Vintage CD PLAYERS vrs new DACs and CD players including audio stream from ripped cds...

exactly, the same feel i had been had when listenet to 24bit

 

Just zooming in to a node edit viewing level on a section of your typical 16bit/48khz uncompressed aiff wave form in Audacity and scribbling on a clump of wave nodes that make up about 16 wave peaks/valleys will not make much of a sound difference on playback. It's so minuscule a distortion it'll be missed within the overall listening volume. Give it a try.

 

Some of the least 'harsh' sounding CD players were early players ..Philips 1541/1543 DAC's for example ..It was the early CD masterings that could be harsh,not necessarily the players..I still use a 30 year old Philips CD player because it provides a more powerful analogue sound signature than i could get with most modern players.
Audio Note still use those same philips DAC's in their current players,so i would say technology/sound quality has not got way better.Maybe some of the distortion and jitter numbers have improved,but that doesn't always mean better sound..As we know by listening to cheap solid state amps with perfect numbers.

 

This very true, but in my understanding the test was won by the early player with 14 bits, man, a good recorded and mastered cd in a old cd player sounds superb nice, they dont need the 2 4 bits, I think newer models have improve the digital part, but the analog part stills cheap, they mention the 1 bit dacs, they are supost to be the best of all, the PlayStaton #1 use a 1 bit chip and the sound is so soft and nice, not clear, but nice, I think all over the 16/48 recordings turns too heavy not for the eras, it is too much info for the brain, maybe even the not audible distortion is not audible by the ears but it does to the brain or soul if you want to include that part, too much frecuencies and cheap amplification turns the sound that bad....

 

Ok, I got one for you tonight!
And it’s a good one.........

For anyone who has followed me through my crazy journey through the recent r -2r ladder dac revolution it’s just taken a step upward, in the way that what I experienced with the Denafrips Ares 2 dac is now being........One upped by..........old CD players.

Now I’m still learning about this because it’s going backwards in the present and I’ve had to rethink literally everything I know about digital when it comes to 44.1k cd audio.

Today, I came across a goodwill find for a whopping $4.99,
A 1992 made Magnavox CDB-500, complete with a plastic case, except for the top, which is steel.
POS right? Weighs about 7 pounds and nothing about it Audiophile.
But indeed, you cannot judge a book by its cover.
First of all it has the Belgium swing arm laser mechanism that the classic Magnavox players have. If you don’t know about these, their revered as the fastest and most durable cd laser mechanism’s ever manufactured. A lot of them being over 35 years old still operating like they are brand new.
Think of that, over 35 years old and still operating like their brand new.
That’s, in consumer electronics is just insane.........

But, if you think I’m ****ting you, today I bought a Magnavox CDB-500 CD player for $4.99. Believe it or not, although being dirty, was in vg+ shape for its age.
After cleaning it up and servicing the mechanics, which was cleaning the laser and the belt that moves the tray mechanism, I popped in a cd a loaded it.
Damned thing read the top within 1 second.
Again, we’re talking about a 30+ year old pos CD player. Don’t judge a book........

Did my tests on the laser, loading a 78 minute cd and going from track 1 to track 25....
2.5 second’s. So now, even though I’m totally stoked about this actually working at all I put it into the Stereo rack, loaded Johnny A’s ‘Get Inside’ cd, which is a brick walled cd, but it’s my reference cd because it is recorded so well and it pushes dac’s to their limits of fidelity, I pushed the play button..............
Beave

 

Glad you found one man!
Thing plays before it's even closed

 

Absolutely amazing, now I know why the swing armed Maggie’s have such a following.
That mechanism is simply genius in its simplicity. This particular unit was born on April 1992 and assembled in Mehico, so they were still using the swing arm at least up to 1992, and the whole thing is simplicity exemplified, one main circuit board, nice beefy transformer, bigger than I expected actually.
But the main thing is the sound quality, and it sounds clear, full bodied and nice layering of instruments throughout the soundstage.
As stupid as it sounds I just might sell my Audiolab 8300 if this thing continues to impress me with its sound over the next month........
Beave

 

Must sound good if you're thinking about ditching your Audiolab for 1992 player. I've really been tempted to add a Yamaha CDX-920 to the rack. I bought one new many years ago and have fond memories of it.

