[Yikes]

Quote:

Originally Posted by JadeEast /img/forum/go_quote.gif In a universe where price has little to do with the sound created by a product. In your rant you've mentioned nothing about sound or music only dollars. In what specific sonic and musical ways does the Sony fail as a CD player for you?

Oh let's see. It has little bass, and poor dynamics, but for me the worse thing is that it puts forth a very two dimensional presentation. Unlike most cheap players it is NOT thin and aggressive. It is just the opposite, it lacks both high frequency and low frequency energy.

But you miss the point of my post. It was not a review of the Playstation, it was a comment on how many seriously short change in the source department. You never hear about the person who uses a killer source (lets say a Wadia 581) and a great amp (lets say a RS B-52) in conjunction with some Grado SR-80's and claim that they are getting amazing sound. Yet many use exceptional amp/headphone combinations with grossly mismatched sources and brag about their results.

And I would also disagree with your statement that "price has little to do with the sound created by a product." Price is certainly not the only factor, but many of the determining factors of sound quality are directly linked to price. Build quality, parts quality, circuit sophistication all have a major impact on performance and price.

To be more specific. I have been an Audio Hobbyist for 30 years and in the Audio field for over 20 years, and never not once have I heard a reference caliber (Being at or near the top of all subjective sonic criteria at the time) component that wasn't expensive. All expensive products are not reference caliber, but all reference caliber products are expensive.

 

[powertoold]

Quote:

Originally Posted by derekbmn /img/forum/go_quote.gif This post has been a looong time coming ! It has been a very common trend around Head-Fi for a long time and has always puzzled me a little. There are so many people here that seemingly want to shrug it off and dismiss it as wasted money. And these very people will try and convince themselves (and others) without taking the time to actually seek out a "Higher End" source and have a listen. Just look at the number of posts.... Dedicated Source Components...152,455 Headphone Amps (full size)....386,639 Thats a pretty big difference ! So perhaps it was a bit of a jab at Powertoold in light of his posts in the HeAudio thread.... but I have to completely agree. Several others tried to tell him. (in perhaps a roundabout way)

Well, we know this discussion isn't going to go anywhere productive. It's similar to the arguments made with cables and conductors. Some people hear a difference, others don't and probably never will. You can blame the funny way aural perception works or differences in ear anatomy, but in the end, there's no definite conclusion. Regarding DIGITAL sources, I think you will find varying opinions. I don't doubt analog sources scale nicely with cost.

 

[Kraps]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xena /img/forum/go_quote.gif Source matters only if you use analog outputs. PS2, Oppo, or $2000 Denon player, if connected digitally, should make no difference in sound quality. That's how I designed my system. Put the money into good DACs once, in the prepro. Buy a reliable quality source and use it as a transport. This works, of course, only for last generation media ... CD, DD 5.1 and DTS.

This is so not true in my expereince. I use a full (integrated) player in my speaker rig - an Accuphase DP 75v, and a Parasound DAC 1000 in my headphone rig. I feed the DAC with a digital signal from a musical fidelity e60 cd player. Besides, the Accuphase, has digital input scokets, so I can feed it digital form outside. I have tried changing different transports for my Parasound and I also tried feeding the Accuphase DAC from outside, etc. And it matters, every change of digital trasnport can be heard - both on the Accu and the Parasound. So the transport matters. Getting a nice DAC and feeding it c**p digital signal just does not work. SO the moral is, if you managed to spend some money on DAC you will have to do it on transport too. I do not just preach that. Although my humble MF is quite a decent performer as a transport, a scheduled next improvement for me is a dedicated transport to feed the Parasoind.

 

[Yikes]

Quote:

Originally Posted by powertoold /img/forum/go_quote.gif I don't doubt analog sources scale nicely with cost.

No one else mentioned Scaling. Increasing performance doesn't scale well. The more expensive a product the smaller the improvements (if any) become as the price increases. At some point each person reaches their point of diminishing returns, and at some point when is it better or just different? Each person has a sweet spot that is where they shop. The sweet spot is determined by their wallet and their auditory senses.

 

[powertoold]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yikes /img/forum/go_quote.gif No one else mentioned Scaling. Increasing performance doesn't scale well. The more expensive a product the smaller the improvements (if any) become as the price increases. At some point each person reaches their point of diminishing returns, and at some point when is it better or just different? Each person has a sweet spot that is where they shop. The sweet spot is determined by their wallet and their auditory senses.

Well, my auditory gut tells me that a $100-1000 source is the sweet spot. It also tells me the diminishing returns are really bad after $200!

 

[jvlgato]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xena /img/forum/go_quote.gif Source matters only if you use analog outputs. PS2, Oppo, or $2000 Denon player, if connected digitally, should make no difference in sound quality. That's how I designed my system. Put the money into good DACs once, in the prepro. Buy a reliable quality source and use it as a transport. This works, of course, only for last generation media ... CD, DD 5.1 and DTS.

I generally consider DAC as part of the source. Not doing so would be like saying turntable or tonearm doesn't matter, just get a good cartridge. I'm not arguing the relative importance of these items, just saying that DAC = source in my book.

 

[nor_spoon]

I believe that the conversion from digital to analog signal is one of the, if not the most important process in the signal chain. No use in having a great amp and headphones if the signal coming from the source is lacking...

 

[minimus]

My general impression from lurking on this site over the last few years and reading meet impressions is that above a certain minimum investment the marginal improvement from spending more on a CD player is less than from spending more on an amp or on headphones. It also seems to me that the price distribution of CD players is much more bi-modal than for other components. There are a lot of CD players that cost less than about $500, little in the $1K-$2k range, and then a lot of choices in the $3K+ range.

