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

R

racecannon

Member
Let me explain (in my limited understanding). A cd is digital. If there are no scratches on the disc, it will be read identically each time it's played. If my system has a good DAC component, why would i need a good cd player? As long as there's a digital output, would each and every cd player read the same data off the same disc? The DAC would do all the sound work, right?
Thanks.
 
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There's a lot more to it than that. The quality of the DAC is very important, so are the types of filters employed, the quality of the power supply (this is a big one), the quality of the passive electronics parts (where many skimp), and yes, even the transport, which can introduce jitter into the signal if not well-made. Additionally, the chassis of the CD player is of significance, it should be sturdy and well-damped to prevent vibrations.

Then there's the issue of whether the signal is upsampled, oversampled, or none of the above. And there are all kinds of different technologies out there to accomplish these things.

But like most things in hi-fi, the best thing is to hear it for yourself. Then you'll realize why some of us make such a big deal over our "high dollar" CD players.
 
I asked the question because I'm in the market for a universal player (including bluray) and i already have the top of the line Denon preamp and amp. The preamp contains a high quality dac and I'm wondering why I should be looking at a disc player with xlr outs when I have a preamp that is also well suited to do the dac work. I've always wondered why the mcintosh units boast of such powerful analog conversion, then the company makes a dedicated dac which would seem to bypass the dac in the disc player and in the receiver.
Thanks for your reply Mr. Lin.
 
racecannon said:
I asked the question because I'm in the market for a universal player (including bluray) and i already have the top of the line Denon preamp and amp. The preamp contains a high quality dac and I'm wondering why I should be looking at a disc player with xlr outs when I have a preamp that is also well suited to do the dac work. I've always wondered why the mcintosh units boast of such powerful analog conversion, then the company makes a dedicated dac which would seem to bypass the dac in the disc player and in the receiver.
Thanks for your reply Mr. Lin.
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Well you could just get a decent universal Bluray player, like the Oppo BDP83, and run the digital signal to the DAC section of your preamp, that should work fine. Supposedly the internal DAC of the Oppo is pretty good to begin with, so that might not even be necessary.

I think high-end CD players are a good idea if you have a large CD collection featuring at least some that are actually good recordings to begin with. Most of the differences are somewhat small, but the difference they make in the long run is huge, IMO. In your situation you'll probably find something like the Oppo satisfying for Red Book CD playback.
 
racecannon said:
.. I've always wondered why the mcintosh units boast of such powerful analog conversion, then the company makes a dedicated dac which would seem to bypass the dac in the disc player and in the receiver.
...
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Because they want to have a product offering in that category.
 
racecannon said:
As long as there's a digital output, would each and every cd player read the same data off the same disc?
Click to expand...

The same, exactly the same? Dunno if I'd go that far. But....are the differences significant enought to be a real consideration? Based on my experience so far, no, but then again I've not messed around with uber expensive players.

No doubt there are asthetics and build quality involved in the higher-end players, but whether this translates into meaningful audio difference out the digital port? Maybe, but I have doubts.
 
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Having used a wide range of players and DACs, I can tell you that to my ears (and for my checkbook), there are quite significant differences. The same data is read, true, but there are measurable differences in jitter, linearity, etc., and output stages also make a difference.
 
racecannon said:
Let me explain (in my limited understanding). A cd is digital. If there are no scratches on the disc, it will be read identically each time it's played. If my system has a good DAC component, why would i need a good cd player? As long as there's a digital output, would each and every cd player read the same data off the same disc? The DAC would do all the sound work, right?
Thanks.
Click to expand...

There are 3 blocks actually: 1) the mechanical part (reading of data) 2) the digital to analog circuit itself and 3) an analog stage that amplifies the signal so as to meet standard line levels of amplitude and impedance. A crucial piece connecting blocks 1 and 2 is the clock, that serves as the absolute reference of timing and frequency to undo the process of codification of the data in digital form done by the recording company. Lots of issues can then arise: some mechanical, some electronic. A standard DAC unit actually corresponds to blocks 2 and 3. The units referred to as "transports" correspond to block 1 (spliting a CDP intro transport and DAC makes the clock task more difficult and this may cause some degradation of the sound). One of the main issues of block 1 is jitter (an audible effect due to, among other things, the necessity of rereading several times the same data and applying to this temporal sequence correction software so as to make sure that the errors in the data reading are minimal). Another mechanical issue is the effect of mechanical vibrations on the digital signal produced, The performance of the DAC itself depends on the quality of the chipsets and the clock used, and on the design used to accomplish this (there are several possibilities, with very different strategies that end up in different types of sound). Finally, the quality of the output analog amplification stage is very important: one thing is to have vacuum tubes there, another to have discrete selected transistors and yet another to have an integrated circuit that does it all. This is a sort of overlooked area in which the high end CDPs show lots of differences with respect to middle-of-the-read CDPs.

Some high end brands, like Naim or Bryston insist on the idea of having a CDP and not having a transport+external DAC approach (quote from 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.)

As people have said, all of this yields audible differences. If I had the money to spend on a premium CDP (say, a Naim or Electrocompaniet unit costing 3000+) I would gladly do so.
 
