Does a high end CD player provide better sound than a lossless rip?

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by colby2415, May 10, 2017.

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  1. Synthfreek

    Synthfreek I’m a ray of sunshine & bastion of positivity

    I thought the question was which sounds better. Why are some talking about how they like the feel of CDs and vinyl in their greasy little hands? That's not the question.
     
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  2. The_Windmill

    The_Windmill Forum Resident

    Location:
    Italy
    If the rip went fine, it's playback is theoretically more accurate than a CD player.
    But in real life, the player must screw up big time, repeatedly and constantly, for you to hear a single difference.
    Some CDs out there have mastering errors like 200 samples missing: you can't tell a thing until you see it in the waveform. Likewise, an occasional error correction here and there is unnoticeable.
     
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  3. delmonaco

    delmonaco Forum Resident

    Location:
    Sofia, Bulgaria
    Yes, I was talking theoritically. Never did any comparison, and never bothered to rip to FLAC, or building a computer based system etc. - I just put my CD in the player and enjoy music.
     
  4. Paul_s

    Paul_s Forum Resident

    Location:
    UK
    Wood sideburns? Can't beat the look and feel of vintage :)
     
  5. ThmsFrd

    ThmsFrd Forum Resident

    Love this thread.
     
  6. Robert C

    Robert C Forum Resident

    Location:
    London, UK
    I recommend pointing a spoon at this thread at least once each week.
     
  7. Bananas&blow

    Bananas&blow It's just that demon life has got me in its sway

    Location:
    Pacific Beach, CA
    After reading this thread I'm even more convinced there was a 5th Beatle.
     
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  8. Bananas&blow

    Bananas&blow It's just that demon life has got me in its sway

    Location:
    Pacific Beach, CA
    If your digital Jitters but nobody hears it, does it really Jitter?
     
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  9. Kristofa

    Kristofa Enthusiast of small convenient sound carrier units

    Location:
    usa
    I send my lossless files to my receiver via AirPlay because it provides a better user interface through the iTunes remote compared to hooking up a hard drive to my network and trying to access them via the receiver's poor interface.

    I have a/b comparisoned my lossless rips going to my receiver via AirPlay and my CD players as transports, and the CDPs sound better. I have assumed this is largely due to the drawbacks of AirPlay since they are all using the same DAC from the receiver, but I understand there can be a lot of other variables here.

    Then I a/b comparisoned my CDPs' DACs and the receiver's DAC and found that the sounds were "different" but were more a subject of which DAC sounded more pleasing. I like the sound of my CDPs' DACs more... especially my Denon DCD-1015 because it has more bottom end and the midrange has a more forward presentation out of my DACs.

    Two nights ago I was listening to the Regina Spektor track "Firewood" via AirPlay and thought it sounded lifeless, so I went and grabbed my CD and popped it into the DCD-1015. The clarity and pleasure of listening to that song was staggeringly better with the CD player's DAC--especially the soundstage.

    I don't own any hi-end gear, and honestly likely never will. But my equipment is good enough for me to be able to hear differences in my components. I am not counting out my computer/file chain, but I don't think it is at the point where it can compete with my CD players at this stage of my journey.
     
  10. Archimago

    Archimago Forum Resident

    Lots of great comments on this already.

    The way I see it is this. If you rip a CD bit-perfectly and have a nice computer/streamer DAC, the likelihood is that you'll be able to achieve better accuracy than the CD spinning in an expensive "high end" CD player.

    Since it's a bit-perfect rip, data corruption chance is low, and if you use a good quality asynchronous interface like an asynch USB DAC, or ethernet then likelihood these days is that temporal characteristics like jitter will be objectively tiny (and way beyond audibility).

    Technically therefore, imperfections to playback likely is higher with taking your chances with a mechanically spinning piece of polycarbonate with the laser read head.

    The question in this thread is about "better sound" and that truly is subjective and dependent on whether you like the DAC in the CD player or the one being fed your lossless ripped data. Remember, many people like non-oversampling DACs fed 16/44, some like tube output stages, others think MQA can be "better" than an original "Studio Master" 24/192. In each of these cases, one can appreciate that accuracy and preference are not the same thing :).
     
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  11. Mr Bass

    Mr Bass Chevelle Ma Belle

    Location:
    Mid Atlantic
    This is perfectly reasonable as stated but if we are truly being scientific we seek to understand why there are major differences of perceptional favorability of one signal chain compared with another? Obviously each person is different and we don't need to worry about every tiny judgmental difference. But when significant fractions of listener groups divide in preference where we have two relatively comparable signal paths there is something important there.

    One possibility is that there is some variable other than the bits themselves which is creating artifacts. Jitter was discovered almost by accident, not a priori. There may be some factor in the computer environment which affects the sound post reading bits. The other possibility is that people are differentially sensitive to aspects/deficiencies of the original recordings and favor signal paths which can adjust them slightly in the preferred direction. Both possibilities should be studied.
     
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  12. The_Windmill

    The_Windmill Forum Resident

    Location:
    Italy
    And if you hear it, but nothing jitters, do you really... oh, never mind.
     
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  13. Archimago

    Archimago Forum Resident

    Yes, very reasonable comments. First though, realise that the science of perception, preference and judgment are not "engineering" questions. They belong to the "magisterium" of neuroscience and the answers exist in the neural networks of the brain and the psychological mechanisms of the mind.

    There is no "significant fraction" of listeners IMO with most of what audiophilia promotes. Take say 1000 music lovers from the general public and ask them if they care about jitter and you'll find very few. Take 100 audiophiles, perhaps each one having heard of the term "jitter" but have any of them honestly tested out whether they could hear 1ns of data related jitter much less the picosecond measurements from well regarded CD players and DACs?

