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Will there be a difference? CD reproduction and sources.

ThatM1key

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I've seen that Philips transport used in a very expensive high end CD player and it worked very well.
It was initially a thrift store find years ago and I thought it was a low-end CD player. I do hear around the internet, including yours, that pieces in my CD player can be found in more higher end CD players. So people consider it "mid-range" to "audiophile grade". I don't know "on the scale" where my CD player would lie on.
 

Doodski

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It was initially a thrift store find years ago and I thought it was a low-end CD player. I do hear around the internet, including yours, that pieces in my CD player can be found in more higher end CD players. So people consider it "mid-range" to "audiophile grade". I don't know "on the scale" where my CD player would lie on.
Well I'm aware of the Kinergetics KCD-40 that used the Philips transport and they swapped out the Philips DAC section for a snazzy quad chip DAC configuration. That was very exotic for 1989-1992 to have that kind of quad DAC and use the Philips transport. It was one of the few CD players that I have heard that actually obviously sounded different. It sounded smoother and more natural if I can use those words. It was just better and not brash at all but was fussy as can be with discs. If scratched discs it would hiss, buzz, make fuzz noises and then if really bad it would crackle.

EDIT: Here is a pic of the secondary PCB for the DAC bypass. The Philips PCB can be seen unerneath.
1331682-b655c9b1-kinergetics-kcd40-cd-player.jpg
 

restorer-john

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That certainly saves on purchasing that CDN $450 Philips calibration CD with the laser etching marks on it. :D

You know I've got all those. Here's my Philips 5a (3 disc calib set) calibrated interruption to data:
IMG_0253 (Medium).jpeg


IMG_0254 (Medium).jpeg


And this is the graduated incremental burst data loss and repeated data loss on the Pierre Verany test set:

IMG_0255 (Medium).jpeg


IMG_0256 (Medium).jpeg
 

Doodski

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You know I've got all those. Here's my Philips 5a (3 disc calib set) calibrated interruption to data:
View attachment 195608

View attachment 195609

And this is the graduated incremental burst data loss and repeated data loss on the Pierre Verany test set:

View attachment 195610

View attachment 195611
Oh cool. Nice pics too. Great camera shots. Those look unplayable! This the CD that I calibrated Sony players to play through all of it after the Sony YEDS disc for the laser eye pattern calibration. If the servos where a bit noisy or slight advance skipping then back to adjustment and after some fine tuning without boosting the servos too much they all can play this Philips one. I doubt some PC transport can manage that. (Pic of disc is downpage)
 

restorer-john

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This the CD that I calibrated Sony players to play through all of it after the Sony YEDS disc for the laser eye pattern calibration.

You must have had the music test sample 3 disc. Number 3 (410 055-2) has all the test tracks. 5 and 5a are identical except for the deliberate errors on 5a. 5 is used after calibration like you did.
IMG_0257 (Medium).jpeg


The layout of the data interuption, the graduated 'dots' and the simulated fingerprint appear exactly the same as the 5A test sample.

All I know is, these discs are pretty much priceless now. That and my Leader Laser power meter...
 

Doodski

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You must have had the music test sample 3 disc. Number 3 (410 055-2)
No, I just used Test Sample 4A (410 056-2) and the Sony YEDS disc. I worked on a ton of power load players for car audio and home units too but mostly Sony car audio 10 disc changers and sometimes they ate a cal disc when they went berserkin. So I would go through one of those 4A Sample Discs per year or two sometimes. Couldn't be avoided. I was doing so much volume that I could afford it. I attempted finding a pic of the Test Sample 3 disc but nothing available on the net. Curious to see what it has on the play surface.
 

restorer-john

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I worked on a ton of power load players for car audio and home units too but mostly Sony car audio 10 disc changers and sometimes they ate a cal disc when they went berserkin.

The Pioneer 6 stack cartridges were dreadful for disc damage also. Boot (trunk) mounted stackers. Those in dash stackers must have been really annoying.

But nothing worse than a pizza tray 6 CD unit that someone had moved house with the discs still inside, plugged it in, loaded 6 more discs and muched up the entire mech and all the floating around discs inside too. Bits of broken plastic, gears and snapped-off chit.

Remember the Pioneer 25 disc home units? They made a mess of discs too.
 

antcollinet

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If there's errors on the disc that cannot be corrected, linear interpolation is the next step and then muting. In that order.

Error correction is just that. The data after error correction is perfect. No errors. If the data cannot be perfectly corrected, interpolation makes a 'best guess' using samples before and after the uncorrectable error to fill in the missing/damaged data. You rarely hear interpolation unless it is on the verge of or is starting to mute. Muting can be in the mS range, right up to several seconds or more.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. A really good CD player will outperform any CD/DVD drive and software when it comes to damaged or out of spec CDs. Go put a few 2mm wide strips of black tape over a music CD (radially) and try to extract the data on your computer. A good CD player will play that disc, completely error free- in real time.
That is interesting. I've been dithering back and forwards about getting a CD player. My collection is ripped from CD's in pretty good condition, but I sort of miss the physical interaction.

