Cayin Mini-CD MKII CD Player Review

[pianolover]

Sad.

Why are you sad, dear?

 

[EJ3]

Bit of a pointless product nowadays, may as well use an old laptop and a $100 Topping DAC for better measurement results and more convenience. (Rip CD's losslessly to your laptop and then check that they are bit-perfect using PerfectTunes. Plus you can stream losslessly if you want, etc.)

Interesting that you should mention that: I use a
2011 Dell studio XPS (16") 1045 Laptop with Intel Core i7 940XM @ 3.88GHz, 8.00GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @664MHz (10-10-10-24), 931GB Samsung SSD 840 EVO 1TB (SATA), Optical Drive: MATSHITA BD-RE UJ235A
I can play Blu-ray, DVD, CD (and a few other formats through it) for on it's own screen or out put it through the HDMI port to larger screens.
This works very well for me when I am at sea for weeks at a time or on islands in the Indian Ocean or Western Pacific. Or the many places I go within the USA that do not have cell phone coverage, much less streaming capabilities (but are my preferred places to be).
One shouldn't presume that everyone lives and operates in a place that streaming is best & that old laptops are bad.
I am sorry (& maybe it isn't true) but what you say here sounds quite ELITIST to me.

 

[JSmith]

It seems there are still people listening to CDs.

Yes there are... plenty of us too. The demise of physical formats is affecting the availability of historical titles on any given streaming service, both audio and video. Eventually old physical copies is all that will be left of some music, including vinyl.


JSmith

 

[antcollinet]

And it shows the same strange harmonics at its digital output, which were not in the original file. These are most probably in the file burned onto the CD. But I leave this to @Rja4000 to explain, as he seemed to have found the reason.

That test (tascam) is from the analogue output, not the digital.

 

[MC_RME]

That test (tascam) is from the analogue output, not the digital.

That's true, but the shown harmonics are still not from the Tascam's DAC. You'll see.

 

[antcollinet]

That's true, but the shown harmonics are still not from the Tascam's DAC. You'll see.

Cool - I look forward to the explanation. Am I correct you are suggesting that something happens to the file as it is written to CD?

 

[Jimster480]

Shame that a new CD Player cannot extract the max from a CD...

I know some people still like CD's but personally I never used them very much. I did play one every night for many years to sleep. I still listen to music when I sleep today; so that bit hasn't changed. However I haven't really played a CD in a few years; last time in one of my cars that has a working CD player. I never owned many CD's though; I was always into digital downloaded music.

 

[Rja4000]

Cool - I look forward to the explanation. Am I correct you are suggesting that something happens to the file as it is written to CD?

I'll explain this evening. Working now.

But yes, for me, that was one of the reasons my measurements were off.

Look at the last 3 measurements in this post:
The reason of the difference (this is the same file, first from CD and then from USB, from the same player) was due to the CD Burning method.

 

[fordiebianco]

I use an universal disc player (Sony UBP-X1000ES) for my audio blu-ray, DVD-audio and 5.1 SACD CDs in my living room. As this is hooked up to a Denon AVR and middling floorstanders I don't have particularly high standards for this system and it serves its purpose well. Just like other members, I still collect physical CDs (both new and used) and rip them.

While I love my Apple Music subscription, I don't trust them not to one day delete my whole library, so it's nice to have the physical backup

 

[Robbo99999]

Interesting that you should mention that: I use a
2011 Dell studio XPS (16") 1045 Laptop with Intel Core i7 940XM @ 3.88GHz, 8.00GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @664MHz (10-10-10-24), 931GB Samsung SSD 840 EVO 1TB (SATA), Optical Drive: MATSHITA BD-RE UJ235A
I can play Blu-ray, DVD, CD (and a few other formats through it) for on it's own screen or out put it through the HDMI port to larger screens.
This works very well for me when I am at sea for weeks at a time or on islands in the Indian Ocean or Western Pacific. Or the may places I go within the USA that do not have cell phone coverage, much less streaming capabilities (but are my preferred places to be).
One shouldn't presume that everyone lives and operates in a place that streaming is best & that old laptops are bad.
I am sorry (& maybe it isn't true) but what you say here sounds quite ELITIST to me.

