Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Want New CD Player

I am currently using my bottom-feeding Tohsiba DVD player as a CD player. I use a digital connection so I am using the DAC's of my receiver (NAD T752).

I am thinking of getting a dedicated CD player and using an analogue connection. My receiver does have a bypass so I would benefit as long as the DAC's in the CD player are better than the DACs in the receiver.

What would some of you recommend in the $400-450 price range? I have considered the NAD C542 or the C521BEE. However, I am looking for the 'best bang for the buck' (aren't we all?).

Any input would be appreciated.

KC,

While there may be measurable differences in the CD or DVD player's D/A converters (or the receiver's) and in the analog preamp output of a separate CD player, it's unlikely you would ever hear or detect a difference in the DACs of your receiver, DVD player, or NAD CD player using program material, music or movies.

Of course, if you get into weird tube gear with tube analog output stages, you may well hear a difference and the tube player will likely be less accurate and noisier than a solid-state player. You might prefer that, so get it if you think it will sound "better" or more "musical."

If you want random recommendations, my Sony CDP355 301-disc mega-changer sounds identical to my tweak, expensive Marantz Special Edition single-disc player ( Those also sound identical to my Sony DVD player.)

Casual tests, the kind performed by many of the high-end reviewers, always seem to reveal so-called differences in sound. But these reviewers will never do a controlled test with duplicate CDs running in sync in both players, output levels identical, and instantaneous switching. When you do that, differences you thought you heard that are purely a product of your expectation or imagination, suddenly evaporate. I once did such a comparison between a $20,000 high-end outboard D/A converter and a run-of-the-mill CD player, and there were no audible differences. Nada.

Regards,

if you are still reading and if I am following you correctly......you are saying if I have the Pioneer 563A do it all player, I won't hear any audible difference by buying a NAD 562?? That is what I am reading from you correct?? I would be just using analog connections. I have a NAD 352 integrated amp.
Thanks in advance.......

Alan:

I am a few weeks from making my purchase of M60s for fronts, a Denon 3803 and a sub. I currently have a $60 Panasonic DVD player I purchased 2 years ago that also plays CDs. We use it to watch our DVD shows on a 10-year-old CRT TV (remember those). I hope to upgrade to a nice flat screen in about 2 years, when the price gets to the level I’m comfortable with.

Right now, I am inclined to use my Panasonic as my source player, till I feel I can comfortably purchase an $800 —“quality” player (i.e. Denon 2900). But lately, I’ve seriously doubted whether or not spending $800 to $1000 in a player for CDs and DVD would change the audio quality—I didn’t say video—in any way, whatsoever.

Quick background of where my opinions come from. In the past six months, I’ve observed the audio/video industry to be full of snake oil comments and suggestions from not only salesman, but also manufactures. I believe this has been caused by the simple fact that technology to produce hi-fi audio is cheaply available to all manufactures; however, manufactures need to differentiate themselves, thus they market their CD/DVD players as better quality, when in fact they probably have NO perceivable difference. I can’t prove this and have nothing to support that assertion; however, my experience in other areas—as well as computer technology—confirms this assertion to me.

You said you noted no difference in the quality between the $20K and the cheaper players. In that example, what was the player functioning as? Did it do audio AND video? How were the players connected to the Receiver? My Panasonic DVD-S35 has the optical out, that I figure would give better quality than RCA R/L. But I have no real idea just why. Could you please explain the most ideal way to connect a CD/DVD player to your receiver and explain just where D/A conversion occurs. I assume it is always at the player, but it sounds like the Receiver can do that too.

Sorry for such lame questions. I’m just trying to cut through the bull that so many manufactures and review folk give about source products.

TK

Todd, Alan apparently logged out about an hour before your question and he may or may not get back to the thread. In the meantime I'll add some comments. Yes, if you get a 562 there should be no audible difference between it and your 563 in playing CDs if the volume level is calibrated to be equal(output levels of players vary slightly and this can lead to the misimpression that the slightly louder one is better). You mention that you'd be using the analog connections, so I gather that you may be thinking of possible differences between the DACs in the two players. Your 563 uses the excellent Texas Instruments(Burr-Brown)DSD1791, as shown in the DVD player table here . The Wolfson DAC in the 562 may measure slightly higher, but the 1791 specs already exceed the needs of human ears and the program material, as is typical of the inexpensive(maybe $1 each in quantity) DACs available to manufacturers today. So the Burr-Brown 1791 in no way should be considered audibly inferior and you shouldn't be concerned about a difference in DACs, which is an outdated concept.

Speaking of Alan's broad experience and his mention of blind tests, I ran into this informative and somewhat humorous old test conducted by Dr. Lipshitz at which Alan was present(wonder if he got his watch back). Ivor Tiefenbrun, the maker of Linn turntables and(now)CD players and the possessor of some rather bizarre audio beliefs experiences truth in audio by way of the blind test.

