Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Stereo How much SQ difference does CD player make ?

When I first set up the M2s one of my concerns was a bit of an edgy distorted sound on upper midrange. First noticed it when playing at moderately high volumes and thought it might be clipping, but if I listened carefully it was there at lower volumes as well. Urk.. maybe I clipped the amp and damaged the tweeters...

M60s arrive, same distortion. Never cranked the volume up high enough to have even risked clipping so no chance that I damaged the tweeters. Whew, didn't damage the M2s after all.

Noticed that I didn't seem to hear the same distortion when playing FM or DVDs with a good music content, although I don't have enough DVDs with music to be sure.

Just tried an experiment -- pulled one of the CDs with the most obvious distortion (Genesis / Trick of the Tail) and stuck it in my DVD player. Not only was the distortion largely gone but the sound was noticeably different -- a bit less bass with the DVD player and maybe a bit smoother in the midrange.

Does this make any sense ? I'm using analog connections for both players so I guess the DACs and analog circuitry on the players could be making this much difference...

Equipment :

Amplifier - HK3270 stereo receiver
CD player - Kenwood CD-324M changer
DVD player - Sony DVP-NS315

Any input appreciated. I'm particularly interested in this because with the CD player I like the sound of the M2s over the M60s, but when I play CDs on the DVD player the M60 sound is closer to what I liked about the M2 sound...

Thanks,
JB

I think DAC's do make a difference but be warned, not everyone agrees with that. How do you have the CD player hooked up? Same question for the DVD player? Have you reversed them to see what happens? ie: Is the CD player hooked up via analog connections or digital? The problem may be with connections and not DAC's.

Good idea, will try swapping the connections. Both are hooked up via analog with same brand of (cheap) cables; CD into the CD input and DVD into the Aux input of the HK3270.

The distortion difference may not be as much as I first thought... seems like the line out levels or input sensitivities are slightly different between CD and DVD players so the sound level was a bit higher on the CD player.

I'm also going to run out and pick up an SPL meter so I can match levels better. There are a lot of variables here...

So...........................how did you make out?

Not much progress yet :

- bought the SPL meter ($69.95 in Canada),

- determined that "tasteful" volume levels for me are about 82dB "C" and "cranking it" is about 95dB,

- realized I didn't have anything that put out a constant volume (stereo receiver, no test tones) so matching SPLs was going to be problematic

- ordered an Avia disk from Amazon... then succumbed to the flu bug which has been going around the office, went to bed, and missed quite a bit of the weekend.

Avia disk should be in tomorrow.

I'm finding more and more reasons to buy an AV receiver. It occurred to me while reading one of the other threads that if there *is* a problem with the CD player sound it could probably be greatly reduced by using a digital feed into the receiver... but of course I have a stereo receiver which has never heard of digital feeds ;(

Note to self...

When A/B testing CD playback IT REALLY HELPS TO HAVE TWO IDENTICAL CDs BEFORE YOU START !!

Why don't you guys tell me this stuff ?

Because it's so amusing to watch you figure it out as you go!