8, 2014
  3. Ortofun

    Ortofun Well-Known Member

    Location:
    nowhere
    I agree, and there are a number of interface devices now available to address some of the issues in the digital domain, even when we are just trying to get those ones and zeros form the computer to the DAC, things like the Off Ramp by Steve Nugent, who is someone that was a team leader in designing the Pentium ll, who may know about some of these complexities.
    http://www.empiricalaudio.com/about-empirical-audio/
    But I'm out of my depth here so I'll just agree that there is a lot more going on in the digital domain than most of us may realize, regardless of whether it is a stand alone player, a disk based transport and a DAC or a computer/DAC combo.
     
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  4. jh901

    jh901 Forum Resident

    Location:
    PARRISH FL USA
    Well, I, for one, have two NAS drives, a couple Squeezebox receivers and a Logitech Transporter. Used all of them for years for wireless streaming of WAV or flac files ripped using dBpoweramp. I've returned to spinning old school for now. Someday I'll be taking the USB DAC route (or other similar).

    You might want to gain some experience before irrationally doubting everything. Insulting long time members who are passionate about sound quality may be entertaining for you, but in the long wrong it won't be worth it.
     
  5. missan

    missan Forum Resident

    Location:
    Stockholm
    Depending on the relative complexity in a CDP, I presume most can agree that there are sometimes slightly audible differences between many.
    That is however one thing, that doesn´t mean that it´s apparent which one is 'better', that is the tricky part.
     
  6. ElvisCaprice

    ElvisCaprice Forum Resident

    Location:
    Jaco, Costa Rica
    Or is it all gimmick talk. Something like selling herbal products. Find someone one with quality qualifications and focus the subject away from the actual design/science to sell a product for an absurd profit? Not to say that this is the case with Steve Nugent, but it is a valid point of concern.
     
  7. jh901

    jh901 Forum Resident

    Location:
    PARRISH FL USA
    Yes, if you choose to define audio fidelity differently than everyone else, then I suppose you've got it all figured out. The rest of us are on the path of reducing grain, extending highs and lows, enlarging the sounstage, refining the images within the soundstage, lowering noise floor, achieving better and better tonality, quicker transient attacks (less smearing), etc.
     
  8. ElvisCaprice

    ElvisCaprice Forum Resident

    Location:
    Jaco, Costa Rica
    Please don't take my curiosity and point of reference as an insult, it is not my intention. Although as another poster said it is easy to do in a thread like this.
    Shall be interesting to hear your critique of the USB DAC route as opposed to the stand alone. :wave:
     
  9. Ortofun

    Ortofun Well-Known Member

    Location:
    nowhere
    I experienced what one of his products did when placed between a Mac Mini and my DAC some time ago, the difference it made was far from subtle, it was his Off Ramp in case curious.
    This is only my experience, as I can't talk for others, but I can say that the guy that owned the Off Ramp wouldn't be without it.

    Edited: Typo's
     
    Last edited: Apr 8, 2014
  10. missan

    missan Forum Resident

    Location:
    Stockholm
    This is the type of post that one is undecidable how to respond to, should one answer, should one not answer, or should it be reported? I´m not sure.
     
  11. kevintomb

    kevintomb Forum Resident


    Hey I was kidding......:righton:
     
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  12. Ortofun

    Ortofun Well-Known Member

    Location:
    nowhere
    Then I need to apologize to you Kevin, my mistake.
    I have never been very good at text based communication, so many things are not there to read like when talking to some one in real life.

    Edit: I'm not good at conveying my own self this way too, I'm a person that relies a lot on body language in communication, so... often I can come across as very blunt or arrogant in my responses, when It's not intended as such.
    Edit: Typo
     
    Last edited: Apr 8, 2014
    kevintomb likes this.
  13. KT88

    KT88 Senior Member

    Perhaps there are a few who are afraid or just annoyed with a new format and operational differences. More typical however are those who have a substantial collection of music on CD and who find it very convenient to just spin the discs rather than to reorganize everything digitally and jump through all the hoops as they are presented to retain the same audio quality they would have simply by inserting their discs into a new player.
    -bill
     
    Sneaky Pete, Brother_Rael and bruce2 like this.
  14. KT88

    KT88 Senior Member

    I am not sure how to explain it and am not a digital engineer so I'll just convey the bits that I do know, which are only what is directly related to what I actually need to know! Jitter is present when transferring data from a CD player's disc drive or a streaming device to a DAC and also in the DAC itself during the conversion process. It is a playback issue. Less jitter results in better sound. That is all due to timing. When you are ripping a CD, you are not really using the clock, rather the read is either good or not. There can be read errors. There are programs that help to eliminate read and write errors but the hardware in current machines should take care of that pretty much automatically without error, or audible error at any rate. The CD read can be done several times by a device to ensure accuracy and it is bit by bit rather than time based. So you should not really have jitter on a CD itself or a hard drive. It is during playback that you have to deal with that, no matter the device. Some devices are better at reducing jitter than others, so there is a lot of talk about it. Just as with anything in audio, there are those who claim that jitter in inaudible and that all players or all real time transfers sound alike unless something is severely broken. It is true that it can be subtle but most experienced listeners can distinguish a low jitter from a high jitter playback system. An asynchronous USB connection from PC to DAC can reduce transfer jitter significantly but there will still be some jitter in the DAC itself during conversion. Nothing it seems is perfect.
    -Bill
     
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  15. bluesky

    bluesky Senior Member

    Location:
    south florida, usa
  16. Sneaky Pete

    Sneaky Pete Flat the 5 and That’s No Jive

    Location:
    NYC USA
    Most definitely.
     