I'm not trying to be "elitist", I'm just trying to be sensible. Vs this reviewed CD Player, you can get better performance / more portability / save money / and get more convenience by ripping CD's and then playing them back through a cheap but good measuring DAC (you'd choose a good measuring one that Amir has measured). So it's not "elitism", instead it's just good sense.

 

[DanielT]

I was always into digital downloaded music.

I find this interesting. Digital downloaded music had only a four-year heyday. CD, on the other hand, over twenty years of heyday.
In first place by:

Most Popular Music Formats 1972 - 2022

Perhaps no news for those of you who are active here, but this video was a pedagogically sensible compilation regarding the development, I think.:)

audiosciencereview.com

 

[Mulder]

I'm not trying to be "elitist", I'm just trying to be sensible. Vs this reviewed CD Player, you can get better performance / more portability / save money / and get more convenience by ripping CD's and then playing them back through a cheap but good measuring DAC (you'd choose a good measuring one that Amir has measured). So it's not "elitism", instead it's just good sense.

Maybee good sense, but there are other considerations than good sense. Playing Vinyl has not much with sense to do, but many likes the format. I think many who plays CDs also stream music, but from time to time plays CDs just because they like to do so. It is a different thing to pick a CD from a shelf compared to pick an album from an harddrive. But my initial post here was not about playing CD:s but about reasons to buy and collect CD:s I buy CDs, rip them, but also play them in a CD-player.

 

[Rja4000]

I gave it a try : I burned my own test CD

Follow-up of this post.

Remember:

After a few trials, I was confused by the following:
When measuring SINAD from a track on CD, played through optical SPDIF output, I got this:

which shows unexplained distortions.

Then I measured playing the original wav file from a USB stick on the same player, also played through optical SPDIF output, and got this:

That's a massive 15 dB improvement on THD
and I said I didn't understand why such a difference.


Next logical step was to RIP the file back from CD

Importing the file in my measurement software gave me this:

while the original file was

Bottom line:
The distortion is on the CD !

How come ?

I burned the CD with what I had at hand:
An old Windows 7 PC with Windows Media player

Unfortunately, that seems to be the reason:

In WMP, the default setting are set for

Burn speed : Highest
and
Apply volume leveling accross tracks

So I just retried by setting Burn speed to Medium and unticking Volume Leveling.

So I burned the CD again
Then Ripped the file back to check

New Riped file:

Seems quite comparable to Original now.

And then, from this new CD with my NAD M50 CD player's optical output

There are some tiny differences due to the fact my measurement software doesn't use exactly the same parameters for reading a static file or reading from an ASIO input, but they are basically identical.

And there is no distortion anymore !

So what happened ?
I think WMP, when performing volume leveling (I burned 80 tracks on my CD at once) modified the file and re-applied 16 bits dithering on tracks that already had it.
Or does something else that alters the file in a bad way.

NB: Of course, I have no clue if @amirm CD has a similar issue.


Re-measure of CD Players

Philips CD604

Optical output

Seems better, doesn't it ?

Now
SINAD from Philips CD604 Analog output (DAC)

Ouch !
But now, we know for sure the CD player's DAC is the guilty.




Other considerations about dithering
16 bits dithering is an interesting topic.

When we test for best perfomance, we usually use 24 bits format, of course.
With 24 bits, dithering is typically way below the hardware noise floor
(DAC's or ADC's best measured values are around -120dB, maybe -130dB. Dithering is at -140dB or so)
So we don't realize if the test signal we're using has dithering applied correctly or not.
But at 16 bits dithering, that's a different story.
And I could see differences between softwares.

The software I'm using (Virtins Mutli Instrument) seems to apply dithering differently than Audio Precision or REW.
It can produce better SNR, but higher distortion.
(Therefore, I've used Wav files generated by REW for my new 16 bits tests.)
EDIT: Virtins confirmed their generator applies NO dithering, which explains that.

Also, it applies dithering when using WAV files as test signal (which is very handy to run the AP Multitone, as an example).
But, again, re-applying dithering on an already dithered WAV file brings problems.

I immediately used those new learnings to update my review and mesurements of the (16 bits) SONY PCM-R300 DAT recorder


I learned a few things today.
Thanks to @amirm for this interesting CD review, that triggered those discussions.
Thanks also to @MC_RME , who challenged me (and others) on the distortion in the test signals.

