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CD transport - bits are bits?

BentonF

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Dear Members,

This is my first posting. I’ve been reading this forum quietly and learning from a distance. Unlike other forums, I’m attracted to this forum by the objective and science based approach. It’s quite a misery having to wade through all the other forums which are written by audiophiles and entirely subjective with all the usual guff about being able to hear all sorts of things that I’m pretty sure they are imagining... I’m in the medical profession and know next to nothing about electrical engineering, nonetheless I loved physics and astronomy at school and spent a little time in medical research so am aware of some of the principles of blind testing etc. I’m perhaps more interested in what is measurably better and perceptible than subjective findings. It is also interesting to learn about new advances in audio technology and I read about Amir’s career at Microsoft. I also follow B&O Geoff Martins blog but have to admit I get lost eventually in the more technical aspects of his writings.

So to kick this off, I recently read the following article by Mr. Lampizator and could see some efforts by him to put testing equipment to various transports to see how well they produced a tidy square wave but was a bit frustrated by why he feels he has a compulsion to stick valves in every machine’s orifice he finds.

http://www.lampizator.eu/lampizator/TRANSPORT/CD_transport_DIY.html

From your collective experience in the field, do transports make a difference to sonic quality and fidelity or are bits just bits?

He heralds the Spectral CD transport as one of the finest examples but is it really any better at reading the pits on a CD and outputting a signal than a $300 NAD, Onkyo, Sony CD or DVD player...? Why does a Spectral cost $20,000 and what does this box do that a machine a fraction can’t do? I’m struggling to see how the bits or timing of the bits could be more accurate between machines.

How does one assess a CD transport’s electronic/sonic merits?

Have any of you tested and heard some these more astronomically prices machines such as the Spectral?

.
 

Fitzcaraldo215

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Hey, if bits weren't bits on software distribution discs by giants like Microsoft, Apple, etc. Countless others, really. And, if they were wrong, it would be unbelievably, catastrophically, devastating, really. So, bit integrity is assured and backed up by the practices of many of the biggest, most successful companies on earth. Little me has transferred countless documents and other data via optical drives with no known errors! They either read or they don't.

Ah, I know. Music is special. But, if you really think a CD, DVD or BD drive is messing things up in real time music playback, then rip to hard drive and play from there. I don't hear a huge difference hard drive vs. optical, myself, though there may be a tiny one favoring HD. And, I see/hear no difference between BD rips to HD vs. optical via my $50 builtin BD drive in my PC.

So, here we are in 2017 going on 2018 in audio. The truth is audio is so good, so close to the slowly expanding limit of possibilities that manufacturers will resort to most anything to try to make you believe they can break through to something better, even if they have to lie. Lampizator? Ho, ho, ho.

Of course, they could provide measurements to prove they are better. Bah, humbug.
 

amirm

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First, welcome aboard and thanks for the kind words regarding the mission of this forum.

On your question, bits aren't bits. Well, they are in that we need the bits to be correct. But a digital transport/link is also a noisy one by definition and if engineering is not well done, that noise can bleed into the analog parts of audio gear. Any such noise is readily measured and is not a mysterious other kind of noise that can't be as audiophiles tend to think. My measurements routinely show these effects.

A high-end transport in theory can be built to be quieter than a computer server. But then again a good DAC doesn't care much what is upstream of it. It is designed to filter and disregard noisy external input to it.

The measurements I have performed show that such noise sources to be extremely low even in budget products. And well below threshold of hearing.

So no, there is no foundation to a $20,000 cd transport sounding better than a computer server. If anything a computer server with asynchronous USB is superior since the DAC is in charge in that scenario. Whereas in a configuration of a CD feeding S/PDIF digital data to a DAC, the DAC is slave to the source across that link and can be subject to more vagaries.
 
OP
BentonF

BentonF

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Thank you for the evidence based reply.

I had that nagging suspicion as well. When I was at university, the best way to carry large amounts of data was using CD and I’d regularly burn word docs, excel, PDFs and I never once had a most welcome extra zero creeping into the spreadsheets. It either read all the data impeccably or reported a corruption. Of course, timing of data is another aspect of audio reproduction but from what i can see this has been in the nano/femto-second range for years so is imperceptible to one’s hearing apparatus and the gooey bit in between that assembles it into sound for our delectation.
 

