[Garbz]

Quote:

Originally Posted by drarthurwells The only valid test is AB where A is week of listening to a few CDs and B is listening with a changed compnent, again for a week, but with the same CDs. Has to do with perceptual discrimination - rapid switching between A and B prevents good discrimination except where differences are really obvious. A week of A then a week with B enables disrimination of even subtle differences.

I could not agree more. I tend to find my mind takes days to adjust to a change. After a week or so I may realise that eq curve doesn't suit right, or the speakers were infact to close to a wall etc. In my opinion I think change in mind also accounts for the "burn-in" in components where there is no technical burn-in possible within the realm of physics.

Quote:

Originally Posted by hciman77 If the differences are huge then surely any half decent system (transparent) will reveal them i.e my M3 and Sennheiser HD580s should be good enough for me to detect a gross difference, both are recognised as good quality but not really top end. If they cant do this then the difference cannot be huge. If the differences are subtle then it becomes arguable that there are differences at all. You are right that you must only change one variable at a time oitherwise it is fatally flawed, this of course includes level matching which is sometimes tricky - my digital sources have very different output levels the NAD carries a 2V signal and my Entech a 2.5V signal. In that sense rapid ABing is flawed as I have to adjust the volume.

Yes your senns should do wonderfully. I can hear plainly obvious differences between my sources using my hd580s and dynamid. Also your mind should almost always favour the louder signal in quality comparisons. Another weird psychological affect I have no scientific explaination for.

 

[lipidicman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Garbz Also your mind should almost always favour the louder signal in quality comparisons. Another weird psychological affect I have no scientific explaination for.

It is so stupid people make themselves go deaf with their iBuds. That way they can't hear you insulting them and the world is a safer and better place.

 

[rock\]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr_Sukebe Some thoughts: - Regardless of what some people might say, CDPs can and do get better. After all, if there were no differences, do you seriously believe that so many people are stupid and gullible enough to blow thousands on expensive electronics?

Do you really need me to answer that question for you? Come on...be realistic. People will buy anything that will impress their friends. I have to sit at work and listen to V.P.'s brag about how much money they spend on complete junk.

Don't get me wrong, I can completely understand the chase for audio nirvana. Being able to enjoy music at a level that makes you feel like the musician is in your house is definitely worth chasing.

I just don't like when "audiophiles" put people down who don't have that same type of commitment. Some of us have important things to spend our money on...Or these same people try to tell you something is wrong with you because you don't hear the difference between a $10 cable and a $500 cable.

And if I spend $5000 on something, I don't want subtle changes, I want obvious changes. Would you settle for subtle on any other non-audio purchases? Would you spend $50k more for college for your kids for a school that was only subtly better than the in-state school? I think that is the position that most of us budget minded folks are coming from.

You don't have to spend $50,000 to have a great system. Hopefully, we can all agree on that.

 

[trains are bad]

For my own consumption, I consider CD players, from wall-mart level on up, roughly equivalent, especially on speakers. This is doubly true if it's just acting as a transport going to a DAC.

JMO.

 

[philodox]

And what have you 'consumed'?

 

[LeonvB]

A significant change of a single component only does wonders if there's really nothing to hold it back. Also, one should be aware of what you're testing. In this case the Xbox (which is a very good transport) is connected to the receiver which acts as a DAC. The lack of change compared to the CE595 as a (also very good) transport + DAC does not surpise me. You're basicly testing the receiver DAC vs. the CE595 DAC, and it's likely their components are about of the same quality (if not equal).
One should also know that the CE595 is a decent CDP, but only truely excels in 2 things: price + SA-CD performance.

 

[trains are bad]

Quote:

And what have you 'consumed'?

PS2, computer drive, PCDP, consumer grade panasonic DVD player, Total Bithead and MicroDac.

If the FLAC->MicroDAC doesn't sound appreciably better than my PS2 than I assume even high end CDPs don't either. This leads me to the conclusion that all CDPs (on speakers) are equivalent for practical purposes regarding sound quality.

I do think I can tell a small difference between microdac and ps2 on headphones. I DEFINATELY don't think I can tell a difference in FLAC->microdac and PS2->optical->microdac.

It's odd, because sometimes I CAN abx poor lossy compression on my speakers when I can't do so on phones.

I actually don't even use a CDP anymore. I just use the computer and dac; CDPs are fully obsolete nowadays IMO.

 

[Filburt]

Hi Prozac!

