[batphink]

The difference between old CD players and new ones are the drives.
 
When CDs first came out in the 1980's, there were 2 kinds of drives: CD-ROM drives and CD-audio drives.  CD-ROM drives were for computers and CD-audio drives were for music players.  In the late 1990's, CD-ROM drives became cheaper than CD-audio drives.  Electronics companies began to use CD-ROM drives instead of the CD-audio drives to save money and to add features to their players.  Manufacturers such as Toshiba and Sony quickly stopped making CD-audio drives due to lack of demand.  Modern CD players (also DVD and Blu-ray players) are simple computers programmed to perform specifics tasks.
 
I became aware of this almost a decade ago when the major music labels began releasing CDs with copy-protection.  Some players with CD-ROM drives can't play these CDs.  Players with CD-audio don't have this problem because they "ignore" any non-audio data on a CD.  They're designed to play music and nothing else.  I've found that players with CD-audio drives have far superior audio quality to players with CD-ROM drives.  Hang on to that Denon for as long as you can.

 

[Deep Funk]

X2!

 

[Ultrainferno]

I'm never ever selling my 1990-91 rig

 

[coolcat]

My Arcam cd-73 sounds far better than my vintage sony cdp x229es (I think they are in the same price-range  500 euro vs 1000 DM).
I now use my sony for Transport purpose.

 

[ProzacMessiah]

I still have the first CD player I ever owned, a Pioneer PD-5700.  It's a nondescript single disc player that I bought in 1990 or 1991 for between $100 and $200, IIRC.  I used it regularly for the first 10 years or so, then boxed it for a couple of years while I was moving back and forth and living in smaller quarters.  I brought it back into service when I had need of a second CD player. After a couple months it started having trouble reading discs, so I had it serviced.  It's run like a top ever since, and I use it more than the Sony CE-595 in my home theater system because the Pioneer is connected to my Heed CanAmp.  It sounds good to me, but I've neither noticed much difference between digital sources nor put much effort into comparing them.
 
I've never A/B'd the Pioneer and the Sony because removing the Sony from my main rig and then reinstalling it later would be a hassle, but it was pretty easy to A/B the Sony and the Xbox/Onkyo DAC.  I didn't notice any differences between those two.  I've considered breaking the Sony out for a test not so much because of the age difference but because the Pioneer uses something called 1 Bit DLC (Direct Linear Conversion), which seems like a different approach than 'traditional' DACs.  Does anyone know anything about this?

 

[daveDerek]

my early '90s vintage pioneer elite pd-93 is a wonderful player that held it's own against far more expensive players and transport/dac combos for quite a while, sometimes shaming some 'prestigious' brands (eg. more expensive gear that stereophile rated as class A). it's boxed away at the moment and i'm not sure how it compares to current designs but it's not something that disappoints and it's build quality is really something else!

 

[krumme]

 
Quote:

The nature of human memory (puts on "Psychologist" hat) being what it is, long term listening is *more* likely to be *less* sensitive than quick switching, Tom Nousaine's article "Flying Blind" for instance outlines how long term listeners were unable to detect 2.5% distortion in a black box, whereas in rapid switching tests the difference was reliably detected, to date there really is no verifiable strong evidence for the idea that long term listening is a sensitive method of detecting small differences, nobody (afaik) has ever done any serious long term tests...
 
Ironically, one could test this quite simply. Give a listener two sources and run level matched DBTs when one or both sources is new/unknown to the listener, get a baseline measure of detection, then allow the listener to live with both for an extended period; days, weeks or months and the rerun the DBTs. 
 
If the long term listening is effective then the differences would be detected. Anecdotally my kit sounds different from day to day, it always sounds better for instance when I have finished teaching for the day

 and it (hopefully) is not changing in between much. With so much variability caused by human perception I would hesitate to rely on long term memory.

 

 

Realy nice and funny post. Our memory is realy contructed on the run. We can have solid memories of things that did not happen. We know from test we can plant memory on peoples mind.
 
Well you post makes me wonder if one test could simple be to measure over a long run how long time the equipment was used?

 

[SeeHear]

Quote:



Indeed, by 1990 you had 18 or 20 bit and 8x oversampling CD players where the noise was inaudible and distortion was at absurdly low levels and the FRs were by design utterly razor flat, between 1984 when I had a 14 bit Marantz machine and 1989 when I got a newer Marantz the performance had improved massively !

As for audible differences between CD players, that is a different matter. Once I had bought a decent Switch Box and was able to switch between CD players synchroniized and playing the same CD it became apparent to me that the biggest difference was always volume, I have 3 CD players and a separate DAC and no two have the same output level, the DAC is 0.7db hotter than the quietest CD player and when switching always sounds bettter, however I recorded samples from my CD players and adjusted the volumes and when compared (even crudely) volume matched the differences were inaudible.

Whilst it is possible to design a CD player to sound different, and Wadia for instance notoriously add a 3db roll off to their DACs, many reported differences between CD players may simpy be due to flawed comparisons where listeners rely on memory often hours, days or even weeks old, and do not correctly adjust volume levels to make fair comparsons, the Spanish hifi site Matriixhifi for instance did level matched blind tests between a Pioneeer $230 DVD player and a $12000 Oracle CD player, none of their audiophile members could detect a difference.