I have put a fair amount of money into my home rig (JVC DX1000/HD650s<---Singlepower Extreme Platinum<---Eastsound E5.) But, obviously I have spent less on the source than on the amp or the headphones.

Would my listening experience improve a lot if I upgraded the source to a high end CD player like the Resolution Audio Opus 21 or some other CD player in the $3000 price range? Or would I just have a slightly better sounding rig?

Of course, asking this in the "high-end" forum might bias the responses. But there may be members who have been underimpressed by the marginal gain per dollar spent on their source component.

 

[powertoold]

Quote:

Originally Posted by minimus /img/forum/go_quote.gif Of course, asking this in the "high-end" forum might bias the responses. But there may be members who have been underimpressed by the marginal gain per dollar spent on their source component.

Of course there are members who have been unimpressed with the marginal source gains. If you read any source thread, people will go on and on about synergy or some matching characteristics of the sources, i.e. bright source for dark headphones or dark source for bright headphones, etc.. The best thing to do is to see who already has a good (a.k.a. expensive) source for your headphones, then buy that source and try it yourself.

In this field, the only way you'd gain experience and certainty in your beliefs is to try out the hardware yourself and hear a difference. I haven't heard much (technical) difference in digital sources or cables, so I don't place much emphasis on them. No one can change my mind by simply telling me it makes a difference. I would have to go out and buy a good source, which I will do in the next couple of months/years

 

[mrarroyo]

Source does matter! as stated above the hard part is where do we set the limit above which the cost does not justify the improvements.

I am pretty much at said point, with:

Source: Apple Lossless files in my PC via a Chaintech AV710 to a glass optical feeding a Monarchy Audio NM24 w/ a Monarchy AC ReGenerator PSU

Amp: Singlepower MPX3 Slam SE

Cans: See my profile, too many to list.

I rarely listen to CDs directly and now I am using an old Denon DVP-NS300 w/ a coaxial cable feeding the Monarchy. I have been thinking of getting a Marantz SA8001.

Any cdp recomendations, mostly it will be used as a transport. So I guess a transport recomendation would be a better option. Priced under $2,000 the lower the better.

 

[Ricey20]

I agree with Source is important and all that. I also agree with the whole diminishing returns thing. When I went from the CA 840C to a Cary 306 it wasn't a gigantic leap from when I went from sound card to DA220. Although now, I do seem to enjoy the NOS sound from my Havana than my Cary so I guess source typology/technique is important too.

mrarroyo: if your looking for a CDP that doubles as a DAC/transport thats $2k or below, take a look at the 840C

 

[edstrelow]

I just came back from a camping trip in which I was limited to a portable cd player feeding a Stax SROO1M2 portable amp/headphone set-up which altogether cost about $400.00 with a silver IC. Coming back to my main headphone set-up with an 002, big Stax amp (717) , cd transport etc.(which set me back close to $5K without a power amp or speakers, even with some parts bought second hand) and I was immediately struck by the law of diminishing returns.

Certainly there are a lot of subtelties of performance that the portable system doesn't achieve, but I don't think I could persuade too many people, not already in this hobby that I got much for the extra $4,600.00.

Not that I am about to make the SR001 my main system. But I am of the opinion that a portable cd player and half-way decent phones, and/or portable amp is a very cost effective way to get good sound.

I do a minimum of tweaking with the portable, use a bit of sorbethane on the bottom and play the machine on a hard surface, often just a cd jewel box.

 

[powertoold]

I would hesitate to use computer as any sort of high-end source. I've heard tiny pop artifacts (or at least I think I did) as a result of .flac compression on my computer. I never heard it until I got my electrostatics. It's undetectable with any of my IEMs or headphones. Now, who's going to believe me?

 

[powertoold]

Quote:

Originally Posted by edstrelow /img/forum/go_quote.gif I just came back from a camping trip in which I was limited to a portable cd player feeding a Stax SROO1M2 portable amp/headphone set-up which altogether cost about $400.00 with a silver IC. Coming back to my main headphone set-up with an 002, big Stax amp (717) , cd transport etc.(which set me back close to $5K without a power amp or speakers, even with some parts bought second hand) and I was immediately struck by the law of diminishing returns. Certainly there are a lot of subtelties of performance that the portable system doesn't achieve, but I don't think I could persuade too many people, not already in this hobby that I got much for the extra $4,600.00. Not that I am about to make the SR001 my main system. But I am of the opinion that a portable cd player and half-way decent phones, and/or portable amp is a very cost effective way to get good sound. I do a minimum of tweaking with the portable, use a bit of sorbethane on the bottom and play the machine on a hard surface, often just a cd jewel box.

Thanks for honesty! But your conclusions are too premature because they were made in a few hours. You need more time to readjust!

 

[Aimless1]

Of course source is important. But as long as people are content with MP3 files rippped at low bit rates, how can they appreciate what a good source is? Like mrarroyo I've chosen to go with Apple lossless files on a macbook -> dac -> amp -> headphones. I've been unhappy with the SQ from my amp/dac combo. Pretty easy to recognize the dac is the problem and I'm working on the upgrade. So yes, the dac is part of the source. As nor_spoon said, the conversion from digital to analog is a critical function in the sound chain.

If you can't hear the difference between low bit rate files and lossless, or between an entry level dac and a good mid-fi or hi-fi dac, then you either have a hearing issue, a listening issue or sadly, don't know what you're missing. In that case ignorance is bliss, as the saying goes ... and your wallet thanks you for it.