Pro-Ject claims that most CD players have never seen more than 10 bits.

And a $3800 pair of Genelec 8050 studio monitors uses the same amplifier chip as a $199 Sony mini-stereo.

Just because somebody is asking a certain price doesn't mean there is any correspondence to value or quality. You are paying for a luxury good here, where the enhanced charisma and esteem from your peers is the value you are being marketed. If the price of one of those models was slashed in half, you'd have previous buyers up in arms, making the status symbol available to commoners would depreciate the exclusivity they thought they had purchased. You also can't have marketing fluff that says "outputs 16 bit digital as accurately as any other commodity transport, but at 1000x the price" - fibs are needed.

 

While you’re listening to a 24 bit recording remember you’re lucky to get 20 bits out of your DAC.

 

I wonder if 10 bits is their subjective comparison to low end CDP's, which by volume, would qualify as "most CD players", rather than 10 bits is 10 bits.

When I read their fluff I think I'm reading their opinion that a low end CDP is typically a physically wobbly affair with a cheap dac, a cheap power supply, & sounds sub-parr, that they don't like it, & they have a transport that sounds better. Looks like they have an outboard power supply to ice the cake.

 

Yeah that Pro-ject quote is complete marketing fluff written by a staffer that doesn't know what the 16bit reference actually represents, or at least confusing it with dynamic range.

A CD player basically reads a file on an optical disc and transports the data over i2s to a DAC to be turned into an electrical signal.

The PCM data contained in that file follows the Redbook standard on all audio CDs where the PCM data must contain 44100 16 bit (2 byte) values of amplitude (samples) for each second of audio for each channel.
The 16 bit value being a binary number of 16 bits (binary digits) in length starting from 0000000000000000 (0 in decimal) to 1111111111111111 (65536 in decimal).
It is from this sample rate a DAC will produce an electrical waveform that can be amplified and run through speaker coils.

These samples change in value not length, a DAC converts these values to an amount of voltage on a output circuit so to suggest that the PCM data format in the file could be dynamically altered somehow by a certain quality of CD transport and the thing would still make a recognizable noise is nonsense.

 

It would appear that Pro-Ject toned down the marketing fluff significantly, making it less the work of an overactive imagination.

 

Oh lord. So the kind of ignorant B.S. that has been used to sell crummy turntables to hipster suckers the past decade has now made its way to CD players.

Yea.

 

That's the unfortunate reality right at this moment. And you've got people who love to defend and even praise such godawful equipment (from cheapophiles and even supposed audiophiles alike), especially on YouTube and other social media platforms. It's the same mentality, just on the other side of the audio spectrum.

 

I must be a hipster sucker then...

 

Perhaps they meant actual resolution of recordings.
"CD, I've seen 16 bits, I know 16 bits, 16 bits used to be a friend of mine. You, newly mastered DR5 instead of DR13 CD, is not really 16 bit".
If only CD players could talk...

 

Definitely been edited.

 

They did change the web page, removing the "never seen more than 10 bits" claim and replacing it with an unsubstantiated claim about sound quality that I think is equally specious:

Original:

Now:

A CD player only needs to rely on audio interpolation if the data being read from the disc is so faulty that error correction cannot handle it. And if the $10 optical drive in my computer can rip all my CDs with no uncorrectable errors, then I have no reason to believe that any component CD player would have that problem.

 

Nice that they kept the comma splice and poor grammar and use of tense in the first sentence intact.