My surprising test results: high end 80s CD player vs modern low end DVD player

[yrly]

Was just going to say the exact same thing... I've reapired enough vintage CD players as it is. The sled almost certainly needs lubricating, the lens almost certainly needs cleaning. I just revived a dead Akai CD-A30 last week. Wouldn't even read a disc. Lube and a clean lens you'd never even know. What is really weird about it is it is the second A30 I've repaired yet has a completely different chipset. The first used a Burr Brown components, this one uses a board consisting mostly of Sony parts, boards are even of a different color yet they're the same model. I think the A30 was entry level though, the CD-A7 is built like a tank in comparison.

 

[Damage]

*Ding* Thread winning answer here.

Because you open a new can of worms with transport jitter between the unit and the D/A. unless you purchase an expensive model with a built in overriding clock. Then at that point, just buy a newer TOTL model.

 

[absolon]

Interesting thread, and I agree. Just last week I purchased an Adcom GCD 575 from the thrift. I just picked it up for a garage player.

It sounds terrible. It actually sounds worse than I thought a cd player could. On some cds it sounds as if there is anolog static/noise on the tracks. I am used to hearing cd players with jitter and skipping, but this brings it to another level.

Maybe I should recap it, or maybe I should just cut my losses and use my $35.00 Toshiba DVD player instead.

I recently picked up a GCD700.

I'd suggest your machine has problems if it sounds like that.

 

[Synchro-bias]

My CD players from the 80s
Technics SL-P350 - bullet proof, will never die haha (1988 approx)
Marantz CD50SE (around 1989) - modified has TDA1541A DAC
Marantz CD65DX - best sounding player i have,also TDA1541A DAC

All 3 above, sound great. I think i would have to spend a bit to surpass them, if i bought new.

as for DVD Players, have Pioneer and Panasonic, sound great, but luck the bass, and detail i feel compared to the cd players, but if i ahd to choose, i would say out of the dvd players the pioneer would be the best

 

[guiller]

Just to add more data to this thread: last month I bought a Sony BDP-S360 blu-ray player. It has good sound quality, but it cannot match the quality of my Cambridge Audio 640 C v2 CDP (e.g., in the way the timpani, bass drum, cymbals, violins, voices and oboes sound). Now I wish to move up the chain and be able some day to afford the TOTL Cambridge Audio 840 CDP.

 

[Tromatic]

Nobody remembers the late 90's to early 2000's slew of 90-buck DVD players being all the rage for two-channel audio? Whole bunch of gear modders got their start doing mods to these, too.

 

[majick47]

DVD vs CD Player

Almost all my listening is analog/TT but occasionally I'll listen to a CD with my Denon DCD-3520 and find it hard to believe a new $50-$100 DVD player would sound better. I had an opportunity to listen to a fairly new high end ($5,000 range) SONY CD player a couple of years ago and felt my Denon was not outclassed by the Sony.

 

[frankxbe]

Synchro-bias My CD players from the 80s
Technics SL-P350 - bullet proof, will never die haha (1988 approx)

That's funny but believable any Technics products I have owned would not die
either. I had a 2000 Technics AVR I gave to my son about a year after I bought it ,it outlasted a my first Sony ES Avr. a Sony Wega FD Trinitron + 3 mid line DVD players +2 PS2's I wonder if it will outlast the replacement Sony ES ? It will not die he uses it daily! it's 13yrs old now not bad for relatively inexpensive black plastic.


Most of my music is on storage drives .flac and some .wav now in WMC on the DNLA Wi Fi lan so I almost never spin a CD anymore.

OFC I dont have high end CD gear and DACs/clocks and what have you like some of you,it might be different if I did? Just curious anybody ever play a CD in a PS3 I have not tried that in the nearly 3 yrs I've owned it just games,DVD and BD . If I play play a CD now it goes in Sony ES DVD /SACD player or PC ODD If I like it gets stored on the drives.


I will add that it seems that every CD,DVD player I have owned did sound a little different some even almost bad ,
with the Sony ES DVD/SACD player being the best (at least of what I've had) .

 

[newzealand]

my cd players are from the 90s and very happy with them ,i also have a yamaha from 85 and i think its not very good at all ,its a cd-x3 and the technics are sl-ps700 and the sl-ps840

 

[markshan]

My guess is that DACs have come a long way since 1985

:yes:

 

[markshan]

I use my computer for CDs because my E-Mu 1212 sounds much better than any CD player I own. Much better.

 

[ra7c7er]

The difference in laser tech and DAC between the 80's and now is a no brainer. Your test while interesting didn't really prove anything.