 

[antcollinet]

I gave it a try : I burned my own test CD

Follow-up of this post.

Remember:

After a few trials, I was confused by the following:
When measuring SINAD from a track on CD, played through optical SPDIF output, I got this:

View attachment 304288

which shows unexplained distortions.

Then I measured playing the original wav file from a USB stick on the same player, also played through optical SPDIF output, and got this:

View attachment 304293

and I said I didn't understandw why such a difference.


Next logical step was to RIP the file back from CD

Importing the file in my measurement software gave me this:

while the original file was

Bottom line:
The distortion is on the CD !

How come ?

I burned the CD with what I had at hand:
An old Windows 7 PC with Windows Media player

Unfortunately, that seems to be the reason:

In WMP, the default setting are set for

Burn speed : Highest
and
Apply volume leveling accross tracks

So I just retried by setting Burn speed to Medium and unticking Volume Leveling.

So I burned the CD again
Then Ripped the file back to check

New Riped file:

Seems quite comparable to Original now.

And then, from this new CD with my NAD M50 CD player's optical output

View attachment 304306

There are some tiny differences due to the fact my measurement software doesn't use exactly the same parameters for reading a static file or reading from an ASIO input, but they are basically identical.

And there is no distortion anymore !

So what happened ?
I think WMP, when performing volume leveling (I burned 80 tracks on my CD at once) modified the file and re-applied 16 bits dithering on tracks that already had it.

NB: Of course, I have no clue if @amirm CD has a similar issue.


Re-measure of CD Players

Philips CD604

Optical output

View attachment 304307

Seems better, doesn't it ?

Now
SINAD from Philips CD604 Analog output (DAC)

View attachment 304308

Ouch !
But now, we know for sure the CD player's DAC is the guilty.




Other considerations about dithering
16 bits dithering is an interesting topic.

When we test for best perfomance, we usually use 24 bits format, of course.
With 24 bits, dithering is typically way below the hardware noise floor
(DAC's or ADC's best measured values are around -120dB, maybe -130dB. Dithering is at -146dB or so)
So we don't realize if the test signal we're using has dithering applied correctly or not.
But at 16 bits dithering, that's a different story.
And I could see differences between softwares.

The software I'm using (Virtins Mutli Instrument) seems to apply dithering differently than Audio Precision or REW.
It can produce better SNR, but higher distortion.

Also, it applies dithering whan using WAV files as test signal (which is very handy to run the AP Multitone, as an example).
But, again, re-applying dithering on an already ditheredwav file brings problems.

(I immediately used those new learnings to update my review and mesurements of the (16 bits) SONY PCM-R300 DAT recorder )


I learned a few things today.
Thanks to @amirm for this interesting CD review, that triggered those discussions.
Thanks also to @MC_RME , who challenged me (and others) on the distortion in the test signals.

Excellent work. And I'm guessing the volume levelling will be what is causing the distortion. I suspect it is applying non linear dynamic compression to the signal. The distortion you saw on the first CD does look very similar to that on Amir's test from the digital output.

@amirm - is it possible there are similar issues with the test tracks on your CD?

 

[Mulder]

I gave it a try : I burned my own test CD

Follow-up of this post.

Remember:

After a few trials, I was confused by the following:
When measuring SINAD from a track on CD, played through optical SPDIF output, I got this:

View attachment 304288

which shows unexplained distortions.

Then I measured playing the original wav file from a USB stick on the same player, also played through optical SPDIF output, and got this:

View attachment 304293

That's a massive 15 dB improvement on THD
and I said I didn't understand why such a difference.


Next logical step was to RIP the file back from CD

Importing the file in my measurement software gave me this:

while the original file was

Bottom line:
The distortion is on the CD !

How come ?

I burned the CD with what I had at hand:
An old Windows 7 PC with Windows Media player

Unfortunately, that seems to be the reason:

In WMP, the default setting are set for

Burn speed : Highest
and
Apply volume leveling accross tracks

So I just retried by setting Burn speed to Medium and unticking Volume Leveling.

So I burned the CD again
Then Ripped the file back to check

New Riped file:

Seems quite comparable to Original now.

And then, from this new CD with my NAD M50 CD player's optical output

View attachment 304306

There are some tiny differences due to the fact my measurement software doesn't use exactly the same parameters for reading a static file or reading from an ASIO input, but they are basically identical.

