"What HiFi" - can it be trusted?
 

In article , Andy Evans
wrote:
And despite Martin Collom's efforts, there's precious little true
rankings.

Not sure what you mean by the above. MC does sometimes quote a sort of
'magic number' that he makes up to represent if he thinks a given unit is
better or worse (in his view) than others. However this number has no
objective or definable basis so far as I know. Hence I am not sure it means
much as a "true ranking" to anyone other than himself at the time he said
it! :-)

Slainte,

Jim

--
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Audio Misc http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/AudioMisc/index.html
Armstrong Audio http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/Audio/armstrong.html
Barbirolli Soc. http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/JBSoc/JBSoc.html

"What HiFi" - can it be trusted?
 

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,

Speakers first IMHO followed by the turntable, then the amp.

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?

I can already feel the flames licking around me, but having listened
to a fair number of CD players over the last few years the
diffierences (once you get beyond the very cheap and cheerful) seem to
me to be very small indeed and as much a matter of personal taste as
anything else.

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

Yes, and maybe to persuade us that a new product is necessarily
better.

Regards

David

"What HiFi" - can it be trusted?
 

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,

Speakers first IMHO followed by the turntable, then the amp.

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?

I can already feel the flames licking around me, but having listened
to a fair number of CD players over the last few years the
diffierences (once you get beyond the very cheap and cheerful) seem to
me to be very small indeed and as much a matter of personal taste as
anything else.

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

Yes, and maybe to persuade us that a new product is necessarily
better.

Regards

David

"What HiFi" - can it be trusted?
 

"Oliver Keating" wrote in
message ...
I was flicking through "What HiFi" magazine and I came across
something very
odd - a series of reviews on *digital* audio cables, for connecting
a CD
player to an amp.

There are comments such as "this cable brings across a crisp sound a
cut
above the rest"

Now, at this point I have to shake my head in disbelief. Surely a
digital
cable about 1 metre long can easily carry a 1mbit data stream with
no
errors. Bear in mind ethernet has to carry 100mbits.


Yes a "DIGITAL cable most certainly can, but a lot of so called
"digital" interconnects arn't made with DIGTAL grade cables, and the
plugs also are not true 75 ohm, so you will start to get line
reflections, ringing on the recieved pulses (and if they are of
sufecent signal level cause pulse signal coruption and drop-outs) this
could start adding to the error rate, resulting in a less "good a
sound".

about optical cables. There is absolutely
*no* way an optical pulse can be distorted sufficiently over 1 metre
that it
could result in an error.

This should be true ! BUT. Unfortunatly due to the design spec this
is not true.
There was some deep discussion on this whole issue a while back on
RAHE,
I too had thought like you. Then The Man from Belden explaind it
rather well: you could do a google on it his expanation should be a
lot better than mine.
But basically the Fibre call for in the spec is many times larger in
diameter that the wavelenght of the light used so instead on the light
bouncing down the fibre in a controlled fashon it bounces about in a
lot more random fashon and after a metre or three the uncontrolled
light bounces interfere with the main light signal generating extra
noise. This can cause misreading of the recieved signals, hence
errors, noise, distortion.
So by using a better fibre (which is not as cheap) that has a smaller
diameter, will improve the quality (by reducing the noise) at the
recieving end, resulting in less errors etc.

I can only think that the testers suffered some sort of placebo
effect, or
they are in cahoots with the industry in order to provide a supply
of
customers who will shell out £350 for the "best" optical cable.

No, what they heard in the test is valid.
Sorry, its just good engineering to fix, bad engineering in the first
place.
As to the question is a cable worth £350 ? Well only your ears, brain
and wallet can make that value judgment.
I personaly would look for a much less expensive option (good dacs are
less than that).

snip

Who ever said life was easy :¬)

Happy New Year
Chris

"What HiFi" - can it be trusted?
 

"Oliver Keating" wrote in
message ...
I was flicking through "What HiFi" magazine and I came across
something very
odd - a series of reviews on *digital* audio cables, for connecting
a CD
player to an amp.

There are comments such as "this cable brings across a crisp sound a
cut
above the rest"

Now, at this point I have to shake my head in disbelief. Surely a
digital
cable about 1 metre long can easily carry a 1mbit data stream with
no
errors. Bear in mind ethernet has to carry 100mbits.