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RichPA said:
Having used a wide range of players and DACs, I can tell you that to my ears (and for my checkbook), there are quite significant differences. The same data is read, true, but there are measurable differences in jitter, linearity, etc., and output stages also make a difference.
Click to expand...

I haven't used as many different CD players as some here, but I've had several very nice ones in the past few years. When I hooked up my Denon, it was like a veil had been lifted from the music.
 
Sam Cogley said:
I haven't used as many different CD players as some here, but I've had several very nice ones in the past few years. When I hooked up my Denon, it was like a veil had been lifted from the music.
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I asked a similar question awhile back, after hearing a wide range of differences in the CD players I had, the most expensive at the time being a Cambridge Audio 640, which wasn't my favorite of what I owned by a long shot. I decided to just see for myself and bought a demo example of a very nice, what some would call 'high end' CD player and there were in fact significant differences. Some people wouldn't call them huge, some would, and all the differences wouldn't be apparent on all systems. If you aren't into soundstage at all, or don't have speakers positioned to portray it accurately for example, that particular difference between it and the other players I have would be muted.
 
Rip the CD to a hard drive and you no longer have a need for an ultra expensive CD player. You also eliminate all the playback issues associated with reading a disc every time you want to listen to it. Hard drives are cheap and so are computers.
 
OldJBL said:
Rip the CD to a hard drive and you no longer have a need for an ultra expensive CD player. You also eliminate all the playback issues associated with reading a disc every time you want to listen to it. Hard drives are cheap and so are computers.
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But then you'll need an expensive DAC:D
 
About two years ago I was in a similar situation and was going to spend $1,500++ on a new CD player. After doing a lot of research I noticed that many players, high end or not, have problems with the laser blocks as they age. If that happens you could end up with an expensive door stop if the laser is no longer available. I instead went with ripping my entire collection in a lossless format and now use an AppleTV to stream my audio into an external DAC. This provided improved results over what I had and gives me the option of upgrading DAC's as the need (or want) arises. From my perspective the DAC is going to have the largest influence on the output so that's where I want to focus my energy and money. :yes:

BTW the Burr Brown DAC's in Denon products are very nice. What Denon Pre are you using?
 
Duffinator said:
I'd rather put X amount into a DAC than a CD player but that's just my opinion. :D :D
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I totally understand why you would, too. I just like physical media for some reason, and hate ripping CDs. I've actually been looking at some nice DACs for my second system and computer. The Musical Fidelity M1 looks really interesting to me.
 
The AppleTV, and a few other media type servers, add a different dimension to the listening experience. If you have not seen the ATV in action stop by an Apple Store for a demo. The ability to have your entire library available from your remote, and the visual display of album art on a display, is very compelling.
 
Duffinator said:
The AppleTV, and a few other media type servers, add a different dimension to the listening experience. If you have not seen the ATV in action stop by an Apple Store for a demo. The ability to have your entire library available from your remote, and the visual display of album art on a display, is very compelling.
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My only issue with it is that it seems to only have optical digital output, which I've not been a fan of. It certainly is a cool interface, and pretty cheap, too. $99 I think.
 
There's some mixed messages here. It seems the question is about using all the player's internal guts vs. only part of them + an external DAC, not whether a budget CDP sounds as good as a high end CDP.

I believe I've heard differences between various players using the units as a whole - meaning the analog outputs. However, using different/various player's digital outputs through the same external DAC...ehhh...
 
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JohnVF said:
I asked a similar question awhile back, after hearing a wide range of differences in the CD players I had, the most expensive at the time being a Cambridge Audio 640, which wasn't my favorite of what I owned by a long shot. I decided to just see for myself and bought a demo example of a very nice, what some would call 'high end' CD player and there were in fact significant differences. Some people wouldn't call them huge, some would, and all the differences wouldn't be apparent on all systems. If you aren't into soundstage at all, or don't have speakers positioned to portray it accurately for example, that particular difference between it and the other players I have would be muted.
Click to expand...

I wasn't really in the market for a CD player, I liked my TASCAM (and still do). The Denon crash-landed into my lap for $15, with a Denon iPod dock stuck in the bag with the manual and remote.. I think I'm going to install a new laser assembly which will bring the price up quite a bit, but still far less than a new one. I was amazed by the increase in sound quality, quite a bit of which I believe is due to the Burr-Brown DAC chips in the Denon. For that reason I went up the line a bit when buying a new CD player for my truck, I found one equipped with Burr-Brown chips.
 
This has turned into a very interesting and informative thread, especially for those of us that do not have a great deal of experience yet with high end digital audio. :thmbsp:

OldJBL said:
Rip the CD to a hard drive and you no longer have a need for an ultra expensive CD player. You also eliminate all the playback issues associated with reading a disc every time you want to listen to it. Hard drives are cheap and so are computers.
Click to expand...

JohnVF said:
But then you'll need an expensive DAC:D
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I find this to be very interesting. Does this answer some of the issues with vibration, jitter, and others that a one or two piece high end CD player has? How much does the typical CD drive in a typical PC (not about the compression method in use) impact the recording being sent to the DAC?

I will say that I do notice quite noticeable improvement in music quality even with my low end DAC (MusicStreamer) playing CDs that are stored on my older PC playing Apple lossless files. I expect that there would be additional improvement if and when I upgrade that inexpensive DAC. Just how much of an improvement is something that I have yet to experience.
 
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