Is revealing always good?

Robster, I've never tried a tube buffer and it might work. You might post a question about the experience of others. FWIW, the single biggest component change I've made in my system which helped with early digital issues was the introduction of a tubed pre amp into my system (an AR SP-10) and a tubed CDP (Cal Aria). That was a long time ago. :-) My system has changed entirely since that time and, except for my main CDP's it is now all tubes and I have no 'digital' issues. FWIW.

Are you paying attention to vibration control?
What is under your CD player?
Are the original feet still on it?
Have you tried removing them and using something else
instead? What kind of support (shelf) is it resting on?
How are you cleaning or treating a cd before playing it?
Are you using a cd mat?

If you play with these variables you might get more satisfying results...

for clarification, the system sounds fantastic with well recorded CDs --- better with the more revealing CD player but still excellent with the less revealing player. With CDs that have typical recording quality again the system approaches sounding excellent with either CD player (slightly better with the more expensive revealing player.. but quite close and still very, very nice sounding) The issue arises when the CD is recorded with digititus, brightness --- typical of a good subset of the CDs i like to listen to. With these CDs the revealing player sounds biting, harsh and "lets through everything." Through the less revealing player, these CDs sound much better. Seemingly, the Creek (the less revealing player) presumably "rounds off" (adds coloration?) makes more smooth the digititus and makes quite listenable these CDs. The more revealing (less colored... more neutral?) CD player renders these CDs as they are... harsh and biting. So... yes it is the nature of these recordings to be harsh. This is largely why so many prefer analog over digital --- because much redbook digital is poorly recorded.

Based on this, I assert that coloration --- a component asserting its own character --- is not always bad and that neutrality is not always the best.

Thus, for digital playback... revealing may not be that desirable.

Newbee: Thanks!

I have a tubed pre-amp. Earlier I had a tubed Ayon CD player and the digititus then was not a problem (as much). I got rid of that unit for other reasons. I will ask others about the tube buffer.

So... a theoretical question for all... do tubes (in a pre-amp or the CD player) color and obscure the digititus that is on the disk and thereby give a smoother more listenable presentation? If so, is this an example of positive coloration? Is it an example of a less "true" yet better presentation of the recording? Finally, are tubes so often preferred because we like the coloration --- the sonic contributions they ADD to the sound? All this goes back to the contention that revealing is not always good and coloration not always bad.

There are many dimensions so digital sound. Revealing or "focus" is only one of them. Jitter is the biggest issue with most digital. Jitter can make things harsh, even though the mid-frequencies are in sharp focus. Other frequency ranges can be blurred. Jitter has a frequency component, amplitude component and distribution component. You can have any mix of these.

Another thing that can cause the kind of sibilance you are experiencing is HF extension that you have not had before. If you have a sibilant component or cable in your system, once the signal is extended and focused it can cause this sibilant component to "activate". Suddenly you have sibilance where you had none before. This is fairly typical of preamps based on op-amps or poorly fabricated silver interconnects. The way to fix this is to eliminate the sibilant component or cable from the system. You also may have a ground-loop that is getting more noisy with the new transport in the system. Try using cheater plugs to determine this.

If you get better focus, this is usually the right path, so think twice about eliminating the transport. It may be something else.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio