puffbojie
have you found a cd player?
Happy Listening!
have you found a cd player?
Happy Listening!
Big source improvement using CD player
I borrowed a friend's esoteric dv50s CD player. I could not believe the difference between it and streaming Spotify premium. I am now in the market for a CD player. One thing, the esoteric does not play DVD-R. Can anyone recommend a comparable CD player in the used market that does? I'm looking in the $800 - $1500 range.
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@puffbojie I still use a DV-50S for playing CD’s, SACD’s and Audio DVD’s on my main system and think it sounds great even after all these years. However, I haven’t used it as a video source since blu-rays came along. That said, I just tried an old DVD-R and it played fine. The DV-50 was billed as a "universal" player back in the day and although I seem to recall it getting cranky with some -RW discs, this was rare and everything else seemed to work with no problem. How was the DVD-R you attempted to play created? |
I have a Cambridge CXUHDNot quite as good as the CXC for spinning CD's. As the CXC has a dedicated linear power supply, and dedicated CD drive, with it's "legendary" ‘S3’ servo design. (whatever that is). Where the CXUHD uses a SMP (switch mode) power supply and universal DVD/CD drive, and no S3 Cheers George |
@puffbojie You could use EAC (exact audio copy), download it for free. Copy some CDs to a USB flash drive, stick it into the USB port in the back of your NAD C658, play some music and please share your experience?? A 256 Gb Sandisk cruiser will run you $30-35. If you have one already, this little experiment can cost you just your time. That's 365 full CDs, one for every day (except of course a leap year) @georgehifi I have a Cambridge CXUHD (I know, it’s not what you specified) sounds for all intents and purposes the same on "spinning silver" as it does playing WAV files through my system. Yeah of course I do like Cambridge gear also. |
Actually the above is inaccurate and tells me you don’t know what you are talking about here.I think it’s the other way around. Sorry?? but that’s very rich from someone that has these sorts of hearing problems!! https://forum.audiogon.com/posts/1686434 |
It’s doesn’t require rocket science 🚀 to show that scattered CD laser light hurts sound. You can demonstrate it for yourself. All you need is a GREEN Sharpie or any brand chisel tip permanent marker. Paint the outer edge of the CD green. Voila! The sound is better. That’s because some of the visible red portion of the scattered laser light gets into the photodetector and is detected as “real signal.” And the color green absorbs visible red light. The sound would be even better if the invisible near infrared scattered light is absorbed as with New Dark Matter. Recall the laser wavelength is 780 nm, near infrared. I did not create reality. The visible 👀 red portion is only what, about 1/3 of the total CD laser bandwidth, thus when the other 2/3 of the scattered light is absorbed the sound is much better still. Yes, I know what you’re thinking, “But my system already sounds fabulous.“ Pseudo skeptics never roll their sleeves up and investigate for themselves. That’s because they aren’t real skeptics. They’re rather argue until they’re blue in the face.🥶 |
"Sorry, but that thing just uses a cheap $20 slot load media disk spinner, like this. https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/TS-632A-GATEWAY-M-SERIES-SLOT-LOAD-DVD-RAM-DVDRW-DRIVE-TS-632A-GRADE-A-/264547058626?_trksid=p2385738.m4383.l4275.c10 Try going back to a real CD transport, with some cred." Actually the above is inaccurate and tells me you don’t know what you are talking about here. |
Actually, to add to that, I use SONY server probably 90% of the time for Internet radio. First I was lazy enough to change CDs, then I became lazy enough to even change songs. To make it worse, some days I am lazy enough to turn it on. I would need to get two remotes and click two buttons. What a drag... |
stereo5, "The music server is a Sony HAP-Z1ES which Stereophile rated an A+ and it received a very high rating from TAS. The Esoteric player is better, not by that much but it is more enjoyable sound."My observations, except that it is a Luxman SACD player, are similar. Even when using Luxman player as a DAC for SONY (with SSD). Differences are not that big, but I think they are consistent (no, I never did any kind of real test except "try this, switch to that"). Thankfully, I take it only as an interesting observation and it is the end of my involvement. Convenience prevails and I virtually never play CDs. And, to emphasize, difference may really be down to my preference and not to "better than...". |
Hey @puffbojie
, Other than Spotify you never mentioned what the streaming config was? setup can make a significant impact. Streamer, DAC, Network config, interconnects etc. Like a said before I have been streaming for years and been making little upgrades along the way each with SQ improvements. I stream internet radio. The station stream FLAC 16/44Khz. One of my configs is to stream off a URL via ROON. The other is to go directly to my endpoint using an app built specifically for the radio station. Significant difference in SQ for each implementation. |
@roberttdid, My Esoteric player is dated 2008. Ralph at Spearit Sound told me it was the third best player he ever heard, the other two were made by DCS. I really didn’t believe it at the time but this player sounds so right. The music server is a Sony HAP-Z1ES which Stereophile rated an A+ and it received a very high rating from TAS. The Esoteric player is better, not by that much but it is more enjoyable sound. |
