Rotel 1066 and HDCD's

[spiffnme]

I just got my first couple of HDCD's today, and have a disturbing problem with them. Perhaps someone can shed some light.

I throw the disc into my DVD player and press play. My 1066 picks up the signal (I'm using the optical out of my DVD player) and begins it's usual 44.1kz scroll...the disc starts to play. Two seconds into the song, the sound cuts out, as the 1066 now decides "hey - this is a HDCD!" and switches.

I've seen other posts on here about people complaining that there's a delay when a disc begins to play. Mine does the same thing - I'm not all that worried about that. But this problem is something else. Not only because it happens AFTER the song has begun playing (making it all the more noticable) but also it happens at EACH TRACK. Yipes...yeah. The beginning of every song goes through this switching ordeal. Bleck...

If I switch to analog input I just get the regular cd playback without a problem - but no HDCD.

OK...as an aside. I've switched back and forth between analog and optical (meaning I'm going back and forth between using my Rotel 1066's DAC's and the DVD player's built in DAC's) when listening to cd's and I cannot hear any stinking difference. I'm happy to say both sound good, but shouldn't my $1500 Rotel have better DAC's than a $300 Pioneer DVD player? Too be honest I couldn't hear any difference between the analog output of the HDCD and the digital either.

I guess the easy answer is to just keep using my analog out from my DVD player rather than the optical. But what's the point of HDCD, and higher end DAC's if they make no audible difference?

Confused in Los Angeles




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[Danbry39]

This is another of the problems that is both super annoying and difficult to track. I'm sorry you're experiencing the problem. Even though I don't have it myself, I have heard of others facing similar processing difficulties.

You might try to use a coax or the other optical port to see if this helps, although, to one part of me, this doesn't make sense in that the signal seems to be locking on better when playing regular DVD's.

You might also check to make certain that you have it set to two channel stereo before trying to play as I don't think two DSP's can operate in overlapping fashion.

If these don't work, I'm going to link you to a couple other similar threads in the hopes that you might find a solution. I can't tell you how frustrated I get when I hear this type of thing.

Here's the links Spiffnme.

Thread 1

Thread 2




Keith

[danam]

this is interesting, you think using the coax could be less trouble than TOSlink ?
I experience some delay when going forward or backward on my cd player (philips 723), the 1066 "swallows" the first second (maybe less) but u can hear the lack of the beginning of the song.
it's not really annoying when playing a full cd, only when flipping (what we r not supposed to do when listening to music though LOL) ...

Unfortunatly i think the 723 cd player only has a optical output (not sure though).
I'll let you know when back home !

[Nicholas Renter]

Even if changing to coax doesn't improve your decoding delay issues, it may improve the quality of the sound. I used an optical connection via a $50.00 monster cable optical interconnect for over a year, and after A/B'ing against a cheapo Monster video cable used as a coax connection, I'll never go back to the optical connection. The optical sounds muddy in comparison.

[danam]

nevermind !
just checked the specs of the 723 and i have a coaxial plug, no toslink on this deck !

my mistake ... ops:

[Danbry39]

this is interesting, you think using the coax could be less trouble than TOSlink ?

What I was trying to do was just figure out if there might be something wrong with the particular port he was using. One of those "process of elimination" attempts.




Keith

[spiffnme]

Thanks for the tips and links. There are so many people who've had this problem!

It seems that HDCD is the biggest problem of all. After reading the posts, it almost seems as though the problem is coming from the cd/dvd player...except that people using Rotel cd/dvd players are also having the issue. Grrr... I too must wonder why Rotel has not looked into this issue, with so many people having the problem.

The slight delay at the beginning of cd's and dvd's hasn't really bothered me, but this HDCD issue sucks.

Does anyone have any thoughts on why there is no audible sound difference between using analog and optical between my dvd player and 1066? I have a pretty acurate ear and can pick up most things, but I swear, there's no difference between using my DVD DAC's and the DAC's in my Rotel.




www.funnyfarmcomics.net
All Daredevil, All the Time!

[Danbry39]

Regarding the initial problem, have you, by chance, tried both HDCD's? Just wondering if the problem duplicates on other discs. I guess the suggestion to set the Rotel to two channel stereo didn't help. I was hoping that one might. Oh well...