And there is no distortion anymore !

So what happened ?
I think WMP, when performing volume leveling (I burned 80 tracks on my CD at once) modified the file and re-applied 16 bits dithering on tracks that already had it.

NB: Of course, I have no clue if @amirm CD has a similar issue.


Re-measure of CD Players

Philips CD604

Optical output

View attachment 304307

Seems better, doesn't it ?

Now
SINAD from Philips CD604 Analog output (DAC)

View attachment 304308

Ouch !
But now, we know for sure the CD player's DAC is the guilty.




Other considerations about dithering
16 bits dithering is an interesting topic.

When we test for best perfomance, we usually use 24 bits format, of course.
With 24 bits, dithering is typically way below the hardware noise floor
(DAC's or ADC's best measured values are around -120dB, maybe -130dB. Dithering is at -146dB or so)
So we don't realize if the test signal we're using has dithering applied correctly or not.
But at 16 bits dithering, that's a different story.
And I could see differences between softwares.

The software I'm using (Virtins Mutli Instrument) seems to apply dithering differently than Audio Precision or REW.
It can produce better SNR, but higher distortion.

Also, it applies dithering whan using WAV files as test signal (which is very handy to run the AP Multitone, as an example).
But, again, re-applying dithering on an already ditheredwav file brings problems.

(I immediately used those new learnings to update my review and mesurements of the (16 bits) SONY PCM-R300 DAT recorder )


I learned a few things today.
Thanks to @amirm for this interesting CD review, that triggered those discussions.
Thanks also to @MC_RME , who challenged me (and others) on the distortion in the test signals.

Great post. Thank you!

 

[Robbo99999]

Maybee good sense, but there are other considerations than good sense. Playing Vinyl has not much with sense to do, but many likes the format. I think many who plays CDs also stream music, but from time to time plays CDs just because they like to do so. It is a different thing to pick a CD from a shelf compared to pick an album from an harddrive. But my initial post here was not about playing CD:s but about reasons to buy and collect CD:s I buy CDs, rip them, but also play them in a CD-player.

Yes, people can enjoy the ritual of the physical CD process: storing them on a shelf, browsing through them & choosing one to listen to, maybe enjoying the tray mechanism of the CD player, looking at the CD cover art & reading the sleeves. So I can sort of see why people would do it, but for me it's a bit flowery and non-descript. At least the reviewed CD player here only costs $279 vs the EUR 2299 of the other CD player that was reviewed here a day or two ago!

(I sometimes buy CD's (mostly used rather than new), and they're my most common way of buying music, but I rip them straight away and then just put them in storage. My rate of buying music nowadays is pretty darn slow, instead I enjoy my pretty large music collection....but I should try listening to new stuff more often.)

 

[beefkabob]

Why are you sad, dear?

Thanks for asking. Because somebody is selling a €15300 CD player, which implies that people are buying a €15300 CD player. That makes me sad.

 

[ocinn]

You cannot hear the difference in -100 db and -80 db distortion.

Most people can't hear below -35 or so. ;D

I managed -54 on the Klippel Test (dual tone) and I needed my CIEMs, and very loud playback levels. Not to mention it is my job to have an analytical ear. I could probably get down into the -57 range with lots of practice and effort but no way I am hearing the difference between -88 and -96 etc on dual tone, let alone music.

Yes, people can enjoy the ritual of the physical CD process: storing them on a shelf, browsing through them & choosing one to listen to, maybe enjoying the tray mechanism of the CD player, looking at the CD cover art & reading the sleeves.

I wish vinyl fans realized they can enjoy the physical ritual (with CDs) without the sound quality losses of vinyl. Sincerely, someone that has ~400 records (DJ use) and ~500 CDS in a 350sqft apartment.

 

[antcollinet]

I wish vinyl fans realized they can enjoy the physical ritual (with CDs) without the sound quality losses of vinyl. Sincerely, someone that has ~400 records (DJ use) and ~500 CDS in a 350sqft apartment.

I do both. They are not the same.

 

[GWolfman]

What would a reasonable price? Does it need to play to a DAC or just allow ripping to a computer?

I don’t know, <$200USD? Play to DAC would be the minimum requirement for me at (near?) full 16-bit decoding/accuracy (ripping is an added bonus).

Do you know of any?