Or you could join the world in 2020, and realize that what was true in 1992, when flash memory was $100/megabyte, ram was $30-40/megabyte, and a good DSP was at least $20-30 is not the same world as today, when I can get all that for a couple dollars in reasonable volume, and it is more than enough to handle enough pre-buffering to never run out due to minor speed fluctuations from the transport, and would do so at far less power (i.e noise), than even the ECC chips in late 80's, early 90's gen processors. Some people are lost in the forest, and are quite happy to be there. Problem is, they want to drag other people into the forest with them. Stereo5, most likely is that Esoteric sounds the way you like. Not technically better than another DAC, but sounds the way you like. Playing off a local SSD or memory card offers the potential for far lower noise than the electronics required to run a CD transport and error correction/interpolation. Rip your CDs to storage, and many programs will tell you exactly how many uncorrectable errors there are (if any). Many will even take multiple passes in an attempt to get an error free read. Everything is done "offline" so any transport or other issues disappear. At that point, it really comes down to the DAC, and if integrated, you pretty much eliminate any jitter from an optical or electrical interface. |
If I am feeling lazy, then I use the music server, if I want to listen to my system at its best, I use the Esoteric player. Yes you are, like many others that have found out and gone back to "a good" CD transport to listen to, not a rubbish one with all it’s error correcting and jitter. Some just can’t see (hear) the forest for the trees, they have their heads up https://www.ripleys.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/ostrich-head-in-sand.jpg Cheers George |
To the OP I copied all my discs to flash drives I connected to my roon core on a NUC I assembled and I don't hear any difference between the ripped version or streaming Qobuz. Same for playing the CD so I sold my player any new CDs i get I'll RIP. If you still want to spin CDs there are plenty of good players around. Marantz, Cambridge are a couple that come to mind. |
My Esoteric SACD player with the VRDS NEO transport is one of the best transports out there used with the BB pcm1704 R to R ladder DAC gives me far better sound than streaming from any source. If I am feeling lazy, then I use the music server, if I want to listen to my system at its best, I use the Esoteric player. George, am I on the right track? |
Except the error correction is designed to correct up to 4000 bit burst errors, hence why you have 0 tests or data to support your hypothesis even though this data would be ridiculously easy to obtain for almost free if not free. Without scratches unrecoverable errors are near nil with even a cheap transport. CDRom only adds to the error correction of audio CD. They work, fluttering, scattering light and all, at 52x speed. Imagine that ..... Buffering the data doesn’t prevent or correct the damage to data done when the laser attempts to read the physical data on the disc due to fluttering of the disc and scattered laser light getting into the photo detector. Buffering only stores the damaged data temporarily. The damage to the data and sound occurs in the first picosecond when the laser tries to read the data. All the King’s horses and all the King’s men couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty together again. 🍳 |
I too have learned that really high quality CD players can sound as good as or better than some server/streamer/DAC front ends. However, it seems that it is the quality and cost of the CD player that matters. I have a Rotel RCD 991 player that was most certainly mid-fi. With the addition of a Dexa low jitter clock, Burson Audio discrete Opamp replacement, some cap upgrades and precision resistors in the signal path, the player is transformed. My 1st step toward high resolution audio was a Mac Mini running JRiver into a PS Audio NuWave DSD DAC. The MM/NuWave certainly provides for information, data if you will, but not more music. A CD player can have the advantage of potentially lower jitter. No cables, no USB/Toslink/SPDIF/AES etc. to corrupt the signal. My CD player makes me want to listen more and more carefully. It draws me in and helps me make an emotional connection with the music. It is just more enjoyable and "musical" ( a meaningless term, unless you have experienced directly the "thing" that makes your toe tap and has you singing along). A few dedicated CD players can be the basis for very high resolution and accurate audio systems. I have heard and enjoyed some Audio Research units that were amazing. Bryston, Hegel (I have not heard in my home) and others have made some focused "CD only" players that one might want to try. CDs, better than you might think they are. |
Buffering the data doesn’t prevent or correct the damage to data done when the laser attempts to read the physical data on the disc due to fluttering of the disc and scattered laser light getting into the photo detector. Buffering only stores the damaged data temporarily. The damage to the data and sound occurs in the first picosecond when the laser tries to read the data. All the King’s horses and all the King’s men couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty together again. 🍳 |
