Can different CD *transports* sound different - when fed into the same DAC?

[SkyTrax79]

This is really characteristic of the audiophile world, you never hear this kind of discussion in the image and video world. Colors, contrasts, gamma, etc., are analyzed with instruments and no one insists that the colors are not correct.

 

[little-endian]

Absolutely, however it is not that we wouldn't have signs of voodoo in the video domain either and with the vast improvements from VHS back in the days, over LaserDiscs, DVD, BDs, etc. there is also the typical saturation effect to be witnessed. The German site areadvd.de for example is notorious for their questionable hardware reviews and also partnering with that highly suspicious Cinemike modding company claiming to improve just everything like magic including the image quality via HDMI of course (not that there couldn't be differences in YCbCr -> RGB conversions, chroma upsampling, etc. but they rather aim at the pendant to the "more air between musical instruments" in the video world of imaginations).

I personally especially dislike the nowadays' habit of giving into the marketing blabber too much, real differences or not, like god forbid anyone releases any movie nowadays in AC3 or DTS "only" (which, taken aside the object based stuff in case of Atmos or more channels, are also yet to be distinguished from the PCM master while watching a movie) whereas in reality, a good master still "kicks ass" in almost impertinent AC3@384 kbps from a good old LaserDisc (my favorite examples being "Mission: Impossible", "Air Force One" or "The Rock"). Equally, hold the thief if stream xy doesn't feature the newest dynamic HDR+, Dolby Vision and whatnot video (then to be displayed on a when in doubt rather mediocre UHD LCD TV, the major thing being the DV logo popping up somewhere for the mass, the rest being irrelevant). I am exaggerating on purpose of course.

Also, with HDR to my understanding, we have the somewhat absurd situation that the sources feature such a high dynamic range (in terms of highlights up to 4000 Nits depending on the mastering) that virtually no affordable display can remotely display so that dynamic range compression and tone mapping is required as long as one doesn't either want a dark black-crushed or entirely clipping image. Compared to the audio domain, it would be like we'd really use the dynamic range 16 bit - PCM for once and then wouldn't have playback systems to cope with that at all. But no, here we have the loudness war going on which is the entire opposite.

Furthermore, one has the same blabber about 8 bits per color channel only providing 256 shades and thus 10 bit giving 1024, etc. even in white papers which is, given proper dither, as wrong as claiming that 16 bit PCM audio would only support 65536 discrete loudness levels (on a DAC's output after anti-imaging-filtering). If one accepts a higher (varying) noise floor, HDR is possible with any given bit-depth and with 8 bit, the introduced noise should be neglectable already. But again, don't dare to nowadays offer a display with 8 bit and FRC (dithering) only. "I want my 10/12 bit per channel, otherwise it is no HDR!" then it goes.

And as much as I honor and respect the renderer madVR and its results, the whole marketing of that pre-setup hardware-counterpart "Envy" also goes in that voodoo direction, given the price tag. People with with big pockets but little leisure to set madVR up on their own on a PC for a fraction of money then are astonished by the awesome result but at the end, they are also watching a dynamic reduced variant which in theory could have been provided that way already by the source.

So while the complete insanity to question already digital data transfers being lossless after error-detection and correction on the user-data level at latest is far less common when it comes to video compared to audio (or the lovely jitter fuss, the last resort if any other explanation already failed), there is still enough madness and inaccurate information spreading going on for my taste.

With video, there is certainly still room left for improvement, but sooner or later we'll also surpass the eyes' capabilites just like we have done already long ago the ears' and since a whole industry relies on constant "new swine being chased through the village" as we say in German, we certainly will end up at exactly the same voodoo bullshit there as well.

 

[thecheapseats]

"new swine being chased through the village" as we say in German...

great post... and +5000 for the swine metaphor...

 

[jsrtheta]

Absolutely, however it is not that we wouldn't have signs of voodoo in the video domain either and with the vast improvements from VHS back in the days, over LaserDiscs, DVD, BDs, etc. there is also the typical saturation effect to be witnessed. The German site areadvd.de for example is notorious for their questionable hardware reviews and also partnering with that highly suspicious Cinemike modding company claiming to improve just everything like magic including the image quality via HDMI of course (not that there couldn't be differences in YCbCr -> RGB conversions, chroma upsampling, etc. but they rather aim at the pendant to the "more air between musical instruments" in the video world of imaginations).

