Audiolab 6000CDT, bright sounding, burn in time?

[Mart68]

I did read the thread. I do know how people on ASR view the question. Just relaying what I heard. I'll let you figure out why. I'm fairly sure it was not bias, as I was expecting it to sound just like the old player when I started it up... and it doesn't.

As I just mentioned I had the same experience when swapping from Audiolab to TEAC. I know there can't be any difference, I still perceived one.

We swap equipment, we know we swapped equipment, that's enough information for the brain to create a different perception.

Your experience is genuine, no-one is denying that. It's just the reason you perceive a difference is not the reason you've assumed (that the transports have a different 'sound').

 

[antcollinet]

I did read the thread. I do know how people on ASR view the question. Just relaying what I heard. I'll let you figure out why. I'm fairly sure it was not bias, as I was expecting it to sound just like the old player when I started it up... and it doesn't.

I do not believe I am actually going to have to post this again, just one page later. Are you sure you've read this thread?

it is important to recognise that perceptive biases are happening at a subconscious level. Not necessarily based on what we consciously (for example) expect - but what the subconscious brain has learned to expect over your lifetime based on everything perceived in the moment.



See also:

Audiolab 6000CDT, bright sounding, burn in time?

Understood, so why do folks spend the big bucks on say an Audio Note transport? Or why does the Audiolab 9000CDT (at nearly 3x the price) exist? It can't all be "snake oil" surely? Oh yes it can!!!!! I'm going to state that I don't think Audio Note make much if any 'High Fidelity' equipment in...

audiosciencereview.com

And:

Here is an example of such a bias.. It is not the same as the biases we experience in audio because it is part of our speech processing. But it is used because it is easy to demonstrate in an unambiguous way, how even though the sound does not change, the sound we perceive is completely changed to a different phoneme - simply based on what we see.

Even when you know how your brain is being fooled - it is still fooled.





 

[MattHooper]

I did read the thread. I do know how people on ASR view the question. Just relaying what I heard. I'll let you figure out why. I'm fairly sure it was not bias, as I was expecting it to sound just like the old player when I started it up... and it doesn't.

That’s not how bias works.

There are all sorts of forms of bias, not just an expectation effect.

If you listen for differences, even if you are sceptical, the act of listening can me and you focussed differently at different times and perceived different details at different times,
Even if you’re hearing exactly the same sound, you perceive it differently. And then attribute that to some change you’ve made in your system. This happens all the time.

Even Amir mentions when he has thoroughly investigated a cable to know that it is not capable of audibly changing a signal, if he puts that cable into a system he reports “ hearing a difference.” That’s just how our brains work…. It’s not how the cables work.

 

[Short38]

X Files “I want to believe.”

 

[TinEaredOne]

That’s not how bias works.

There are all sorts of forms of bias, not just an expectation effect.

If you listen for differences, even if you are sceptical, the act of listening can me and you focussed differently at different times and perceived different details at different times,
Even if you’re hearing exactly the same sound, you perceive it differently. And then attribute that to some change you’ve made in your system. This happens all the time.

Even Amir mentions when he has thoroughly investigated a cable to know that it is not capable of audibly changing a signal, if he puts that cable into a system he reports “ hearing a difference.” That’s just how our brains work…. It’s not how the cables work.

LOL. You're the 30th person to say the exact same thing here. Fine with me. I can accept that there may be no audible difference.

On another point, I did load up a bunch of CDs that were unplayable due to skipping, scratches, etc. from my old collection - thanks to raising two boys who are now adults - and lo and behold, the 6000CDT played them all without any problems. It is certainly looking like a good choice for anyone who has some imperfect CDs lying around. One of those was a CD I was particularly attached to, so it was nice to hear it play cleanly through again. ;-)

It's a nicely built transport. We'll see how the slot-loader holds up over time. Since I bought it from the local audio shop I've been doing business with for >20 years, though, I'm not worried if I have issues.

 

[SIY]

On another point, I did load up a bunch of CDs that were unplayable due to skipping, scratches, etc. from my old collection - thanks to raising two boys who are now adults - and lo and behold, the 6000CDT played them all without any problems.

Now those are actual transport differences.

 

[Corvuscorone]

I have an Audiolab 6000 CDT and it doesn't really sound bright or clinical. I've listened to it with several different DACs and compared it to music streamed through Tidal and Qobuz. The sound is really neutral and sounds the same to me as the cheaper Onkyo C-7030 CD player with the same DACs. Both CD players have worked for years with very light use and have read every CD I've put into them.

