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Old CD's on New Hardware

escksu

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I have an old Grundig CD 7500 player equivalent but better than Philips Cd303, when I listen to a cd it is really exciting what I hear compared to modern cd and dac players.

So my answer is keep the cd

Yeah, keep your CDs. They are your priceless collections. However, the aluminum layer in the CD can corrode away over time (disc rot). You need to check the condition of them from time to time. ITs best to keep a soft copy of the disc as backup just in case (just save them up as WAV or ISO files). If such a thing did happen, as least you can still burn a new one. ITs better than losing them (not all disc are replaceable as runs may be limited).
 

Mart68

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I'm trying to decide about keeping my old CD collection. I have about 200 CD's mostly from the 1990's and early 2000's. If I drive digital out of an older CD player (good in it's day) into a new, highly regarded DAC am I likely to see any improvement in sound? I have good hardware in the rest of the system. I listen to hi res streaming mostly with occasional records (not for the "sound" quality but because I like the whole experience).
Thanks in advance

One thing to note is most of these CD's were good recordings back in their day. A lot of classical.

There is no sonic advantage to hi res, your CDs will sound just as good. Keep them and if you're wise, buy more.
 

Galliardist

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You wrote "My 1984 Marantz CD-54 had notably, unambiguously, obviously rolled off treble." Measurements show that this is not correct. You also wrote "The first generation players were effectively 14-bit and had very rolled off treble." Measurements show that they did not have rolled-off treble. Whether or not they were "effectively 14-bit" depends on the precise meaning of "effectively".

My earlier comments were solely about your incorrect claims of rolled-off treble in the early players. I went to the trouble to find the original reviews and post measurment graphs from them. If that makes me part of the "audio taliban", then I am proud to be a member.
I remember early CD players being pretty good, not that I owned anything before 1990. It amuses me to see this claim, but there are possible reasons apart from bias and faulty memory.

First - mismatch between player and amp. (Unlikely = the mismatch would be the "new" 2v output of the CD players overloading aux sockets, and modern accounts of 1980s systems from vintage collectors don't demonstrate this as dullness).

Second - bright MC cartridges and vinyl setups, popular at the time. I've never got to believing that my preference for decent and even dull MM cartridges back then was the wrong choice. CD players had actual bass from the beginning, as well, which wouldn't have helped at least with those front-end heavy small speaker vinyl setups of the time - not all setups coped!

Oddly, I do remember the MCD, supposedly the first decent CD player in UK audiophile lore, as sounding overly bright and metallic into the bargain. I've never seen it measured - these days I suspect that to also be bias though.
 

Tatr76

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Yeah, keep your CDs. They are your priceless collections. However, the aluminum layer in the CD can corrode away over time (disc rot). You need to check the condition of them from time to time. ITs best to keep a soft copy of the disc as backup just in case (just save them up as WAV or ISO files). If such a thing did happen, as least you can still burn a new one. ITs better than losing them (not all disc are replaceable as runs may be limited).
Agree on making copies especially with 80's and 90's cd as most modern re issues and digital downloads are altered usually with lower dynamic range. Not saying modern ones are worse sounding just nice to have and storage is so cheap now.
 

Willem

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At the time, Philips had a massive physics lab where a lot of fundamental research was done: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philips_Natuurkundig_Laboratorium The interdisciplinary team that brought us the CD was top of the field. As for sound quality, I think they nailed it in the first round (I had one of the very first ones). In fact, what the first CD players showed is that the amplifiers they were connected to were not nearly as good. The biggest issue with CD at the time, however, was matching the hot output from the players to the sensitive line inputs of contemporary amplifiers. This, I think, was the cause of complaints about shrill sounding CDs at the time - the input stages were clipping. Quad quickly produced a special matching input board for my Quad 33 preamp (as they had done for various MM cartridges), and this cured every sonic problem.
 

MCH

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I am going to disagree here: yes, sure, keep your CDs and rip them, having them in a hard disk is always convenient and ripping 200 discs is very doable with a bit of patience.
Now, after a lifetime buying CDs, in my experience, if you take care of them, they will last many more years (could depend on the climate of your region though).
And in any case, most CDs are easy and cheap to replace in case the worst happens. Yeah, sure, there are exceptions, but CD editions that are difficult to get or expensive and are significantly different from available editions are relatively rare. If you only own 200, i bet less than 10 fall in that category unless you are into very local or obscure bands. I would not worry about that, and if in doubt, just check your most beloved jewels in discogs in case it is necessary to keep them in a safe.
 