How would you define "good". Do I need to go audiohpile level hundreds (1000's?) of pounds, or can good be used <£100? Or can a modern entry level bluray player with optical out be good (in the respect of playing damaged CDs)?
 
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ThatM1key

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The Pioneer 6 stack cartridges were dreadful for disc damage also. Boot (trunk) mounted stackers. Those in dash stackers must have been really annoying.

But nothing worse than a pizza tray 6 CD unit that someone had moved house with the discs still inside, plugged it in, loaded 6 more discs and muched up the entire mech and all the floating around discs inside too. Bits of broken plastic, gears and snapped-off chit.

Remember the Pioneer 25 disc home units? They made a mess of discs too.
I heard those Pioneer cassette deck changers were also horrible. My father owned a Sony 200 CD changer, instead of using the built-in label system, he just used a pieces of paper.
 

restorer-john

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My father owned a Sony 200 CD changer, instead of using the built-in label system, he just used a pieces of paper.

Much better idea of your Dad's. I had/have a Yamaha CDR-HD1300e (CD recorder/player with a built-in 120GB HDD) and never bothered to add names and track info via the jog/encoder wheel as it was so annoying. Even with the serial PC interface it was a joke. Sounded good, but a complete disaster for indexing the discs on the HDD.

A mate has one of those 200 disc Sony things. Got it at a car boot sale full of CDs for $10! Like a pre-loaded juke box. LOL.
 

restorer-john

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That is interesting. I've been dithering back and forwards about getting a CD player. My collection is ripped from CD's in pretty good condition, but I sort of miss the physical interaction.

How would you define "good". Do I need to go audiohpile level hundreds of pounds, or can good be used <£100? Or can a modern entry level bluray player with optical out be good (in the respect of playing damaged CDs)?

It's a tough question to answer as the best players for difficult discs are now some of the oldest machines out there. As such, they can have degraded performance from when they were new, or other issues. Or they can be just as good as new. A bit of a lottery. I'd hate to recommend a specific model machine, only for it to have poor performance when you finally found one. :)

When I quizzed IAG about the performance of their supposedly amazing Audiolab CDT CD player for difficult discs, they went dead quiet once I brought up the industry standard test discs and their calibrated data loss test tracks. I asked for specific performance numbers on burst data error loss in mm and guess what? Crickets. They had nothing.

The bottom line for reliability is moving parts. Minimize the moving parts and the machine will last the longest. So, that makes the machines where you put the disc directly on the spindle way more reliable than any other form of loading. The loading mech is where the biggest source of trouble occurs. The loading mech itself causes more mistracking issues than just about anything else. That, and the suspension decoupling elastomers holding the laser sled itself.

Machines with BSL (brushless, slotless) spindle motors with jewelled (sapphire) thrust bearings will not wear and change the table height. They also spin up and down harder and faster than brushed motors. (just like brushless cordless drills)

Machines with linear (kind of like a linear accelerator) motors for tracking, have no gears, racks, springs, or cheap Mabuchi brushed motors to die. But they often have nylon/plastic guides which can shrink and crack. A linear motor driven laser sled means instant track access and excellent abilities with eccentric/warped CDs in most cases.

I'm a bit out of touch with what is on offer new these days in the CD transport/player space. All the recent units I have seen have been DVD player derived- even companies like Rotel have stripped down DVD player boards and squeezed them into a so-called 'purist CD player' in a box. But bear in mind, I only see small numbers now and only things that have died prematurely. I am not in the retail 'game' anymore, nor do warranty work for the current gear, so my experience is limited going forward.
 

antcollinet

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It's a tough question to answer as the best players for difficult discs are now some of the oldest machines out there. As such, they can have degraded performance from when they were new, or other issues. Or they can be just as good as new. A bit of a lottery. I'd hate to recommend a specific model machine, only for it to have poor performance when you finally found one. :)

When I quizzed IAG about the performance of their supposedly amazing Audiolab CDT CD player for difficult discs, they went dead quiet once I brought up the industry standard test discs and their calibrated data loss test tracks. I asked for specific performance numbers on burst data error loss in mm and guess what? Crickets. They had nothing.

The bottom line for reliability is moving parts. Minimize the moving parts and the machine will last the longest. So, that makes the machines where you put the disc directly on the spindle way more reliable than any other form of loading. The loading mech is where the biggest source of trouble occurs. The loading mech itself causes more mistracking issues than just about anything else. That, and the suspension decoupling elastomers holding the laser sled itself.

