Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Advice from Axiom Owners cd player

"OOOH!!"
"No no...it's ERRRRRRR!! at the back of the throat"
"No...OOOOH!! as in suprise and alarm"

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Sounds like cd player snake oil to me.

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I'm the first to debunk a charlatan when I see one, but some people prefer a warm tube sound (much like some people prefer vinyl to CD or film to video)

I haven't thoroughly researched the topic - but it seems that the manufacturer buys up some other manufacturers' stock, replaces the solid state output stage with tubes, rebrands them and sells them. Not sure if this is legal (if in fact that's what he's doing).

Anyway, in the end, you should have a warmer sound (assuming you use the analog outs) at the expense of all the drawbacks of tubes (which we've been through a few times here already).

Bren R.

Hi,

Adding to what Bren mentioned, won't it be fun to use a device that generates a rich wash of harmonic distortion, AC hum & noise, and begins deteriorating the moment it's turned on?

I grew up building tube amplfiers for my father (and for myself) but it's horse-and-buggy technology best left and admired for what it did surprisingly well in the first half of the 20th century because there were no alternatives. If someone wants the nostalgia of watching those tube filaments glow orange on a cold winter night, fine, but building a tube CD player now is, at the least, eccentric if not nutty.

I think it was California Audio Labs had a hybrid CD player back in the late '80s and the tubes were visible through a little plexiglas window on the front panel, which was "cool" (actually, they were hot!).

Regards,

Thanks alot to all who took the time to reply,
spock, thanks for the link, I believe from what I've read I will probably give the NAD a go.

Mace, the Ah! player is a wondrous idea in which you pay a premium in order to obtain obsolescent technology and less accurate sound reproduction. There are plenty of modern players which would meet your needs, but why limit yourself to the inconvenience of a single-disc player? It's your choice, of course, but I'd never again seriously consider one.

Excellent choice mace. I say - Go NADs!

Alan writes:

"Adding to what Bren mentioned, won't it be fun to use a device that generates a rich wash of harmonic distortion, AC hum & noise, and begins deteriorating the moment it's turned on?"

Not to put too fine a point on the matter Alan, but are you sure you know what you're talking about? Have you ever listened to an Ah!? I know there're folks on this board who think all CD players are the same, but friends, unless you're hearing impaired, I can tell you that's not the case. The Ah! with standard tubes sounds (Philips Jan 6922 Military Grade NOS tubes) terrific. With upgraded Siemens E288CCs the sound is even better. With the upsampler, well, you're really in audiophile bliss if you can get over any fixed idea you may be stuck on that all CDP's sound the same.

Alan may not like the Ah! but there are many respectable reviewers out there who think the Ah! is something really special. Dick Olsher from Enjoy the Music.com, one of my favorite sites, thinks it "slays every other player I've heard to date in the under $3K price range. At its sub $1K asking price, its price/performance ratio is simply out of this world. The Super Tjoeb gets my vote for digital product of the year." TNT loves it. I've heard it and it is the best sounding CDP I've ever heard.

But hey, you guys are the experts. My ears must not be sensitive enough to hear the hum or the tubes degrading and silly me, what I thought sounded terrific was really just "a rich wash of harmonic distortion" and noise.

Must be the Axioms which make that poor thing sound as good as it does.

Ahh, but 2x6spds - no one's knocking the tube sound, just how it's used. I, for one, having played both guitar and bass through tube and S/S amps - I still own a Johnson tube PA built in Brandon, MB circa 1954... will admit they sound different - whether it's characterized as even-order distortion (by engineers) or warmth (by musicians).

As far as the production of sound is concerned, tube amps for musicians are a great idea, they add timbre (or character) to a pretty dead sounding instrument - after all, the best instruments in the world all create distortion to colour their sound - the vibrations set up inside the f-holes in a violin, for instance. Without adding something to an electric guitar or bass - it would sound a whole lot like a synthesizer.

But once you've captured that sound and you want to reproduce it, S/S electronics do it a lot cleaner - you're trying not to recolour the sound but to play it back as faithfully as possible (which is why most of us prefer flat-response loudspeaker designs).

And if you really enjoy the tube sound and want to avoid the pitfalls of tubes, they're doing incredible things with MOSFETs these days - Metal Oxide Semiconductor Field Effect Transistors (whew!), they sound like tubes - but baby, they ain't tubes!

Bren R.

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Not to put too fine a point on [it]

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Say I'm the only bee in your bonnet.
Build a little birdhouse in your soul.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

Nothing like a bit of They Might Be Giants to lighten a mood...

Strange too... I just happen to be talking to a friend in Istanbul (not Constantinople).

Ahh... college music... if anyone starts with the Dead Milkmen, though, I'm outta here.

Bren R.