If you look at test measurements for CD players such as Stereophile's apart from some oddiities the FR, the single most important audio parameter, is always flat from 20 - 20K. That being so why would two flat CD players be significantly audibly different, other CDP parameters such as noise and distortion and crosstalk are typically beyond reproach.

I remember doing a shootout between several of our more expensive Sony, Denon, Yamaha and the (then new) Adcom CD player in the late 80s. While the others all sounded pretty much the same (good), the Adcom was head and shoulders better at defining the members of a choir, or orchestra, as well as having good tonal characteristics. I had already bought my Denon 1400; if i had been in the market, the Adcom was a no brainer. Later, in the mid 90s, the Adcom 700 DAC proved to punch way above its weight, too. I only bought a new DAC when I started buying hi-res files because the Adcom topped out at 16/48. I still use it occasionally to play HDCD encoded files.

 

[gimmeheadroom]

I hated CDs when they came out and I blame the DACs. I didn't listen to digital again until a few years ago. It seems to me that modern DACs make a huge difference. My Audiolab 8300CD is pure killer. I blame the 9018 and Audiolab's power supply cleanliness.

 

[bobbmd]

I have 2 cd changers a 2005 Yamaha c-750 cd/sacd/dvd-a/dvd changer had it 'cleaned' up by a vintage HiFi shop works great the other a Harman/Kardon fl8370 HDCD changer must be from from 1990's or early 2000's had it cleaned up by the same shop and it is great for direct headphone listening to my Dead HDCD discs and both are connected to Yggdrasil GS DAC(the HK) and other directly to Ragnarok 2 amp. The amp is one schiitload of a headphone BTW.
I also have a Pioneer Elite 6 disc changer that I don't use anymore from late 1980's but it works fine sounds great when I last hooked it to my vintage Pioneer Elite M-90 power amp(1987 or 88)

 

[jimbop54]

I have two old CD players: a Marantz CD67SE single disc, and an Adcom GCD600 5-disc carousel player. The Adcom sounds noticeably better than the Marantz.

 

[gregorio]

[1] It's true that the SQ of my Denon is very good, but the DAC inside is probably obsolete.
[2] How could a 20 year old DAC compete against the new ones that we can find in player like the CD5004 ?

1. Obsolete for what reason? Obsolete simply because it's not manufactured any more or obsolete because more recent DACs have far higher (audible) performance? Even in the 1980's, DAC performance had reached the limits of audibility. Therefore:
2. This question is effectively backwards, it should be: How can a 20 year old DAC not compete with newer ones? It is of course possible that cheap DACs in the late 80's were incompetently designed and that more recent cheap DACs are less likely to be incompetently designed but beyond that, there's no answer! So, why does it seem so odd that a 30 year old DAC should be able to compete with a modern one? The answer is quite obvious if you think about it: If we all knew and accepted the facts, where would that leave the audiophile industry? The audiophile industry relies on introducing/selling "better" equipment and content, so if the equipment/content couldn't get audibly better then there couldn't be an audiophile industry. There's only two solutions: A. Introduce/Sell equipment which is technically but NOT audibly better, however only a small number (of the already small audiophile market) will buy on that basis alone and/or B. Falsely state that previous technical issues were audible, that their new DAC fixes those issues and therefore IS audibly better: Jitter, 16bit and 44.1kHz sample rate being just a few obvious examples of falsely thrashed to death audiophile marketing.

I hated CDs when they came out and I blame the DACs. I didn't listen to digital again until a few years ago. It seems to me that modern DACs make a huge difference.

You are of course free to blame whatever you want but the actual facts don't support your assertion. There are measurable differences and relatively they are "huge" but they're not audible. For example, several current high quality DACs have a jitter noise floor of around -140dB, while a 30 year old high quality DAC might have a jitter noise floor of -100dB, that's a difference of about 100 times, which is pretty "huge"! However, a jitter noise floor at -100dB is already inaudible and inaudible is inaudible, a hundred times lower than inaudible is still just inaudible, there's no audible difference!

G

 

[Sonic Defender]

I hated CDs when they came out and I blame the DACs. I didn't listen to digital again until a few years ago. It seems to me that modern DACs make a huge difference. My Audiolab 8300CD is pure killer. I blame the 9018 and Audiolab's power supply cleanliness.

I think I owned that Audiolab. It was nice, but I really did find the Saber glare noticeable and I found it fatiguing for extended listening so I sold it. I know not everyone finds the glare problematic, but it was for me. Compared to my Rega Apollo CD player, I did tend to prefer the Rega.

 

[Spareribs]

Last summer I bought a brand new $300 Yamaha dedicated CD player and made recently. I love it. Maybe it’s a placebo effect but I think it sounds great. Definitely a fan of buying a dedicated CD player.

 

[bobbmd]

hello y'all see my post #25 above I didn't Google the DAC info on those changers I have but if my memory is correct I think all had Burr-Brown chips for certain the Pioneer Elite did and as I said after getting them all 'refreshed' new belts cleaning laser dust and oil removed they all sound great--sort of goes with what others are saying and of course one's subjective opinions!! And it is much easier to load 5-6 discs and hit shuffle than one at a time and I still feel they all sound 'better' than streaming music in Hi Res MQA etc but not by much.
bobbmd