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CD Player failed.

Sukie

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x10,000. I finally bit the bullet about 5 years ago and burned everything to flac and bought a jriver id player. Being able to play any of my music at any time and easy access to it all on a tablet was amazing. Even better was starting to use a streaming service where I found more new music I liked in 6 months than the prior 20 years.

For the OP, go buy a streamer and hook it up to your stereo (you can start at under $100). The quality is great and the services are $10-15 a month, which gives you access to 40+ million tracks. You can also stream great internet radio stations like radio paradise. In two months, your only question will be why you didn’t do it earlier.
The OP clearly prefers the pleasure of physical media. Nothing wrong with that.

However, I have to concur about streaming. I pay £15 a month and can access a huge library of material. I'm particularly pleased to be able to listen to new music. I was a reluctant convert but wouldn't look back now.
 
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cistercian

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I just checked my ears with a sweep with a voiceover that said the frequency. Nothing at 23, 22, or 21kc.
To my delight 20kc was pretty loud! YAY!!! Not bad for nearly 59! To be fair there is some rolloff.
But nothing EQ cannot fix.

I am very happy with this result...but when younger 23kc was no problem.
 

AnalogSteph

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Has this been verified by an audiologist at any point? Being able to hear 20 kHz at your age should qualify you for the title of "unicorn", it has to be extremely rare. I'd double and triple check the signal source and playback chain. You can always make your own test tones in Audacity if you want.

BTW, you do not generally compensate for hearing loss with EQ in your playback chain, unless it's inside a hearing aid. Your ears are calibrated to natural sounds and will EQ themselves to match those.

Oh, and I don't think I've ever come across anyone still using kilocycles as a unit except when referring to 1960s and older radios. That's like way, way, way outdated.
 
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cistercian

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Has this been verified by an audiologist at any point? Being able to hear 20 kHz at your age should qualify you for the title of "unicorn", it has to be extremely rare. I'd double and triple check the signal source and playback chain. You can always make your own test tones in Audacity if you want.

BTW, you do not generally compensate for hearing loss with EQ in your playback chain, unless it's inside a hearing aid. Your ears are calibrated to natural sounds and will EQ themselves to match those.

Oh, and I don't think I've ever come across anyone still using kilocycles as a unit except when referring to 1960s and older radios. That's like way, way, way outdated.
I first learned electronics from very old textbooks as a boy! Hence KC, All of my old radios used cycles as well.

I really can hear 20Khz...but it is very much down from 17khz and even further down from 8khz!
Not a unicorn.

I prefer cycles per second. :D
 

AnalogSteph

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For comparison, my own hearing starts going south past about 12.5 kHz and dramatically drops around 13.5 kHz, to be basically gone around 14 - at 20 years younger. I would get to maybe 16.5 kHz 10 years ago. Crappy genes... *grmbl*

Still, getting to 20 kHz in any capacity is generally reserved to infants and youngsters, particularly females. At 60, you're doing quite well if you make it to about 13 kHz.
PresbycusisCurves_gif.GIF

http://www.pykett.org.uk/arhlandob.htm
 

Hipper

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Whilst my speaker system is still Red Book CD orientated I have a headphone set up where I use a PC, having ripped all my CDs (I only have around 300 but it was a still a long tedious process. However if you do it right and keep a back up it is very unlikely I you will need to do it again). With a good media library software (I use JRiver) you can do many things - for example make playlists, use 'shuffle' for all or part of your collection, use an equaliser.

When my CD player fails I will use a PC based source.
 
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cistercian

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For comparison, my own hearing starts going south past about 12.5 kHz and dramatically drops around 13.5 kHz, to be basically gone around 14 - at 20 years younger. I would get to maybe 16.5 kHz 10 years ago. Crappy genes... *grmbl*

Still, getting to 20 kHz in any capacity is generally reserved to infants and youngsters, particularly females. At 60, you're doing quite well if you make it to about 13 kHz.
PresbycusisCurves_gif.GIF

http://www.pykett.org.uk/arhlandob.htm

My German grandmother was very deaf. My hearing was super acute as a boy so I can say I have lost a pile!
I have always been very careful to protect my ears...especially after seeing grandma struggle.
 
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@AnalogSteph

You are right! I did further testing and the phones I was using were breaking into distortion and I
was hearing lower harmonics.

