dave weil wrote:
On Sun, 12 Mar 2006 14:43:39 -0800, "ScottW"
wrote:


"dave weil" wrote in message
.. .
On Sun, 12 Mar 2006 10:00:12 -0800, "ScottW"
wrote:


"dave weil" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 11 Mar 2006 17:53:19 -0800, "ScottW"
wrote:

To explain slightly, a CD and decent CD player will give an exact
rendition of the material recorded on that CD. Philips and Sony made
sure
the parameters were up to this when launching the first domestic
system
capable of giving 'studio' quality. But it can't make up for a poor
quality master tape or whatever - it just reproduces that warts and
all.

The AES paper that was recently referenced seems to indicate that
given
the same input, CD masters can sound different one from the other.

Only if one is seriously flawed. That paper provided no attempt at
explanation
and ultimately implied they were able to fix the problem in production
of
the
masters. A simple bit check of the results should have voided the
defective
master. Remember... this wasn't digitizing anything... it was (in
simplistic
terms) just a digital transfer. Obviously data was lost in the process.

ScottW

Am I mistaken, or do you have an ARCAM?

Yeah... a CD-92, Why?

Why did you buy it instead of the absolute cheapest Sony or Pioneer?

Because people said good things about the ring dac.
No local dealers, I wasn't buying new anyway so only one
way to find out for myself...except everyone says there must
be something wrong with it as I'm not impressed. Seems to
work...so I'm kind of hard pressed to think of a fail mode
that would be so subtle.

Was is only the pride of ownership or some front panel feature, or did
you spend the extra money because of some perceived sound difference?

I wasn't that much more than my AMC... I got it used.

I'm still curious...why this line of questioning?

ScottW

It just seems that you're convinced that there's no improvement
possible in the digital domain and CDs, at least in terms of the
format itself.

What led you to this conclusion?

It also just seems a waste of money if even the
cheapest CD player would resolve the same signal as a more expensive
one, which is the ultimate extension of what you seem to be arguing
here.

That leap of logic left you a bit short of firm ground.

Of course, if you paid multiples just to have a nice CD player
to match up with the rest of your system (nice faceplate, fancy name,
good pedigree, longer lifespanetc.), that's cool.

It looks very little different than my AMC. I can't vouch for any of
the other stuff.


Did you think that the Ring DAC would do something to this already
"perfect system" of CD reproduction?

Who are you quoting? and what do you mean by CD reproduction?


I'm not being snide here - I'm trying to get to the why of why you'd
spend hundreds of dollars more on a somewhat expensive CD player if
you believe what you do about the abilities of CDs.

What do I think I believe Dave and what posts of mine gave you that
conclusion?

Note that I'm not
addressing the variability of digital masters that you brought up,
because one would assume that a certain CD player wouldn't be of much
use in that situation anyway, Ring DAC or not.

I don't know... ability to read deformed pits by the laser.... error
correction algorithms... interpolation.... are these things consistent
across CD players?

But if two supposedly identical CDs sound different on the same
player... I have to believe that one is either flawed or has different
data. Since both supposedly had the same data.... there is but one
conclusion IMO.


Finally, it sounds like you might have proved your own hypothesis to
yourself g.

Here's my hypothesis... If the Arcam sounds different... it probably
has a tweeked FR or some subtle distortion. Is there a chance that
might sound better to me than perfect accuracy? Maybe. If you paid
attention I've said many times I haven't been interested in perfect
accuracy or exact reproduction of a "live sound" since I saw Queen live
sometime in the late 70's. If my stereo sounded that bad I'd have to
burn it.

ScottW