Add a DAC to a cheap CD player?
 

On Tue, 09 Dec 2003 21:44:54 GMT, "Wally" wrote:

Stewart Pinkerton wrote:

Not 'necessary', but it does help an outboard DAC to approach the
quality of a one-box player. generally, much better to buy a better
player than to use an outboard DAC for CD replay.

Judging by the prices that DACs are going for, I'm thinking that this would
be a good improvement over the existing setup for less than the cost of a
comparable player. My mate's £500 Arcam player has quickly established
itself as something of a benchmark - I'd like to approach, or improve on,
that sort of quality if feasible.

It's feasible, but only with a single-box player! :-)

Try the brilliant Sony NV-900, for instance, which should be available
very cheaply - and it plays DVDs, too!

My thinking is that, when my existing
player starts to bite the dust, I could look at getting a transport that can
take a timing signal from a DAC. Is it a standard signal for all (most?)
transports/DACs, or is it rather proprietary?

No, this is a very rare and always proprietary feature, and doesn't
always work too well (the Linn being a case in point).

I'm sure an oscilloscope is a much cheaper approach... ;-)

Actually, he's being coy. 'Better kit' in this case most certainly
does *not* include DACs which can't suppress jitter in the datastream,
but they certainly cost a lot of money, and they do sound bad! :-)

Do you mean DACs that use a sync signal to control jitter, as opposed to
those which can take a raw datastream and make the best (or better) of it?

No, I mean DAC which typically has dual PLLs, one wideband to ensure
viability with poor transports, and one narrow-band to ensure low
jitter with a good transport.

Would a DAC which has a sync output and a bunch of oversampling be the right
thing to go chasing after?

No, a single-box player will always be superior.

As noted, try Meridian DACs - they sound good and they do a good job
of suppressing jitter. I'm not sure that you'll notice much difference
between the original 203 and the later models, as they always had the
engineering pretty well spot on.

Duly noted.

I still have my trusty 203 in its original box if you're interested,
but I still recommend a new player.
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

Add a DAC to a cheap CD player?
 

On Wed, 10 Dec 2003 08:34:04 +0000, Ian Molton wrote:

On Wed, 10 Dec 2003 03:04:30 -0000
Jim H wrote:

I wonder - would the DAC ensure the discarded bits are the least
significent ones?
If so wouldn't the worst reclocking can do just lower the resolution from
16 to 15
bits for 1/44000 of a second?

You tell me. I dont know what the DACs are doing internally.

Well, they're not discarding any bits, for starters! :-)
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

Add a DAC to a cheap CD player?
 

On Wed, 10 Dec 2003 08:34:04 +0000, Ian Molton wrote:

On Wed, 10 Dec 2003 03:04:30 -0000
Jim H wrote:

I wonder - would the DAC ensure the discarded bits are the least
significent ones?
If so wouldn't the worst reclocking can do just lower the resolution from
16 to 15
bits for 1/44000 of a second?

You tell me. I dont know what the DACs are doing internally.

Well, they're not discarding any bits, for starters! :-)
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

Add a DAC to a cheap CD player?
 

Jim Lesurf wrote:

The sound of 'lost data' depends upon the details, and the DAC. :-)

The clearest example I've had of this was some PDO Cds that had the
'brown rot' problem a few years ago. This eventually caused them to
misbehave. Listened to via the Meridian 263 DAC, the loss produced
rough swishing sounds like bursts of noise.

Not getting anything like that.


Listened to on a Quad 67
the sound just got very vague and dull. (This was using the Meridian
DAC outboard from the Quad, so reading the same data/errors in each
case.) The Quad seems to try and 'hide' serious losses by smoothing
them over when the meridian seems to decide "bugger it! I'd better
let them hear this isn't right!" :-)

Vague and dull is more like what I get from the Schneider player. Many moons
ago, I used to listen to these speakers via a half-decent turntable and SS
amp, and I remember the sound being much clearer than what I get at
present - the mate's Arcam approached the turntable-sourced sound in terms
of detail and clarity. Much better separation of instruments.


Pay yer money and take yer choice on which approach you'd prefer...

Given that I don't have a handy DAC with which to test my cheapie player, I
suspect it's more a case of paying my money and taking my chance... :-)


Afraid I can't really say. In normal use, my experience is that DACs
do not often make large differences once the system is essentially
decent.