As far as the quality of DAC's, I personally much prefer the DAC's in my CD player, an Arcam, to those of the Rotel and, yes, the difference is noticable.

I'm not familiar with the sound of Pioneer DVD players, but it is entirely possible that the DAC's aren't so significantly different that there will be no significant sonic difference.




Keith

[fhidayat]

I have tried to do A/B between the CDP Sony XA3ES and Rotel RSX-1065 and the different in quality is night and day. I use Sony Toslink and SignalCable Analog Two to do the comparison. The DAC on the 7 years old CDP beats the Rotel DAC by a wide margin. DAC on the CDP is more detailed, dynamic, tight, and sweet compared to the dull, flat DAC on the Rotel. I might have comparing apple and orange here, but I think in most part, is due to the multi-purpose nature of the DAC on the Rotel. I could be wrong here, but not an issue of listener perceptions, in this comparison, even for the untrained ears. Of course, this is IMHO FWIW and always YMMV...but it consistent with the findings of some




:banana:

[Dr C]

Hi - I don't have any HDCDs so cannot comment on whether there is an unusally long dealy in this mode.

However ... I did participate in a previous thread where I mentioned that when playing CDs on my DVD player, the 1066 would autodetect at the intro to each song, scroll "44.1 kHz ..." and then lock on, missing the 1st 1 or 2 secs of the song. This was super annoying :evil: and I was wondering if anyone was similarly afflicted.

Apparently this problem is fairly widespread and autodetect intervals range from *never* to *1 or 2 secs* to even longer intervals. At the time I didn't know what was causing it : was it due to the Rotel (could be cos I had a Pioneer 5.1 processor in the past and never had this problem) or was it the DVD player.

Well I decided to purchase a dedicated CD player (NAD C541 which I still haven't gotten around to doing ops: ) intending to use the (I think) superior DACs for music and get around the delay problem by outputting in analog mode.

In the meantime I was testing one of my company's new DVD+RW recorders (I work for Thomson and it was the RCA DRC8000 which I don't think has been introed yet) and was pleasently surprised that when i played CDs, the problem was gone.

Which leads me to surmise that :

1. The Rotel auto detect feature is good but sometimes screws up due to the DVD player.
2. I'm wondering if anyone has this problem when playing CDs thru a CD player and not a DVD player - I think not. Thus get a dedicated (and good) CD player if you want to listen to music.
3. Do other models also get affected (1065, 1098?) I'm quite sure the 1055 would be.

I'm also wondering if we could compile a list showing the list of DVD players that are kniown to cause this problem. This way all of us considering purchasing a DVD player would be aware of any potential problems ?

[Danbry39]

John Dawson of Arcam summed up why a dedicated CD player has an advantage over playing CD's through a combination DVD/CD player.

There are many other factors involved of course, including the DACs themselves, the digital filters, post conversion analogue filters and so on. The layout of the PCB, especially with respect to ground currents is also critical and mistakes and less than optimum layouts here are definitely audible, even though the obvious measurements may not really change.
4 or 6 layer boards help. We've done lots of listening inside the company and are absolutely certain of the huge amount of attention that needs to be paid to these things. It's reflected in our sales too.

It's not too difficult to do all of this inside a CD player, where you only need one master clock and where the transport is slaved to this. DVD players need multiple clocks however, to get 27MHz for video and integer multiples of both 44.1 and 48 kHz for audio, as a minimum. In nearly all DVD players I have seen, the master clock is 27MHz and the audio clocks are derived from this via additional phase locked loops. Now this can be done well or badly - there are a couple of pretty good if somewhat expensive parts out there - but mostly it is done using the on-chip PLL of the MPEG/DVD decoder chipset (the lowest cost solution) and the jitter results are from mediocre to horrendous. As you might imagine this compromises the audio DAC's performance, even if all else were perfect (which is usually isn't by a long way). It also affects the SPDIF digital output stream.

It almost seems like the problem is sometimes the Rotel getting confused by the signal being sent, thus having difficulty locking on.




Keith

[Mark_C.]