 

As far as i m concerned cd quality is rather good.
A lot depends on cd itself, who mastered it how much compressoon is applied.
Depends what the manufacturers
Intend as finished product.
Some early 1986 first generation
Cd s were straight clones of original recording before they knew how to
Tailot the sound.

 

Tailor the sound or screw it up!
What I’m finding is this:
When cd’s first came out I was poor, so for the longest time I bought budget CD players from Radio Shack (my first one), Technics, Sony, and not one of them really sounded excellent, yeah they were clean but they never sounded as FULL as a good record, and I honestly thought all CD players sounded the same.
I NEVER came across the Magnavox or Philips players or the few other vintage players that have the sound I wanted from digital that we’re talking about here.
So I slowly got sick of cd’s until the vinyl resurgence came about.
But starting with the OPPO 205 and the SabreESS 9038 pro chip, I finally heard digital that sounded good to me.
Then to the Denafrips and getting turned BACK on to ladder r-2r dac’s and this new resurgence of that technology.
And then to a couple of old cd decks that have these chips and really great sounding analog sections and here I am, rethinking everything I thought I knew about digital.
But I also realize how stupid I’ve been to swallow so much bullschidt from the audio companies over the decades about this and that, but when your limited money wise you either get lucky, which I didn’t until now, or you put up with what you could afford and not know any better.

So here I sit with this new/old Magnavox CDB500 that I got for $4.99 listening to digital and enjoying the un digital sound coming from this thing.
And yes it shares traits with the Denafrips, but it is different, it would have to be, but I’m not complaining at all, even playing brick walled cd’s is tolerable when with my other current decks, they were unlistenable.
Speakers volumes, and yeah, let the scientists over at ASR laugh at me and they can just keep waiting for the next dac that surpasses the sinad of the last dac. I would rather listen and enjoy my music.

And this thread is also a lot of fun!
Good to be here!
Beave

 

I don't know how these CD player manufacturers are able to convince folks to buy newer technology of an already established decades old CD player technology. I've never seen/heard any A/B comparisons showing a noticeable difference or improvement in sound using the same equipment and test CD between old '92 brand X vs current XXX brand/model.

I'm still sticking with my '92 Technics CD player I bought in '92 and play through my '70's/'80's vintage system. It sounds pretty similar to what you describe about the '92 Magnavox player.

But I also can tell the difference between what my player does to the sound vs how the music was recorded and mastered for CD format. That shows more of a difference than listening on an old CD player vs current models.

 

I don't have the tech nous to add to this discussion, other than to opine that they got an awful lot right in the early days of the CD medium, particularly the Philips-based players. Apart from a few exceptions -- and those were from 20-ish years ago -- I haven't heard better, really. And I've never been persuaded by "hi-res" formats ...

 

I was one of those who jumped ship and migrated 100% to CD as soon as they became available. These are my impressions and please feel free to disagree if your experience is different.

1. I never noticed much difference between different CD players connected with S/PDIF and it didn't really matter if I used coaxial or TOSLINK or the price or quality of the cables.
2. I did notice differences when the CD players were connected with L/R RCA cables but it's difficult to say if this was due to better or inferior DAC in the players or because I was just too lazy to match volume levels.
3. Some of my first CD disks were simply awful. For example I have one of CAMEL (Snowgoose) that was almost certainly transfered "as is" from the LP record master to CD without taking any care to adapt the transfer to the (then) newer media. Since I also have the LP record and a newer digital download of this album it's quite easy for me to hear that the CD has a much lower DR and volume than the download and that it sounds faint and very congested when comparing to the original LP record I have. I suspect that it was not a unique case and that even far into the late 90's they were releasing CD albums using the same mix as the LP or not taking enough care with the CD mix and mastering.
4. I did owned and used several CD players from Denon and Cambridge Audio, they all sounded fine, did the job and were replaced by computer audio lossless files and external DAC for PCs which also sounds fine. In fact I would not be able to tell the differences between a CD and a lossless FLAC rip even if my life depended on it so you might want to get a second opinion from a more discerning expert and not from an audio hobbyist qwack like me.

 

Good points! The market for selling stereo gear has morphed from brick and mortar stores to cyberspace. But the market is still there.....case in point, Onkyo, almost a decade ago the came out with the 7030 model, initially priced at about $200 and wayyyyy over engineered. With a big, real transformer, a great sounding dac and analog section. The model is STILL in production, going on 10 years! They obviously made their money on this one, I bought like 5 of them for flipping when they went out of production, which they haven’t done yet! Lol, but I heard they recently went from the great sounding Wolfson dac to a lower grade dac to save money, so now I got the original issue, good for me!