Ignore me all you want, but that doesn’t change that a buffered and reclocked output negates timing issue in a low cost transport not to mention the way that error correction does work, not the way you claimed it does negates almost all errors except on well scratched CDs. I am sorry that you think accurate information is twisted. |
I debated between getting another CD player when mine died and getting a Bluesound Vault. With good advice from a local audio store I went with the bluesound and never looked back. Loaded all my CD’s, buy them for $2 or so when I want something, can listen for hours with playlists. Don’t have to pay monthly for steaming or depend on network issues. Highly recommended. |
Georgehifi, You are just digging A bigger and bigger hole. Jitter is not remotely the same as uncorrectable read errors. A buffered and reclocked CD player using a $20 mechanism will be near jitter free within the limits of the interconnect method which has nothing to do with the transport. I don’t appreciate the constant attempts at personal attacks to cover up for your own lack of knowledge. Based on your own test it should be clear I am the real audiophile and you are not. You called me not a real audiophile based on my perceived lack of knowledge of a test that didn’t even exist. I knew what the tests actually was. Your test for an audiophile not mine. You are applying 1980s and early 1990s CD architecture operation to newer CD players. As another has noted, where this all started, the Bryston reads into a buffer and reclocks. The mechanism is at that point meaningless to jitter. Your argument is akin to saying that jitter on a streamer must be huge because jitter over an internet connection is enormous. Obviously that is not the case. |
Yes I should have a little more specific, for the one that likes to turn things around to make himself look good. Transport "Clock Error" "Speed Error!! is what it measures, not Tracking Errors. AT&T ST high speed glass fiber optical with indexing fluid helps reduce jitter, what’s with you!!! And yes to those here, all three above are transport related errors and to how they sound, and why that slot loaded junk is not up to scratch, compared to a good transport. Cheers George |
So let me get this right. You think that an optical output using AT&T high speed glass fiber somehow has an impact on the error rate reading off the mechanism. Well then, there is probably not much use of further discussion. Posting pictures of the Wadia does not make your statement any more correct. You can’t measure error rate at the output of a CD player, or even a transport for that matter, you have to have access to raw data in the transport (or player) in order to determine error rate. I think there have been some players that showed it over the years, but not a popular features. "Not an audiophile". Is this your poor attempt at "no true Scottsman" or simply an ad-hom? If you let me know, I can better address your attempted but poorly executed insult. Some of us actually care enough about acoustics and audio to have made both an academic and working career out of it. p.s. I can’t remember anything from Arnie and Paul w.r.t. error rate testing at the output of a transport (since you can’t really do it, it is already corrected at that point), but I do remember a somewhat questionable "report" on jitter. Arnie really was into this concept of black CDs for a while too. Iaf you were an audiophile which your clearly not, you would probably know Arnie Nudell (rip) and Paul McGowan did such a thing (you find out what) and showed it to you in a numerical error counter on the display. |
There is a good video on youtube about the ability to pick the higher res source (mp3 and wave file were used). Pretty interesting.....A young lady was used as the listener and I would assume being young, she had excellent hearing....in a few instances, she was unable to tell the difference and chose the lower res files...I think she scored 4 out of 6...I’m still looking for the link. Disclaimer: I’m fully content with the sound of my CD’s and associated equipment and have no desire to ever stream anything Hi-res. I do own many MA Recordings which in themselves are quite spectacular. |
If only there was a way of showing what the correctable and uncorrectable error rate coming off a CD rip or similar was available If you were an audiophile which your clearly not, you would probably know Arnie Nudell (rip) and Paul McGowan did such a thing (you find out what) and showed it to you in a numerical error counter on the display. Frightening seeing the differences between good and bad transports, that the error correction didn’t get right. The lowest count I saw was the Wadia T2000 transport using it’s AT&T High Speed"Glass Fiber" optical output connections using expensive indexing fluid on both ends. https://ibb.co/PYGZd7t https://ibb.co/yNmgR1W |
If only there was a way of showing what the correctable and uncorrectable error rate coming off a CD rip or similar was available .... oh right, there is. Fancy words, easily proven correct. So .... let’s have it. I am sure you have lots of data to support this hypothesis given how easy it would be to collect that data? What, you don’t have any data to support your hypothesis. Color me shocked! Shocked I say!!! The Reed Solomon error detection and correction algorithms are much more effective for predictable errors like radial scratches and fingerprints than for unpredictable errors like scattered CD laser light and fluttering of the CD whilst playing, for which the laser servo feedback mechanism is not 100% effective. |
