Which has better sound for music?
The new DVDs and DACs? or new CD players with new DACs?
or older cd players with that 'classic' sound?

Care to list your fav cd playback machine? I'm curious to see what combos or separate components everyone is using with their home Axiom setups.

Hmm, when i get the time this weekend maybe i'll turn this post into an actual poll. I think i saw coding for that somewhere in the faqs

Im still a newb but ive heard from several people that cd players still sound better than dvd players; just because they are dedicated to cds. I myself use a craporific Sony hifi system to play back my plastic I heard that the Rotel RCD 971 is a very good cd player for the money

I"m useing a JVC 7-disc progressive scan, dvd,dvd-audio,cd,mp3 player with a Onkyo 787 receiver driving a pair of m-80's,a vp150 center a rava 12" sub up front with a pair of DCM bookshelfs and a JBL rear center with a powered 10" JBL sub in the back and I'm pretty happy.I will be upgradeing the rears to qs8's soon.the only drawback to useing one player for everything is cleaning the lens more often.

It is an interesting question. I would believe all the bits on the music CD are read (as opposed to an algorithm that selectively ignores some as redundant) whether the reading device is a CD player or a DVD player. Also both would employ similar error correction logic. Given this, it is a relatively simple exercise to recreate the analog equivalent although I would believe DVD players would use a separate DAC path for processing the audio signals (in relation to the video signals) if only because this obviates the need to design a DAC filter section that straddles the entire spectrum from audio frequencies to the video frequencies which would be a rather challenging design objective.

If this is true, playing a CD on a DVD player should not really make a difference. I only have a DVD player which I use for both CDs and DVDs and in my experience CDs play at a louder volume than DVDs containing the same music. It would be interesting to hear from someone who has both (preferably based on comparable technologies and running through a same receiver) if the CDs sound different on a DVD player than in a CD player.

Prem, as I said about a week ago on another thread, there's no technical reason for a CD/DVD player not to handle both equally well. Modern players have dual laser arrangements, one optimized for CDs the other for DVDs. It isn't unusual for a player to have a different voltage output for the two types of discs, but this can be "corrected" merely with a small change in the volume control. Other than possibly this small difference in output which should be no problem, there should be no difference. Possibly you're talking about something more than this, but bear in mind that even very small variations in volume, which aren't apparent as such, can be perceived as qualitative rather than quantitative differences.

Prem

Basicly, I tend to agree with your assessment (bits is bits, etc) and DVD players should be as good as CD players for playing music. However, just like CD players, amplifiers, receivers, and speakers - all DVD players are not created equal. Some have "better" (subjective analysis - but at least "different") DACs, components, power supplies, etc. All of those different parts could/should have an effect on the overall sound produced. So in theory, some CD only players could at least sound "different" (or perhaps better - again subjective) than a DVD/CD player.

Not trying to kick your butt here - just pointing out some possibilities to consider.

Randyman

Hi Randyman, JohnK, and Prem,

You're all correct, and in my comparisons so far, I've not detected audible differences that couldn't be attributed to the analog output sections of DVD or CD players. When I switched to the coaxial or optical feed to my receiver's D/A converter, I heard no differences whatsoever between the CD and the DVD players.

By the way, our acoustic memory for audible nuances is extremely short. To make really valid comparisons, you must run duplicate CDs on the DVD and CD players, sync them up, and switch instantaneously between the two machines.

If you do that, I'll think you'll find that most alleged "differences" in sound between players using musical programming disappear. Incidentally, it IS possible to hear minute differences in DACs with test signals and test discs, listening at extemely high levels with headphones. Once you play music, any differences disappear (except occasional frequency-response errors in analog stages. . .).

Regards,

I ran a test of this about six months ago. I had an optical cable connected to the DVD input on the receiver and an analog pair connected to the CD input. I played a Dream Theater song, I foget the title at the moment, and switch back an forth between the DVD and CD inputs using the remote. I must've done the switch 50 times. I could hear absolutely no differece in highs and mids but I thought I could hear and feel a difference in the low bass notes. I pulled out the sound meter and was suprised to consistently get lower bass volume levels, about 1.5 dB, with the analog cables than with the optical cable.

I spent about two hours testing this with other similar sounding CD's and got the same result every time. The drop in mid to low bass response was about 1-1.5 dB. I have a feeling that it probably was a difference in the DAC's. As far as a difference between DVD player and dedicated CD player sound, I haven't tried that but I honestly cannot see how it could or would be different when using the same outputs/inputs. A bit is a bit is a bit. I'm not going to go out and buy a CD player but I will be using the optical output for playing CD's.