But when you get online, the market for “analog” sounding dac’s is FIERCE!
All you need to do is go over to Audio Science Review and have at it, it’s fascinating the craziness surrounding this, hell I’ve been in the eye of the hurricane for the past 3 years, as anybody following me can attest to, to the point where even I Think I’m crazy.

Oh, LKS DAC UPDATE, MY drop unit shipped from Hong Kong yesterday and is scheduled to be delivered TOMORROW! Can you believe that?

But right now I’m having fun with the Maggy 500.
But I’ll be the first to be honest and tell you that I HAVE been looking for that unit that DOESNT SOUND DIGITAL, and I found it in the OPPO 205, but like I’ve said, I don’t like the way it looks in the stereo rack so the reason for my quest.

But it still comes down to what one likes. If your happy with the sound of your CD player/dac then your all done and cool!
If not then there is still a Magic Carpet Ride out there for those who want to take a ride, and I’m digging the heck out of it!
Beave

 

I paid five bucks for one of these last weekend. I’d read that CDs sound great in it, and I agree. The first few times I loaded a CD it didn’t read the disc; it did read DVDs. I cleaned the lenses; no change—at first. Tonight I tried again and after about ten seconds, it recognized and played the CD. The next time, it loaded and played more quickly. I love finding these old, low-priced toys. If you see one cheap and it works, grab it.

 

Calibration procedure

sony s7700 - Can not play this disc

 

My favorite CD player is a Sony 507ESD with 2 Philips 1541A DACs inside. It sounds wonderful.

 

Interesting, thank you. I have also read that adjusting the CD lens’ potentiometer might fix it. I tried that on a player once but failed.

My $5 unit didn’t come with the remote. If I ever find one cheap, I’ll try that calibration.

 

logitech harmony should work too

 

Recently replaced my 20 year old Marantz 6000 ose le, a well regarded player in its day, with its modern equivilent the Marantz CD6006 UK with the cirrus logic chip and the SQ improvement is not small, though build is not quite as solid. Can't speak for other modern CD players but there's nothing fatiguing about the sound of CD6006, which has a smoother sound than the 6000 ose le.

 

That's good to know, mine is getting long in the tooth and the CD6006 sounds like a good replacement if I need one.

 

not sure if I totally agree with this

A lot of those "early CDs" sound great on my modern player
this tells me the CD isn't the problem

those jitter numbers, improving, can very much be a good reason for better sound.

what cheap solid state amps have "perfect numbers?"

 

The early CD's that sound great on a modern players also sound great on early CD players.

A percentage of early CD's were badly transferred thoigh as engineers were still leaning the techniques of digital and were still mastering in the same way they mastered vinyl.Which involved ramping up the HF levels. (which was perfect in vinyl to compensate for analogue tape limitations but made digital sound harsh).Poor pre-emphasis could make recordings sound bright as well.All contributing to the fallacy that CD/digital was harsh.Along with CD sounding transparent (and thus naturally brighter) than the slightly dulled formats that went before it.

With regard to cheap solid state amps having perfect numbers..I should have said they had far better numbers than some very expensive equipment.Especially tube amps.

 

+1

A great example is Thomas Dolby's "Hyperactive" from The Flat Earth. When Louise Ulfstedt's vocals start about 2/3s in, her voice always sounded metallic and grating to me on 80s and even 90s gear. On a modern DAC, the digital decoding suddenly works and she actually sounds like a human rather than a robot. Note that Thomas Dolby was a pioneer of early digital mastering and while I didn't think much of his mastering work in the 80s, I now appreciate just how good his 80s era masters sound. They were just too high in resolution for the gear (certainly, all the 80s gear I ever heard it on, some of if very high end) of the 80s.

 

Been going back and forth tonight between my Maggy 460 with the 1541 dac and my Maggy 624 with the Philips 1 bit Bitstream dac.
Have got to say Philips had their Schiit DOWN!
Both decks sound musical and involving. And there is very little difference between the two dac’s, which is a kudos to Philips, they really knew what they were doing back in the day.....
Beave