I personally especially dislike the nowadays' habit of giving into the marketing blabber too much, real differences or not, like god forbid anyone releases any movie nowadays in AC3 or DTS "only" (which, taken aside the object based stuff in case of Atmos or more channels, are also yet to be distinguished from the PCM master while watching a movie) whereas in reality, a good master still "kicks ass" in almost impertinent AC3@384 kbps from a good old LaserDisc (my favorite examples being "Mission: Impossible", "Air Force One" or "The Rock"). Equally, hold the thief if stream xy doesn't feature the newest dynamic HDR+, Dolby Vision and whatnot video (then to be displayed on a when in doubt rather mediocre UHD LCD TV, the major thing being the DV logo popping up somewhere for the mass, the rest being irrelevant). I am exaggerating on purpose of course.

Also, with HDR to my understanding, we have the somewhat absurd situation that the sources feature such a high dynamic range (in terms of highlights up to 4000 Nits depending on the mastering) that virtually no affordable display can remotely display so that dynamic range compression and tone mapping is required as long as one doesn't either want a dark black-crushed or entirely clipping image. Compared to the audio domain, it would be like we'd really use the dynamic range 16 bit - PCM for once and then wouldn't have playback systems to cope with that at all. But no, here we have the loudness war going on which is the entire opposite.

Furthermore, one has the same blabber about 8 bits per color channel only providing 256 shades and thus 10 bit giving 1024, etc. even in white papers which is, given proper dither, as wrong as claiming that 16 bit PCM audio would only support 65536 discrete loudness levels (on a DAC's output after anti-imaging-filtering). If one accepts a higher (varying) noise floor, HDR is possible with any given bit-depth and with 8 bit, the introduced noise should be neglectable already. But again, don't dare to nowadays offer a display with 8 bit and FRC (dithering) only. "I want my 10/12 bit per channel, otherwise it is no HDR!" then it goes.

And as much as I honor and respect the renderer madVR and its results, the whole marketing of that pre-setup hardware-counterpart "Envy" also goes in that voodoo direction, given the price tag. People with with big pockets but little leisure to set madVR up on their own on a PC for a fraction of money then are astonished by the awesome result but at the end, they are also watching a dynamic reduced variant which in theory could have been provided that way already by the source.

So while the complete insanity to question already digital data transfers being lossless after error-detection and correction on the user-data level at latest is far less common when it comes to video compared to audio (or the lovely jitter fuss, the last resort if any other explanation already failed), there is still enough madness and inaccurate information spreading going on for my taste.

With video, there is certainly still room left for improvement, but sooner or later we'll also surpass the eyes' capabilites just like we have done already long ago the ears' and since a whole industry relies on constant "new swine being chased through the village" as we say in German, we certainly will end up at exactly the same voodoo bullshit there as well.

And pretty soon we get into "Oh look, there goes the point!" territory.

As one wag put it long ago, stop listening to the gear and start listening to the music.

 

[Talisman]

I propose a very very interesting article that scientifically analyzes the possibility that a CD transport measures differently from another

https://addictedtoaudio.co.nz/blogs...ll-a-cd-player-with-digital-output-do-the-job

 

[krabapple]

That vintage ~2004 Denon CDP's 'transport' is processing the output (analog and digital both), i.e, it was designed not to be bit-perfect.

as per the Denon quote:

Alpha processing was the world's first technical formula for reproducing 16-bit data in 20-bit quality. The ALPHA processor interpolates the data recorded on the original CD so that the waveform is more natural. This will result in a more pure waveform that it is much closer to the CD digital signals without any processing.

Which is horseshit. But the difference it makes wouldn't be audible

 

[little-endian]

And quoting the end of that article:

"What I want is a bit-perfect extraction of the contents of CD to be delivered to my DAC. It’s possible that some regular CD player may be capable of delivering that, but how would you know unless you’re in a position to measure noise levels to better than -100dBA."