MCH

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Oh now i read CDs from early 2000s... copy protect era... :-/
Have a few dozens of those and still trying to figure out how to rip them. Anyone any ideas?
 

AnalogSteph

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As an aside, the usage rights are tied to the physical media, so legally you have to keep these even after ripping.

Disc rot is a thing, but most instances are limited to manufacturing defects than only affect specific pressing plants and time frames. If a specific CD has spots that just cannot be read properly whatever you do but is hard to replace, there still is the option of trying CueTools to repair the image (few CDs are not in CTDB in my experience). I've had to do that once.

Oh now i read CDs from early 2000s... copy protect era... :-/
Have a few dozens of those and still trying to figure out how to rip them. Anyone any ideas?
There were several different schemes, you'd have to look up what your specific CDs are using and what your options are. Some you might be able to rip with an old version of EAC.
 

escksu

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Oh now i read CDs from early 2000s... copy protect era... :-/
Have a few dozens of those and still trying to figure out how to rip them. Anyone any ideas?

OK, I use this software to rip CDs. Its free. I particularly like how the software checks to ensure the whole rip is has no errors. Its slow but ensure you get exact copy of the CD. With storage capacity these days, there is no need to compress them.

https://www.exactaudiocopy.de/
 

MCH

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OK, I use this software to rip CDs. Its free.

https://www.exactaudiocopy.de/
EAC is what i use also, but cant handle all copy protect CDs (some yes). I have even found cases (i.e. Aretha's Amazing Grace 2CD edition) that EAC managed to rip CD1 but not CD2...
But was just a warning comment to the OP, don't want to go off topic, this is probably worth a different thread
Thanks anyways!
 

EB1000

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I wouldn't bother with wasting time on ripping CDs. If you either have a Tidal or Deezer HIFI/Master subscription, PM me and I'll tell how how you could download full albums with TAGs and album arts in FLAC or even MQA encoded FLAC, if you think MQA sounds better... I doubt you won't be able to find all of your 200 albums on Deezer or Tidal...
 

Frgirard

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I wouldn't bother with wasting time on ripping CDs. If you either have a Tidal or Deezer HIFI/Master subscription, PM me and I'll tell how how you could download full albums with TAGs and album arts in FLAC or even MQA encoded FLAC, if you think MQA sounds better... I doubt you won't be able to find all of your 200 albums on Deezer or Tidal...
with the same mastering ?
 

Offler

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I wouldn't bother with wasting time on ripping CDs. If you either have a Tidal or Deezer HIFI/Master subscription, PM me and I'll tell how how you could download full albums with TAGs and album arts in FLAC or even MQA encoded FLAC, if you think MQA sounds better... I doubt you won't be able to find all of your 200 albums on Deezer or Tidal...

Its a way for people who already own CD collection and are fine with the CD quality or media format, but sometimes want convenience of MP3 - then ripping to FLAC is a way.
 
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EB1000

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with the same mastering ?

You can try and search the album on Tidal or Deezer and see if it's the same edition. The files on Deezer servers comes directly from the master. It's a redbook FLAC. I trust Deezer more than I trust Tidal. I sild my 500+ CD collections for 1000$. I only kept the rare ones. I was able to find lossless downloads for all of them (Deezer + Soulseek).
 

Saidera

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I don't think CDs are obsolete yet. Meanwhile donating to libraries can result in variable results: either it wears away faster, or it gets preserved in pristine condition (e.g. university libraries etc). Since most of it is classical, donating would be quite likely to result in several decades of worthwhile public use.

But those who have CD players, let alone vintage CD players (!) should keep their CDs and their vintage CD players!

Unless downsizing or the CDs aren't worth that much, there's something nice about CDs.

As for the concept that vintage CD players are lesser than modern counterparts, if measured today, they may not give the results achieved in their heyday. It's hard to believe that modern DACs haven't improved much, apart from a lowering of costs. I suppose we now can have small USB adapters output sound, but that is merely taking the audio PCB board out of a smartphone or laptop and adding the USB bridge. Overall, modern audio companies are really hard pressed to come up with something that will appeal to the fairly minority-like section of people who care about quality.
 