My experience so far has been that I can get better price/performance ratio out of a basic transport and some sort of external DAC. One of the benefits of this approach is you can modify and tailor the DAC's sound to taste which can be really helpful in maximising performance. Another is that some companies, while they can build a good D/A section, don't have the resources to build a complete CD player. Their lack of being able to produce a complete solution may keep them out of the higher priced market, but you as a consumer can benefit from the good D/A section built at a lower price than what you'd get in an equivalent complete solution.

The CE595 isn't a *bad* player, but I found that even my portable (a modified PCDP from '89) sounds better to me. Looking at the specifications of your Onkyo, I'm honestly not particularly surprised that your Onkyo matches it in quality. From a technical standpoint, they may simply perform similarly.

Still, the source can make a very large difference on the final sound. Probably second only to the headphones themselves. I haven't found the more budget-level players to really get the sort of performance I've encountered with similarly priced DAC solutions. While I realise people stress that you need a great transport, cable, whatever, my observation has been both in subjective tests and in scientific measurements that relatively high performance can be achieved with a basic transport. Some devices also don't react much to transports because their receiver reclocks the signal anyway, which can be argued as both good and bad I think.

 

[hciman77]

Quote:

Originally Posted by trains are bad For my own consumption, I consider CD players, from wall-mart level on up, roughly equivalent, especially on speakers. This is doubly true if it's just acting as a transport going to a DAC. JMO.

X2

For the record I have consumed the following in the last 2.5 years - at estimated street prices,I still have the ones in Bold.

Marantz CC4300 (~$200)
Denon DCD560 (~$450)
Rotel RCD855 (~$400)
Rotel RCD02 (~$460)
Rotel RCD975 (~$750)
Rotel RCC940 (~$400)
Onix XCD88 (~$300)
NAD CD542 (~$450)
Yamaha CDC685 (~$200)
Philips DVP642 (~$50)

Of these the only one that I felt at the time was radically different from the others was the Onix - in the context of a Onix/GL/HD580s system. For whatever reason I never really got on with it.

Obviously this is mostly midfi with the possible exception of the 975 which was Rotel's high end model (big toroid, twiin DACS, Black Gates etc.) at the time and the Philips of course at the other end of the scale, but they reflect very different approaches in terms of stuff like diff DACs (Single/Twin) , differential adjustments, diff bit settings 16/18/20/24, diff oversampling or upsampling, internal component quality and so on.

Just my experience of course. Now I cannot say that all CD players sound much the same, just to me, and just the ones I have heard. FWIW apart from the Onix I have never had a CD player that I actually disliked as such.

 

[philodox]

hciman77 - Unfortunately I have zero experience with any of the sources you listed. I can say that I have noticed rather large differences between various cd players, DACs and transports. Have a look at this thread for some recent impressions: http://www6.head-fi.org/forums/showthread.php?t=192972

That thread is pretty entertaining in itself with us bugging JAGWiRE, but there is a link in the first post which has impressions that Renato [looser101] and I noted when comparing a few DAC's and a CD player.

You may also find this thread interesting regarding different transports: http://www6.head-fi.org/forums/showthread.php?t=116956 Quote:

Originally Posted by trains are bad If the FLAC->MicroDAC doesn't sound appreciably better than my PS2 than I assume even high end CDPs don't either. This leads me to the conclusion that all CDPs (on speakers) are equivalent for practical purposes regarding sound quality.

The MicroDAC is a decent portable source. I don't think it can really be compared with most good home setups however. Perhaps the PS2 is just better than people give it credit for? Quote:

Originally Posted by trains are bad I do think I can tell a small difference between microdac and ps2 on headphones. I DEFINATELY don't think I can tell a difference in FLAC->microdac and PS2->optical->microdac.

What sound card? I would generally say that the PS2 and most computer setups are poor transports. Not finding a difference between two poor components is not all that revealing. Don't get me wrong, I have heard good computer setups, but in general I find them to be lacking.

 

[edstrelow]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Garbz The use of ABX is questionable at times. Often some elementry items such as cdplayers or amplifiers (tube vs solid state) have failed ABX tests even though there are clearly audible and measurable differences. I put it down to how the brain operates on music. There is only a few seconds memory on exactly what something sounds like, so comparing ABX may not work because of this reason. That said being a musician I know what instruments sound like and rather than ABX and listen for differences, I'd rather spend an hour on one device and listen for its qualities and buy like that.

This is a very good point about human discrimination abilities. Sure if a difference is very prominent you may pick it up with an A/B or double blind test but failing to find it doesn't mean it's not there, just that its characteristics are lost in memory at the time of testing or confused by the test procedure.

A simple example that most people can probably do for themselves:
If you have a digital photo enhancement program, try making minor adjustments on a picture with something like saturation, color contrast or whatever. You will easily observe the changes in the perceptual quality as you perform small adjustments but are unlikely to be able to detect which of two pictures differing slightly in these characteristics is for example more saturated, especially if the pictures are shown to you one after another as is done with auditory testing.