I just tried a HDCD in my Marantz DVD player hooked up via coax to my 1066: No problems. What I normally do, whether I'm loading a Redbook CD or HDCD, is wait until my DVD player has figured out what I put in the tray. The Marantz DV-7010 will display CD when it has determined the disc is not a DVD. Once this happens (a few seconds), the Rotel display scrolls "44.1 khz'', informing me that its ready to take the signal. The only other step is when the disc is HDCD. The HDCD symbol doesn't display on the 1066 until playback begins. However, I have noticed no delays in sound. This is instantaneous. If owners aren't getting instantaneous recognition of HDCD, then there is a problem. I suspect the individual players may be at fault. Also, I skipped tracks to check for loss of HDCD signal, but it didn't happen. Once my 1066 locks on, it stays locked.

[simreg]

If owners aren't getting instantaneous recognition of HDCD, then there is a problem

I don't get *any* HDCD decoding. Ever. However I took my 1055 in last night to try it with a different DVD player, and it worked perfectly. So My guess is that my sub-crappy DVD player just doesn't output stuff right. I'm using coax for my digital output.

A new DVD player is coming sometime soon (I hope). Maybe a CD player too.

Just wanted to let everyone know that they are not the only ones with the issue, and it could be worse

Nick

[spiffnme]

After some extensive reading it seems that this delay problem is "technically" my cd/dvd player's problem - or at least partially. It appears that Rotel's processors are really finicky about the signal they receive. Unless you've got a really good signal coming into your Rotel, it's going to get confused. Though you can easily say it's the DVD players fault for not sending a pristine signal, you could also just as easily say that the Rotel should be able to pick up the signal better, since many other processors do not have this same problem when being fed the same signal. So...what to do?




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[Danbry39]

First thing I'd do is make sure that that's the case here. If you can, borrow a CD or DVD player from someone else and see if you can duplicate the problem. You might also find out which DVD players don't appear to result in the problem. Mine, for instance, is the Denon 1600, and it does the CD thing fine, although I rarely use it for this purpose.

Now, if you find it is what you suspect, you have three options if you want to get rid of it: (1) Replace the Rotel (I don't like this one for obvious reasons) (2) Replace the DVD player (Hate to do it if it does the DVD thing well, or (3) get a dedicated CD player that doesn't have problems in this arena.

Personally, because I play CD's all of the time, option number three would be the hands down winner for me. There are a number of options in great CD players that, in my opinion, would improve on the sound produced by the majority of DVD players.




Keith

[spiffnme]

First thing I'd do is make sure that that's the case here. If you can, borrow a CD or DVD player from someone else and see if you can duplicate the problem. You might also find out which DVD players don't appear to result in the problem. Mine, for instance, is the Denon 1600, and it does the CD thing fine, although I rarely use it for this purpose.

Now, if you find it is what you suspect, you have three options if you want to get rid of it: (1) Replace the Rotel (I don't like this one for obvious reasons) (2) Replace the DVD player (Hate to do it if it does the DVD thing well, or (3) get a dedicated CD player that doesn't have problems in this arena.

Personally, because I play CD's all of the time, option number three would be the hands down winner for me. There are a number of options in great CD players that, in my opinion, would improve on the sound produced by the majority of DVD players.

Great advice. I'll try to borrow a few different cd/dvd players and see if the same HDCD problem exists. If not, I guess I'll look into a dedicated cd player. If I go that route, do you have some (under $500) CD player suggestions? (SACD playback would be a plus)

Thanks guys.




www.funnyfarmcomics.net
All Daredevil, All the Time!

[Danbry39]

I think the Sony SCD-C222ES gets pretty good word of mouth and plays SACD. It's a five disc changer. I think it retails for about the figure you mentioned, but I've heard it can be found online for like $370. Try to audition first.




Keith

[audionut]

I have had my Rotel gear for about a year I guess and love it. The only problem I have had is the one Spiff mentioned. I have a Rotel 1080 (RVD?) hooked up to my 1066/1075 . When I pop in a cd or ADVD the first second or so is cut off. Mind this happens on brand new recordings.What gives?


"After some extensive reading it seems that this delay problem is "technically" my cd/dvd player's problem - or at least partially. It appears that Rotel's processors are really finicky about the signal they receive. Unless you've got a really good signal coming into your Rotel, it's going to get confused. Though you can easily say it's the DVD players fault for not sending a pristine signal, you could also just as easily say that the Rotel should be able to pick up the signal better, since many other processors do not have this same problem when being fed the same signal. So...what to do? "