Yes a "DIGITAL cable most certainly can, but a lot of so called
"digital" interconnects arn't made with DIGTAL grade cables, and the
plugs also are not true 75 ohm, so you will start to get line
reflections, ringing on the recieved pulses (and if they are of
sufecent signal level cause pulse signal coruption and drop-outs) this
could start adding to the error rate, resulting in a less "good a
sound".

about optical cables. There is absolutely
*no* way an optical pulse can be distorted sufficiently over 1 metre
that it
could result in an error.

This should be true ! BUT. Unfortunatly due to the design spec this
is not true.
There was some deep discussion on this whole issue a while back on
RAHE,
I too had thought like you. Then The Man from Belden explaind it
rather well: you could do a google on it his expanation should be a
lot better than mine.
But basically the Fibre call for in the spec is many times larger in
diameter that the wavelenght of the light used so instead on the light
bouncing down the fibre in a controlled fashon it bounces about in a
lot more random fashon and after a metre or three the uncontrolled
light bounces interfere with the main light signal generating extra
noise. This can cause misreading of the recieved signals, hence
errors, noise, distortion.
So by using a better fibre (which is not as cheap) that has a smaller
diameter, will improve the quality (by reducing the noise) at the
recieving end, resulting in less errors etc.

I can only think that the testers suffered some sort of placebo
effect, or
they are in cahoots with the industry in order to provide a supply
of
customers who will shell out £350 for the "best" optical cable.

No, what they heard in the test is valid.
Sorry, its just good engineering to fix, bad engineering in the first
place.
As to the question is a cable worth £350 ? Well only your ears, brain
and wallet can make that value judgment.
I personaly would look for a much less expensive option (good dacs are
less than that).

snip

Who ever said life was easy :¬)

Happy New Year
Chris

"What HiFi" - can it be trusted?
 

David Houpt wrote:

I can already feel the flames licking around me, but having listened
to a fair number of CD players over the last few years the
diffierences (once you get beyond the very cheap and cheerful) seem to
me to be very small indeed and as much a matter of personal taste as
anything else.


Err, isn't it all down to personal taste anyway ?

--
Nick

"What HiFi" - can it be trusted?
 

David Houpt wrote:

I can already feel the flames licking around me, but having listened
to a fair number of CD players over the last few years the
diffierences (once you get beyond the very cheap and cheerful) seem to
me to be very small indeed and as much a matter of personal taste as
anything else.


Err, isn't it all down to personal taste anyway ?

--
Nick

"What HiFi" - can it be trusted?
 

bit reduced

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


I think your scepticism has answered your own questions.....
--
Tony Sayer

"What HiFi" - can it be trusted?
 

bit reduced

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


I think your scepticism has answered your own questions.....
--
Tony Sayer

"What HiFi" - can it be trusted?
 

In message , chris
writes
This should be true ! BUT. Unfortunatly due to the design spec this
is not true.
There was some deep discussion on this whole issue a while back on
RAHE,
I too had thought like you. Then The Man from Belden explaind it
rather well: you could do a google on it his expanation should be a
lot better than mine.
But basically the Fibre call for in the spec is many times larger in
diameter that the wavelenght of the light used so instead on the light
bouncing down the fibre in a controlled fashon it bounces about in a
lot more random fashon and after a metre or three the uncontrolled
light bounces interfere with the main light signal generating extra
noise. This can cause misreading of the recieved signals, hence
errors, noise, distortion.
So by using a better fibre (which is not as cheap) that has a smaller
diameter, will improve the quality (by reducing the noise) at the
recieving end, resulting in less errors etc.


All audio fibre-optic links use multimode fibre. Single mode fibre
(with no bouncing about) is only used on telecomms links at hundreds and
more Megabits/sec.

At the VERY low bit rate used for SPDIF it really doesn't matter a damn.

Likewise, as many others have pointed out, for cable runs of a metre or
so, phono-plugs are quite OK for copper connections. Use a proper
RG-spec cable and BNC connectors for long lengths by all means.

I'm now playing with multi-channel 24bit, 48kHz sample-rate pro-audio
over Cobranet at work. Have a look at the Cirrus web site, some
seriously good work being done on the distribution of digital audio
feeds there.
--
Chris Morriss