 

[Trio]

To those of you trying to decide which is better to use as a budget CD player- a cheap modern DVD player or a high end CD player from the 80s, I hope this helps you.


Now this all started because I got rid of my Sony DVD player I was using as a CD player, and exchanged it for a used older high end CD player thinking I'd get better results- boy was I wrong.

So we all know that if you've got $100 to spend on a amplifier/receiver you're better off spending the $100 on a used old discrete solid state amplifier/receiver from the 70s and 80s than a brand new cheap one for that same $100. So what about CD players? I have often asked myself this question.

So would you be better off buying a used CD player that is heavy, has awesome build quality, perhaps it was TOTL back in the 80s sometime, or are you better off taking that money to a box store and buying the $88 DVD player that also plays CDs and using that?

Well my results surprised even me. I asked a few people who I know and they said that you'd be better off with the old player. This is what I expected too. Before I did this test I was expecting my CDs to sound way better on the older high end CD players.

To my surprise, I found all this to be wrong.

Amplifier in my test: (2 systems)
Kenwood Receiver KR4140
Kenwood basic M1 power amp with NAD 1155 Preamp

Speakers:
Energy C2 Speakers.

3 high end CD Players from back in the day I used as a test:
Sony CDP-302 from mid 80s.
NEC CD-810 from late 80s.
Denon DCM-1300 from late 80s.

1 humble modern DVD/VCR combo player that costs about 50 bucks from Panasonic.


My test material were 3 CDs- 80s heavy metal CD by a german band called Accept, instrumental Jean Luc Ponty CD and 1 more modern electro-pop CD by a band called Empire of the Sun.
I got the same results on all 3 CDs.

Well I hooked up the high end CD players, one after the other from the 80s and they were loud, gritty, digital and harsh, with a forward-in your face with digital artifacts and aliasing noticeable. The sound of kick drums felt like they were poking my eardrums. To be honest, they hurt my ears and were not pleasant to listen to. Then I was so frustrated that I went into the bedroom, yanked the Panasonic DVD/VCR combo unit that I have, hooked it up to my receiver and the sound was to my surprise, much more round. Gone was the harsh highs, there was more bass and I was treated to a less fatiguing sound.

Before I did this test, I was expecting that the older high end players would sound better, warmer, less harsh etc... The only thing the older players did was sound a tad louder. Other than that in every way, the old high end players were way worse than the modern crappy little VCR/DVD combo unit I tried.

In conclusion, My guess is that DACs have come a long way since 1985 and my tests prove to myself that even the crappiest modern DACs on a $50 DVD/VCR combo player sound better than the high end 80s DACs of yesteryear in these players. I was really disappointed in my findings and found the exact opposite of what I thought I'd find.

I really admire the design and construction of the 80s Japanese players and normally I'll gladly throw money at 70s and 80s Japanese electronics all day long but not in this case. Now I'm sure if you spend a lot of money and buy a NEW/MODERN high end CD player, that will sound better yet, but for those on a budget like me who can't spend $500+ dollars on a CD Player and have to settle for spending $100 on either a high end used player from the 80s or a cheap modern DVD player, I’ll from now on go the DVD player route.

This is consistent with what I suspected because I have looked at some of the actual chip technology that has gone into the newer DVD systems, even the cheap 30 dollar unit from WXXmart. I have 2 connected to different stereos, I got them cheap because they were acting up, but they worked very well, and what was more important to me was they played MP3 files. Not all DVD players will play MP3, but all except the earliest DVD players would play audio CD's. So that is not any surprise.

Ironic- in the 1960's, people joked about cheap Japanese products, in the 70's people slowly realized that the Japanese could produce high quilty items (When the US rebuilt Japan after WW2, they were outfitted with top of the line foundries and factories. With the super rich moving their technology dollars over to Japan instead of keeping it in the US, it was only a matter of time before the US did not have electronics manufacturing. And then fast forward 30 years and in the 90's people were complaining about Chinese made crap, but in 2001, they became the largest manufacturing exporter in the world. And while you can still get junky crap from China, they do also have Quality Control coming into it's own, much like Japan's did in the late 60's (remember those little gold oval labels?) So in 30 years, are people going to be shocked at the leap in quality and ability in that future time as is outlined in the experiment? I thiink so.

And I think the reason that will be so is simply due to economies of scale tied to innovation and improved manufacturing techniques.

And who knows- Maybe the top audiophile gear will be Zil coming out of Russia. Although India might be that source as well, perhaps Du Du? (they bought out British Leyland. and I am not sure on the spelling).