 

[jsrtheta]

To paraphrase a wag from way back, neither a DAC nor a transport can make to 1s more 1ish, or the 0s more 0ish.

 

[egellings]

To paraphrase a wag from way back, neither a DAC nor a transport can make to 1s more 1ish, or the 0s more 0ish.

The analog current-to-voltage converters (if used) and post filter op amp circuits could alter the output of the DAC. If digital ones & zeros are being manipulated, small changes in their voltage levels will not affect them. In an analog circuit, small changes will have an effect.

 

[kemmler3D]

In an analog circuit, small changes will have an effect.

Yes, but unless we're talking about real bargain basement junk, the analog parts also tend to be quite linear and transparent these days.

 

[respice finem]

To paraphrase a wag from way back, neither a DAC nor a transport can make to 1s more 1ish, or the 0s more 0ish.

The only really significant difference between CD transports / players was their "tolerance" (or intolerance) of less than perfect CDs.
Some wouldn't play a CD-R, which was an important drawback before mp3 and later FLAC arrived.

 

[egellings]

Yes, but unless we're talking about real bargain basement junk, the analog parts also tend to be quite linear and transparent these days.

True.

 

[Francis Vaughan]

Some of this discussion has me reaching to check my calendar. Yep, the first digit of the year is actually a 2. Whew!

So much is reminiscent of the very early days of the CD. Back then there were a lot of seriously clueless designers. Electronic designers who knew how to design a phono stage, and thought they knew everything needed to build a DAC or CD transport. There were egregiously appalling designs. Slowly some sanity crept into the game. But back then digital was a black art to almost anyone in the audio world, and there was a lot of simple ignorance about how to do things properly. This wasn't just in the audiphoolery high-end, although it was most prevalent there.

It was easy, and not uncommon, to make a DAC that was sensitive to the quality of the input. The word "jitter" was just getting traction. Idiotic mistakes like incorrectly terminated S/Pdif connections, weird and useless ideas about clock recovery, and lots of wierd DAC ideas. We don't seem to have totally lost all of that, witness the NOS DAC brigade clutching their PCM1704 and PCM56 chips.

Some of this wasn't helped by the amateurish design of the S/Pdif standard either. That never had a digital engineer who had worked with anything faster than a pocket calculator near it. It was and is a terrible design. But in the modern world, it just doesn't matter. We have the ability to put a million transistors on a chip that costs pennies. We can throw horsepower to an extent that even the most idiotic of missteps are fully mitigated.

But the whole thing does bring to mind some discussion points from the dark ages.

Error correction. CDs use a Reed Solomon cross interleave error correction. It is very neat. You can drill a hole in a CD and it will play without any loss of data. If it detects an error the error recovery will fill in the missing bits. However, curiously (and something of a surprise) the error recovery is not fully deterministic. If the data can't be recovered (ie is detected and flagged as bad) that sample is simply filled in with the preceding sample. That led to all manner of angst about how this could affecting the sound. Until some CD players came out with a little indicator on the front panel that lit up to indicate an uncorrectable error. The answer was that individual errors were minutes apart at worst. There is no sensible way data errors could affect the sound. Not to say that a more robust and well designed player might manage damaged CDs better than cheap ones.

There is no error correction in the S/Pdif connection. One of its flaws. OTOH, any data error won't result in subtle changes to the sound. Expect obvious and nasty problems.

Something ASR has made quite apparent. We have long since reached peak DAC. You can buy a DAC that is as good as you will ever need for a few hundred dollars. It takes wilful stupidity to make a bad DAC. Any competant engineer should be able to design a good DAC, and with some care and attention to detail a superlative DAC can be designed and manufuctured for little money. DACs can and should be immune to all bar the worst insults to digital data.

For all useful pursuits, digital is a solved problem.

When it comes to expensive snake oil products you need to see things from the shop owners point of view. If a customer comes into the shop with the desire to purchase say a CD transport, and they have somewhere in the back of their mind to spend up to say $1000 on one, if you as a salesdroid, let them leave the shop with a $300 unit, you have totally failed. If you let the mark customer leave with a $300 unit, there is $700 walking out the door as well. $700 that could have been yours. You absolutley must have a product for every wallet. A good saledroid will size up a customer and steer them towards the product they suspect will liberate the maximum amount from the customer. This is just life. (It is really fun to be served by someone really good at their job like this. If you realise how they operate and watch how they dance around the offereings, watching your reactions, and subtley changing their patter as they hone in the right product and pitch. The pleasure in watching any seasoned professional at work.)

