Taming edge from remastered CDs?

I have never found this to be the case. I believe it is because you either did not use a CD burner and media that achieves the lowest jitter, or you have other sibilant components in your system, such as your CD transport, cables or preamp. Sometimes, when the source is cleaned-up, it aggravates other problems in the system.

Try a Plextor writer and good media such as Mitsui Audio Master disks. Clean the blanks with a quality cleaner/treatment before burning them.

If this does not work, then I recommend a reclocker for the digital signal feeding a good DAC, such as the Metrum Octave.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

Nicotico - remastering from the master tape or disk is usually an improvement, but what we are talking about here is re-writing the disk to reduce jitter. Even remastered disks are made from glass-masters that have high-jitter in the pits. Rewriting them helps a lot. Jitter is the #1 problem in digital. This is the reason why I dont use or sell any modded CD transports anymore, only computer audio. Lower jitter.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

Ivan - you are totally wrong in this one. Jitter is what makes 99% of digital systems edgy, harsh and fatigueing. You have just never heard a low jitter system, and if you did, there was probabl an active preamp in the way creating so much distortion and compression that you did not hear the benefits of low jitter.

Most DAC designers agree on this one. The ones that dont agree dont know what they are doing anyway.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

Last_lemming - The pits in the commercial disk made from a glass-master are not precisely placed. This is because these are virtually "stamped-out" rather than written using a laser and a drive.

When you use a laser disk writer with a low-jitter master clock, clean high-quality media and write the CDROM disk at a 1X rate, the pits are not only more geometrically perfect, the positions of them are more accurately placed on the disk. These things enable the disk to be read in a CD player with lower jitter, since the clock in the drive must synchronize to the pits in the disk.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

"It has to do with some sand paper and a black magic marker that you use on your cd's!I tried it and it works pretty awesome!!."

You would get better results if you rewrote the CD on CDROM from a .wav file ripped using dbpoweramp on a PC. Use Mitsui Gold Audio Master CDROM disks and clean with with a a good conditioner before burning them. Use a plextor drive on 1X speed.

Even after all of this however, it will still not be as good as just playing back the .wav file using a good USB converter from a Mac Mini. Been there and done that. Seems like a lot of trouble just to try to salvage an aging technology. I have not had a CD transport in my rack for probably 5 years.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

"power conditioning (whatever that turns out to be) IME turns out to be (provided you do your homework first) generally much cheaper and can completely solve the problem of the digital nasties while also improving the usual parameters involved with that approach (blacker background, better decay, better extension etc)."

This depends entirely on the component. If the jitter is high, no amount of AC power conditioning will fix this. It can however act like a tube buffer, adding compression and HF rolloff, which can smooth-out the music, at the expense of detail and imaging. Even poorly designed cables can do this. Its going down the garden path however, not addressing the real problem.

I use no conditioning whatsoever and never have, even at shows. I still earn best sound of show frequently.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

"FWIW, I use an Oknyo DX-C390 CD changer as a transp. (certainly nothing special there), out via a Mapleshade Double Helix, digital RCA to a Monarchy DIP Combo, out via another Helix, to a Ric-Schultz-modified, diffrentially balanced Begringer DEQ2496."

You are evidently trying to address jitter, but believe me, you are not even remotely close to getting there. The digital source is THE MOST IMPORTANT thing in the system, next to the speakers and amps. Even more important than a modded DAC. I used to mod the DIP for customers, but I dont mod anymore. There are much better ways than this to reduce jitter in CD players. However you must either replace your transport with a megabuck transport and then re-write your CDs to reduce pit jitter, or add a better reclocker to your existing transport that totally blocks its jitter.

Even if you do either of these, it will still not approach the jitter levels now possible with USB interfaces, at least some of them. For the same money, you are better off to buy a 2009 Mac Mini and a USB converter than an expensive CD transport. I have had many CD transports from customer in my system over the years, which I used to mod for them. None of thse hold a candle to a good USB interface.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

Ivan - I have tried several minis, including the Mach2music when they were around. The best I have found is the late 2009 with AC adapter:

http://www.empiricalaudio.com/computer-audio/recommended-systems

http://eshop.macsales.com/Descriptions/specs/Framework.cfm?page=macminilate09.html

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

What's a USB converter?

Small box that converts USB to S/PDIF, AES/EBU, I2S etc.. Have you heard of Off-Ramp, HiFace, Audiophilleo?

Do you mean computer USB out to DAC to pre-amp?

I dont like active preamps. They ruin most audio systems.

I prefer computer to USB converter to DAC to amps or computer to USB DAC to amps.

Why a Mac Mini, and in particular a 2009 version?

Because I have tested other Macs and PCs. 2009 mini seems to deliver the best SQ. Better than 2011 or 2012 mini. Macbook pro is also good. Specific versions of Amarra are excellent with itunes as a player. This is all explained on my forum and webpage.

Will no other PC, Laptop or Netbook work?

Netbooks dont have good USB ports or enough FSB bandwidth. Some PCs are okay, if you use Jplay for the player with Foobar2000 etc.. Even on the Mac Mini, only one specific USB port is excellent. The others are not as good.

Good USB cable is required and common-mode USB filter also helps.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio