OP
- Thread Starter
- #81
This is cool, thanks for the reactivity!
-
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Orpheus Zero Review (CD Player)
- Thread starter NTTY
- Start date
You're the best !
Thank you @NTTY. Wow, that is quite good.
It looks like that one did not get distribution over here. One reason would be the power for it being 220V (I don't know how the different cycles would affect it?)
I can easily have a 220V outlet in my stereo room. (but the Hz would be 60 Hz). Many people do not realize that the US home power system is based in 220 volts. My breaker box panel is on the opposite side of the wall where the stereo is. I have a couple of 220 outlets in the house. And all my 120V outlets are 20 amp ones.
My 120V outlets average 119-120V. (I must be close to a transformer).
A little history on our power grid:
It looks like that one did not get distribution over here. One reason would be the power for it being 220V (I don't know how the different cycles would affect it?)
I can easily have a 220V outlet in my stereo room. (but the Hz would be 60 Hz). Many people do not realize that the US home power system is based in 220 volts. My breaker box panel is on the opposite side of the wall where the stereo is. I have a couple of 220 outlets in the house. And all my 120V outlets are 20 amp ones.
My 120V outlets average 119-120V. (I must be close to a transformer).
A little history on our power grid:
Steve Nations Mechanical Engineer, Home Inspector/Author Updated 7y In the U.S.: we use 120/240. The first power systems were 110 volts. Edison chose that as a good compromise voltage to make his light bulb work well (this voltage was high enough that the bulb gave off a good amount of light, but this voltage was not so high that it caused the bulb to burn out quickly). The 110 volts system meant that about 100 volts would actually be delivered to the point of use. By the 1930’s the voltage had increased to 115 volts. (I don’t really understand why — I just know that it happened.) In 1968 the National Electrical Code (NEC) finally changed the values for motor ratings to reflect this voltage. In the early 1970’s document C84.1 from the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) included a maximum deviation from standard voltage. In 1984 the NEC was changed so that the standard voltage used for load calculations was changed to 120 volts. (Again I don’t really understand why the change happened, just that it did.) Today utilities are required to supply you with voltage that doesn’t vary from 120 volts by more than 5% either way. So that would mean your voltage should be between 114 and 126 volts. For some larger appliances you’ll use the two different legs of 120 volts to ground, so those appliances operate at 240 volts. EDIT: Since our electric system originally supplied 110 volts that value became embedded in people’s minds and a lot of people still refer to our system as 110/220. Since we used 115 volts for about 50 years a lot of people have that in their minds and still refer to our system as 115/230. But those days are long past. The U.S. is now 120/240 volts. Most electric motors and many electrical appliances (especially those with motors) have a nameplate rating of 115 volts (meaning that they’re designed to run optimally at 115 volts). This is because they expect that if the utility supplies you with 120 volts at your main electrical panel there will be less than that by the time the current travels through your wires to the appliance. This is due to voltage drop. EDIT #2: Some homes in the United States don’t have 120/240, but instead they have 120/208. This isn’t common overall, but in some places most homes would have this. Voltage of 120/240 comes from a standard single phase system, with two hot legs coming from the transformer, each being 120 volts to neutral, where the AC sine waves are 180 degrees out of phase. But many industrial facilities use 3-phase power because it’s more efficient. A 3-phase Y system (there’s also a 3-phase Delta system) has 3 hot legs, each of which is 120 volts to neutral, and each of which is 208 volts to one of the other legs. Each leg’s AC sine wave is 120 degrees out of phase. Because 3-phase power is more efficient, some utilities use it to supply residential properties too. So there will be a central transformer with a 3-phase Y system, and each home will have 2 of the 3 legs of that system, plus the neutral. To keep things balanced the missing leg will alternate among the properties served by that transformer. There are some downsides to the homeowner with this type of system. An air conditioner is only going to see 208 volts instead of 240 volts, so it will have to work harder at the lower voltage. But pretty much all equipment is rated for either 240 or 208 volts, so it will be OK. Also, on a multiwire circuit the neutral wire will always see some current (you need to understand what a multiwire circuit is to make sense of this issue). |
musicforcities
Senior Member
- Joined
- Sep 18, 2021
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Nice to see this. I note the top loading mechanism, which I have heard has advantages in that there are less mechanical things to break and may hold the disk more uniformly since the bottom spindle doesn’t move when loading. No idea if true.
I have an old top loading Sony discman and I ran across some proper measurements of a few years ago, and turns out that cheap old plastic thing was a pretty much perfect transport with shockingly good DAC all things considered.
On the other hand, the best thing you can do with the late 1990s multi thousand dollar ayre multi format player I was gifted is bypass the DAC and use digital out to a sub $100 topping DAC. Or even to an AVR.
Or at least change the filter dip switch on the back from “listen” (where ayre says it should be) to “measure” which ayre says is only to be used for repair calibration and such. i don’t know what the “listen” filter is exactly, though it seems to roll off higher frequencies (10kz on say). Maybe so it sounds more like vinyl or “less digital” (aka, less accurate)?
Anyway you are in trouble when a company designs a machine/filter to perform worse than it can because it supposedly sounds better).
I say all that to support the premise that cd players were pretty much a solved problem by 2000, but could still be “broken” to create differences for “audiophile” performance. lol. Good to see here a machine of similar vintage with good performance. I suspect one did not need to spend 10k to get excellent performance. But at least one could spend that much and not have purposefully badly measuring device. Though Maybe Ayre made a 10k priced player where the measure and listen filters were the same…
I have an old top loading Sony discman and I ran across some proper measurements of a few years ago, and turns out that cheap old plastic thing was a pretty much perfect transport with shockingly good DAC all things considered.
On the other hand, the best thing you can do with the late 1990s multi thousand dollar ayre multi format player I was gifted is bypass the DAC and use digital out to a sub $100 topping DAC. Or even to an AVR.
Or at least change the filter dip switch on the back from “listen” (where ayre says it should be) to “measure” which ayre says is only to be used for repair calibration and such. i don’t know what the “listen” filter is exactly, though it seems to roll off higher frequencies (10kz on say). Maybe so it sounds more like vinyl or “less digital” (aka, less accurate)?
Anyway you are in trouble when a company designs a machine/filter to perform worse than it can because it supposedly sounds better).
I say all that to support the premise that cd players were pretty much a solved problem by 2000, but could still be “broken” to create differences for “audiophile” performance. lol. Good to see here a machine of similar vintage with good performance. I suspect one did not need to spend 10k to get excellent performance. But at least one could spend that much and not have purposefully badly measuring device. Though Maybe Ayre made a 10k priced player where the measure and listen filters were the same…
I did some measurements of my "stored" Cambridge Azur 640C. I did not really think I had the v2 model with dual Wolfson DACs (same DAC as the Orpheus), but it appeared so.
Did some initial tests but are a bit rusty. Not sure about the best setting for all types of plots.
Did some initial tests but are a bit rusty. Not sure about the best setting for all types of plots.
OP
- Thread Starter
- #87
Cool! Thanks for sharing.
It looks indeed very similar performances.
It means this Azur is a very good performer. It would deserve a full review
It looks indeed very similar performances.
It means this Azur is a very good performer. It would deserve a full review
Ha, yes, thanks. Time ran out tonight though. Need to find correct plot settings.Cool! Thanks for sharing.
It looks indeed very similar performances.
It means this Azur is a very good performer. It would deserve a full review
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