And what Alan described is exactly what i did the past 2 weeks. I set up the dvd or cd players via analog or optical connections and ran 2 identical music test discs in tandem and switched between the vid1 and vid2 on my receiver that the players were hooked into.
The differences were very hard to notice but in playing back a 4 second clip of audio on each player quickly and listening to both, it was possible to pick out a difference. Two of the players were identical and i could not differentiate between them at all but i had no problems discerning the newer models from my old Technics player.
Incidentally, i found a huge difference between the optical and analog connections in that the optical channels when selected, played the music several dB louder than when using the analog channels. This is not saying the quality was necessarily different but for some reason the sensitivity i guess you could say, was different.
Since that point in time we've discussed how the optical connections circumvent the DAC onboard the player and instead the DAC onboard the receiver is the primarily digital to anaolog decompiler. Hence my perceived difference is most likely due to the fact i was either listening to the player or i was listening to my receivers' version of the encoding/decoding process.
I do believe you can hear differences between DACs however they are still VERY minute as Alan states. In the end, it was the features of the dvd player that won me out more than the sound quality.
My general impression is that most of today's typical consumer DACs are all pretty high quality (24bit/192khz) and very close in quality (ie. all 24bit/94-192khz) but this topic was originated to get some other people's thoughts on using their dvd players for music rather than 'dedicated' cd players. Some diehards believe that this axiom (pardon the pun) holds true and i wanted to test it for myself. So i did.

Geez, you would think i do enough research at work. Why the heck do i keep bringing it home?

ARgghhh.

I do all my music listening on a Heart CD6000 (a Marantz CD6000 with a tube output stage). In my system, its timbre is spot on and there's a sense of life to the midrange and a smoothness to the treble that nicely fleshes out the sound in comparison to the Pioneer DV333 that I use for movie watching. Of course, since it costs a little over three times as much as the Pioneer, it better damn well sound better...

And I have to agree that most differences in sound quality between CD/DVD players can attributed to the analog output section. After all, the CD6000 uses 16-bit/8x oversampling DACs...

Hello yage,

Hey, when you stick tubes into an analog output section of a digital device, all kinds of frequency response changes may occur. Tubes also generate rather high levels of even-order harmonic distortion, which is quite "musical" sounding, but it unquestionably will alter the linear characteristics, and the sound, of a CD or DVD output section.

I'd be surprised if you didn't hear differences when tube technology is introduced. ..

Regards,

Hi all

I bought a Cambridge Audio D500SE to go with my tube amp driven M3s and despite the great reviews I found this CD player very disappointing. It suffered in every way in every comparison with my 9 year old JVC carousel. The D500SE's bass was loose and blowsy, the mids thin, the highs unremarkable. Instead of shaking it off and staying with the JVC (garage sale value of about $15) I ended up with an Ah! Njoeb Tjoeb 4000 with upgraded Burr Brown 627 OpAmp and tubes for the output section. Well, this little fella set me back a whole bunch of money, and does sound substantially better than the $15 JVC, but it really does provoke some head scratching about dollar per value ratios out there. For that kind of money, I figure it should rub my leg.

I also got a Toshiba SD9200 DVD-A player for my solid state (Onkyo 797 and Denon 2 channel amp for channels 6+7) home theater system. The solid state Toshiba is also beautiful sounding. Hard to compare because of the 7 channel music capability of this system compared with the 2 channel Ah! system.

I suppose if I had to compare, I'd say the tube system (Antique Sound Labs and Ah!) sounds warmer. It is accurate, tight, but more musical. The solid state system is also accurate but has more slam and with the M60 type speakers just sounds 'bigger.'

I also had a Panasonic RP56 DVD player with the Faroudja chip, which I picked up for a bit over $100 at a Circuit City sale, and loved it. Not up to the Toshiba for either music or HT, but excellent nonetheless.

Anyway, for dedicated CD players, I recommend the Ah! (or find a $15 JVC carousel at a garage sale) and for DVD-A, I think the Toshiba is terrific for both music and HT.

I recently found an enlightening article on the tube vs. transistor sound at this website: http://www.milbert.com/new/index.bdc?pg=info. The author links the various orders of harmonic distortion to the perceived tonal qualities reproduced.

Like the article states, it's an interesting psychoacoustical problem. I played piano for seven years and I played on different pianos - grands, uprights, even really old ones that sounded terrible. But a lot of the CD players I've come across always seem to miss the mark when it comes to the reproduction of a piano's sound, even if the pages of Stereophile show graphs that proclaim their flat frequency response.

Is what's "missing" due to the recording? The format? The player? Or my own fuzzy memories of childhood? Probably a bit of all of them...

Alan - by the way, the tube output stage in the Heart is a common-cathode amplifier using two 6922 small-signal tubes. Linearity is achieved with a little negative local feedback (which I've read matches the linearity achieved with solid state). According to the article I referenced in the previous post, the harmonics come into play when the amplifiers are driven into the overload region...

It should rub your leg?
And it cost how much?

That's just too funny.

My fiance has a cousin that used to play with a well known Canandian band. He has done a fair bit of recording with them. The next time i talk to him i will try to remember to ask his opinion about the sounds of their recorded work compared to playback on their home stereos and such.
I'm sure he may report a very similar thing that you have regarding 'missing' elements.

In fact, if i remember correctly, Ian or Amie mentioned not too long ago about a band from Toronto? that was going to do some recording and listening testing with Axiom to look at this subject.
If i could only find that post...
ya, here it is:
link to post