 

[Jauk]

@OP
The problem with these tests is that they're so subjectively tied to the listeners preferences that it's impossible to make an objective comparison.
As an example tube distortion can sound awesome, is it good ? I think a system should be measured as being able to be as faithful to the original signal as possible, then after that the user can make his personal tweaks of course..
Actually I found the opposite, my Panasonic DVD's recorder sounds like crap compared to my PC's sound cards, it has no dynamics whatsoever. It cost 600€ in 2006! Can play MP3s and DVDAudio, I use it as a transport only.
Bear in mind that sometimes it can be a case of system component matching, specially the impedance, but other black magic too, I know it sounds silly and I didn't believe it either, but some components just match better with others, go figure...

@Trio
I don't think that's relevant as in 30 years we "civilized" countries citizens won't have any green left to spend comparing/listening those future devices with how the economy is going. Japan didn't have every world's industrial production migrated to their country, it's a whole new level, sorry let's not get off topic where were we, ahhh regarding the quality... I don't think there will be any difference to today's high end dacs. After a certain point the weakest point in a system IMO fastly becomes the speakers. When you compare various mid to high end sources preamps and amps you don't notice as much a difference as with the speakers. I've heard a lot of stuff on HiFi shops since I was a teen, and nothing makes so much difference as the speakers, even in a low end car audio system, unless you use a really really low end head unit (considering levels of power that all systems can handle in the comparison of course, but since we're talking HiFi I don't think most of use hear past 30Watts for much time in our homes...), the weakest point will be the speakers.

Not directly related but this reminds of this:http://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html
You won't hear any difference really, I think what will happen is that a good sounding system might get cheaper...

 

[bellenic]

Another cost effective solution(that I use):
-I bought a new amplifier with an integrated DAC, supposed to be of good quality.
To play CD, I use an old DVD/CD player that I found to have a nice build quality and look.
-I simply use the digital audio out to put into the external DAC.
I then have a good mix between a good modern DAC and cheap old good looking CD player.

And to answer to Jauk: I do perfectly agree with you and I do not beleive to all thoses pseudo sciences about cables, high res files etc.... I'm able to hear the loss on a badly encoded mp3 but unable to hear any diff between high 320 mp3, FLAc or HDFlac for ex.
But: On the subject on this thread, I can tell you for sure that I do hear a clear difference between the internal DVD player DAc and the one from the modern Amplifier. It is also very easy to test, as I connected both analog and digital output of the DVD player to the ammp, so I can swich between the tow DAC 'on live' and with the exact same other components.
Maybe the internal DAC is very bad, I don't know, but the diff is very clear, i fact it's almost as if I switched on/off a loudness button on the amp

 

[Vinylcafe]

I will add that it seems that every CD,DVD player I have owned did sound a little different some even almost bad ,
with the Sony ES DVD/SACD player being the best (at least of what I've had) .

I use an old Sony DVP 9000ES, available today for about $150.00.
While the laser can go on these, and the reviews are mixed (everything from garbage, to a relatively recent British audiophile magazine review, stating it was brilliant); it sounds pretty good to me.
It takes at least 100 hours to break in the CD side of it, and I don't have any SACDs or DVDs.

 

[coonmanx]

What's missing in this discussion is the "next generation" of CD players which came out in the late 80s to early 90s. I think that some of them had very good sound and didn't suffer from some of the issues associated with very early players.

Edit: Maybe "missing from the discussion" is the wrong thing to say as I just backtracked and saw mention of some of these players.

 

[darksolstice]

Toshiba HD-A3

reading this got me to thinking about my Toshiba HD-A3, I was using a Teac cd player that was a Goodwill find for $15 , no bad sounding, then I hooked up my Toshiba HD-A3 and popped in a cd and WOW !!!
the sound was phenomenal ! bass was tighter, vocals were very clear' highs were crisp , don't know why I didn't think about this before:scratch2: even my wife who could care less about my Hi Fi gear was amazed and commentated how much better it sounded .

 

[onwardjames]

I use a Yamaha CDX-1100U, sounds really nice. Flaky at times, but build quality is superb.

I also use an old Sony Playstation 1001, which when left on for a few days sounds good to me.

I've heard a modded Oppo my doctor let me borrow. It was clinically bright, but not all that enjoyable.

 

[onwardjames]

Clean the lens and lubricate the laser sled and the static noise might just go away...sounds like it's having a hard time reading discs and having to use so much error correction that it's just dropping data...

what kind of lubricant, please?