    The point being that we talk about things in the audiophile world all the time as if
    a.) they're important and
    b.) as if we have some common understanding of what the next guy has experienced.

    Sadly, I think most "audiophiles" are poorly educated about what they're talking about because places like magazines have essentially been divorced from objective technical talk for way too long. All they can do mostly is speak of preference and claims of jitter this or digital filter that without correlation of factual knowledge with the belief/faith expressed...

    There is a learning component to this as well. Once a person is immersed in hearing what truly jitter-free equipment sounds like, with say room correction that improves time-domain accuracy of speakers, flat frequency response, etc. it's hard to know if the person might finally realize that it is indeed technically accurate "high fidelity" that they desire rather than the "romantic" sound of their tubes or comfort of the higher noise floor that they're used to and currently prefer.

    Finally, specifically about jitter. It's nothing new and absolutely NOT found out "by accident". It's a well know phenomenon especially in high frequency communications. Here's research from the BBC in 1974 about jitter and digital audio:
    Digital sound signals: Subjective effect of timing jitter - BBC R&D

    Rather, it was the audiophile press that grasped this term as something they could use to differentiate digital gear in the 1990's and it has stuck with us even though more than likely from the start, it was never a "really big deal"! More recently it is all this talk with digital filters that has taken center stage and related rationale from the likes of Meridian (remember their "apodizing" filter? and now MQA).

    The truth IMO is simpler than some would like to believe when it comes to audio signals up to 20kHz or thereabouts... (Of course there are all kinds of neuropsychological complexities but that's beyond the discussions here.)
     
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  14. Mr Bass

    Mr Bass Chevelle Ma Belle

    Location:
    Mid Atlantic
    Whatever you say.
     
  15. POE_UK

    POE_UK Forum Resident

    Location:
    Somerset
    I hate CDs they are too fragile as a format, i put my lifes work on them a while back and quite a few have completely deteriorated to the point all you hear is static, never use them as a backup medium, even my shop bought cds have tiny holes in them (disc rot)

    therefore i would NEVER pay too much for a CD player, im glad theyre dying out, theyre not the perfect audio solution they were made out to be, even minidisc beats them in lifespan, by a country mile.
     
  16. silverhead

    silverhead Give them an inch and they will take a mile

    Location:
    Edinburgh Scotland
    You are right cd's sound no different after using it,but it must do something surely or they would not sell us something that did nothing:biglaugh:By the buy densen is high end cd player brand so they must think it does something!.
    Kind of like how some people think gold is better than silver for cd .:hide:
    [​IMG][​IMG]
     
  17. colby2415

    colby2415 Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Canada
    Well it does look better, I'll tell you that.
     
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  18. Archimago

    Archimago Forum Resident

    Sure...

    If it's wrong, let me know...
     
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  19. Tim 2

    Tim 2 MORE MUSIC PLEASE

    Location:
    Alberta Canada
    A very good CD player always sounds more musical to me.
     
  20. Robert C

    Robert C Forum Resident

    Location:
    London, UK
    What do you mean?
     
  21. Rolltide

    Rolltide Forum Resident

    Location:
    Vallejo, CA
    I think the ultimate issue here is the tweak industry demonized computer audio so they could sell you the "solution". Its left a lot of people assuming that any method of transferring a song from a computer to a DAC is horrifically compromised because "noise" and "jitter" (despite the fact these are both 100% quantifiable problems that can be proved to not exist).

    Thus, we find ourselves in an odd world where obviously reading a rapidly spinning plastic disc with a laser is surely superior to a non-mechanical process, because nobody has ever made a tweak to go in between the transport and DAC inside of a CD player, so there aren't any imaginary problems to be had.
     
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  22. Ron Scubadiver

    Ron Scubadiver Forum Resident

    Location:
    Houston TX
    After reading several editorial pieces it appears the "party line" is hard disk playback from a computer or dedicated audio device is superior to CD player output. The technical reason is more computer power and larger buffers are available to deal with error correction. Except for vinyl, sales of music on physical media are shrinking and are likely to continue to shrink. There is also a problem with CD rot which is causing libraries and archives to rip everything to hard disk. Another reason for the trend is the convenience of not having physical media. I strongly suspect there is a way to measure the performance difference even if listening tests proved inconclusive.
     
  23. libertycaps

    libertycaps Forum Resident

    Location:
    Portland, OR, USA
    I sold my entire original LP collection off in the early 90's. I'm not going to make that same mistake twice with my CD collection now.
     
  24. Schoolmaster Bones

    Schoolmaster Bones Poe's Lawyer

    Location:
    ‎The Midwest
    Interesting, but which sounds better - high end CD player or flac played through a high end DAC?

    That's really nice, but which sounds better - high end CD player or flac played through a high end DAC?
     
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  25. libertycaps

    libertycaps Forum Resident

    Location:
    Portland, OR, USA
    Better? Infinitely subjective. Not gonna waste time typing a windy response. Lols.

    I'm very, very happy with my CDPs and CDs/TTs and LPs.
    Everyone who comes over to shoot a few racks of pool and have a listen to music they thought they were very familiar with are blown away too. Very lucky to have a dedicated listening space where 2 channel stereo 3D imaging is tangible & i can feel the BASS in my bones. Very lucky to have a big old house with plenty of physical media storage space. Very luck to have a killer, secure & well paying job in the medial field. Very lucky to never having yet to "down size" or compromise on a hobby i'm very passionate about.
     
    Last edited: May 24, 2017
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