[Michael G.]

Some audiophiles would argue that all CD players, even the cheapest ones, are "98% to 99% perfect", and that the differences we claim to hear between them are mostly imagined. But my mind wanders along different lines. I recently compared two pretty good CDP's in my system. One was my own Sugden CD-21 and the other was a Roksan Kaspian. I cannot say if one player read discs more "perfectly" than the other one, but there sure as hell was a difference in overall musical presentation. The Sugden sounded more balanced, airy, smooth, and expansive. The Roksan sounded slightly more coarse, colorful, dynamic (especially in the lower octaves), offering up a narrower soundstage. I then began to sense something going on... I cried out, "Even if all CD players play discs in an essentially "perfect" fashion, what about the issue of tonal balance? Is it possible that the extra care that hi-end manufacturers put into designing expensive CDP's results in more "tonally pleasing" players - but not necessarily more "perfect" ones?" Then there was silence. At the time, no one heard this little ejaculation but me. But now I ask you: "What is true?".

 

[recstar24]

After headphones, sources come in the most variety of flavors. Manufacturers have and idea of what music should sound like and they build their cdp's according to that vision. Meridian, Naim, Wadia, Shanling, they each have their own sound and vision, and a lot of it is subjective whether one is better than the other.

What I've noticed when you go up the source ladder is the "technical" things like soundstage, detail retrieval, low level resolution, etc are all pretty close, what changes the most is the flavoring or how the company chooses to present the music.

 

[sacd lover]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Michael G. Some audiophiles would argue that all CD players, even the cheapest ones, are "98% to 99% perfect", and that the differences we claim to hear between them are mostly imagined. But my mind wanders along different lines. I recently compared two pretty good CDP's in my system. One was my own Sugden CD-21 and the other was a Roksan Kaspian. I cannot say if one player read discs more "perfectly" than the other one, but there sure as hell was a difference in overall musical presentation. The Sugden sounded more balanced, airy, smooth, and expansive. The Roksan sounded slightly more coarse, colorful, dynamic (especially in the lower octaves), offering up a narrower soundstage. I then began to sense something going on... I cried out, "Even if all CD players play discs in an essentially "perfect" fashion, what about the issue of tonal balance? Is it possible that the extra care that hi-end manufacturers put into designing expensive CDP's results in more "tonally pleasing" players - but not necessarily more "perfect" ones?" Then there was silence. At the time, no one heard this little ejaculation but me. But now I ask you: "What is true?".

People forget that the cd player is not entirely digital. There is the conversation to analog and an analog output stage.

When you hear the difference a high quality analog output stage makes in the very same cd player.... you can easily understand how players can sound so different. The sacdmods cd players I have add a class A discrete anaolg output stage to replace the stock op amp output stage. The increase in bass power and dynamics is easy to hear. The refinement added to the sound is less immediately noticeable.... but maybe even more important to long term listening satisfaction.

Bits may be bits.... but there is more to a cd player than 1's and 0's.

 

[sionghchan]

Hmmm...this is a very interesting question indeed. I have been struggling for sometime now to see if I should spend the money to get a second PCDP with a Line-out vs. my current PCDP by Panasonic that only has a headphones jack. Considering that digital parts are almost 100% identical between cheap CDPs and expensive CDPs (personally, the only thing I can see different here is how accurate are the lasers and how many errors do you get and how efficiently the errors are corrected.), one would imagine the main differences are in the Analogue parts of the CDP.

Are there differences in DACs between branded and non branded PCDPs? I mean, would an el-cheapie, made in China, Koss with a line out sound better than a reasonable priced made in Japan Panasonic with only a headphone jack?

Of course, I own a PA2V2 portable amp..

Should I spend the money?

 

[dura]

CDPs vary wildly in their sound.
Anybody who claims they sound all the same bases him or herself entirely on theory and never took the trouble to actually listen.

 

[recstar24]

going along with sacd lover,

I feel the analogue output stage is the most important part that influences the sound. The reason being is that the digital transport and DAC's that most cdp's use even some cheap ones relatively are good and do the job just fine, yet the higher end sources have much mroe elaborate output stages. Power supplies are beefier and more thoughtfully constructed as well, adding more weight and blackness to the sound as well as many other refinements.

The modding companies are a good example of this. sacdmods and modwright come to mind, leaving the sony's quality transport and dac and redesigning the output stage and power supplies all together, creating a completely different sound that is at another level.

 

[Garbz]

Even some very expensive Merridian CDPs use some very cheap computer cdrom drives as transport. Providing a transport can produce EDIT: low jitter : data streams, the only thing left is what the companies do with them. And this is usually where all the differences come from.

I was very impressed with how the Roksan Kaspian swung. It's definatly a very rythmical player like NAIM players.

 

[Michael G.]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Garbz Even some very expensive Merridian CDPs use some very cheap computer cdrom drives as transport. Providing a transport can produce jitter free data streams, the only thing left is what the companies do with them. And this is usually where all the differences come from. I was very impressed with how the Roksan Kaspian swung. It's definatly a very rythmical player like NAIM players.

I fully agree that the Kaspian is an enjoyable player. I had heard of it's reputation as a "swinging" CDP, and that's partly why I chose it to compare to the Sugden's smoother, more linear sound. We could easily distinguish between the two players blindfolded.

