Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Stereo Dumb question about cd players

Am I really going to notice a dfference playing my cd's on a higher-end cd player?

Right now I am using my dvd player to listen to music, and I'd rather listen to sattelite radio or dvd concerts than my cd collection.

I really do appreciate this forum, and all the advice given here.

TIA

Over the digital connection (SPDIF/TOSlink) most will say no.

Some will say yes, citing high-end crystals improve timing and reduce jitter.

Then the "no" camp reminds the "yes" camp that even $24 CD-ROMs read data CDs that must be bit-accurate all day long with no errors.

Then the "yes" guys remind the "no" guys that there's no error correction on Redbook audio CDs.

Then the "no" guys say even if there's 10 jitter errors over an 80 minute CD, that's a 0.00000004% error rate and even the blood pressure in your head will cause a bigger difference in hearing than that.

Then the tube CD players come in and the knives come out.

Bren R.

You forgot the "yes" guys who still use the analog outputs and hear the difference between CD players. Most of us "yes" guys fall into the "no" camp when it comes to digital.

Depends on your definition of Higher end. Some of the DVD players like the Toshiba 3950 and 3960 are suppose to be competitive with CD players in the $300-$500 range. Some DVD players arn't that swift when it comes to CD playback. I have no idea where the Pioneer fits in.

I have a Toshiba 3960 and Cambridge Audio D300SE that sold for $350 a year or two ago. The two are perty hard to tell apart. However I also had a one of those "not so swift" DVD players and the difference between that player and the D300 were notable although not on the magnitude of upgrading speakers or amps.

Now if your definition of high end is $1000-1500 on up the difference if very noticable. Generally besides better resolution, quieter background and larger soundstage they usually have a lusher more analog sound. Much of the digital harshness, so common in $300-$400 players is removed. Everthing just sound more natural. At least that was my experience when I moved from the Cambridge D300 to the Eastsound CD-E5. In my opinion on the magnitude of changing amps or speakers.

But don't expect a big jump if you go from the Pioneer to say a $300-$400 entry level audiophile CDP.

BW Maxx

No.

Ah, yes research scientists. Those so bent on proving measurements they deny reality, even when its right in front of them.

Yes, its all a myth get that $29 Audiovox DVD player since reasearch shows you won't hear any difference between that and a $7000 Levinson CDP.

I've always found it curious those who "Preach" all CDP's and amps sound the same (its the same camp, the measurements are everything camp). NEVER practice what they preach.

They smugly call others ignorant and foolish while hypocritically spending large sums of money on components which according to their measurements, will sound no different then the cheapest crap you can buy at Circuit City.

Makes you wonder

stimpy,
Could you make any more unproven and blanket statements in one paragraph?
Any more stereotypes you can throw out?
It is obvious you don't know any real scientists.
If you did, you would know they are actually people who have real lives with real interests and yes, many are even 'street' smart, not just 'book' smart.
Scary concept for you to understand i know, but take your time, and think real hard on it and you might actually have a thought worth posting next time.

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Those so bent on proving measurements they deny reality, even when its right in front of them.

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Ah, yes, always right in front of us... the steaming pile of marketing and fear mongering. Compete, compete! One-up your neighbour. Who here ever says "I own a set of Axiom such-and-such, with such-and-such drivers?"... everyone quotes either number of speakers, price paid, decibel level or power handling. Who's got bigger numbers than the next guy?

The "measurements" and "science" are supporting arguments for what we hear, and they're stronger arguments than "cause me and my friends said so." Not only have I not heard a difference between CD-Ps over the digital outs, but I can also prove that the bitstream that's sent from them are very nearly identical... far closer than even your dog could tell the difference.

Bren R.

my dog is not good at analyzing bitstreams anyway.

Ah, yes experientialists. Those so bent on disproving measurements that they deny science, even when it is completely objective and unbiased by personal preferences.

Yes, measurements are inconsequential get that $7000 Levinson CDP since my personal opinion shows you will hear a difference between that and a $29 Audiovox DVD player.

I've always found it curious those who "Preach" CDP's and amps sound different (its the same camp, the ears are everything camp) NEVER agree to blind listening tests to remove bias and preconceived notions from the equation.

They smugly call others elitist and foolish....

Makes you wonder.

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Not very constructive, is it?

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Those so bent on proving measurements they deny reality, even when its right in front of them.

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I am loathe to break this to you, stimpy, but measurements ARE reality. And when they are right in front of you, ignoring them is denial of reality. What's more, measurements don't need "proving." They ARE proof.

I don't appreciate you categorizing those of us who think CD players sound different with those that think amps sound different(although I won't rule out that they don't I just haven't heard it).

Actually, Peter was throwing Stimpy's arguments back at him in reverse.

Bren R.