I was playing around earlier with my setup. My Yamaha 5 disc changer was hooked to the Denon 3805 via optical cable. The alternate setup was using my old Audio Alchemy DAC-In-The-Box, the same optical cable and some high quality interconnects in lieu of the Denon onboard DACs.

After playing few songs and switching back and forth I found that using the Audio Alchemy DAC seemed to give a better soundstage (vocals more focused to center, rather than slightly dispersed), a little tighter bass and quite different highs.

I say different highs because the jury is still out on that one. Cymbals seemed a little more rolled off on the high end, but more realistic than the very high pitched and crisp sound from the Denon DAC. I need to play with more source material to make a final decision which to use when listening to music with the M60s.

I did adjust the volume to achieve a constant output when switching back and forth as there was a 2dB increase when using the offboard DAC.

Thank you for your response. I appreciate it......

I am currently an electircal engineering student at University of Waterloo (about to graduate) and Prof. Vanderkooy and Prof. Lipshitz certainly do have quite a reputation. I had Vanderkooy for one of my first year physics courses and he was excellent/a genius. Anyway well I'm still at Waterloo I should think of some good questions to ask them!

While Alan is certainly very knowledgeable, you have to take his comments with the additional knowledge that in the electronics industry, it has always been customary for the speaker manufacturers to downplay the role of the components and the component manufacturers to downplay the role of speakers.

The Linn CEO downplays the roles of speakers with just as much verve as "Axiom's resident expert" (don't doubt he is an expert but he is a paid expert, btw. no? if not, please let me know) downplays components. Both have tests and studies. Both tests and studies are flawed. In double blind testing it always comes down to a human to say whether it "sounds better". This is the double blind instrinsic flaw.

Besides, my opinion is that it would be stupid of me to tell you to get the cheaper player even if you think it sounded worse. JohnK will speak to you as if everything he says is fact, remember that. It is not fact. Double blind testing is inherently flawed and none of us lives in a double blind world. Good luck!

Hi TK,

Yes, of course manufacturers need to differentiate themselves and use clever marketing techniques to do so. Thanks to JohnK for digging up the Boston Audio Society report by Stan Lipschitz of the blind tests of Linn's Ivor Tiefunbrun's nutty assertions about D/A converters as well as the presence of digital watches in a listening room. Speaking of snake oil, Tiefunbrun is a master. At the time of those tests, Linn had a pre-eminent spot in high-end audio marketing its turntable, so of course it was in Linn's interest to put down digital recordings and DACs. Curious how a few years later Linn introduced its own CD players. . !

After those tests, at which I was present, Tiefunbrun made the lame excuse of having a cold, which prevented him from scoring better than chance would have predicted.

When you use an optical connection from your CD player to your A/V receiver, the conversion takes place in the A/V receiver. The optical (or coaxial) digital connection bypasses the CD player's DACs and routes the digital data stream from the CD player's pickup through to the receiver's D/A converters. This connection bypasses the CD/DVD player's internal DAC as well as its analog preamp. The latter may be a source of slight frequency response errors, which, in theory might be audible (unlikely) but going the optical/coaxial digital route is a "purer" sort of connection.

You can't do that with DVD-Audio or SACD, except for some Denon units that have a proprietary connection. And don't lump audio and video digital connections together. Among DVD players, there are visible differences in the video performance of players that do not necessarily correlate with price. Video frequencies run into millions of Hertz, and any deterioration caused by errors in the video D/A converters will be measurable and visible with test patterns. In my experience, they are very hard to detect with movie playback.
With all but the DVD players that have a DVI or HDMI digital video connection, the video signal from a DVD player is analog. This in no way affects its performance as a CD playback device, and, as I've pointed out, audio DACs are a mature technology.

You must interpret my comments in the context of whether or not measurable differences in performance on the test bench using test signals ever translate into audible differences with music. My point about the comparisons of the expensive outboard D/A converters and the inexpensive and expensive CD players (using their own internal DACs) or bypassing them through the $20,000 outboard DAC is that no audible differences existed in my tests. No video was involved. Digital video is a relatively recent development (mid-'90s) with the introduction of the DVD.

There are measurable differences, for example, in the noise floor of cheap universal DVD/CD/SACD/DVD-Audio players and expensive ones. The cheap ones may have noise floors no better than -70 dB, instead of perhaps -90 or -100 dB. Is that audible? Yes, with test signals. Can you hear it with music programming on DVD-Audio or SACD? It's unlikely, but ask me that in a few months when I've done some more tests of cheap universal players vs. expensive ones.

Regards,