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CD Player / Transport with Digital Out

So, to continue this thread, Harley Lovegrove of Pearl Acoustics (Sibelius speaker line featuring Markaudio driver) tried his best to see if the CD transport function of a wide range of players made a difference. Actually did a 3-part Youtube series on this, starting with development of the CD player. He double blind tested with folks whose ears he trusted. Compared players from a vintage CD Walkman to a 5000EU modern Pro-Ject player. Newer, more expensive stuff wins.

I watched this right when they all came out as I was in search of a quality CD player.

I would just have to say the guy is too high on the spectrum. He also states that all CD players he tested pretty much sound the same used as a transport.

Save yourself the headache and just do that.

I’ve heard the Cyrus recently at an audio show and even though it wasn’t bad the price is too high. *without the external ps.

Honestly I was extremely impressed by the Marantz 67se, not sure the precise numbers but that should be fairly close. That’s the best sounding CD player I’ve heard thus far and it’s only a couple 100. But no SACD which is actually what I’m looking for and probably a waste of time too, on my part.
 
Well, if that's the case, then I really screwed up this thread. Damn analogophiles!

Honest mistake.

Even as a test of CD-players, it wasn't very conclusive/helpful.

The seven players wasn't measured first to see it there was any nonlinearities with a magitude indicating audible differences. It would have been endlessly more helpful to find out what the expensive players do different that makes them more enjoyable. Instead we get the usual weird idea of higher price tags having some inherent link to higher sound quality.

Also, the test subjects didn't know which player was active, but the test administrator did. Nitpicking perhaps, but there's a risk of the Clever Hans effect being at play.
 
Mechanical and laser assemblies are usually from sources like philips and sony. Some even uses a computer cd/dvdrom drive (you will find 5 1/4" drive if you open the casing).

However, whats critical is beyond the laser. The DSP and DAC is very important. Some folks here might have heard of the arcam ring-dac back then. I would say it was one of the things that made arcam famous.
I believe the "ring dac" was first made by dcs, a British firm.
 
How can it possibly sound different?

Facts, please.
A lot of modern CD transports/players don't support pre-emphasis. There is a very obvious and demonstrable difference in the sound between those that don't and those that do when playing albums mastered with pre-emphasis.
 
A lot of modern CD transports/players don't support pre-emphasis. There is a very obvious and demonstrable difference in the sound between those that don't and those that do when playing albums mastered with pre-emphasDAC
 
A lot of modern CD transports/players don't support pre-emphasis. There is a very obvious and demonstrable difference in the sound between those that don't and those that do when playing albums mastered with pre-emphasis.
In the 90s I saw/had DACs that indicated if the source had preemphasis.

Before I got wise about transports, I owned more of them than I'd care to list. Many more. I never saw one that claimed to do preemphasis. I certainly never saw any reviews or literature that said so.

Of course, anything's possible...
 
In a collection of several hundred CDs, I believe I have one disc that appears to incorporate pre-emphasis that is not dealt with properly by all players. (Now if I could only remember which disc and find it!)

CD technology is nearly forty years old and I haven't thought much about that technology in the last twenty years or so. My recollection is that a player's transport section can be doing significant amounts of error correction while reading the disc before the data stream is sent to the DAC, and that the error correction sometimes patches holes in the data stream by interpolation. It seems possible to me that how successful a transport is at reading a disc and delivering an error-free data stream to the DAC could affect a player's audio quality.
 
The most i would spend on a cd player is like for the Marantz CD6007, because it's a very easy to use and reliable player. But it cost 500€, not a few thousands or more. And coupled to a good dac (could be bought for less than 100€) it's as good or better than all more expensive ones. Even the much cheaper Sony UHP-H1 is probally not far off, but less easy to use for noobs. That's why I bought a CD6007 and an SMSL dac for an older family member when the Denon that was used before (a late 80's model) died. The owner is used to the classic way of how a cd player works and to old and not technical minded to adapt to new ways. Total cost for the setup was 650€, way cheaper than the budget i had availeble from the owner had for a top setup.

But for more technological advanced people, it could be even cheaper, without loss of soundquality. But ease of use is something that is also worth spending money for many.

 
For those interested in a cheap and cheerful CD transport, I found the JVC XV-Y360A DVD player does the job quite adequately. It has both coax and optical digital audio output along with the standard HDMI and analog. What makes it more useful as a CD transport is it's one of the less common DVD players that still has a time/track display at the front with play/pause/skip controls. This makes it useful for audio systems which aren't connected to a TV as it can be operated in a headless configuration. Surprisingly, although not mentioned anywhere in the marketing or manual, it supports HDCD. As can be expected at this price point though, it does not support SACD. I haven't tested it with a pre-emphasis CD. As a very low-cost DVD player it is very light, fairly mechanically noisy, doesn't support gapless well, has a slow TOC read speed, and "feels" cheap overall, so don't expect the CD player experience to be equivalent to that of dedicated CD transports.

The CD digital audio output is the same of course, not withstanding any potential jitter. I haven't noticed any audible differences when I hooked it up to an optical-USB converter, ran it through the same EQ pipeline that I use for streaming audio from my NAS, and compared it to the exact same CDs that I've ripped to FLAC.


I've since replaced it in my setup with a near new in box second-hand Pioneer DV-686A-s that I found for a steal because I wanted SACD support and a mechanically quieter player.
 
In the 90s I saw/had DACs that indicated if the source had preemphasis.

Before I got wise about transports, I owned more of them than I'd care to list. Many more. I never saw one that claimed to do preemphasis. I certainly never saw any reviews or literature that said so.

Of course, anything's possible...

Unfortunately, it's almost impossible to tell from the marketing material or user manual alone. However, an ad-hoc list of known hardware is collated in this forum post:

Here's an example of a review that does look at pre-emphasis support:

And a list of CDs with pre-emphasis:

Pre-emphasis support is important to me because I usually prefer the original masters of CDs released in the 80s and a lot of them were mastered with pre-emphasis.
 
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The most i would spend on a cd player is like for the Marantz CD6007, because it's a very easy to use and reliable player. But it cost 500€, not a few thousands or more. And coupled to a good dac (could be bought for less than 100€) it's as good or better than all more expensive ones. Even the much cheaper Sony UHP-H1 is probally not far off, but less easy to use for noobs. That's why I bought a CD6007 and an SMSL dac for an older family member when the Denon that was used before (a late 80's model) died. The owner is used to the classic way of how a cd player works and to old and not technical minded to adapt to new ways. Total cost for the setup was 650€, way cheaper than the budget i had availeble from the owner had for a top setup.

But for more technological advanced people, it could be even cheaper, without loss of soundquality. But ease of use is something that is also worth spending money for many.

What is wrong with the DAC in the CD6007?
 
The SMSL PL100 looks like it could be a good option. Thread discussion here.
 
A lot of modern CD transports/players don't support pre-emphasis. There is a very obvious and demonstrable difference in the sound between those that don't and those that do when playing albums mastered with pre-emphasis.
That might make sense. I have very few CDs that have it, probably less than five, and it's not an issue.
 
That might make sense. I have very few CDs that have it, probably less than five, and it's not an issue.
As a workaround you could rip them, apply Sox's de-emphasis, then burn to CDR again. See below:
 
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