Another CD "doomsday" comment....

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  • Stevepaul
    Member
    • Mar 2004
    • 44

    Another CD "doomsday" comment....

    I was reading a review of the NAD 542 CD player today, in a New Zealand review magazine......and they spoke highly of it.....right up to the point when they said that this was probably the last round of pure CD players. In other words, most/all of the big manufacturers are going to combi-players, ie....DVD/CD, and phasing out CD 'only' players.

    What are the prevailing thoughts here?????

    In reading some threads by Jon Marsh and others....it is noted that the electronic components used to reproduce video off a DVD aren't necessarily the best components to reproduce audio off of a CD. Therefore, it is better to purchase a CD 'only' setup to optimize your musical experience and a 'DVD' setup for movies.

    I am not an EE and don't understand differences between Op-amps...but, I can generally get the 'gyst' of the explanation.

    Can someone explain the major differences of DVD (video) and CD (audio) electronics and why one is optimized for Video, while the other for Audio...and why it can't be optimum for both?

    Regards,
    Steve
  • JonMarsh
    Mad Max Moderator
    • Aug 2000
    • 15259

    #2
    It's a little like the idea of a "scrambler" motorcycle (if you're not as old as I am, you may not know what that means) It was a bike that was supposed to be half street bike, half dirt bike. One of the original ones was the old Honda 305 Scrambler- I had one of those in High school. Now, these days, there are bikes like the Honda Translap or some of the multi-purpose BMW's that do a better job of this, but still, on the street they'll have their clock cleaned by a true street machine (especially something light weight like a good Aprilla, Ducati, or Suzuki or Honda V twin, (not cruiser, mind you!), and on the dirt a bona fide motocrosser or enduro will show them as the overweight compromises that they are.

    :W

    Ok, seriously now, why the problem with "universal" disk players? And why do I shun them like the yellow snow?

    There are two major potential areas of difficulty. One is the laser head used to read the disk. Sony and some others use dual laser heads with separate lasers optimized each for CD and for DVD/SACD geometry disks. This should work great. But no one's explained to me to my satisfaction why my $3500 Sony SACD player won't read my black CDR's, whereas my modified, hot-rodded Philips player which as been converted into just a transport plays them just fine, along with CD-RW's, till the cows come home. Then there's the playeres that use just one laser to read both kinds of media, and they often have even more problems, sometimes glitching on "standard" redbook CD.

    Problemo #2. Clocks. No, not the time of day clocks, but the clocks that are necessary to run the various digital control chips, digital filters, and DAC's. A dedicated CD player can have a single high quality locked crystal clock, which is used as the master word clock for the DAC and other chips. DVD players have to handle multiple formats, and so use phase locked loops to pull in clocks to the different operating frequencies required by various source media and the associated chip used to support that media. This is why most of the first generation DVD players had rather bad sound on CD- there jitter numbers were in the hundreds of nan0-seconds, not pico-seconds. Off by an order of magnitude. The much lauded Sony DVPS-7000, the best sounding of the early DVD players, still had rather stinky jitter performance, and was easily bested in sonics by a Sony XA7ES (well, it probably should be, since the XA7ES was a $3000 MSRP player).

    I speak from experience, not conjecture, having owned both. My DVPS-7000 is over at ThomasW's, doing interlaced DVD player duty for his Faroudja processor.

    In principle I KNOW you can get good CD performance in a DVD player (think Ayre D1), but you have to do some herculen engineering with the clock system, or use an Asynchronous resampling chip like the AD1896 to isolate the main system clock jitter from the clock and DAC's used for audio playback. That's not going to happen in a $300 universal player, needless to say... :roll:

    This doesn't mean that you won't be able to get pretty good CD playback in the future, it just means you'll likely have to consider a good DAC. And then their are the more "specialty" manufacturers, like ARCAM, Rega, Classe, Ayre, etc. OTOH, I think it would be a shame if the better CD only players from companies like NAD (S500I) went away.

    But since you can get an outboard DAC for a little under $1K that has truly amazing jitter rejection from sources (128 picoseocnds from a PC TOSLINK output?!?!), there still is a moderate price path to what is probably really good sound.

    Regards,

    Jon
    the AudioWorx
    Natalie P
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    Comment

    • Stevepaul
      Member
      • Mar 2004
      • 44

      #3
      Thanks for the explanation Jon!

