• The move to the new server is done. There are some software and database maintenance updates in process. This has us passing the hat around to help out. We appreciate any donations. Seriously, even a dollar helps. The payment page may be found here - https://www.audiokarma.org/support.html

I don't understand high dollar CD players...

JohnVF said:
Yet I still want and use CD players exclusively (at least at home) because I like to have a physical item, that I remember buying...that has been with me through 10 moves, 8 girlfriends, whatever. I'm a sentimental bloke and that's just how I am. And a digital file doesn't bring back all of those memories when I play it. It just 'is'. And I want something that is more than that.
Click to expand...

I can understand servers aren't for everyone. It is great that music lovers have so many options nowadays.

Sometimes I envy people that don't concern themselves with equipment all that much and listen to music for the pure enjoyment of it. My wife can listen to a song on a basic AM/FM radio up to the best audio equipment I own and she gets the same listening enjoyment from each. I wonder if she "feels" the music and doesn't need a lot of fidelity to reach that state. Then I wonder if she actually gets more enjoyment from music than I do because she doesn't carry the "fidelity baggage" that I do.
 
OldJBL said:
I can understand servers aren't for everyone. It is great that music lovers have so many options nowadays.

Sometimes I envy people that don't concern themselves with equipment all that much and listen to music for the pure enjoyment of it. My wife can listen to a song on a basic AM/FM radio up to the best audio equipment I own and she gets the same listening enjoyment from each. I wonder if she "feels" the music and doesn't need a lot of fidelity to reach that state. Then I wonder if she actually gets more enjoyment from music than I do because she doesn't carry the "fidelity baggage" that I do.
Click to expand...

I wish the same thing sometimes, that I wish I could go back to when cartridge sibilance and frequency range and dynamics didn't concern me. I can still be there, in my car, or when it's not my system. But often in my own system I think about the sound more than the music. Not all the time...and less so than when I was on the serious upgrade wagon. Now that the upgrades are much much smaller in the difference they make, I'm finally getting back to just listening to the music. I had a 60's Lenco turntable in place of my VPI last week, and just enjoyed the tunes, for example. It sounded more 'of the time' for the '60s soul I was listening to. I didn't think for a moment about the gear, even though it was inferior in almost every way except engagement to my VPI. For CD players vs digital..I just don't connect as well to files of music. It has nothing to do with the sound, though...and I readily agree that somebody else is perfectly justified in going with a server. As long as we enjoy it, no harm in any path we take.
 
For all of you who wants to return to musical innocense, feel free to ship your high end audio gear to me. I'll take the burden off your ears!:music:
 
OldJBL said:
I can understand servers aren't for everyone. It is great that music lovers have so many options nowadays.
Click to expand...

Reminds me of the Vinyl, Reel to reel, 8 track and cassette days..... till CDs burst on the scene.... or was it 45s and 78s.....?
 
Though the conversation has been lively, at some point, it veered off-topic and into the CD player vs. music server area. The gist of my original question (reworded) is this: if I buy an expensive CD player with XLR outs, and plug it into the XLR ins on my preamp, am I bypassing all the DAC technologies my pre (the Denon AVP-A1HDCI)? Conversely, if I choose to output digitally to the preamp, will I be forfeiting the DAC capabilities on the CD player that made the cd player so expensive to begin with?

I would like DAC capabilities that can handle 24bit/192khz flac files, but my pre won't do it. So now I'm thinking about getting a good DAC. Considering the boat I'm in, should I be searching for a CD player (actually a universal player) with XLR outs, a sure sign of good analog conversion, or should I stick with my Oppo?
 
racecannon said:
Though the conversation has been lively, at some point, it veered off-topic and into the CD player vs. music server area. The gist of my original question (reworded) is this: if I buy an expensive CD player with XLR outs, and plug it into the XLR ins on my preamp, am I bypassing all the DAC technologies my pre (the Denon AVP-A1HDCI)? Conversely, if I choose to output digitally to the preamp, will I be forfeiting the DAC capabilities on the CD player that made the cd player so expensive to begin with?

I would like DAC capabilities that can handle 24bit/192khz flac files, but my pre won't do it. So now I'm thinking about getting a good DAC. Considering the boat I'm in, should I be searching for a CD player (actually a universal player) with XLR outs, a sure sign of good analog conversion, or should I stick with my Oppo?
Click to expand...

Yes the XLR connection to your Denon will mean that you are using the DAC capabilities in the CD player. Chances are, if it has balanced outs it's a pretty good machine because they tend to end up on high end units, but XLR isn't necessarily better than RCA in and of itself. Two of my players have them and only one of those really sounds good, and is easily beaten by an older unit that only has RCAs. If you have a completely balanced system or are running excessive lengths of cable between the player and the preamp/amp then balanced becomes more useful. I like how robust the cables are, though...I like the 'click' you get when you plug them in..silly but true. If you use optical or coax then yes, you're bypassing the DAC capabilities in your player and it becomes a nice transport. Sounds like you might be better off with a better stand alone DAC anyway?
 