My actual upper limit? 14,450 to 475. :confused:
Not bad for nearly 59 however...still...aside from the fact I never see crt's anymore I will never hear
the horizontal oscillator again:(

On the upside the RME makes such powerful bass with my system at high volume it feels like hits in the chest.
I should be able to enjoy that for awhile!!!!
 

audioholic63

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@AnalogSteph

You are right! I did further testing and the phones I was using were breaking into distortion and I
was hearing lower harmonics.

My actual upper limit? 14,450 to 475. :confused:
Not bad for nearly 59 however...still...aside from the fact I never see crt's anymore I will never hear
the horizontal oscillator again:(

On the upside the RME makes such powerful bass with my system at high volume it feels like hits in the chest.
I should be able to enjoy that for awhile!!!!

Did the Yamaha ever show up? Curious to know how it sounded. As to the poor on-board sound of the Tascam I have wonder how much of that is its DAC and how much is a subpar analog output stage. I'd say your impromptu hearing test is about right. I ran test tones with six different sets of headphones on my computer, ranging from in-ear to closed back over ear and everything in between. At 57 my highest perceivable tone was 14Khz with the exception of a 15Khz tone on one set of closed back on ear. Hardly scientific but a relief to at least provisionally validate that my HF isn't as bad as I had feared.

I am in the same search for a reasonably priced CDP to put in my main 2ch system so I can move its tube modified Marantz (Heart CD6000) into the office to replace a Phillips DVD player that while functional offends me with its cheapness and the menu sluggishness. It is fascinating that every thread on every forum I have read of someone seeking the same thing brings up one or more responses that they absolutely need to rip their cd's to a computer and move to that listening paradigm, often as well being exhorted to move into internet based music streaming.

I am completely on-board with ripping cd's to a computer, for my own specific needs. I live in front of the computer for work so I have about 250GB of ripped MP3 and FLAC files that exist on hard drives at home and in the office. The office system is limited to an AudioEngine D1 with headphones, the home office feeds a Topping D30 into a proper rack and speakers. But that is only a fraction of my collection and the effort and expense it would take to convert the rest, store it on something less failure prone than a single drive mounted in the computer, acquire hardware to get that data readable and playable on a tube based 2ch system in another room...that is all a much larger commitment of resources and effort than just playing a CD, an activity that is much less effort than playing a record! (which I happily still do).
 
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cistercian

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Did the Yamaha ever show up? Curious to know how it sounded. As to the poor on-board sound of the Tascam I have wonder how much of that is its DAC and how much is a subpar analog output stage. I'd say your impromptu hearing test is about right. I ran test tones with six different sets of headphones on my computer, ranging from in-ear to closed back over ear and everything in between. At 57 my highest perceivable tone was 14Khz with the exception of a 15Khz tone on one set of closed back on ear. Hardly scientific but a relief to at least provisionally validate that my HF isn't as bad as I had feared.

I am in the same search for a reasonably priced CDP to put in my main 2ch system so I can move its tube modified Marantz (Heart CD6000) into the office to replace a Phillips DVD player that while functional offends me with its cheapness and the menu sluggishness. It is fascinating that every thread on every forum I have read of someone seeking the same thing brings up one or more responses that they absolutely need to rip their cd's to a computer and move to that listening paradigm, often as well being exhorted to move into internet based music streaming.

I am completely on-board with ripping cd's to a computer, for my own specific needs. I live in front of the computer for work so I have about 250GB of ripped MP3 and FLAC files that exist on hard drives at home and in the office. The office system is limited to an AudioEngine D1 with headphones, the home office feeds a Topping D30 into a proper rack and speakers. But that is only a fraction of my collection and the effort and expense it would take to convert the rest, store it on something less failure prone than a single drive mounted in the computer, acquire hardware to get that data readable and playable on a tube based 2ch system in another room...that is all a much larger commitment of resources and effort than just playing a CD, an activity that is much less effort than playing a record! (which I happily still do).

I canceled the Yamaha. The RME made having it moot...and it was expensive enough.
I think the Tascam just has a horribly implemented junk IC for the analog path. I would hope the DAC in it would be ok.
But you never know!
 