 

[drarthurwells]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Garbz Even some very expensive Merridian CDPs use some very cheap computer cdrom drives as transport. Providing a transport can produce jitter free data streams, the only thing left is what the companies do with them. And this is usually where all the differences come from. I was very impressed with how the Roksan Kaspian swung. It's definatly a very rythmical player like NAIM players.

They use CD Rom drives because this drive reduces jitter problems.

There is no such thing as jitter free data streams. You reduce and control jitter and the way this is done varies widely in differnet CD players.

The DAC used is very important.

Class A output with no opamps is important.

High quality capacitors, transformers, and resistors are important.

Heavy, vibration dampening, materials to reduce electrophonics in the electronic tranmissions are important.

A well designed power supply gives better dynamics and bass, and is important.

Just because it is digital does not mean it sounds the same, or even close.

 

[clarke68]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Michael G. "Even if all CD players play discs in an essentially "perfect" fashion, what about the issue of tonal balance? Is it possible that the extra care that hi-end manufacturers put into designing expensive CDP's results in more "tonally pleasing" players - but not necessarily more "perfect" ones?" Then there was silence. At the time, no one heard this little ejaculation but me. But now I ask you: "What is true?".

It's pretty hard to judge "perfection" in audio gear, just because most people don't have a good reference for what "perfect" is. The only person I'd trust to judge the accuracy of a system is someone who actively listens to live, unamplified music regularly (at least 2x a week). Of course, many people have a piano or acoustic guitar around the the house, it doesn't seem like it'd be so hard to use an actual instrument in your A/B test if accuracy is truly your goal. I haven't read of anyone doing that here at Head-Fi...

A good point you made about CD players being made more "tonally pleasing" but not necessarily more "perfect". Many manufacturers do this. People in the hardcore objectivist camp say that this is merely adding distortion to the signal, while the "I just want to enjoy my music" camp appreciate the added smoothness, warmth, vinyl-like qualities, etc. in their players.

I find that the differences between various CD players and DACs are often exagerrated. Indeed, there are differences, but they are minimal compared to the differences between transducers ('phones and speakers). I also believe that the biggest contributor to the sound signature of a digital player is the analog output stage, although I haven't experimented with this myself.

 

[JaZZ]

Transport, digital section and analog section -- all contribute to the sonic signature of a player, which can differ quite substantially even from similar priced other players. The most interesting thing is that even the clearest differences between digital sources are very hard if not impossible to measure. So an obviously different sonic balance doesn't reflect itself in the measurements.

 

[jimmyjames8]

Quote:

Originally Posted by drarthurwells They use CD Rom drives because this drive reduces jitter problems. There is no such thing as jitter free data streams. You reduce and control jitter and the way this is done varies widely in differnet CD players. The DAC used is very important. Class A output with no opamps is important. High quality capacitors, transformers, and resistors are important. Heavy, vibration dampening, materials to reduce electrophonics in the electronic tranmissions are important. A well designed power supply gives better dynamics and bass, and is important. Just because it is digital does not mean it sounds the same, or even close.

What he said in spades! One of the biggest audio surprises in my life was connecting 3 different cd player/transports to a Mark Levinson dac and hearing differences that were not subtle at all. I had a $1000 one hundred disc player that got sold the next day. What it did to the bitstream was a crime. It's not just tonal differences, there is resolution, detail, soundstage, depth, imaging, decay, distortion, transients, bass response, etc. etc. etc.

 

[Michael G.]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jimmyjames8 It's not just tonal differences, there is resolution, detail, soundstage, depth, imaging, decay, distortion, transients, bass response, etc. etc. etc.

Most of the CDP's I have heard so far excel in some of the sonic aspects you mention, but not all of them. In my experience, CD players that highlight certain aspects of the music invariably seem to hinder certain other aspects - just like transducer systems do. But, I think loudspeakers are way ahead of CDP's in importance (as far as being the part of the component chain responsible for the various dynamic characteristics you mention). Most of us will find that while different CDP's (... and cables, racks, tweaks, etc...) do provide individual sonic "signatures", they simply are'nt responsible for manipulationg the sound we hear nearly as much as transducer systems are. And so, I continue to wonder: How much (or how little) is the tonal balance of a CDP responsible for our *perceptions* of it's "resolution", "detail", "soundstage", "depth", etc..?

 

[fewtch]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Michael G. Some audiophiles would argue that all CD players, even the cheapest ones, are "98% to 99% perfect", and that the differences we claim to hear between them are mostly imagined.

I wouldn't say that, but "90% perfect" sounds reasonable. DACs and supporting electronics really have gotten very good and cheap, greatly decreasing the differences between particular players.

Of course, there's some downright bad consumer-grade stuff out there, no question about it. I do believe however that the differences between various CD players tend to be way overblown. The difference between an entry level high-end player and the most expensive player on the market are pretty small.
Quote:

Originally Posted by Michael G. I cried out, "Even if all CD players play discs in an essentially "perfect" fashion, what about the issue of tonal balance? Is it possible that the extra care that hi-end manufacturers put into designing expensive CDP's results in more "tonally pleasing" players - but not necessarily more "perfect" ones?"

Agreed. Many "audiophiles" are paying more than they should for what amounts to built-in equalizers set at a certain tonal balance they happen to find pleasing. I'm not saying that manufacturers sell their gear with intent to deceive, please don't get me wrong. But it's quite possible that many people could better spend their money on a high quality graphic equalizer, saving big bucks in the long run.

 

[Garbz]

I thought the E word was taboo on this board

But it's true. What I would give for some bass and treble controls sometimes.