Warren, assuming that by "difference" you mean a favorable one, the answer is a flat no. In some cases a "higher-end" player may be intentionally designed so that its analog(rather than digital)output contains a small frequency irregularity which is barely noticeable and which of course is actually a sonic inaccuracy, but can mislead some into considering it to be better. As to common CD or CD/DVD players of even low cost however, they reproduce what's on the CD with audibly flawless precision. This has been shown in properly controlled blind listening tests. It's especially important that the output levels of the players(which commonly vary to some degree)be calibrated to within 0.1dB to avoid the false conclusion that the slightly louder one is better.

Thanks John and everyone else..... ask a stupid question and get a bunch of educated, informative answers!

Again, this IS a great board!!

Well, I'm an honest-to-goodness research scientist (PhD electrical engineer), but what I know has nothing to do with audio.

However, I'm 100% certain that if you have a $200 receiver, $200 speakers and a $100 CD player, if you have $500 to spend, you won't get the best bang for the buck by upgrading your CD player.

(Obviously, the first thing to upgrade is the cables.)

I don't think you'll receive any arguments there.

I would love to be part of a blind listening panel and hear some $29, $100, $500, and $1500 players.

So would I, only you gotta include 12-15 yr old Sony players as well.

Will you notice a difference on a high end player? Probbably yes. Will you hear a difference on EVERY high end player? probbably no.

I think most of the people that say no "its all just 0's and 1's" dont really have any idea about what goes on inside the player besides that they say its digital so its all the same. whatever.

Haoleb,

One can also assume that many people who say you CAN hear a difference (in CD players connected digitally) don't really have any idea about what goes on inside the player, either.

CD drive and pickup mechanisms have matured significantly since they were invented and are able to easily track the pits and nulls along the spiral tracks written on the disc. Sony Discmans have been able to do this task for years.

Just my 0.02 cents. My $29 Norcent DVD player generates a lot of heat and is noisy. My $129 Sony Dvd Player is slimming and clearer. I see a differnece in picture quality. If you compare a $350 dvd player to my $29 Norcent, yeah it makes a difference.

And that ends a paragraph of nonsense clearly written by someone who is drunk.

That's also visual, where the industry is arguably not as mature, and the device is doing digital to analog conversion.

If you're just pulling digital bits off the CD and throwing them out a digital connection [the way most (?)] people have their CD players set up, there is no reason in this day and age that there should be an audible difference. It's not magic, people.

Pits. Lasers. Laser reads pits in media. Same as your $29 CD-ROM... 8-bit bytes, two together make a 16 bit word. Put two words together, you get one stereo sample. Repeat 44,100 times a second. Lather, rinse, repeat.

If you're taking out an analog signal, things get a bit different based on how good the resistor matching is... unless you have a 1-bit DAC (or delta-sigma modulator)... waitaminute... why is 1 bit better than 16 bit?

A 1-bit DAC oversamples each bit (just 0 or 1) in the byte a repeated number of times (think of it as having a few proofreaders) and either averages them or throws out stray values, whatever method the manufacturer uses for error correction... if it reads it 100 times and sees a 0 ninety-nine times and a 1 once - it calls it a 0.

An 8-bit DAC (use any bit depth here just change the math!) reads in a full-range value (in this case, 0-255) and uses resistors (other methods are available, of course - Ladder DACs, etc) to set a threshold (more than half = 0, less than half = 1) for each bit.
**edit** That should of course be... less than half = 0, more than half =1 **/edit**

Maybe the opposite is easier to understand - this is how an 8-bit ADC (analog to digital converter) works. Imagine the values 0-255 expressed in voltage between 0-1 volts. Imagine the "read" voltage is .643V :
128) first pass for the MSB (most significant bit) - it's above 0.5 v (half - our threshold) so set the bit as 1 (1xxxxxxx) and take the value of the bit (0.5) away from the number (leaving 0.143)
64) multiply by two (to get the next less significant base two value)... 0.286 is it more than half? No, set 0 (10xxxxxx), do not take away from the value.
32) multiply by two again - 0.572 - more than half? Yes. Set 1, take away the value of the bit. (101xxxxx) Value is now 0.072
16) 0.072 x 2 = 0.144. More than half? No. Make it 0. (1010xxxx)
8) 0.144 x 2 = 0.288. More than half? No. Make it 0. (10100xxx)
4) 0.288 x 2 = 0.576. More than half? Yes. Make it 1. (101001xx). Take away 0.5 (0.076 is new value)
2) 0.076 x 2 = 0.152. More than half? No. Make it 0. (1010010x)
1) 0.152 x 2 = 0.304. More than half? No. Make it 0. (10100100)

So that equates to a binary representation of the Base10 number 164. Now how close did we get? Divide by 255 (the range) and we get 0.6482 - only .005 volts off of the original value. Pretty darned good for 8 bits. Your CD player is 16 bits (which makes it 256 times "finer" in resolution)... gets you to within a few dozen nanovolts. Now I'm no cable Nazi, but I think even differences in relative humidity are going to make a bigger difference than even 50 nanovolts in a signal.

Bren R.