Sukie

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Did the Yamaha ever show up? Curious to know how it sounded. As to the poor on-board sound of the Tascam I have wonder how much of that is its DAC and how much is a subpar analog output stage. I'd say your impromptu hearing test is about right. I ran test tones with six different sets of headphones on my computer, ranging from in-ear to closed back over ear and everything in between. At 57 my highest perceivable tone was 14Khz with the exception of a 15Khz tone on one set of closed back on ear. Hardly scientific but a relief to at least provisionally validate that my HF isn't as bad as I had feared.

I am in the same search for a reasonably priced CDP to put in my main 2ch system so I can move its tube modified Marantz (Heart CD6000) into the office to replace a Phillips DVD player that while functional offends me with its cheapness and the menu sluggishness. It is fascinating that every thread on every forum I have read of someone seeking the same thing brings up one or more responses that they absolutely need to rip their cd's to a computer and move to that listening paradigm, often as well being exhorted to move into internet based music streaming.

I am completely on-board with ripping cd's to a computer, for my own specific needs. I live in front of the computer for work so I have about 250GB of ripped MP3 and FLAC files that exist on hard drives at home and in the office. The office system is limited to an AudioEngine D1 with headphones, the home office feeds a Topping D30 into a proper rack and speakers. But that is only a fraction of my collection and the effort and expense it would take to convert the rest, store it on something less failure prone than a single drive mounted in the computer, acquire hardware to get that data readable and playable on a tube based 2ch system in another room...that is all a much larger commitment of resources and effort than just playing a CD, an activity that is much less effort than playing a record! (which I happily still do).
I think you make very valid points about ripping. I have recently finished ripping my entire collection, but it's only 500 CDs. I am a "convert" to this way of listening and now enjoy using a streaming service (Qobuz).

However it does slightly annoy me when CD aficionados are exhorted to embrace the paradigm shift! There are plenty of good reasons to listen to CDs and we all make our choices based on a myriad of factors. If you'd told me 6 months ago that I'd be plugging my phone into a DAC rather than cuing up a CD then I'd have laughed out loud.
 

audioholic63

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I think you make very valid points about ripping. I have recently finished ripping my entire collection, but it's only 500 CDs. I am a "convert" to this way of listening and now enjoy using a streaming service (Qobuz).

However it does slightly annoy me when CD aficionados are exhorted to embrace the paradigm shift! There are plenty of good reasons to listen to CDs and we all make our choices based on a myriad of factors. If you'd told me 6 months ago that I'd be plugging my phone into a DAC rather than cuing up a CD then I'd have laughed out loud.

At least you have the good sense to feed your phone into an outboard DAC! I weep for the younger generation that thinks the default output of their phone playing lossy files represents a full approach to recorded music (to say nothing about having no reference point of live music).
 
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At least you have the good sense to feed your phone into an outboard DAC! I weep for the younger generation that thinks the default output of their phone playing lossy files represents a full approach to recorded music (to say nothing about having no reference point of live music).

It is really something to watch people using the phone speaker to listen to music...the incredibly limited response alone
drives me nuts. I see many using earbuds so loud I can hear them...deafness looms.
 

Sukie

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At least you have the good sense to feed your phone into an outboard DAC! I weep for the younger generation that thinks the default output of their phone playing lossy files represents a full approach to recorded music (to say nothing about having no reference point of live music).
That was my reason for avoiding streaming/ripping for so long. I had associated it with lossy formats and poor amplification. ASR has been a godsend as it's helped me to understand the science behind the audio and "discover" that lossless format at source (phone, PC, CD et al.) through transparent DAC and transparent headphone amp gives great results.

I'm happy to have music in the background when I'm working, but at other times I like to focus in on what I'm listening to. I don't mind playlists etc. if that's what a person's in to, but I regard an album as something to be listened to in its entirety. I even follow this approach even when using a streaming service. I might have moved away from physical media but I haven't changed the way in which I appreciate music.
 

Sukie

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It is really something to watch people using the phone speaker to listen to music...the incredibly limited response alone
drives me nuts. I see many using earbuds so loud I can hear them...deafness looms.
Somebody recently asked me to listen to a piece of music that they liked through their phone speaker. I smiled politely but I'm afraid that I couldn't tell you if I liked the track or not as all I could here was a tinny noise!
 
