[Nikolai Dot Org]

Just for fun, I took my old Philips CD player (circa 1993) out of storage, dusted it off, and set it up for some hardcore A/B testing against "the rig":

The Rig: $800

ART DI/O
Boldercables SP-DIF and DI/O interconnects type II
ART tweaks (Stancor PS & tube removed)
JJ'ed X-Cans
Sennheiser 580
Clou Blue

It sounds great, but imagine my surprise when I plugged the headphones directly into the CD player's gold-plated 1/4" headphone jack...

...and found that it performed at roughly 95% of The Rig. It was guilty of being a *shade* thinner and a *shade* less crisp, but this is really splitting hairs. It was very good. Few would know the difference without direct A/B.

I kid you not. How can this be possible?

Three theories:

1) The 1993 Philips CDC-935, a $235 (then) consumer-level player, has one of the best headphone jacks and internal DACs in history.

2) The Philips is so awful that anything coming out of it sounds the same. Headphone jack, SP-DIF, analog... doesn't matter. All bad. I'm being fooled.

3) I have reached the performance limit of the Sennheiser 580's. Throwing more gear at the front end is useless.

This is very strange. Your thoughts?

 

[MacDEF]

Quote:

I have reached the performance limit of the Sennheiser 580's. Throwing more gear at the front end is useless.

I guarantee you it's not that

The X-CAN is very good, especially with the 580, but the Senns can sound a lot better out of a higher-end amp.

 

[dhwilkin]

Got any decent speakers? Maybe you've got Vertigo's curse, not being able to tell the difference between sources w/ just headphones...

 

[KR...]

Well, there are people who can't tell the difference between, amps, cables, sources, and even headphones if those idiots over at audioreview are being serious.

That said, I can tell the difference in all of the above.

Maybe your hearing is so bad that you can't tell the difference, or
Quote:

The Philips is so awful that anything coming out of it sounds the same. Headphone jack, SP-DIF, analog... doesn't matter. All bad. I'm being fooled.

 

[blr]

Nikolai, I guess you said it yourself. Back in early 90's they were still paying attention to "details" such as the headjack. This would be my guess.
That said, I can hear a difference between the headjack of my Marantz CD6000 OSE and and X-CanV2 powering HD600s. Directly from the Marantz, the 600s sound edgy and the magical midrange sensation is almost gone.

 

[tvhead]

I happen to own the Philips CDC 936.. It's the five disc changer version. I have it hooked it up to a Rotel integrated amp, with some small B&W speakers, and I think it sounds pretty good. The headphone jack sounds pretty clean. I'm pretty happy. I live a great life not being able to tell the difference! Or I'm just too afraid to audition the really good stuff and compare. At any rate, it saves a lot of money that way!

 

[fortunate son]

Just for fun, I took my old Philips CD player (circa 1993) out of storage, dusted it off, and set it up for some hardcore A/B testing against "the rig":

The Rig: $800

ART DI/O
Boldercables SP-DIF and DI/O interconnects type II
ART tweaks (Stancor PS & tube removed)
JJ'ed X-Cans
Sennheiser 580
Clou Blue

It sounds great, but imagine my surprise when I plugged the headphones directly into the CD player's gold-plated 1/4" headphone jack...

...and found that it performed at roughly 95% of The Rig. It was guilty of being a *shade* thinner and a *shade* less crisp, but this is really splitting hairs. It was very good. Few would know the difference without direct A/B.

I kid you not. How can this be possible?

Three theories:

1) The 1993 Philips CDC-935, a $235 (then) consumer-level player, has one of the best headphone jacks and internal DACs in history.

2) The Philips is so awful that anything coming out of it sounds the same. Headphone jack, SP-DIF, analog... doesn't matter. All bad. I'm being fooled.

3) I have reached the performance limit of the Sennheiser 580's. Throwing more gear at the front end is useless.

This is very strange. Your thoughts?

-----------------------
The Philips CDC 935 cd changer has a lowly SAA7323 dac chip. That chip has a distinctive sound that some really like. Valve Amplication Company used that same chip years ago in their high end VAC DAC II. See: http://www.lampizator.eu/lampizator/REFERENCES/VAC DAC/VACDAC.html
Back when CD player mods were much sought after, there was a guy who did extensive mods to the Philips CDC 935 which included the addition of a tube buffer stage and some input stage revisions for around $600 or so.
I own a stock CDC 935 which I listen to with my speaker rig and it sounds rather good The sound from the headphone out of the 935 is on the thin side compared to my separate headphone amps, but the 935 headphone out is better sounding overall than what I have heard from some of the headphone out jacks of a number of integrated amps and stereo receivers made by Arcam, Marantz, Denon and that ilk. I would like to hear one of the long discontinued VAC DAC II units to see what a high-end audio company was able to do with that SAA7323 Philips dac chip.