That leaves me feeling that almost any external DAC is going to be an
improvement over the player's internal one. Which leads me to wonder if
something at the (very) cheap end of second hand would make a good
improvement.


snip
The advantage of the 563 over the 263 is that it has a wider choice of
input formats. Note though, that each DAC seems to have gone through
different 'versions'. The advantage of the 263 is that it is cheaper
than the 563. :-) However mine only has a co-ax input.

I've noticed in my browsing that some are listed as doing 30-something KHz,
as well as 44.1 and 48, and assumed that some were designed to handle
different rates. I've been wondering if I should be looking for something
which will handle 48KHz as well as 44.1, as a future-proofing thing, but I'm
feeling now that 44.1 will be sufficient for a good while.


In general I tend to prefer classical music (and some acoustic jazz)
to rock or pop. For my taste the Meridian DACs seem excellent. Have a
relaxed, natural sound to my ears, and seem able with good material
to give an excellent stereo image.

My tastes are broader and would include hard rock and various flavours of
pop. AC/DC's Hell's Bells had a much better edge on the Arcam compared to
the Schneider - it had the feel of a rock band givin' it laldie.


They also seem to be very well
engineered. However you may well find other DACs suit you (or the
other items in your system) better. My own impression is that once
DACs are well made, their 'sounds' become fairly similar, and any
residual differences are tiny compared with those between, say,
loudspeakers.

The key difference between my set up and my mate's, using his Arcam player,
was that his has better detail - we both felt that mine was a little dull in
comparison. My amp and speakers are the Maplin Millennium valve kit and
large KEF B139/B110/T27 reflex boxes; his is an Arcam amp (8? 9?) and shiny
new Ruark Prologue II speakers. I felt that his was a touch cleaner overall,
better soundstaging, faster sounding, and with better detail at higher
frequencies. We're planning to try my amp at his place to see how it sounds,
hopefully with a view to narrowing down where the differences lie.


I just set my DVD to output S/PDIF. This automatically gets the DVD
player to extract 'stereo' from film soundtracks that are Dolby x.1
surround, and gives me the LPCM track if there is one.

I guess I should have a look at my DVD and see if there's anything I need to
set for the digital out to do the right thing - I'd imagine it'll be fine
with a normal CD, though (apart from when I first got it, I don't have it
hooked up to a display, so I've never really investigated the options).


--
Wally
www.art-gallery.myby.co.uk
Latest work: The Langlois Bridge (after Van Gogh)

Add a DAC to a cheap CD player?
 

Jim Lesurf wrote:

The sound of 'lost data' depends upon the details, and the DAC. :-)

The clearest example I've had of this was some PDO Cds that had the
'brown rot' problem a few years ago. This eventually caused them to
misbehave. Listened to via the Meridian 263 DAC, the loss produced
rough swishing sounds like bursts of noise.

Not getting anything like that.


Listened to on a Quad 67
the sound just got very vague and dull. (This was using the Meridian
DAC outboard from the Quad, so reading the same data/errors in each
case.) The Quad seems to try and 'hide' serious losses by smoothing
them over when the meridian seems to decide "bugger it! I'd better
let them hear this isn't right!" :-)

Vague and dull is more like what I get from the Schneider player. Many moons
ago, I used to listen to these speakers via a half-decent turntable and SS
amp, and I remember the sound being much clearer than what I get at
present - the mate's Arcam approached the turntable-sourced sound in terms
of detail and clarity. Much better separation of instruments.


Pay yer money and take yer choice on which approach you'd prefer...

Given that I don't have a handy DAC with which to test my cheapie player, I
suspect it's more a case of paying my money and taking my chance... :-)


Afraid I can't really say. In normal use, my experience is that DACs
do not often make large differences once the system is essentially
decent.

That leaves me feeling that almost any external DAC is going to be an
improvement over the player's internal one. Which leads me to wonder if
something at the (very) cheap end of second hand would make a good
improvement.


snip
The advantage of the 563 over the 263 is that it has a wider choice of
input formats. Note though, that each DAC seems to have gone through
different 'versions'. The advantage of the 263 is that it is cheaper
than the 563. :-) However mine only has a co-ax input.