High end audio comes with high margins. The incentives to up-sell is extreme. Snake oil comes with the highest margins. This is one of the dark secrets. The incentive to push useless psuedo-science rubbish is boosted by the ridiculous margins on the products. A salesdroid can make as much on the cables as the rest of a sale. So of course there are cables for every sized wallet. Liberating the price of some insane cables from a particularly wealthy customer might mean you take a nice holiday this year. Honesty takes a back-seat very quickly.

 

[Progger1]

I have also found the 6000CDT to be a little bright sounding. I’ve since switched to an Onkyo C7030 using it as a transport only. The DAC in the Onkyo isn’t nearly as good as my SMSL DAC. I’m still searching for an even better sounding player under $1k.

 

[EdW]

I have also found the 6000CDT to be a little bright sounding. I’ve since switched to an Onkyo C7030 using it as a transport only. The DAC in the Onkyo isn’t nearly as good as my SMSL DAC. I’m still searching for an even better sounding player under $1k.

Firstly welcome to ASR! There are many experts on ASR - I’m certainly not one but I’ll start the ball rolling as to some ideas of issues which may be spoiling your sound enjoyment.

The sound quality you will get depends solely on the DAC used - that is assuming that the transport does not misread the CD (very obvious audio breakup if it does). So save your money!
Most likely you need to look at room acoustics, seating position relative to speakers, speaker positioning, use of rugs to damp out reflections etc and use REW to find room resonances. There are many threads on the website to help you here

 

[Progger1]

Firstly welcome to ASR! There are many experts on ASR - I’m certainly not one but I’ll start the ball rolling as to some ideas of issues which may be spoiling your sound enjoyment.

The sound quality you will get depends solely on the DAC used - that is assuming that the transport does not misread the CD (very obvious audio breakup if it does). So save your money!
Most likely you need to look at room acoustics, seating position relative to speakers, speaker positioning, use of rugs to damp out reflections etc and use REW to find room resonances. There are many threads on the website to help you here

Thanks for the tips. I’ve tried both players with different dacs using the same player output and the Audiolab is still too bright to my ears. The Onkyo seems more balanced. I’m going to try an older model Marantz and see if it sounds better but still balanced.

 

[antcollinet]

Thanks for the tips. I’ve tried both players with different dacs using the same player output and the Audiolab is still too bright to my ears. The Onkyo seems more balanced. I’m going to try an older model Marantz and see if it sounds better but still balanced.

OK - let me give you a cast iron guarantee : If you are using digital out from both players to the same DAC, then there is absolutely NOTHING in the sound waves reaching your ears that is creating the sound differences you are perceiving.

This means the differences are created in your brain - IE perceptive bias. So rather than wasting your time and money chasing different transports to try and get the sound you want, I'd first suggest you settle down and just start listening to the music - rather than listening for differences (which is why you are hearing them). After a few days or a week, you'll probably find out the characteristics you think you don't like won't be there anymore.



**********
Trouble is - one of the aspects of being human is having a brain that acts as a prediction machine. All those optical illusions you’ve seen, or the auditory illusions you've heard : They're the result of your brain making stuff up from imperfect senses bringing in imperfect information.

See that 3D world all around you as you look around? That perception exists only in your brain. It is built from the ground up based on two tiny, blurry, and with a blind spot right in the middle images projected onto your retina. I think it is almost miraculous how the brain manages to create that perception for you.

Now without moving your head, picture the stuff that is behind you. You can actually build that into your perception of the world even when not looking at it. It is not coming from any of your senses - it is simply a prediction from your brain based on what you've seen in the past.

Ever been walking down a path in woodland and seen a person up ahead that turns into (e.g.) a tree stump when you get closer - that's your brain predicting.

Ever heard someone say something, and then they deny they've even opened their mouth - brain prediction.

This is happening all the time. Our brain is continuously making pretty good predictions based on imperfect information - we couldn't function if it didn't. Sometimes, though, it gets the predictions wrong. And it is multi-sensory. It can alter sound based on what you see, or change what you see based on what you hear. Or how we feel, or what we've imbibed, or how comfortable we are, or if we are in unfamiliar surroundings.

It is well known that we will hear differences between audio devices even when there is no difference in the sound reaching our ears. We've all experienced it. In fact, we all experience it all the time. Ever sat down to listen to music to find your system doesn't impress you the way it normally does - or on this day it suddenly sounds sublime? The system hasn't changed, you have : your perceptions have.