Definitely 246 toothpicks, yeah. Definitely. 246.

re: cable noise

It's actually pretty darn easy to make 50nV noise in unshielded wires (just bend them, or let them vibrate, or wave your hand in front of them, and the capacitance of the wires will pick up the moving charge and generate a current in the 10nA range easy) but the real question is how much noise will be in an audible frequency range. Answer is: basically none, other than 60Hz pickup in some unfortunate systems. So as far as your ears are concerned, clean digital audio frequency signals are pretty easy to generate, digitize, undigitize, transmit with no noise added.

What I don't know is whether audio engineers add imperfections to the raw digital stream to make it sound better. In digital graphics, there's something called "antialiasing", where you try to compensate for imperfect sampling by some kind of interpolation or smoothing. I assume that you can accomplish this in audio by taking the 44kHz signal and doing a low-pass filter on it, say a nice smooth attenuation of all signal above 20kHz.

So maybe a $30 CD player has perfect fidelity but poor antialiasing.

I'd like someone who knows to chime in here, but I bet that a lot of the difference between speakers is in the way they filter out the very high frequency sounds, and that the supposed harshness of Axioms is because they reproduce any harsh, unfiltered digital signal from that $30 CD player with excellent fidelity (garbage in, garbage out), and the supposed warmth of high-end speakers and players and tube amps is because they filter out, in a manner pleasing to most ears, such higher frequency junk.

Strangely, after my super-post up there, I didn't understand a darned thing you said.

Are you talking about oversampling on a player? Or that engineers mix in a special way to compensate for frequencies over the Nyquist limit of 22.05KHz?

Bren R.

Martin, I'm not really certain about those $30 players(suspect they're okay)but the typical $100 players all have 8X oversampling(and have had for years)which allows relatively gentle filtering to remove the response beginning above 20KHz and reducing it to below audibility by 22.05KHz, so there's no harshness as a format. Of course individual recordings can be lousy, but that has nothing to do with the digital process itself.

Yeah I think you're right, JohnK, check out
http://www.audioholics.com/techtips/specsformats/upsamplingvsoversampling1.php
It has a nice description of oversampling using electrical engineering lingo.

If oversampling isn't built in on the standard commodity DAC then the $30 players don't have it (an addition $0.10 part on a player that costs a couple bucks to manufacture won't make the cut). Judging from the NRC anechoic chamber measurements that Ian's been publishing for various Axioms, there's a dip in the high teen kHz in the tweeter frequency response, but there's still response at 20kHz, so if there is >22.05kHz digital crap it'll be played by the Axioms. Maybe some receivers have the ability to filter this stuff out too.
--Martin

Martin, although I haven't studied the very least expensive players, they all have to have a DAC for analog output. All DACs, even the ones available to manufacturers for less than $1 each in quantity, have used oversampling for quite a few years. So, I'd doubt that even those $30 players are getting any imaging distortion from over 22.05KHz.

The last time I actually built something with a DAC in it (an external FM synthesis project box for the C64 long after it was dead everywhere but Bulgaria) was 1993, and that had a 4x or 8x oversampling DAC even then. Think it was $6 for a single chip "over the counter"... in bulk even then they were probably $2.

The things you play with when one of your buddies was in second year electrical engineering.

Bren R.

Save for a small number of people, this board is exhibits cult-like qualities.

According to Wikipdia, "a cult is a group of people devoted to beliefs and goals which are not held by the majority of society, often religious in nature. Its marginal status may come about either due to its novel belief system or due to idiosyncratic practices that cause the surrounding culture to regard it as far outside the mainstream."

Do you mean to say that because the majority of society believes modern CD players read digital bits differently, depending on manufacturer, when the disagreeing minority believes the majority is mistaken, this equates to cult-like behavior?

And you need a charismatic leader, too. That would be...?

I nominate BrenR!

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when the disagreeing minority believes the majority is mistaken, this equates to cult-like behavior?

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Don't even start, he'll have you burned at the stake for being a witch.

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bigwill2:And you need a charismatic leader, too. That would be...?

pmbuko:I nominate BrenR!

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Geez, Peter, while you had that dictionary out, should have looked up "Charismatic"! I ain't it. It ain't me. *G*

Bren R.

On the internets, nobody knows the real you.

My horrorscope is right on though...

Pisces (Feb 23 - Mar 22)
You are a pioneer type and think most people are d!ckheads. You are quick to reprimand, impatient and full of advice. You do nothing but p!ss-off everyone you come in contact with. You are a pr!ck.

Bren R.

I really enjoyed this one...

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Libra (Sept 23 - Oct 22)
You are the artistic type and have a difficult time dealing with reality. If you are a male you are probably queer. Chances for employment and monetary gain are nil. Most Libra women are whores. All Libras die of venereal disease.

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So...I'm gay, unemployed, broke, will die of venereal disease *and* can't deal with reality?

If you say so.

Looks like I don't fair much better

"Scorpio (Oct 23 - Nov 22)
You are the worst of the lot. You are shrewd in business and cannot be trusted. You shall achieve the pinnacle of success because of your total lack of ethics. You are the perfect son-of-a-bitch. Most Scorpios are murdered."

Oh well...I'm getting my arrogant *broke* ass to bed. Good night! LOL