"Trevor Wilson" wrote in message
...
On 13/11/2017 12:39 AM, D.M. Procida wrote:
Now that the contents of a CD can be held in RAM, never mind in
other
cheaper and still very fast digital storage, what does an expensive
CD
player offer that a cheap transport and a decent digital-to-analog
converter cannot?

If DAC products can buffer seconds' or even minutes' worth of data,
and
can stream it out to the actual DAC circuitry with GHz precision,
there
doesn't seem to be much need any more for costly CD players.

Am I missing something?

**A CD player, unlike a computer transport, interpolates errors. It
does not re-request information be re-read. An argument can be made
that a higher quality transport (more expensive) may read disks
without issuing as many errors. Are those errors audible? Unlikely,
except under extreme circumstances. Nonetheless, high quality
transports add very significantly to the cost of a CD player.

More expensive CD players tend to use the (now old fashioned)
multi-bit DACs (parallel), rather than the more common (and FAR less
expensive) single bit DACs (serial). Parallel DACs are MUCH more
expensive to implement, due to the large number of precision
resistors and capacitors required (one for each bit).

Some expensive players use multiple DACs, whose outputs are summed,
allegedly in order to reduce errors.

Some expensive players use very high performance OP amps. Some use
discrete component output stages (my own Harman Kardon HD-970 does),
which inevitably cost more than integrated OP amps.

Some expensive players use valves in the output stages, for some
unknowable reason. This requires a bunch of expensive support
circuitry.


Best sounding player I've had in my system?

A Marantz CD80 (ca. 190-ish). Fabulous sounding player. Not stupidly
expensive. Not cheap either.




Interesting observation.

For some reason I always thought my first 14-bit Philips (CD104?)
sounded better than anything I had later, and that the one that I
bought to replace it some years later (16-bit parallel) also sounded
better. That machine now sits with a very elderly lady we know and I
will reclaim it when she passes. Comparison with my present Marantz
CD5400SE will be interesting.


--
Woody

harrogate3 at ntlworld dot com