Palladium

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"Forget that we can already make 1+ billion transistors 2GHz ARM SoCs for $20 and graphics cards VRAM that are already pushing 4300,000,000 Kbps, we can't be sure whether our current equipment now has the data integrity to read a ~1200 Kbps disc correctly.
 

Ronm1

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As usual the implementation is very important. What floats ones boat may leak or sink others
 

amirm

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I had that nagging suspicion as well. When I was at university, the best way to carry large amounts of data was using CD and I’d regularly burn word docs, excel, PDFs and I never once had a most welcome extra zero creeping into the spreadsheets. It either read all the data impeccably or reported a corruption.
I don't want to be pedantic :), but I like to make sure we are correct here. Data CDs ("yellow book") are not the same thing as audio ("red book") CDs. Knowing that CDs are fragile and much higher reliability was needed for computers, another layer of data error detection and correction is applied to data CDs. The format is also different in that it it is "block addressable" whereas audio CD is not (this is why audio extraction is difficult and requires specialized software than just dragging clips off the music CDs).
 

Fitzcaraldo215

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I don't want to be pedantic :), but I like to make sure we are correct here. Data CDs ("yellow book") are not the same thing as audio ("red book") CDs. Knowing that CDs are fragile and much higher reliability was needed for computers, another layer of data error detection and correction is applied to data CDs. The format is also different in that it it is "block addressable" whereas audio CD is not (this is why audio extraction is difficult and requires specialized software than just dragging clips off the music CDs).
Aha! I was unaware of the distinction.

But, I mostly don't favor direct from optical playback in any case for music. If I am going to listen to it, I might as well rip it to hard drive and put it into my library on my NAS. I can wait a few minutes while that happens, even while listening to something else. Unless the optical disc is scratched, smudged or dirty, that usually always works fine with no loss of data with standard, computer grade optical drives. I have never found the need to worry about optical drive quality issues.
 

watchnerd

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I would be curious to compare a CD transport feeding a DAC vs a network renderer feeding a DAC.

All else being equal, I would expect the renderer to have potentially less electrical noise issues (it's not electromechanical), but for any differences between the two to be below audible thresholds when feeding any competently designed DAC.
 

amirm

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I would be curious to compare a CD transport feeding a DAC vs a network renderer feeding a DAC.
I will put it on my todo list.
 

tim_j_thomas

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While ripping may make for more convenience, I still prefer a my CD or record player. The reason is with the computer, I find myself surfing the web and not listening to the music. With a CD or record, I don't have the computer open--I listen to the entire cd/album.

Not sure if others find the same thing, but overall I prefer the process of selecting an album, reading the liner notes, and listening from start to finish. With the computer, I get too easily distracted.
 

Dialectic

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While ripping may make for more convenience, I still prefer a my CD or record player. The reason is with the computer, I find myself surfing the web and not listening to the music. With a CD or record, I don't have the computer open--I listen to the entire cd/album.

Not sure if others find the same thing, but overall I prefer the process of selecting an album, reading the liner notes, and listening from start to finish. With the computer, I get too easily distracted.

Welcome to ASR.

I have overcome this problem by putting my music server on the other side of the room from my listening seat. I set an album to play, walk across the room, sit down, and get lost in the music.

I could never go back to spinning optical discs, the biggest problem with which is that they decay and can too easily be destroyed. I keep two backups of my music server, one made monthly that I carry to the office and lock in a desk drawer and another that I keep persistently up to date in a remote location via FTP.

A bit obsessive, yes, but better safe than sorry.
 

tim_j_thomas

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Thanks for the welcome. I didn't see an "introduce yourself thread."

I've thought about setting up a music server, but haven't gotten around to it. Perhaps when I retire, I'll take the time. Now, when I have the time, I'd prefer to listen rather than working on setting up a server :) I've do have most of my CDs ripped lossless, stored on an external HD, and backed up. But, haven't went the music server route (yet).

Perhaps it's the process of taking a few minutes to select a CD or album, and read the notes while listening, that I still cling too.
 