For those that are interested when there is a bit-error, or even multiple bit errors, I do suggest reading about how it works, not the inaccurate guess stated below. Interpolation only occurs when errors cannot be corrected. There are multiple levels of error correction and fully 25% of the data on a CD is redundant. If you don’t scratch your CDs, then you will have almost no unfixable errors on your whole CD. Contrary to what many believe, you don’t have data bits and error correction bits all closely packed physically, they are spaced around the CD to reduce the impact of scratches. You don’t have a "good byte" on either side that is used to guess the one in the middle. That is not remotely what happens. That only happens if the scratches / defects are so severe that error correction cannot correct them. The methodology used for CDs allow full correction of up to 4000 bits, or about 2.5mm: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.462.3524&rep=rep1&type=pdf For those interested in what happens when a byte can’t be read. |
The Reed Solomon error detection and correction algorithms are much more effective for predictable errors like radial scratches and fingerprints than for unpredictable errors like scattered CD laser light and fluttering of the CD whilst playing, for which the laser servo feedback mechanism is not 100% effective. External vibration is also a big challenge for both Reed Solomon and the laser servo feedback system. That is why the sound you hear from a CD is missing information that is clearly audible on the vinyl or tape version of the same recording. And it’s why CDs frequently sound hard and 2-dimensional and sour. It’s not the CD’s fault, it’s the CD player’s fault. The CD itself contains all the intricate nano scale physical information, you just can’t extract the information correctly without rectifying all the inherent problems in the CD player. That’s the way the cookie crumbles. |
arctikdeth Try putting a 1kohm 1/4w resistor between L & R output of the cd player or dac your using, to bleed the channel separation down to around 30db It will richen things up a little as the best vinyl can do is 30db at 1khz but in the bass and up high it’s much worse around 10db. What the 1kohm resistor does on the cdp or dac output is across the board approx 30db of channel separation, reducing it down some 80db from 110db, not exactly mimicking vinyl channel separation but a simple way to get the idea. The ideal would be a passive network between L & R to copy the channel separation characteristics of the Lyra cartridge graph below This is the channel separation of a expensive Lyra phono cartridge, lower traces are the channel separation curves. https://ibb.co/FhhbHNZ Cheers George |
Streamed for 2-3 weeks. Prefer cd and LP. Vinyl to me is the best sound! The mild crackles, ticks, pops are pure magic to me! Which is why I record my LP’s to cd, and clean up a bit, but still love the vinyl tone. Vinyl is the only music I play which my dogs (rip) never left the room, no matter the music, metal, blues, etc, they never left my side. laid on the couch with me, at my feet, etc! I would put on a cd, and within 5 minutes, they would get up, and lay in the kitchen or upstairs. Strange, goes to show the mellow tone and great sound of vinyl! |
Go away, like I said can't see the forest through the trees. For those interested in what happens when a byte can't be read. If a scratch has created read errors, you’re not completely hosed., "there is a pretty good chance that an uncorrected byte still has a good byte on either side". If that’s the case, then your CD player will take an average for those two values "and make an "educated guess" about what the missing value should be in between". If the number of missing bytes gets to be too large, the system will suppress the error by muting the sound for a fraction of a second, which is hopefully too short a period of time to be detected. At a certain point, of course, you’ll start to hear the difference. Like when the CD starts to repeat. Cheers George |
This is not remotely how error correction works. There are many errors correction levels and it is most certainly not a "guess". The only time data is interpolated is after all the error correction fails which is very rare if the disk does not have significant scratches. With a well aligned transport, which most are even inexpensive, and well aligned writer, BER for a good quality CDR media can be lower than a manufactured disk. No wonder the burnt cd’s always sound brighter to many, there’s many more errors being fixed, and that’s just a 50% chance to get a 1 or a 0 correct, because an error is replaced by what was read before, and that’s a 50% chance to get it right. This is why many CD players won’t even play burnt cd’s as they can’t even read the TOC (table of contents) |
The difference in sound quality between a good CD player and a really expensive CD player is not the mechanism.I didn’t say it was the only thing sunshine, you have to stop looking for angles to make your self look good, it don’t work here. Have a look at the electronics and what you get inside with that cheap **** slot load transport, then compare it to what’s inside the ML 37 transport Like I said can’t see the forest for the trees. |