Hello new guy here - Axiom Message Boards

Hi everyone..For years my POS stereo was fine.Then one day it was not. Just got a set of M80ti's to add to a new NAD
272 amp..162 pre..422 tuner. Ran this with the 80's it sounded good.Broke open the wallet and got the NAD 542 CD
player to replace my crappy 10yo sony player.Oh my God!
That made the big..huge awesome difference.
All I need is some killer headphones and a very large CD collection and I will be content.(for a while anyhow).
Just wanted to say these speakers rock.Thanks for all your great info.

I feel bad for the whipping you're gonna get for saying the new CD player made a huge difference.

You can't go wrong with any of Sennheiser or Grado higher end headphones. They get only the best regards from user feedback and editorial reviews.

Hey thanks for the Headphone advice. I was thinking Sennheiser HD600's seems like there are some good deals on those out there.

I like bmgmusic.com for CDs. Let me know if you want to sign up - I'll get 5 CDs for free

(actually $2.97 each after S&H

).
I also buy used CDs, burn them and return half of them, Repeat as necessary or until the store has nothing but crap remaining.

Hello BH

What kind of CD Player did you pick up?

In reply to:
Broke open the wallet and got the NAD 542 CD player to replace my crappy 10yo sony player

Straight from the horse's mouth.

He said the NAD 542, an excellent CD player. I think the CD player makes more of a difference than the amplifier as far as sound goes. I think thats further augmented by how accurate a speakers you have. With Axioms, the difference between CD players is more than with Bose speakers. Thats just my opinion.

With Bose, all your music will be schmoooove.

Ever go to best buy and just take the cone off? I thought the cone was ripped a bit and dried out, but they're all just built like that. The woofers in a 35 year old Denon stereo I looked at recently looked better made.

Alan has said once already that it's a mature technology and that all CD players will sound the same with music except with very loud test tones.

err, grille, not cone

In reply to:
think the CD player makes more of a difference than the amplifier as far as sound goes.

It depends. If you are using the CD player's D/A converters and sending the resultant analog stereo signal to the receiver, then different CD players may yield different sounds. If you are sending a data bitstream via a digital (optical or coaxial) cable, then there is no way that one CD player will sound different than another. This is not an opinion, it is a fact. A cheap entry level CD player will send the same 1's and 0's to the receiver as an expensive player over a digital connection.

I would think that unless your CD player is very expensive, or your receiver is very old, that your receiver will probably have the better D/A converters.

Mark

Did'nt mean to start anything here.Perhaps my old CD player
had something wrong with it or needed a dusting.
Anyone here like Classic Rock.I just got Led Zep how the west was won and a new Digital remastered Robin Trower album. Awesome. Looks like you can get a pair of senneiser
hd600's for 259.00 brand new off ebay including shipping.
Gotta get them before my neighbors kill me.

I only use analog connections on all of my connections. I have used the the DAC's on my 12 yr old Sony 5 disc changer (analog), Sony DVP 755V (analog), Sony STR-DE 595 (digital), and Denon 1604 (Digital).

The old Changer sounds the best out of all of them. The Denon reciever sounded second best, the DVP 755V sounded third best (although SACD's sound AWESOME) and the Sony reciever didn't sound to well.

Keep in mind that these are just minimal differences and I can notice them (and thats all that really matters). Thats just my 2 cents.

In reply to:
If you are sending a data bitstream via a digital (optical or coaxial) cable, then there is no way that one CD player will sound different than another. This is not an opinion, it is a fact. A cheap entry level CD player will send the same 1's and 0's to the receiver as an expensive player over a digital connection.

I have found no difference in sound quality but when I upgraded from a Sony DVPNS725 to my Samsung HD931 the sound was louder out my Denon 1804. I didn't measure the difference but I was listening at -10 with the sony and had to drop it to -25 with the Samsung for what was about the same listening level. Quite the difference better dvd player components make. Just my $0.02 worth.

So is everyone saying that there is no CD player quality difference if you use digial out? And if the analog is used, how much difference can be found? And which is better?

Kid, everyone isn't saying that, but the audio engineers who design these things say that the digital 1s and 0s coming out are exactly the same, just as Dr. Mark indicated. Note that some players have a higher output than others, so the volume control on the receiver would be set at different levels for the different players, but adjusting the volume has nothing to do with quality.

With players of recent manufacture, the DACs are of excellent quality, as Alan and others have pointed out, so this shouldn't be a determining factor either. Of course, if you're going to use some digital processing in the receiver(e.g. bass management or some special processing)it wouldn't be sensible to go digital to analog in the player and then analog to digital(then processing) to analog in the receiver.