You simply know by putting your own data on an audio CD, play it back (better muted as it will be white noise), capture the S/PDIF output and compare it. One doesn't even need to measure anything as any noise levels or audio performance don't exist on this level, it is only about symbols.

 

[Billy Budapest]

As a long time employee in the industry. I can guarantee a customer will hear a difference if you tell them there is one. You simply suggested it. " listen to this particularly expensive model"..then 'now listen to a cheaper mass market one". U have already put in their head to expect it to sound worse. U could play the same player twice with that line and a customer would hear a difference.

When I was in high school in the mid-late 80’s, I went to an audio dealer who was selling Rotel gear and listened to the four CD players in the Rotel line at the time. In between playing the CD’s I brought (for like 30-60 second intervals), the guy who was not much older than me would tell me what improved qualities I would hear going from one CD player to the next up in line. At each step, I told him I couldn’t hear any difference. He would just ignore me, and as we kept moving up the line to the next CD player, he could continue to tell me the sonic differences between the players and what I was going to hear. He didn’t even argue with me or attempt to persuade me. He just ignored my comments when I said I could hear no difference. The friend I was with ate it up and claimed he heard the differences at every step. That was my first introduction to audio salesman B.S.

 

[mccririck]

I was reading a thread on another audio forum where people were advising someone to get an Audiolab 6000CDT or 9000CDT transport to upgrade from their CD player. Arent more DACs these days designed well enough that there will be no audible difference between CD transports?

 

[Killingbeans]

Arent more DACs these days designed well enough that there will be no audible difference between CD transports?

Yes. Arguably that was also the case long before "these days"

 

[Rednaxela]

Can different CD *transports* sound different - when fed into the same DAC?

Apologies if this has already been done, but nothing really discussing this came up when I searched. The question is simple, but I don't have enough technical knowledge of SPDIF etc. to say whether it is even possibly the case, or not. But my thoughts are that it sounds very unlikely anyway...

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[19lexicon78]

to me, it is. prefer the philips cdm transports more than the sony ones.

 

[AdamG]

Can different CD *transports* sound different - when fed into the same DAC?

Apologies if this has already been done, but nothing really discussing this came up when I searched. The question is simple, but I don't have enough technical knowledge of SPDIF etc. to say whether it is even possibly the case, or not. But my thoughts are that it sounds very unlikely anyway...

www.audiosciencereview.com

Duplicate thread merged with existing thread you linked. Thank you kindly for the exceptional support and assistance @Rednaxela . Very much appreciated Sir.

 

[Tangband]

Apologies if this has already been done, but nothing really discussing this came up when I searched. The question is simple, but I don't have enough technical knowledge of SPDIF etc. to say whether it is even possibly the case, or not. But my thoughts are that it sounds very unlikely anyway and that all CD transports should sound the same, and that if anything is going wrong between the transport and DAC it's more likely to result in dropouts or "digital garbage" noise rather than subtle differences in soundstage or things of that nature.
"
By the way, this is why I'm asking the question. Funnily enough, it came through as a recommended video after I watched one of Amir's videos... This chap (who I don't know, have never seen any of his videos before, so I have no preconceptions about whether he's knowledgeable, or not) claims that doing blind testing (but not he admits, double blind) he was able to reliably pick out the difference between a cheap Blu-Ray player, a middle of the road CD transport, and an expensive player - when played through the same DAC connected through a Coaxial SPDIF connection. He heard a "nicer soundstage" "more detail" etc. on the more expensive items, and described the cheap BR player as sounding "congested".

Thoughts appreciated.

This might be the wrong forum for this question. Its a lie to say that in every case different transports will sound the same. The correct answer is ”probably”, ”maybe” and ”it depends” .
If the rf noise is low and the data is transfered bitcorrect AND the dac can lock correctly to this signal then different transports will sound the same .

But there are pitfalls :

1. The cd-transport has servo motors and those might pollute the mains with some noise and therefore might disturb the analog part of the dac . Every electronic component plugged into the mains has a certain grade of pollution going back to the mains and other components. The differences can be negligible or give a very small impact.

2. Using a computer as a digital drive, or a streamer , might do sample rate conversion from 44.1 to 48 KHz in a less good way . The signal is in this way not bitcorrect. Can it be audible ? It depends. Windows is terrible on SRC.