      I now have a better understanding of the differences. By the way, I rode some Honda and Suzuki dirt/street bikes back in the early '80's. They were 250's and 500's(big 4 strokers). My ex-wife got me into riding dirt bikes back then. You are right....the enduro's would kick our butts on the trail and the crotch rockets kicked our butts on the street. (Oh.....my first bike back in '70-'71 was the venerable Honda '50'....what a riot! 8) )

      That does explain the DVD video/CD audio universal player conundrum. It kind of comes with the times though...........our managers keep telling us we need to 'Multi-task' better....and we complain about it. We, in turn, ask our electronics to multi-task better...viscous circle! :

      Thanks again,
      Steve

      Comment

      • jazznsoccer
        Member
        • Apr 2004
        • 87

        #4
        Jon,

        What do you think of the Denon 5900? At $2K it's in a reasonable price range (although one could do a great HTPC for that) and has gotten numerous kudos for video and audio.

        Comment

        • Lex
          Moderator Emeritus
          • Apr 2001
          • 27461

          #5
          All I wanted to say was, I remember the Scramblers. I was more a full time dirt guy myself, rode a 175 Enduro.

          Lex
          Doug
          "I'm out there Jerry, and I'm loving every minute of it!" - Kramer

          Comment

          • JonMarsh
            Mad Max Moderator
            • Aug 2000
            • 15259

            #6
            Originally posted by jazznsoccer
            Jon,

            What do you think of the Denon 5900? At $2K it's in a reasonable price range (although one could do a great HTPC for that) and has gotten numerous kudos for video and audio.

            I don't have any hands on experience with the Denon 5900. BTW, I have owned quite a few Denon components, including their digital preamp, CD players, and monoblock NFB amplifiers. Still have a couple of those.
            Build quality has always been one of Denon's strong suits. Audio performance has been very good sometimes (relative to what was available at the time).

            Now, the spec sheet I dig up says that output on the DVI port is not enabled for standard DVI out, only for HDCP enabled devices. That's something of a strike against it for video. It appears that some progressive scan upscaling is supported, but only on DVI/HDCP.

            Now, this player does have SACD, and DVD Audio, along with fairly sophisticated DVD video (uses the ADI 216 MHz 12 bit DACs, and oversampling/filtering in the digital domain).

            But, for me the question arises regarding the quality of audio, as well as the video performance. I'm sure the build quality and reliability is quite good.

            For example, will this $2000 mult-function player have CD and SACD audio playback with jitter as low as my $3500 Sony SACD player? With advances in circuits and materials, and ignoring the tank like build quality on the Sony (55 lb.!) all I can really say is, I don't know- could be as good, might be better, might not be...

            If it did, would that be good enough?

            No.

            On audio, my preferred listening setup at home is the combination of a gutted and hotrodded Philipis CD player which has been turned into a transport only. Total new power supply with toroidal transformers, mechanical modifications, EMI shielding on all VLSI, all electrolytic caps replaced with Sanyo Oscons, etc. The orginal player cost was less than $300.

            That's feeding my new Benchmark DAC1, which, to put it succinctly, cleans the clock of my Sony SACD player on redbook CD's, and takes good Redbook CD's (like the hybrid CD layer of SACD's), and makes them VERY competitive with SACD playback on my Sony, in every part of the spectrum- bass extension, articulation, and choherency, midrange timbre and transient envelope, and high frequency extension and freedom from grit and grain.

            The beauty of this DAC is that it even delivers stellar performance with a pretty mediocre digital source, like a PC sound card...


            Now, if it were my moolah trying to do a combined video/audio block buster on the cheap, I'd consider a combo like the Zenith DVB-318 DVD player, which upscales video on component and DVI on all disks, and mate that to the DAC1 for the audio side. Net cost, about $1200.

            Ummm, come to think of it, that's a combo I own, isn't it? I just don't use the Zenith as a digital transport, except for HT. I use the Philips for audio.

            Now, I'm glad I discovered SACD, and I love buying Hybrid SACD disks, becasue the production care they lavish on the DSD recording or conversions also shows up in having a very good Redbook CD layer in most cases. But SACD players have not caught up with the potential of the medium, and certainly not at a reasonable price point. Think about it. Aruguably the best "value" oriented SACD player available is the Krell SACD Standard, which MSRP's for $4K. I shouldn't say available, though, becuase they're having delivery issues because of the Philips transport they use. But, and here's the kicker, the same signal path is used for CD and SACD, including the converters, and the measured performance of the Krell Standard, using it's own internal transport and clock, while very good, does not match the DAC1 driven by a PC sound card! (50% higher jitter, higher analog distortion on 1 kHz and multi-tone IM tests). My question is, for $4K, will the Krell really do justice to SACD? Well, it's quite good, but on the otherhand, it's not a Meitner or DCs Elgar.