I've noticed in my browsing that some are listed as doing 30-something KHz,
as well as 44.1 and 48, and assumed that some were designed to handle
different rates. I've been wondering if I should be looking for something
which will handle 48KHz as well as 44.1, as a future-proofing thing, but I'm
feeling now that 44.1 will be sufficient for a good while.


In general I tend to prefer classical music (and some acoustic jazz)
to rock or pop. For my taste the Meridian DACs seem excellent. Have a
relaxed, natural sound to my ears, and seem able with good material
to give an excellent stereo image.

My tastes are broader and would include hard rock and various flavours of
pop. AC/DC's Hell's Bells had a much better edge on the Arcam compared to
the Schneider - it had the feel of a rock band givin' it laldie.


They also seem to be very well
engineered. However you may well find other DACs suit you (or the
other items in your system) better. My own impression is that once
DACs are well made, their 'sounds' become fairly similar, and any
residual differences are tiny compared with those between, say,
loudspeakers.

The key difference between my set up and my mate's, using his Arcam player,
was that his has better detail - we both felt that mine was a little dull in
comparison. My amp and speakers are the Maplin Millennium valve kit and
large KEF B139/B110/T27 reflex boxes; his is an Arcam amp (8? 9?) and shiny
new Ruark Prologue II speakers. I felt that his was a touch cleaner overall,
better soundstaging, faster sounding, and with better detail at higher
frequencies. We're planning to try my amp at his place to see how it sounds,
hopefully with a view to narrowing down where the differences lie.


I just set my DVD to output S/PDIF. This automatically gets the DVD
player to extract 'stereo' from film soundtracks that are Dolby x.1
surround, and gives me the LPCM track if there is one.

I guess I should have a look at my DVD and see if there's anything I need to
set for the digital out to do the right thing - I'd imagine it'll be fine
with a normal CD, though (apart from when I first got it, I don't have it
hooked up to a display, so I've never really investigated the options).


--
Wally
www.art-gallery.myby.co.uk
Latest work: The Langlois Bridge (after Van Gogh)

Add a DAC to a cheap CD player?
 

Alicia Tamblyn wrote:

I already have a player - I'm looking into improving it with a DAC.

just comparing price differences etc

Ah, okay - no probs. Asda also do cheaper units now - getting towards £40 or
so.


--
Wally
www.art-gallery.myby.co.uk
Latest work: The Langlois Bridge (after Van Gogh)

Add a DAC to a cheap CD player?
 

Alicia Tamblyn wrote:

I already have a player - I'm looking into improving it with a DAC.

just comparing price differences etc

Ah, okay - no probs. Asda also do cheaper units now - getting towards £40 or
so.


--
Wally
www.art-gallery.myby.co.uk
Latest work: The Langlois Bridge (after Van Gogh)

Add a DAC to a cheap CD player?
 

James Perrett wrote:

The best value for money in jitter immune DAC's is reputed to be the
Benchmark DAC1 which uses a sample rate convertor in front of the DAC.
It is a little out of your price range at $850 (no UK distributor
either).

Aye, a tad pricey. :-)


I'd forget about word clock outputs for your purpose - very few CD
players can actually use them.

Yup, I've pretty-much accepted that this isn't worth chasing after.


--
Wally
www.art-gallery.myby.co.uk
Latest work: The Langlois Bridge (after Van Gogh)

Add a DAC to a cheap CD player?
 

James Perrett wrote:

The best value for money in jitter immune DAC's is reputed to be the
Benchmark DAC1 which uses a sample rate convertor in front of the DAC.
It is a little out of your price range at $850 (no UK distributor
either).

Aye, a tad pricey. :-)


I'd forget about word clock outputs for your purpose - very few CD
players can actually use them.

Yup, I've pretty-much accepted that this isn't worth chasing after.


--
Wally
www.art-gallery.myby.co.uk
Latest work: The Langlois Bridge (after Van Gogh)

Add a DAC to a cheap CD player?
 

[original post missing from my server]

In article , Jim H

My point is, with digital better fidelity means better at recovering
data. If high-end dacs were good at this they would find it harder
to justify ridiculous CD transport prices.

How would you square this view with my earlier comment that, if a cheap CD
drive can deliver faultless computer data, then a cheap CD transport should
be able to do so as well? Do CD transports lack error correction that one
presumes is present in computer kit?


--
Wally
www.art-gallery.myby.co.uk
Latest work: The Langlois Bridge (after Van Gogh)