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Somebody recently asked me to listen to a piece of music that they liked through their phone speaker. I smiled politely but I'm afraid that I couldn't tell you if I liked the track or not as all I could here was a tinny noise!

I know what you mean!
 

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as Devo said:

Rip It
RIP IT into shape!
 

AnalogSteph

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@AnalogSteph

You are right! I did further testing and the phones I was using were breaking into distortion and I
was hearing lower harmonics.

My actual upper limit? 14,450 to 475. :confused:
Not bad for nearly 59 however...still...aside from the fact I never see crt's anymore I will never hear
the horizontal oscillator again
Good to see this mystery resolved anyway.

As the saying goes,
You hear what you hear but it may not be what you think it is.

Still, very odd. I cannot think of any analog distortion mechanism that would create subharmonics. This may be worth checking out further using some dedicated test tones (like these); you can also generate something like a sweep e.g. in Audacity. Subharmonics may indicate either resampling issues or digital clipping (there is a limiter to 0.985 built into the Windows 10 (shared mode) audio stack, for example).
Somebody recently asked me to listen to a piece of music that they liked through their phone speaker. I smiled politely but I'm afraid that I couldn't tell you if I liked the track or not as all I could here was a tinny noise!
One of those cases where the device is smarter than the user.
1. As hearing gradually shifts downwards with age, the lows become increasingly important. So if you're going to ask someone who is older, use something that has something resembling bass.
2. At least give the thing a fighting chance by placing it on a table or even in a corner, in a quiet environment that doesn't drown out what little low end there is.
3. Bluetooth speakers exist. A lot of them pack quite a punch for their size.

I do not find that my collection is unrecognizable through even a relatively low-end Samsung Galaxy A3 (2014), although obviously there isn't much you could call bass and the highs are rather overrepresented even when using trick (2). Vocals do come across decently though, and that's a major step in the right direction.
 

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Thank you. I am fully aware of the paradigm change and just wanted to hear from other CD player users...all 12 of them!
I like the format and enjoy using it. I cannot count how many PC's I have gone thru in the 3 decades I have used my old
CD player. PC's become obsolete a few weeks after you buy them...OS changes and other giant fails render them a truly
consumable product. File formats change too over time and converting them sucks. I like the stone age physical format...
and a dedicated player for it.

In my OP I stated I was sorry to even post it...and this is why. It is what it is.
I guess I'm the 13th. But it's been a month since I've used my "CD player", in fact a Blu-Ray player, Sony, analog stereo outs, all of $7 from Value Village, the remote [a clone] cost more. You still have the CDs at hand, play them, but don't have your heart set on a "CD Player", a player that can be used with a wider variety of disc formats is more useful in the long run, get you a shot at some of the Blu-Ray audio issues, which are worth it. My two thrift shop [the other Sony Blu-Ray player set me back $25] "CD Players" sound just fine, look pretty good too.

I have yet to succumb to the joys of streaming or Computer playback, am in the interim where I mostly listen to my CDs via rips to my DAP. Sound is as good as the CD players, ease of access is much greater.
 
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cistercian

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Good to see this mystery resolved anyway.

As the saying goes,
You hear what you hear but it may not be what you think it is.

Still, very odd. I cannot think of any analog distortion mechanism that would create subharmonics. This may be worth checking out further using some dedicated test tones (like these); you can also generate something like a sweep e.g. in Audacity. Subharmonics may indicate either resampling issues or digital clipping (there is a limiter to 0.985 built into the Windows 10 (shared mode) audio stack, for example).

One of those cases where the device is smarter than the user.
1. As hearing gradually shifts downwards with age, the lows become increasingly important. So if you're going to ask someone who is older, use something that has something resembling bass.
2. At least give the thing a fighting chance by placing it on a table or even in a corner, in a quiet environment that doesn't drown out what little low end there is.
3. Bluetooth speakers exist. A lot of them pack quite a punch for their size.

I do not find that my collection is unrecognizable through even a relatively low-end Samsung Galaxy A3 (2014), although obviously there isn't much you could call bass and the highs are rather overrepresented even when using trick (2). Vocals do come across decently though, and that's a major step in the right direction.

The only thing I came up with was what if the diaphragm was breaking into waves and that was the mechanical division factor because
it excited resonances below the excitation frequency. Only the one set of phones did it. Weird...and counter-intuitive.
 
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