On Fri, 2 Jan 2004 17:32:12 -0000, "Oliver Keating"
wrote:


Which brings me onto CD players. I always thought that amplifier and
speakers mattered the most, but What HiFi reckons CD players are important,
and worthing spending loads of money on. Now, if you have a CD player in a
half decent Hi-Fi setup then you use a digital interconnect, so really, all
the CD player is having to do is read the raw data off the CD and feed it to
the Amp, and the cleverness of its own DAC is neither here nor there.

Excuse me? EWhere do you get the idea that a normal amp can handle a
digital data stream? Are you confused by the prevalence of Home Cinema
amplifiers with digital audio inputs?

So in a £1,000 CD player are you paying for a great DAC (which you won't
use) or simply some very good error correction in the reading process?

Both, and you certainly *should* use the DAC in the player. However,
you also get very good error correction in the cheapest players, as
they almost all use the same Sony or Philips transports and associated
electronics package.

I just wonder if this magazine is just designed so that the industry is able
to flog expensive kit.

Now you're getting it! :-)
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering