Audio Research Ref: CD8

Hi Lula,
not sure you can be serious about top CD players and be discussing ancient players like the 20i and CD12 and comparing them to new players.

The CD7 has large but vague imaging with slightly constricted flow of dynamics, although like most good ARC gear very musical and special sounding. The ARC gear needs to be tweaked quite a lot to get it to give you better layering and a more solid and clear or vivid soundstage. Clean contacts, valve pins and bases, nice fuses, cabling and so on.

In the case of the tired 20i, this old krell battle ship has much less resolution and quite a lot of grain when compared to the latest players. You cant discuss these players and compare them to the latest offerings.

You should try some better players say the latest EMM lab or DCS. These kind of players will give you low noise floors with extreme resolution and pinpoint imaging, leading edge information and free natural dynamics and a complete lack of grain.

I have been told the playback Design is good but I have not heard it. Try the Bel canto player out too, its pretty cheap and sounds very good. I am sure the CD8 will be good. It is unlikely to be worse than the CD7.

Hi Aldavis,

No offense taken. I understand your point. In my experience once all those things are dealt with and the rest of the system is fine tuned and working at its best, all you have left is the source. Rubbish in rubbish out.

What I mean by imaging is the ability for the player to resolve the information on the disk that make it possible for the rest of the system to carry it into your room. This is very sensitive information and is easily lost or disturbed. Spacial coherence layering, timing, depth, width etc. Once exposed it is impossible to go back, especially on "real" recordings as opposed to processed ones. The lack of artifacts produced by the player itself enables what was once hidden to be clearly heard if the rest of the gear is up to it.

Hi Lula,
I remember the krell quite well. Around that time I had the ML 31.5/30.6 reference player. There is something about that generation of chips and clocks and components. There is a burliness to the sound. Grain, fat bass, slight haze and vague imaging by comparison to what is available now at that level. The disk is not presented as a whole. You know what I mean? Like there is a spot light on a particular area.

Even though the tweaks you speak of will help, it can never replace the already lost information. It is like shutting the gate after the horse has bolted. I am not saying those older players cant sound good for some types of music, its just more about refinement (and what you are used to). I could never go back to my old ML now as good as it was. I did have some fantastic listening sessions with it at the time!

Dont be fooled by all that audiophile BS that was around in the 80s and 90s. That technology is not getting worse its implementation is only better and cheaper on the whole. Digital has come of age recently IMHO.

Hi Jim,

I know what you mean regarding the use of the word "imaging" usually. I used it in this case to describe where I feel the steps forward have been taken with these CD players. Audio research are good company and it is very unlikely the CD8 is bad.

Protools does get a bad name in the audiophile world. Protools is only a computer hardisk recording system. It does what it is told. Protools on its own is not bad and is used in many great recording studios. It has fine clocking capabilities and can, with the latest hardware, record at very high sample rates.

The people using it are the ones to blame if a recording sounds bad.

Using dynamics processing to create a loud master is a problem and is mainly about radio play and how it sounds on the radio next to other recordings. If used well it can sound great and better than much of the old gear with all the old patch leads and patch bays adding all that noise and distortion. The ability to process in the digital domain is utterly silent, free from noise and precise, allowing any shaping of sound possible. It is possible to do well.

Remember some of those great remasters of classics are all done in similar systems and can sound great. Miles Davis and so on.

Jim I enjoyed the rambling.

I dont want to rob this thread too much more, but there are some things that I think cause some people to prefer the idea of analogue.

1 its what many have grown up with and are used to.

2 Analogue equipment has on the whole a sympathetic way of coloring music. Digital has not.

Put both well sorted out studio systems against each other and you will find a mixture of digital and analogue will be best.

Try bouncing tracks in the analogue domain. Its a joke, and very lossy. In the bad old days you would then have to re EQ to bring the life back into the bounce bringing even more noise and signal path. Bouncing digitally you wont be able to tell the difference.

Digital can be lifeless and crunchy. It can also be utterly breathtaking.

Regarding the recording techniques like using auto tune and so on. Again this is a tool which speeds up the recording process and can be used well or just turned off!

Years ago producers spent weeks on vocals dropping in words and so on to fine tune a take. There is no money in the music industry anymore. Not like it was, so the process of making the product has changed. I can promise you, no one in it would go back though, apart from for the budgets.

In the beginning we were sold that digital was perfect when it was not. Now it is different, although people are still judging it by talking about out of date equipment and software. I hear lots of people trashing digital and then when you ask what they are using, its some rubbish 10 years old or even older.

Regarding the upsampling or non upsampling debate, I think it is all about implementation. You just have to find the right player (maybe the ARC CD8... See what i did there?!). DACs are much better now and the understanding of what the problems and solutions are is clearer.

My hifi source uses DSD, and upsamples red book CDs to DSD. It is astonishing. Whatever you listen for.

Now I must apologize for my rambling. Happy listening.

Hi Lula
I do know what you mean regarding lateral moves when buying new and hopefully "improved" equipment.

I have a pretty well trained ear and unfortunately find myself long enough in the tooth these days to know what I am after.

Good as the ML was, its a sound that I have left behind. Since it is was a lot of money to have invested in a door stop I sold it, but not before making sure I was happy with what replaced it.

I find those older players sound fuzzy and unrefined by comparison now. I miss nothing in its sound now although I loved its build and simple remote control and fast access to the disk.

I can assure you if you put the ML next to my DCS you would be shocked at how wide the divide is. The focus in the DCS sound, the utter lack of background noise, the amazing speed and dynamics are just for starters. Let alone the fact I could sell my preamp and all those extra cables...