When did you start getting Good sound from CDs?

Corollary to the LP post but very much to the point. I see that the answer to "When did you first get good sound from LPs" is mostly "When I got My AR XA', though obviously there were other answers. But with CDs there are those whose first exposure was great, some whose first exposure to CD was "Meh" and a few, like me, whose first exposure was along the lines of "Turn that awful noise off.' But and in any case, in the mid-1990's I assembled a CD player consisting of an Optimus 3400—Radio Shack's "Giant Killer" portable player— being used as a transport with a battery based power supply I built and the t.c. electronics M 2000 as the d/a converter. Finally got some sense of space and depth and atmosphere with that as a digital front end. And what's on the shelf at Best Buy these days for $100 in the way of a Panasonic Blu-Ray player will sonically beat what I came up with in 1994.

What was the first time you heard a CD player and said—"This is an improvement over what I have heard from LPs." I'll bet there's a lot of you out there in Hofmannland.

 

1990

 

In 1987 I bought a Denon 1300 cd player & it was better than my Dual 505 deluxe with linn K5 cartridge . I used a second hand Elite Rock & that was better than the Denon but I part exchanged for a Roksan Xerses because at the time I thought the elite rock would be hard to repair (oil trough etc )

 

I always enjoyed good sound from CDs. I thought that my CD sound improved in 1997 when I connected my Laserdisc/CD transport to my then new Sherwood receiver via spdif coax. The biggest leap in sound quality came two years ago with a HDMI equipped receiver and transport.

 

Sorry Robin but I've never had that "this is an improvement over LPs" moment. I only really use CD through necessity, the car, lack of LPs in the late 80s and 90s, and cost of CDs compared to vinyl. However CD did become very acceptable for me when I added an "Audiophile Platform" support to my "Sonneteer Byron" CD player.

 

1984. Then as time went by I realized that my positive first impressions were dominated by things that were for me actually the format's shortcomings. It wasn't until about 2005 with the purchase of a McCormack UDP-1 that I could finally listen to CDs (and other digital discs) without thinking of any negatives.

John K.

 

When I bought my Marantz SA8003.

 

Well I'm not sure how to answer this one.

When I heard my first CD's I was not at all impressed. Yes, there was the convenience factor and the lack of surface noise, but I instantly noticed the lack of three dimensionality and inner detail, not to mention the horribly fatiguing sound I was hearing.

I installed quite a few early CD's for clients but held off on getting my own until 1986. I got one of the first quad oversampling players, and rebuilt the analog output section. It sounded far better to me than what I had heard before, but still didn't match LP's in many of the areas I was passionate about.

One of my first CD's was the Mamas and Papas 16 Greatest Hits. It still didn't have some of the aforementioned qualities that I cherished in recordings, but it had other qualities that really impressed me. The impact, apparent closeness, and tonality were amazing and led me to buy thousands of those shiny little discs. Btw, I tried many times over the years to get better sounding versions of those M&P hits but never found anything that sounded better than that first CD.

They still didn't completely satisfy me. I listened to them far more than I did LP's mainly because of the convenience factor, but I came to accept the fact that the three dimensionality and other qualities I so cherished was just a thing of the past, unless I was willing to play my LP's or tapes.

CD's generally got better sounding, but it wasn't until some of the SACD's started to appear that I finally started hearing some of the things I had been missing. Now I have well over 1000 hi-res recordings and I'm finally at the point where many of them equal or even surpass some of my finest LP's.

So this is a tough question. The word 'good' is not all that superlative. In the world of baseball cards, good is about as bad as you can get and still maintain any value. That said, I'd have to answer that 'good' sound from CD started for me in 1986. Superb sound from them never did happen for me, but obviously I'm in the minority in that regard.

Much of that, I'm sure, is that I had a pretty advanced playback system and professional level listening skills well before the digital revolution began. If I hadn't, I'd probably have been as enthralled with early CD's as the majority of us were. Unfortunately, I was used to hearing things that just didn't seem to exist with any of the early CDs. Of course I was given all kinds of reasons for this, but none of them made any sense to me.

 

1983. I friend of mine just bought a CD player. I remember he put on U2's War. That did it for me.

 

3 players have impressed me...

Meridian 602-603 in the very early 1990s

Musical Fidelity Tri-Vista - excellent resolution, lovely tone, pity the wretched machine was incapable of lasting more than a week without breaking down.

Oppo BDP-105EU a couple of years ago.