Machines with BSL (brushless, slotless) spindle motors with jewelled (sapphire) thrust bearings will not wear and change the table height. They also spin up and down harder and faster than brushed motors. (just like brushless cordless drills)

Machines with linear (kind of like a linear accelerator) motors for tracking, have no gears, racks, springs, or cheap Mabuchi brushed motors to die. But they often have nylon/plastic guides which can shrink and crack. A linear motor driven laser sled means instant track access and excellent abilities with eccentric/warped CDs in most cases.

I'm a bit out of touch with what is on offer new these days in the CD transport/player space. All the recent units I have seen have been DVD player derived- even companies like Rotel have stripped down DVD player boards and squeezed them into a so-called 'purist CD player' in a box. But bear in mind, I only see small numbers now and only things that have died prematurely. I am not in the retail 'game' anymore, nor do warranty work for the current gear, so my experience is limited going forward.
Ok - thanks for your thoughts.
 
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Vacceo

Vacceo

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That is interesting. I've been dithering back and forwards about getting a CD player. My collection is ripped from CD's in pretty good condition, but I sort of miss the physical interaction.

How would you define "good". Do I need to go audiohpile level hundreds (1000's?) of pounds, or can good be used <£100? Or can a modern entry level bluray player with optical out be good (in the respect of playing damaged CDs)?
That is the reason why I keep buying and using CD's (and vynils): the ritual of changing and using them.

The physical aspect of it feels calming and pleasant.

In essence, a USB blu ray player on a PC is just a transport. Cheap and functional, but a transport.
 
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Doodski

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But nothing worse than a pizza tray 6 CD unit that someone had moved house with the discs still inside, plugged it in, loaded 6 more discs and muched up the entire mech and all the floating around discs inside too. Bits of broken plastic, gears and snapped-off chit.

Remember the Pioneer 25 disc home units? They made a mess of discs too.
Oh man Sony had a model or two that took 200 CDs and customers would bring the machine in with some discs still inside and we would send them home with the machine to empty for us. They would get angry...lol. There's no way I'm managing all those discs anddd repairing such a complicated machine for warranty service pay rates. If the machine had loose discs we would take off the cover and tell the customer, here are your discs take them now. The 5 disc Sonys all pretty much always had a bad green FPC from the tray sensors to the main PCB and they would get discs stuck too. There where service bulletins on several models for that bad FPC and a new upgraded FPC was required. The worst of them though if not reallly careful was the 10 disc car audio units. It would happily be playing a disc and then suddenly out of the blue it goes berserk, spins up at a bazillion RPM and then unloads the disc into the power load assembly/rack and commenced trying to snap it in half. The older first series of them where veryyy frustrating to learn and even after learning them and all the quirks and timing points of the mechanism assemblies they still required a very clear head and lotsa patience. The 2nd and 3rd gen where much easier to work on and had fewer issues with going berserkin and could be fun to service if one liked mechatronics but for those that did not have lotsa time on them the machines where a nightmare and one could not make money due to the learning curve everybody had to endure on those mechanisms. One could easily blow through a day learning a bad machine if they did not know the mechanism and circuitry and common faults of which there where many and often times multiple faults requiring parts and repair. But after servicing those 10 discs units the regular home tape decks, car single CD players and tape head units where a joy to service. I was lucky in that I was providing Sony warranty service (and others brands too) and so I got repeats of the same complaints and the same fixes and could make money and after a few months one would have frequently used spare parts on hand and sometimes machines that where junkers to use for parts for repairs too. I couldn't see how a service dept could make money that did not have a warranty service agreement with Sony or whatever make and model they took in for out-of-warranty repair. I visited a couple of service depots that provided only out-of-warranty service and saw what a plethora of different makes and models and I was shaking my head knowing what they must go through because they never had a library of service manuals and spare parts like we did. All in all I loved the job and would still be doing it if it where available. There's just something about servicing the stuff that is a turn on for me.
 

somebodyelse

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I've said it before and I'll say it again. A really good CD player will outperform any CD/DVD drive and software when it comes to damaged or out of spec CDs. Go put a few 2mm wide strips of black tape over a music CD (radially) and try to extract the data on your computer. A good CD player will play that disc, completely error free- in real time.
A few sites that are sadly no longer around used to test CD and then DVD drives, including audio extraction tests with test discs that included deliberate errors. I don't know if it was the 5a set you've shown, or a similar one from another manufacturer. A good drive would perform like your good CD player, error free and faster than real time, but there weren't too many good drives. Most were ok but couldn't handle the bigger errors, and some were terrible. From what I remember Plextor was the only manufacturer with consistently good results, but there may have been others I've forgotten. Most were variable with some good models and some bad. Sometimes a firmware update would make a significant difference, better or worse.
 

AnalogSteph

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Machines with BSL (brushless, slotless) spindle motors with jewelled (sapphire) thrust bearings will not wear and change the table height.
Brushed spindle motors seem to be an extremely common failure point indeed. Symptoms may include periodic ticking or sensitivity to spatial orientation (e.g. the player may be erratic but start to play fine upside down).
 
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