Thomas savage

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Thanks for the welcome. I didn't see an "introduce yourself thread."

I've thought about setting up a music server, but haven't gotten around to it. Perhaps when I retire, I'll take the time. Now, when I have the time, I'd prefer to listen rather than working on setting up a server :) I've do have most of my CDs ripped lossless, stored on an external HD, and backed up. But, haven't went the music server route (yet).

Perhaps it's the process of taking a few minutes to select a CD or album, and read the notes while listening, that I still cling too.
Welcome, if you want to tell us a little about yourself go here https://audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/introductions-anyone.65/

:)
 

watchnerd

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While ripping may make for more convenience, I still prefer a my CD or record player. The reason is with the computer, I find myself surfing the web and not listening to the music. With a CD or record, I don't have the computer open--I listen to the entire cd/album.

Not sure if others find the same thing, but overall I prefer the process of selecting an album, reading the liner notes, and listening from start to finish. With the computer, I get too easily distracted.

I don't find the same thing because with Roon I don't have to sit in front of the computer.
 

Fitzcaraldo215

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I don't find the same thing because with Roon I don't have to sit in front of the computer.
My computer is in the next room connected via a small hole in the wall. I visit it only occasionally to mount the occasional optical disc, such as a Netflix BD rental. I can communicate with the PC if needed via a nice $30 Logitech wireless keyboard with touchpad while viewing the 60" HDTV monitor in my listening room.

But, I mostly listen to music via JRiver's excellent JRemote app on an iPad, which allows me to select whatever I want by composer, artist, album, genre or whatever. Visual album thumbnail images are there, or I can switch at a touch to a text list display. I think JRemote may be comparable to Roon, but better for my very large, mostly classical library in terms of tagging support, organization and selection.

Occasionally, I miss having liner notes, which need to be searched for among discs on the shelf. Usually, I am too lazy for that. But, ever since the CD and booklets in tiny print decades ago, I have not done much liner note reading, maybe a little while waiting for the disc to rip. I did much more of that in my LP days, now ancient history.
 

iridium

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Dear Members,

This is my first posting. I’ve been reading this forum quietly and learning from a distance. Unlike other forums, I’m attracted to this forum by the objective and science based approach. It’s quite a misery having to wade through all the other forums which are written by audiophiles and entirely subjective with all the usual guff about being able to hear all sorts of things that I’m pretty sure they are imagining... I’m in the medical profession and know next to nothing about electrical engineering, nonetheless I loved physics and astronomy at school and spent a little time in medical research so am aware of some of the principles of blind testing etc. I’m perhaps more interested in what is measurably better and perceptible than subjective findings. It is also interesting to learn about new advances in audio technology and I read about Amir’s career at Microsoft. I also follow B&O Geoff Martins blog but have to admit I get lost eventually in the more technical aspects of his writings.

So to kick this off, I recently read the following article by Mr. Lampizator and could see some efforts by him to put testing equipment to various transports to see how well they produced a tidy square wave but was a bit frustrated by why he feels he has a compulsion to stick valves in every machine’s orifice he finds.

http://www.lampizator.eu/lampizator/TRANSPORT/CD_transport_DIY.html

From your collective experience in the field, do transports make a difference to sonic quality and fidelity or are bits just bits?

He heralds the Spectral CD transport as one of the finest examples but is it really any better at reading the pits on a CD and outputting a signal than a $300 NAD, Onkyo, Sony CD or DVD player...? Why does a Spectral cost $20,000 and what does this box do that a machine a fraction can’t do? I’m struggling to see how the bits or timing of the bits could be more accurate between machines.

How does one assess a CD transport’s electronic/sonic merits?

Have any of you tested and heard some these more astronomically prices machines such as the Spectral?

.

Welcome,

Excellent post.

iridium
 

amirm

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My dedicated music server computer is just that: dedicated to music. It sits in the audio cabinet with no monitor unless I turn on the TV which I only do for maintenance. I use Roon and read the liner notes on the tablet that controls it.

Then again I don't mind multitasking when I listen to music. Someone has to keep an eye on you all on a 24 hour basis! :D
 
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