So failure on A/B and double blind testing doesn't establish that there are no perceptible differences.

I agree that you may have to live with a component for a while to fully appreciate its sonic qualities. Old hi-fi stores used to let you take equipment home to see how you liked it over time. That's pretty rare now.

 

[regal]

Quote:

Originally Posted by philodox I would generally say that the PS2 and most computer setups are poor transports. Not finding a difference between two poor components is not all that revealing. Don't get me wrong, I have heard good computer setups, but in general I find them to be lacking.

Jitter measurements have confirmed that computers make poor transports.

 

[jrosenth]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ProzacMessiah I was considering buying the ES version of this player, mainly for direct track access via remote and better expected durability due to its beefier components, but I would no longer have any expectation of better quality sound.

I had the 595 and bought the ES version of it and there was a noticeable difference both via RCA and digital outputs in sound quality - really noticeable, like noticeable to a wife who is hardly interested in this sort of stuff even when playing through through mid-fi Energy speakers, now even more noticeable with some fostex fullrangers. Honestly think it is very close to the un-modded Onix-88 and an amazing deal.

A simple A/B with it and a toshiba 3960 via optical outs both going to a panny 55 shows huge differences to family and friends.

 

[Mr_Sukebe]

Quote:

Originally Posted by trains are bad If the FLAC->MicroDAC doesn't sound appreciably better than my PS2 than I assume even high end CDPs don't either. This leads me to the conclusion that all CDPs (on speakers) are equivalent for practical purposes regarding sound quality.

So let me get this right, you've never heard a high end dedicated CDP, but based on your experience with budget gear you "conclude" that all CDPs are pretty much equivalent?
That's a little like saying that all cars handle the same because they have 4 four wheels, and your experience with a Ford Focus and equivalent Honda shows no significant difference.

Don't you think that just maybe:
1. You should NOT make blanket assumptions until you've actually heard a good CDP, or
2. Just maybe when someone who's heard some upper end gear from groups like Meridian, Wadia, Esoteric, Krell and McIntosh suggests that they might sound better, that it might be worth giving them a little more credit.

 

[trains are bad]

Quote:

The MicroDAC is a decent portable source. I don't think it can really be compared with most good home setups however.

I believe my microDAC with desktop module was as good as it gets. I didn't buy it because it was portable...I had it hooked up to my speakers. I bought it because I listened to it when I was in montana, along with whatever CD players they had there (an NAD I think).

Quote:

What sound card?

I have no sound card. I have a DAC.

Quote:

most computer setups are poor transports

Are you using the word 'transport' the way I am, that is, as the thing that spins and reads the CD? I have never used a computer drive to play a CD when I could help it. I rip my CDs with EAC and play them with foobar. I have already stated that I feel that playing music off the CD is a quaintly obsolete practice, that serves no purpose except to subject the CD to potential damage and raise the possibility of misreading and read errors. There is no point of the CD in the modern world, where an equal sized disc now holds many times more music and we can thousands of CDs onto small hard drives.

Quote:

based on your experience with budget gear you "conclude" that all CDPs are pretty much equivalent?

I don't consider the MicroDAC budget gear. There is no way the transport of any CD player at any price can read the CD 'better' than an EAC rip, and I will put the microdac up against the internal DAC of any CD player.

It's a characteristic I see over and over in audiophilia that people attribute to gear they more often than not don't fully understand. A CD has a certain resolution, the DAC's job is the reconstruct it into a waveform. That's it people, not rocket science. You can only be so good. You can never have more resolution than the medium. Just because something has a fancy name on the front and cost a jillion dollars doesn't mean it isn't playing a regular old redbook CD, and that process hasn't been a mystery for several decades. As good as my Microdac was, the difference between it an the internal DAC of any old CD player was damn small. It was a marginal difference.

I'll say it again, most consumer level and up CD players are equivalent in regards to sound quality--especially if they are just used as a transport to drive a DAC, which is the one area of a CDP that can really be screwed up.

It's digital audio, people. It is now 2006. I swear I get really tired wading through boards full of people that insist they can heard their CDP sense a round edged pit, while their room plays havoc with their frequency response and they refuse to equalize becaues it 'dirties the sound' and who think that jitter is a horrible (if inaudible) distortion symptom of modern digital audio while at the same time putting tubes in their systems because THAT kind of distortion is OK.

I'm going to go play a record now, a medium which is WORSE than CD but I don't care, because I like to listen to music and I like to watch discs go around.