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What is the point of expensive CD players?
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? Daniele |
What is the point of expensive CD players?
In article
, 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? More to a CD player than just how it produces sound. And making one which looks good and has pleasant to use controls and display etc, is likely to cost the big part of it. -- *Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine. Dave Plowman London SW To e-mail, change noise into sound. |
What is the point of expensive CD players?
"Don Pearce" wrote in message ... On Sun, 12 Nov 2017 13:39:34 +0000, (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? Daniele Yup, the power of marketing to the rich and gullible. This works particularly well on those with just a little technical knowledge - enough, for example to understand that jitter is a bad thing, but not enough to know that it has nothing to do with the CD's drive mechanism. What is more, how many people that use memory storage of any sort do it in a high quality format such as Flac or Ogg? For that matter even mp3 or m4a (=AAC) at a high rate rather than the 128K mp3 which most seem to use. At least with a good quality CD it does sound a bit like the real thing - but how many people go to live concerts (I'm thinking classical in any form, jazz, big band or MoR here) these days to know what real instruments actually sound like? -- Woody harrogate3 at ntlworld dot com |
What is the point of expensive CD players?
In article
, 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? It plays a CD. Useful for people that have them and either can't, or don't, want to have to rip them all, etc. Given this, up to them to decide which one they prefer, I assume. 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? That 'DAC' and 'CD Player' aren't synonyms? :-) Jim -- Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me. Electronics https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~www_pa...o/electron.htm Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html |
What is the point of expensive CD players?
In article , Jim Lesurf
writes: In article , 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? It plays a CD. Useful for people that have them and either can't, or don't, want to have to rip them all, etc. Given this, up to them to decide which one they prefer, I assume. Isn't that what the "cheap transport" is for? -- Mike Fleming |
What is the point of expensive CD players?
Jim Lesurf 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? It plays a CD. Useful for people that have them and either can't, or don't, want to have to rip them all, etc. Given this, up to them to decide which one they prefer, I assume. 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? That 'DAC' and 'CD Player' aren't synonyms? :-) I don't think you understand my question. You can play a CD perfectly well in a very cheap transport; all you need to do is stream the data to a DAC, and as long as you have a buffer (cheap) that can ensure the bits arrive without timing irregularities (also cheap), you have something that's limited only by the quality of the DAC. I'm not comparing DACs and CD players. I'm asking what *expensive* CD players are supposed to offer. Daniele |
What is the point of expensive CD players?
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. -- Trevor Wilson www.rageaudio.com.au |
What is the point of expensive CD players?
"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 |
What is the point of expensive CD players?
Well one thing I do notice is that all cd and dvd players sound slightly
different. Maybe its noise that cannot be coped with by the error checking or poor reading of the disk, I have no idea, but I will say that some players sound different, but some that sound good are not always the expensive ones. also as you say modern av stuff often has the choice of processing in the player or via d/a in the amp, and then you also hear differences. I don't think everyone has it all figured out yet. I'm not sure how long it will be before lossless audio is a common thing supplied on solid state media or streamed or via download either. Again I hear differences so maybe somewhere along the line things are not as error free as one might expect. Brian -- ----- - This newsgroup posting comes to you directly from... The Sofa of Brian Gaff... Blind user, so no pictures please! "D.M. Procida" wrote in message ... 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? Daniele |
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