3. USB packet noise at 8 KHz using a computer as digital transport to a dac - some measured digital products can have traces of this. Audible ?

4. Before you buy a transport , use It at home playing music for some hours and If you cant hear a difference, buy the cheapest one.

 

[GXAlan]

That vintage ~2004 Denon CDP's 'transport' is processing the output (analog and digital both), i.e, it was designed not to be bit-perfect.

as per the Denon quote:


Which is horseshit. But the difference it makes wouldn't be audible

The difference is not audible, but it is not a complete lie. No other DAC or software upsampler does this:

 

[SIY]

This might be the wrong forum for this question. Its a lie to say that in every case different transports will sound the same. The correct answer is ”probably”, ”maybe” and ”it depends” .
If the rf noise is low and the data is transfered bitcorrect AND the dac can lock correctly to this signal then different transports will sound the same .

Aside from the "rf noise" red herring, this is all factual.

1. The cd-transport has servo motors and those might pollute the mains with some noise and therefore might disturb the analog part of the dac . Every electronic component plugged into the mains has a certain grade of pollution going back to the mains and other components.

Please provide an actual example.

Using a computer as a digital drive, or a streamer , might do sample rate conversion from 44.1 to 48 KHz in a less good way . The signal is in this way not bitcorrect. Can it be audible ? It depends.

Please provide an actual example where this is audible.

USB packet noise at 8 KHz using a computer as digital transport to a dac - some measured digital products can have traces of this.

Please provide an actual example where this is shown at the analog output.

Before you buy a transport , use It at home playing music for some hours and If you cant hear a difference, buy the cheapest one.

"Here's a way to waste hours doing something useless because of my FUD."

 

[Tangband]

Aside from the "rf noise" red herring, this is all factual.

Please provide an actual example.


Please provide an actual example where this is audible.

Please provide an actual example where this is shown at the analog output.


"Here's a way to waste hours doing something useless because of my FUD."

You are absolutely right about that some faults cant be audible.

A Windows machine using windows own SRC is measuring terrible - lots of links on this forum.
A cromecast audio is also terrible If using the chrome browser - Amirm has done measurements. Works fine with ROON.

Review and Measurements of Chromecast Audio Digital Output

This is a review and detailed measurements of Google Chromecast Audio digital output. The Chromecast is a tiny dongle that allows one to "cast" (stream) audio and video to a remote device. The audio version as the name implies, foregoes the video functionality and provides audio streaming...

www.audiosciencereview.com

This is like watching ” little shop of horrors ” :

The USB 8 kHz packet noise is seen ocassionaly on some tested gear by Amirm, latest was the Audiophonic integrated amplifier with dac, Im not saying its audible though. But there are gear that measures perfectly on this.

 

[ahofer]

Is that a CD transport?

 

[Trell]

3. USB packet noise at 8 KHz using a computer as digital transport to a dac - some measured digital products can have traces of this. Audible ?

Please provide an actual example where this is shown at the analog output.

The USB 8 kHz packet noise is seen ocassionaly on some tested gear by Amirm, latest was the Audiophonic integrated amplifier with dac, Im not saying its audible though. But there are gear that measures perfectly on this.

You did imply that with your "Audible ?". It's similar to your often repeated claim that using the digital input on a Genelec monitor sounds better than the analogue one.

 

[SIY]

You are absolutely right about that some faults cant be audible.

A Windows machine using windows own SRC is measuring terrible - lots of links on this forum.
A cromecast audio is also terrible If using the chrome browser - Amirm has done measurements. Works fine with ROON.

Review and Measurements of Chromecast Audio Digital Output

This is a review and detailed measurements of Google Chromecast Audio digital output. The Chromecast is a tiny dongle that allows one to "cast" (stream) audio and video to a remote device. The audio version as the name implies, foregoes the video functionality and provides audio streaming...

www.audiosciencereview.com

This is like watching ” little shop of horrors ” :

View attachment 297760

The USB 8 kHz packet noise is seen ocassionaly on some tested gear by Amirm, latest was the Audiophonic integrated amplifier with dac, Im not saying its audible though. But there are gear that measures perfectly on this.

View attachment 297759

The subject was transports.