Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler CD player vs. DVD/SACD player

I posted not to long ago about a Taj Mahal cd, that I had a copy of and wasnt sure if it was a good copy or not. Wid helped me with this question by sending me a new copy. (THANKS WID!!)
I started by playing my old copy in my new Phillips 795 DVD/CD/SACD player and the new copy in my 8-10 year old JVC XL-F254 Cd player.
Starting the players at the same time I switched back and fourth between the two players. Wow! what a difference. I thought that the new copy was much better than the old copy. To me it sounded much more open than the old copy. Problem solved; Right.?
Wrong! I then switched the two copys in the players. It wasnt the differnce in the copys it was the difference in the players. How could this be possible?? My old cd player sounds better than my new DVD/CD/SACD player.?
Both players were in Pure Direct mode. I switched back and fourth many times, not believeing my ears. Why would the new player sound almost muffled and the old player sound more open?
I started this comparison, to find a difference in cd copys only to find a difference in players.

Hey Bray,

Interesting! Do you have BOTH machines connected digitally to your receiver? Or do you have one (presumably, the new one) connected digitally (thus using the receiver's DACs) and the other one connected via RCA cables (thus using the CD player's DACs)?

It might not be the player (spin the disk, extract of 1's and 0's), but the DAC's.

That's what caught me. I originally thought my DVD player gave much better CD sound than my megachanger, but when both were connected via coax most of the difference went away.

I have the Phillips hooked up 3 ways.
1. Playing DVDs through digital coax. Sourced as DVD
2. SACDs through 5 channel interconnects. Sourced as DVD, EXT. in.(only so I can see the SACD menu and song title on the television screen.)
3. Cds through standard RCA interconnects. Sourced as VDP player. ( hooked up for 2 channel SACDs, so I get the sub in the mix, rather than just FR and FL

The CD player in hooked up through RCA standard interconnects.

The biggest difference between the players connections is that the cd player has some expensive a$$ Monster RCA interconnects and the DVD player has a little less expensive AR RCA interconnects. And I'm not going there.

OK, we have to ask the question again

When you were switching between players, *which* set of interconnects were you using on the DVD player -- digital or 2 channel RCA ?

3.CDs through standard RCA interconnects.

Interesting... so the interconnects probably aren't a factor. Guess the older player is just broken in better

I read a few posts talking about other brands of universal players (Pioneer mostly) where there seemed to be a difference in detail when the bass management was turned on in the player since that caused the signals to be resampled at a different rate. I don't know if your player even has bass management or if it affects the signal going out to the L/R RCAs but one more thing to check. Seemed like setting all the speakers to "large" was enough to turn off bass management in the Pioneer 578...

EDIT -- I guess you are gonna have to stay up late one night and swap the cables just to prove they're not a factor. If you haven't already done so, burn a couple of copies of the same CD so you can get the most accurate comparison of sound when A/B'ing.

Bray,

Your welcome,it was my pleasure.

Bray, if you want to pursue it, I'd suggest temporarily physically disconnecting the Toslink and 6-ch analog cables to ensure the Phillips player is truly using 2-ch analog. Lacking that, at least disable digital out and 6-ch analog out in the player menu system.

For troubleshooting, make sure your receiver's 6-ch analog input is not activated.

My Sony DVP-685V 5-disc DVD/SACD changer is similar to your Phillips. If I accidently have 6-ch analog selected (on the receiver) when playing non-SACD discs it doesn't sound as good.

Also re-check all the other menu options. These players are complicated and some little nuance like "night mode", bass management, etc could throw off the sound.

In most cases the difference in sound is a player or receiver config issue, not an intrinsic difference in player sound quality.

Why not compare the sound of the DVD player outputting digitally versus the Cd player. It is likely the DVD player has cheap analog outs because they are unnecesary to anyone who actually wants good sound. Most people with the ability to good sound would just output using digital not analog.

It is likely your CD player has better analog outputs than your DVD player. That is why most DVD players are so cheap, they are meant to be digital transports, not analog converters.