Thanks for the correction - but I don't thing there is much doubt about what we suffer most from.No. Too much dynamic compression to increase loudness is an element of (bad) sound quality. Too little compression is equally bad, if not worse.
Thanks for the correction - but I don't thing there is much doubt about what we suffer most from.No. Too much dynamic compression to increase loudness is an element of (bad) sound quality. Too little compression is equally bad, if not worse.
If you're removing speakers and everything, then the recording (CD) itself is at least 90% of overall sound quality.Why not second-hand records? Because I want to be the first owner. New is new.
Such a question for experts. What affects the sound of the CD player the most?
A user from the Polish audio forum wrote to me that the quality of the CD itself. I guess not silly, huh?
Is that a proprietary potted IC that I circled in red? What are those?
A few Naimees or ex-Naim owners here. What do you all make of their CD players? They come in for high praise by the breadth of the hifi community. Good performance, improving sonics up the range, quality components and good service (though some have been retired due to lack of optical drives in short supply).
MiniDisc and compact cassette deserve to make a comeback!Then you don't want to read this: https://www.discogs.com/digs/collecting/cd-comeback-trend-popularity-sales-2022
I am patiently waiting for the 8-track revival... any day now.
I had a very early Magnavox that sounded great. I bought a Sony carousel about 2 years later and gave the Magnavox to some friends. That Sony turned out to be just about the worst thing that I ever heard a CD on. Maybe the were competing with COBY before I ever heard of COBY.As I've mentioned before, in the late 90's I did two sets of blind tests between a Sony CD player, Meridian CD Player and a Meitner DAC (level matched with voltmeter). It was easy to tell them apart even under the blind conditions.
Which is weird because I'm generally skeptical about the differences in digital gear playing good ol redbook standard (and don't really care much about it these days). But...those were my results back then.
I had a Benchmark DAC 1 for many years and now have a Benchmark DAC2L, and I seriously doubt I'd be able to tell the difference.
This is anecdotal, but true. I did a double blind test of a Theta DS Pro Gen Va (massively overbuilt, about $8k new) against a PS Audio DL-3 (PS' bottom rung). DAC chips were, IIRC, Burr Brown PCM63PK in the Theta, Burr Brown PCM1702 in the PS Audio.If you're removing speakers and everything, then the recording (CD) itself is at least 90% of overall sound quality.
If you're just talking about the CD player:
1) any kind of signal processing the unit might be doing. these "modes" always make it sound like crap. sometimes you have to find some obscure menu to defeat them.
2) the DAC, but this is only applicable if you are using analog outputs
3) the actual laser/reading mechanism. quality here can vary quite a bit actually. DVD and Bluray players tend to have more tightly calibrated lasers due to increased data density in those formats vs CD. But there is no subtle "nuance" here. If it seems like your player can read everything you throw at it without clearly audible problems, then this is likely not an issue at all for your player.
everything else is woooo. any money you spend in this area is likely to be wasted, as far as sound quality. If something looks nice with the rest of your system or your furniture, or you like the display or the remote, then whatever floats your boat.
The 63KI player was a nasty thing, but the perceived extra 'deeeeetail' sold it to legions of WTF 5* review followers with a Rotel 965 tweaked model in hot pursuit. Not a comfortable listen and the popularity of the thing clouded our UK attention away from mid to upper Denons and remaining Sony's at this price (not sure JVC's nice mid to upper level machines were over here by this time). the CD63 original unmolested version sounded superb in a Krell/Apogee system I remember (used as a stop-gap on the way to the twenty grand Krell digital player of the time and the 63's 'friendly' sound - no grain or added sharpness - shocked said system owner). Other than that, we had Arcam which tweaked their players around 5* reviews-by-hacks for far too long in my opinion...I had a first generation Marantz CD63. Probably because I was using a 70s Technics amp and a pair of AR 3as, great bass but the rest was crap I wasn't impressed. Moved on to another Marantz the 63KI which I found sounded better than the much vaunted first gen.63 and I used it from 92 - 2016, only the on/off button packed up.
In 2022 I bought another Marantz the 6007. It sounds great and has an excellent h/amp. I have yet to try the digital section as I've had to wait to get my s/hand Puffin updated so that I can digitise my LPs.
I agree with the comments of so many, given decent design/materials used to construct the CDP, the sound of CD must come down to the DAC used and the quality of the CD itself. Some are really good. Via Intermezzo or maybe Stingray (I cannot rec. these 2 TV channels enough and it's not only music, seriously check them out, I get them for free via the French company Bouygues) Anyway I got to hear a Swedish Jazz trio - EST and bought 3 of their CDs, superb sound and wasn't aware that I was listening to CD. The Japanese also turn out very good sounding CDs. I'm not and never will be into streaming. Firstly it's an even worse rip-off for artists that record companies ever were. If they get together and act as one as those people who work in Hollywood did then streaming will become, as it should do very expensive and you get to own nothing. The cloud is a complete misnomer as the cloud is in fact big sheds built in the middle of nowhere consuming vast amounts of electricity and with little effort can be destroyed completely. Once one of these sheds is destroyed then teams of highly paid guards will be needed. Combine that with proper remuneration for the creators of content and it will become very expensive. I like to own my music and when I've digitised my physical media most has a high resale price.
By stripping certain cables we can sometimes find the industrial reference used by the hifi company which just found it in the catalog of a large industrial cable drawing company... it is visible printed on the original sheath buried under layers mysterious insulators added to make people believe that the cable in question is a marvel of homemade technology...But people with money love to pay for bling and status. How often do you see uber expensive power cords selling for US$1-2K and the company spiel is we can't possibly talk about the materials used or the construction because our competitors will copy it - so what's to stop said competitors buying one, stripping it down will expose the construction and get a metallurgist to identify exactly exactly the composition of the conductors - nothing at all.
And arrogantly,nowhere in your post do we find 'in my opinion'.The 63KI player was a nasty thing, but the perceived extra 'deeeeetail' sold it to legions of WTF 5* review followers with a Rotel 965 tweaked model in hot pursuit. Not a comfortable listen and the popularity of the thing clouded our UK attention away from mid to upper Denons and remaining Sony's at this price (not sure JVC's nice mid to upper level machines were over here by this time). the CD63 original unmolested version sounded superb in a Krell/Apogee system I remember (used as a stop-gap on the way to the twenty grand Krell digital player of the time and the 63's 'friendly' sound - no grain or added sharpness - shocked said system owner). Other than that, we had Arcam which tweaked their players around 5* reviews-by-hacks for far too long in my opinion...
Thank heavens those days are gone now... I have a still running (skin of teeth thing though) and much used Denon 1520 CD player (heavy, internally complex and with that lovely rapid-track-access CD drive which I believe is a Sony?) as well as a gifted Denon 1015 from a few years later (much lighter, plainer and much simpler internally). Both of these are indistinguishable from each other in casual listening and although I don't remember the former machine when new, I do remember how even handed the latter was at its then £320 price, doing nothing wrong subjectively.
Frankly, the hospital is making fun of charity here...And arrogantly,nowhere in your post do we find 'in my opinion'.