Last edited:
I seem to remember at some point while researching bluray players and HDMI connections that the DTS-Master and Dolby TrueHD recordings could not fit inside the bandwidth of toslink and SPDIF.... that it was necessary to take the signal through HDMI. I say this to ask if there are any bottlenecks in the cable choice when transferring high bandwidth (24/192) digital signals to a dedicated dac.
 
I recommend separate DAC approach as this gives you more flexibility. In my experience the DAC is the biggest contributor to any sound differences you will hear in digital playback. Transports die and you can plug and play, you can use a cheap one, expensive one or whatever. DAC's pretty much do not fail and can be sold and upgraded. You can have an oversampling DAC and a non-oversampling DAC sitting side by side and listen to the one that tickles your fancy, all through the same transport.
 
Gibsonian said:
I recommend separate DAC approach as this gives you more flexibility. In my experience the DAC is the biggest contributor to any sound differences you will hear in digital playback. Transports die and you can plug and play, you can use a cheap one, expensive one or whatever. DAC's pretty much do not fail and can be sold and upgraded. You can have an oversampling DAC and a non-oversampling DAC sitting side by side and listen to the one that tickles your fancy, all through the same transport.
Click to expand...

Sounds reasonable. I did read some paper by Audio Research though that mentions the problems incurred when you have a separate transport and DAC. Something about the synchronization of time between the two. Not sure.

Currently, I am using a Harman Kardon transport with a Benchmark DAC. Will upgrade to the Audio Research CD8 soon.
 
jazzgene said:
Sounds reasonable. I did read some paper by Audio Research though that mentions the problems incurred when you have a separate transport and DAC. Something about the synchronization of time between the two. Not sure.

Currently, I am using a Harman Kardon transport with a Benchmark DAC. Will upgrade to the Audio Research CD8 soon.
Click to expand...

Perhaps ARC uses an argument similar to the one used by Bryston ?

http://bryston.com/bcd1_m.html

The advantage of an all in one box solution for a CD Player (as opposed to a separate outboard DAC and Drive) is the elimination of jitter. For optimum performance the Drive and DAC must use the same MASTER CLOCK. If the clock signal of the drive is not synchronized with the clock signal from the DAC then jitter develops. In external DACs the digital input must be re-clocked in order to reduce the jitter. Jitter is defined as mistiming of the digital signal. The timing of all those ones and zeros is of extreme importance. It isn’t enough to get the bits right; those bits have to be converted back into music with the same timing reference as when the music was first digitized. These timing errors (jitter) are the bane of quality audio. With the Bryston CD player the master clock and the drive are synchronized perfectly to eliminate any possibility of jitter affecting the sound quality of the player.

Arcam uses a similar argument. So, it seems that at least three high end CDP manufacturers (Arcam, Bryston and ARC) share a similar line of thought.
 
racecannon said:
I seem to remember at some point while researching bluray players and HDMI connections that the DTS-Master and Dolby TrueHD recordings could not fit inside the bandwidth of toslink and SPDIF.... that it was necessary to take the signal through HDMI. I say this to ask if there are any bottlenecks in the cable choice when transferring high bandwidth (24/192) digital signals to a dedicated dac.
Click to expand...

Bear in mind that most external DACs will only accept 2-ch PCM digital streams.
 
guiller said:
Arcam uses a similar argument. So, it seems that at least three high end CDP manufacturers (Arcam, Bryston and ARC) share a similar line of thought.
Click to expand...

So does Naim, there's no "digital out" on their CD players, at least not mine. Kind of a shame as the transport used in their CD players is quite good IMO.
 
Mr. Lin said:
So does Naim, there's no "digital out" on their CD players, at least not mine. Kind of a shame as the transport used in their CD players is quite good IMO.
Click to expand...

Sorry, my fault! I meant Naim but my fingers typed Arcam.
 
:scratch2: Did I miss something here, but how can ripping a CD on a 25 dollar burner running at 50x speed have less errors in playback from a Hard Drive, than a 2.5k CD transport outputting in real time? I'm not talking DA conversion just strickly the laser reading the data. I do use a music server 100% of the time using WAV format, but can't help but feel the rips I have are filled with errors that the software/Hardware has to correct due to a jittery computer transport. Maybe I'm confused, it is late! :music:
 
vincei said:
:scratch2: Did I miss something here, but how can ripping a CD on a 25 dollar burner running at 50x speed have less errors in playback from a Hard Drive, than a 2.5k CD transport outputting in real time? I'm not talking DA conversion just strickly the laser reading the data. I do use a music server 100% of the time using WAV format, but can't help but feel the rips I have are filled with errors that the software/Hardware has to correct due to a jittery computer transport. Maybe I'm confused, it is late! :music:
Click to expand...

If all you are doing is copying a file from the disc to a hard drive then there should be little to no error. A music file is no different than a program file and if errors were rampant then you could not install a program from a CD/DVD disc. Also copying a file does not have the same timing issues when playing a file from a disc for music output. Hence, copying a music file takes just a few seconds verses several minutes for playback of the file.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom