I have. Thanks Here's a copy of my query to Cambridge sent on 27/04/2008 And here's the answer sent on 28/04/2008:
Why aren't you able to burn CDs? If you rip a disc with PE and play the resulting files back, they will be noticeably brighter.
I rip cds using itunes, won't it just burn the cd ''properly'' since there is no way to remove the PE flag while burning??
I'd suggest getting some software that lets you rip to audio/CUE and subsequently burn. If you are running Windows EAC is a good choice. As far as iTunes goes, some people have claimed that it actually applies de-emphasis while ripping (changing the actual audio), but I've never encountered that, and I don't believe flags would be stored anywhere. While I'm not 100% certain, chances are if you ripped and burned via iTunes you'd end up with a copy stripped of the PE flag.
As others have suggested, the list of the players that don't decode pre-emphasis should be a lot shorter than the list of those that do.
Years ago when I was making a lot of CD-Rs, I found that the standard burner that came with my Dell computer coupled with Roxio Easy CD Creator did not capture pre-emphasis flags. As a result, CD-Rs made from "pre-emphasized" CDs were terribly bright. I started using a Harman/Kardon CDR 30 dual-tray component burner at that point. Problem solved. Unfortunately, there aren't too many component burners being made these days and audio CD-Rs probably aren't as prevalent today as they once were, but that's a sure way to make a proper CD-R. Professional component burners are still made, and as far as I know, they all work with data CD-Rs.
pitro, Send Cambridge this: http://books.google.com/books?id=GkIaGZ0HWcMC&pg=PA83=onepage&q&f=false#v=onepage&q&f=false
Pre-emphasis detection should be a software issue, not a hardware issue, and even if it does not detect the flags (or do anything useful with them), it should still be possible to set them manually when burning. Jam (on the Mac) always had an option for setting PE flags, and when burning from a CUE sheet, FLAGS PRE just needs to be set for each track. http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Pre-emphasis
Thanks I don't think it would be worth it, though. I mean, they're not going to give me my money back
I would be inclined to send their response to Philips. They take a dim view of people issuing discs that don't conform to the Redbook standard (eg Copy-Control and Dualdiscs). I'm fairly sure they'd take an interest in a major manufacturer putting out players that don't conform.
Ok, here's a stupid question that is probably answered elsewhere, but what was/is the purpose of pre-empasis on CD's? Typically analog recording and FM broadcasts use pre-emphasis to help counteract the hiss inherent in those formats, but I thought that the extremely low noise floor of digital recording made signal-fiddling such as pre-emphasis unnecessary.
Sid got in while I was typing, but here is my version... In the early days of CD manufacture, the majority of the master tapes used were analog, such as those used for LP cutting. Keep in mind that many of these early projects were classical recordings, with very wide dynamics. Quiet sections with very low signal levels might contain significant tape hiss on some analog masters. CD pre-emphasis in mastering, and de-emphasis upon playback of the finished CD, were used as a method of reducing tape hiss from the analog master. Using an encode/decode method (somewhat similar to Dolby noise reduction) the high frequencies were boosted (emphasized) during the recording of the CD master, and then cut (de-emphasized) by the CD player. The goal was to get a neutral playback, with less tape hiss than a straight copy of the analog master. By the early 1990s, when digital mastering decks were much more common, tape hiss had become much less of an issue in mastering, and the use of pre-emphasis began to fall out of favor.
It didn't have anything to do with reducing tape hiss. It was rather an attempt to deal with noisy converters.
Thanks for your replies Adding Arcam Alpha 5 CD/Universal players Mitsubishi DP-101 JVC XL-V550 Rotel RCD-1072 Harman Kardon HD7300 Denon DCD-695 Onkyo C7030 Arcam Alpha 5 Naim CD-5i Naim CD555 Onkyo C-S5VL (SACD/CD) Sony SCD-X501 (SACD/CD) Cambridge DVD99 Universal Player Pioneer DV-656A Universal player Cambridge Azur 840C CD DACs Benchmark DAC 1 Pre Cambridge Dacmagic 2 Mk.II Feel free to bump the thread adding your own findings, please There must be more players that can't decode pre-emphasis. Anyone?
yes for Marantz cd5001, I emailed Marantz to ask. Do Marantz players (the cd5001 in particular) decode pe-emphasis? Response from Tech support: Yes, since sub code channel decoding is part of the Red Book (CD) specification.
I have a retired engineer friend who did some work on the original CD development for a large manufacturer. He would likely agree with both of you. He told me there were concerns about any forms of hiss that might be discernible since CD was being promoted as hiss-less. He said pre-emphasis was designed to ensure that no hiss was added. I don't know that he'd go as far as to suggest it would reduce analogue master tape hiss, but there definitely was an obsession with not adding to it. Funny, but a little hiss has sort of become a badge of honor as it usually means the absence of noise reduction methods.
Thanks for your replies CD/Universal players Arcam Arcam Alpha 5 Cambridge Audio Cambridge DVD99 Cambridge Azur 840C Denon Denon DCD-695 Harman Kardon Harman Kardon HD7300 JVC JVC XL-V550 Marantz Marantz CD5001 Mitsubishi Mitsubishi DP-101 Naim Naim CD-5i Naim CD555 Onkyo Onkyo C7030 Onkyo C-S5VL (SACD/CD) Pioneer Pioneer DV-656A Rotel Rotel RCD-1072 Sony Sony SCD-X501 (SACD/CD) DACs Benchmark DAC 1 Pre Cambridge Dacmagic 2 Mk.II Feel free to bump the thread adding your own findings, please There must be more players that can't decode pre-emphasis. Anyone? Does any one own the Primare CD21? Can it decode pre-emphasis? Thanks
I had never heard of this SACD player, so I had to look it up. It was never released in the U.S., but it sure looks nice. I found a web site that has it for $700. It looks like a scaled-back version of the SCD-DR1.
I don't think your engineer friend could agree with both of them, the first one is just wrong. You would have to use pre-emphasis when originally recording the analog source if you wanted to reduce tape hiss later, like with Dolby, or dbx. Pre-emphasis will boost the tape hiss and all the other high frequencies, and then de-emphasis will just restore it to the original level.