 

CDs never cease to amaze me - they sound better on a good digital front-end, as a format, than vinyl to me (perhaps not a lacquer, but a pressed record).

They never sounded great to me in the 80s (I had a Technics SLP-550 - things got significantly better at the turn of the Millennium when I picked up a used Panasonic DVD-A350 - currently still being used as my main CD transport) but I had faith in the technology and put my effort into searching for gear that would reveal the musical depth I believed may be hidden in those pits. It turns out that it is there, if you get the front-end sorted.

Since around 2007, I have had a dCS stack on a budget - Elgar DAC, Musiland upsampler, Apogee Big Ben clock (also needed to convert the upsampled S/PDIF to Dual AES). The whole thing cost me around £3000 (used mint gear except for the Musiland).

I only have PCM upsampling - no DSD, but I imagine the real dCS stack would beat my mock up even just in PCM mode. Even so, the sound I get is good enough for me (no money to be chasing the dream any further anyway) - I no longer feel the playback itself is lacking all the time and can just enjoy the music (or moan about the mastering).

I'm upsampling 44.1 to 176.4 and using the Gaussian filter. The filter was the key to 3D imaging - no 'glare' at all (no ringing), just a big open window to the soundstage.

The PS Audio Direct Stream DAC sounds interesting - if I had the money I might try one of those.

 

Probably last month when I got the iFi iDSD micro DAC, JRiver MC20 (& foobar_asio_dsd).
I'm streaming my redbook to this DAC as DSD512 (22.5Mhz sampling rate). I'm finally hearing very open/spacious engaging sound akin to vinyl.
I always thought CDs had the edge over vinyl with minute details, but, fell way short with the open/engaging sound aspect. Oh, and on various cd recordings, the phase is reversed. So, it requires reversing phase (either via software or my DAC has a polarity switch) to hear the full sound quality.

 

First CD player I had back in 1992, a Marantz CD 52 Mk II was good from the get go. Never had duff sound from a player since.

 

Coming from you, that is very interesting, could you please elaborate?

 

I bought my first CD player in 1985 and was immediately impressed. Some CD's were better than others but on the whole it was an improvement, especially with music that had quiet passages. Surface noise on some records used to drive me nuts...

 

Surface noise stinks.

 

1986. I was in love with CDs, loved the sound ... got rid of all my vinyl. Never wanted to look back.

2011 - went back and re-bought all my vinyl records, and many more I never originally had. 25 years away from records made me realize how good they'd always sounded.

2014 - Realized that Vinyl Will Never Be 'Final' .

 

When I started adding outboard DACs.

Couldn't put a date on it, if that's what you're asking.

My first? AA DAC-in-the-Box!

(Photo not mine)

 

I'll go with 1983 too. Honestly, they blew me away right off the bat. I proceeded to buy a series of CD's that WEREN'T remastered for the format and wasn't impressed, but I think most people who heard "Brothers in Arms" on CD for the first time were pretty impressed. I was, and it wasn't even my thing. Anyone with an average record player, cartridge and associated equipment would have heard the benefits immediately. I don't remember anyone complaining about the sound in the first few years or so, and I think most of those that say they hated it immediately are being dishonest. It took a while for the differences to become more apparent, and it STILL takes a decent investment in record playing hardware, cleaners, etc. to match entry level CD playback. It take VERY revealing amplification and speakers and an excellent turntable to challenge a well-engineered CD to this day, IMHO.

I agree that a well-engineered SACD is as good, and as often as not better, than an LP of the same title.

 

When I discovered the importance of isolating components and proper speaker placement.

 

Still good. Not very good or excellent though.

 

Hold on all you 1980s guys.

Every CD available back then has been remastered at least 10 times over at this point. (sometimes effectively )

Since most of the great sounding masterings we listen to nowadays have only come into existence since then, what were you listening to in the 1980s that gave you this great sound? Not what equipment were you listening to, but what CDs?

Seriously, if I had to give up all my best sounding CDs for the ones that originally came out, I wouldn't have a very good sounding CD collection.

 

Very few of my best sounding CDs are modern remasters - that was clear to me in the 90s when they started to re-issue them maxed, boosted and noise-shaped.

 

My cousin was an early adopter and he bought a Philips CD100 in 1983. He played me Toto IV - that was the first cd I ever heard. I was a very impressed 11-year old and worked hard to save up for my very own cd player, which I got in 1986. That one (also a Philips) didn't sound as good, so I saved up more and bought a Sony X222ES in 1992. That was a good one.