AnalogSteph

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It's hard to believe that modern DACs haven't improved much, apart from a lowering of costs.
Oh, they definitely have. I wouldn't want to be stuck with a DAC with ~+/-0.15 dB worth of periodic (FIR) filter ripple these days, or one whose linearity goes south around the -90 dBFS mark - fadeouts used to be popular in testing for this reason.

That said, this still is generally adequate for CD playback, and actually the DACs still were rather better than the ADC side. Peter Gabriel's 4th album was mastered on a Sony PCM1610 in 1982... listen to the fade-in at the beginning and how crunchy it starts out. Clearly a lack of dithering there. The later PCM1630 (ca. early 1986) explicitly used digital noise generator chips for dithering the CX20018 ADC inputs - other devices, I suspect, strategically lowered their analog levels at one point so that analog circuit noise would do the job (it's a bit tricky since you have to keep things very clean, and the cramped confines of a PCM16xx rack may have made the explicit noise generation at a higher level necessary).

There was rapid progress on both sides in the second half of the '80s. By 1990, both had crept beyond 16-bit levels, and digital filter ICs had progressed to periodic ripple at least as low as +/-0.0001 dB. By 1993, 18 bits were no longer cutting it for the best ADCs.
 
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MarkS

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Oh, they definitely have. I wouldn't want to be stuck with a DAC with ~+/-0.15 dB worth of periodic (FIR) filter ripple these days
On the other hand, that's probably inaudible for most people.

I understand that many buyers of home audio equipment like to have the best available engineering, and are willing to pay for it, but if one's primary concern is the sound in the room, then I claim that having a state-of-the-art DAC is very unlikely to have an audible impact. In particular, the OP's question was "If I drive digital out of an older CD player (good in it's day) into a new, highly regarded DAC am I likely to see any improvement in sound?" and I claim that the answer is very likely no.
 

Robin L

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These early machines really are quite competent, even if filter ripple and THD / IMD(+N) obviously are not up to modern standards. These Philips/Marantz players do not seem to be bothered by intersample-overs either, reproducing them faithfully - more than you can say about some late-'90s jobs when incorporating upsamplers became all the rage for a while (alas, at exactly the time when the loudness wars were in full swing - a real *facepalm* moment). IMHO, CD playback was basically solved by 1994.


Nobody was doubting that they were using 14-bit DACs (TDA1540). If you actually bother to read the SAA7030 datasheet, you will find that

Those Philips engineers were a clever bunch. Mind you, 14 bits at 4X OS is giving you 15 bits effective to begin with, so it would have been maybe 2nd-order noise shaping tops, but using any at all in 1983-ish is pretty wild. The 98 dB(A) SNR found in CD54 lab testing basically confirms the claim.

As for the OP's question, I would not generally bother with a CD player but just rip everything, especially those releases that aren't available on streaming. 200 CDs isn't an unmanageable amount, and prioritizing may leave you with only a few dozen to start with. While ripping can generally be done with more or less free software like "old faithful" EAC, some investment into e.g. dBpoweramp may be worth it to get access to some decent metadata providers. That's the part that often tends to hold you up the longest - ripping a CD in itself is a matter of maybe 5 minutes even if limiting speed to 24X (I do not consider putting undue stress on the bearings just for half a minute less ripping time a worthwhile tradeoff).
I rip to Apple Lossless via I-Tunes, free, a no-brainer.
 

Billy Budapest

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This is not true at all.

As it happens just a week or two ago I realized I had read too many stories about the alleged shortcomings of "early digital". So I switched on my Philips CD104 (a 14 bit machine with oversampling; by the looks of it the Marantz is built on the same chassis) from 1984, connected it to a headphone amp and played a few 1980s discs, listening with HD600 headphones. To all intents and purposes the sound was identical to how the same discs sound through my Benchmark DAC today. Old myths refuse to die, I see.
The Phillips, Marantz, and Magnavox are all the exact same machine with slightly different cosmetics. The Meridian was built off the same platform but is substantially upgraded.
 
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