            Maybe what I'm saying is that I've concluded I'd rather have near stat of the art CD performance than average SACD and CD performance. BUT, that's my take, based on my value system, and I'm sure a lot of folks own this Denon and are very happy wtih a nice, well built integrated unit with good video and good audio at a not too steep price.

            It's a good component, but not a value leader.

            Maybe I'm just too much of a bottom feeder any more to be willing to spend $2K on a "good component", instead of a great one. And granted, my needs/values are more narrowly focused. The DAC1 so far makes the playback of ALL my CD's better, in a way that my SCD777ES can't touch.

            I'd say listen for yourself. Go find a Denon to listen too, then go find a big top of the line Mark Leveinson DAC or CD player, which apparently is what the Benchmark sounds like (see my excerpt from JA's review in the Audio Hideout. If the latter doesn't make a difference you hear, or would be relevant to your system, then get the Denon, if it meets your overall needs for a well built one piece player. It would certainly be a bit less hassle in the HT rack, wouldn't it?

            Well, this post really got out of control! :lol:

            Best regards,

            Jon
            the AudioWorx
            Natalie P
            M8ta
            Modula Neo DCC
            Modula MT XE
            Modula Xtreme
            Isiris
            Wavecor Ardent

            SMJ
            Minerva Monitor
            Calliope
            Ardent D

            In Development...
            Isiris Mk II updates- in final test stage!
            Obi-Wan
            Saint-Saëns Symphonique/AKA SMJ-40
            Modula PWB
            Calliope CC Supreme
            Natalie P Ultra
            Natalie P Supreme
            Janus BP1 Sub


            Resistance is not futile, it is Volts divided by Amperes...
            Just ask Mr. Ohm....

            Comment

            • LEVESQUE
              Senior Member
              • Oct 2002
              • 344

              #7
              There have been reports of the modded 5900 outperforming everything under 15K$, even the best Sony's SACD players. For around 4k$ with all the best mods, the 5900 is a bargain, playing DVD-A and SACD so well.

              Even the stock 5900 is able to compete with the Esoteric DV-50 costing 3X more money. The modded 5900 has been known to outperform also the new Linn Unidisk at 5X the price. Modders are doing wonders with the 5900.

              I know someone who sold is Teac DV-50 after listening to the 5900, and he did put 2500$ dollars back in his pocket.

              The buzz about the 5900 is not for nothing, and not only hype. It's the first really good universal player on the market, doing all the formats really well. And after modding it, there is not alot of other options that can go head to head with it.

              I did try alot of high-end dedicated SACD players, CD players, and universal players. I was always going back to the 5900.

              And the video section over DVI is 2nd to none. Best I have seen, even better then my HTPC. I own the LG7832 also, and the 5900 is better. Nothing can touch it now for PQ.

              I think you should really try it if you can.
              To spend more $$$ on electronics without first addressing room acoustics is fruitless IMO.

              Comment

              • JonMarsh
                Mad Max Moderator
                • Aug 2000
                • 15259

                #8
                Thanks for the comments and feedback.

                I sure would like to see a good technical review of the 5900, something like what JA does- do you know of any?

                Since I don't have an HDCP DVI display, it's video output over that mode doesn't matter, unfortunately. I'd mostly be interested based on the musci capabilities.

                Well, if it's this good, hopefully it will get some coverage in the publications I'm familiar with. A $2000+ mod is a lot to invest in a player of that price, though.

                Have you had that done to yours, and if so, how would you compare it before and after? Also, have you heard the Krell Standard? I have, so any comments relative to it would be interesting.

                Thanks.

                Best regards,

                Jon
                the AudioWorx
                Natalie P
                M8ta
                Modula Neo DCC
                Modula MT XE
                Modula Xtreme
                Isiris
                Wavecor Ardent

                SMJ
                Minerva Monitor
                Calliope
                Ardent D

                In Development...
                Isiris Mk II updates- in final test stage!
                Obi-Wan
                Saint-Saëns Symphonique/AKA SMJ-40
                Modula PWB
                Calliope CC Supreme
                Natalie P Ultra
                Natalie P Supreme
                Janus BP1 Sub


                Resistance is not futile, it is Volts divided by Amperes...
                Just ask Mr. Ohm....

                Comment

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