  17. ElizabethH

    ElizabethH Forum Resident

    Location:
    SE Wisconsin,USA
    I average $5K per component except for digital. Where I still use an old DAC I paid $250 used for it. And typically I connect used CD changers I find on eBay for $40 to $80. I am pleased with the sound.
    Now my Sony SCD777Es does sound very slightly better. But NOT enough to bother usiing it all the time.
    SO for playing ordinary CDs day in day out. I am fully satisfied with the cheap digital front end I have.
    Though not any cheap junk will do.. I am somewhat demanding they actually sound decent.
    Reminds me if the tiny difference between a couple of grand TT and cart. and a BIG money table/cart. The difference may be there. but is so minuscule it is not worth the price of entry IMO..
    Maybe for those with 'princess and the pea' ears, whose ears bleed freely at anything less that state of the art....
    For me, I found my compromise I can live with. And it ain't $15K CD spinners.

    (the main thing which has given me this is a VAC Standard preamp I use as a glorified tube buffer. With it I can handle the trace of digital grunge in the HF.. No problem.)
     
  18. KT88

    KT88 Senior Member

    Yes, and you have very nice other components which are more capable than your digital front end. Even if you can't imagine that much improvement can be made there, I urge you to go and get a really nice DAC and listen to it. The Rega DAC should really float your boat I would think and it's not crazy money. You can continue to use the Sony player as a transport. Putting a great DAC in front of a great system yields great sound all through it; it allows the other gear something worthy to show their true performance abilities with.
    -Bill
     
  19. jh901

    jh901 Forum Resident

    Location:
    PARRISH FL USA
    You have a major weak link, so if you upgrade to an SACD player (for example) such as the Ayre C-5xe, then you'll really get it. No one here would recommend dropping in a dCS Puccini unless further upgrades were planned during then next several years.
     
    Tim 2 likes this.
  20. gloomrider

    gloomrider Well-Known Member

    Location:
    Hollywood, CA, USA
    At least you weren't accused of liking boxed wine. :rolleyes:
     
  21. Alice Wonder

    Alice Wonder Active Member

    Location:
    Redding, CA
    I'm a computer programmer. I understand how digital data - 0s and 1s - work.

    Digital music is a description that is used to tell hardware (the DAC) how to re-create the music.
    Obviously those 0s and 1s have to get to the DAC intact but that is the easy part.

    Cheaper equipment may be more prone to mechanical failure in the moving parts or even failed circuit components but reading optical media and transmission of digital data is not a difficult thing to do.

    The expensive units very well may have better built-in DAC if you don't use the digital out and they also hopefully have a better power supply, laser, etc. that make them less likely to have a hardware failure.

    It would be interesting to see the digital output of an expensive unit compared to the digital output of a cheap unit. If there is an audible difference, the 1s and 0s coming out of the units will have to be different and it should thus be easy to demonstrate.

    Same thing with expensive optical cables. People (including audiophile magazines) claim there is an audible difference but no one ever posts the discrete data showing that the bits are different, yet if they are different that would be easy to demonstrate.
     
  22. Alice Wonder

    Alice Wonder Active Member

    Location:
    Redding, CA
    Oh I do have to concede that if jitter really is audible, then jitter could be a source of audible differences between cheap and expensive products.

    However I have seen no evidence that the amount of jitter in cheap devices causes noise above the noise floor.
     
  23. avanti1960

    avanti1960 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chicago metro, USA
    is the DAC in the Apollo R similar in sound to the standalone Rega DAC?
     
  24. ssmith3046

    ssmith3046 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Arizona desert
    Last week I purchased a mint used Marantz SA8003 SACD player from a fellow forum member at a great price. My number one format is vinyl but I did have a Marantz 5003 CD player which I used occasionally and liked it. I'm very impressed with the CD playback of this deck and I listened to the Getz/Gilberto SACD and was really impressed. Very close in sound quality to my 45 rpm pressing. There are a lot of nice CD box set available that a music lover would miss out on if they listened to records only such as the Brothers and Sisters 40th anniversary set and the Smile box set from 2011, just to name two.
     
  25. KT88

    KT88 Senior Member

    Yes, somewhat. The DAC has a bit warmer sound and more bass weight.
    -Bill
     
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