"Trevor Wilson" wrote
in message
"Rob" wrote in message
...
Trevor Wilson wrote:
"Martin "Schöön"" wrote in
message ...
Gentlemen,

I replaced the driving belt of my trusted old Thorens
TD166 this week and today I find the CD-player has
become so upset by this it refuses to play or even
acknowledge the existence of the CDs I feed it.

The CD player is a Cambridge Audio thing (everything
important inside is labeled Sony) about five years
old (the Thorens is 25 years old).

So, even though the Thorens 166 works just fine and
I have a number of LPs to play I am in the market
for a CD-player.

I don't care much for fancy brand names and exotic
design but I want good sound reproduction. (and
reliability).

Any recommendations?
Second hand? (New models are not always better)
DVD-players?

**Forget second hand, unless you are prepared to throw
a new laser in a decent exotic machine. IMO, the best
value around today is the Harman Kardon HD970.
Brilliant machine for not too much cash. It'll even
play MP3s. Trevor Wilson

It's well over 200UKP. Why does it sound better than a
Sony £30 DVD player?

**Send me the schematic of your 30 Squid Sony and I'll
tell you. The HK has a number of significant technical
details which, IMO, make it sound better than all the
cheap players (and most of the expensive ones) I've ever
heard.

I thought that all named CDPs sound identical nowadays?!

**I suggest you do some listening. You may well be in for
a shock.

If you listen with a salesman in attendance, or after reading the usual
ignorant hype in one of the high end ragazines, or if you speak with a
friend who has spent stupid money on a high end optical disc player, then
you may well hear better sound from the more expensive player. That's the
major problem with sighted evaluations - you never know why you perceive
what you may think you perceive.

Doing a decent job of comparing optical disc players is a often lot of
work - the big problem is getting and keeping the discs in synch. I've done
it, and the results were amazingly small audible differences, some of which
were found to be imaginary when the statistical analysis was complete.

"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
. ..
"Trevor Wilson" wrote
in message
"Rob" wrote in message
...
Trevor Wilson wrote:
"Martin "Schöön"" wrote in
message ...
Gentlemen,

I replaced the driving belt of my trusted old Thorens
TD166 this week and today I find the CD-player has
become so upset by this it refuses to play or even
acknowledge the existence of the CDs I feed it.

The CD player is a Cambridge Audio thing (everything
important inside is labeled Sony) about five years
old (the Thorens is 25 years old).

So, even though the Thorens 166 works just fine and
I have a number of LPs to play I am in the market
for a CD-player.

I don't care much for fancy brand names and exotic
design but I want good sound reproduction. (and
reliability).

Any recommendations?
Second hand? (New models are not always better)
DVD-players?

**Forget second hand, unless you are prepared to throw
a new laser in a decent exotic machine. IMO, the best
value around today is the Harman Kardon HD970.
Brilliant machine for not too much cash. It'll even
play MP3s. Trevor Wilson

It's well over 200UKP. Why does it sound better than a
Sony £30 DVD player?

**Send me the schematic of your 30 Squid Sony and I'll
tell you. The HK has a number of significant technical
details which, IMO, make it sound better than all the
cheap players (and most of the expensive ones) I've ever
heard.

I thought that all named CDPs sound identical nowadays?!

**I suggest you do some listening. You may well be in for
a shock.

If you listen with a salesman in attendance, or after reading the usual
ignorant hype in one of the high end ragazines, or if you speak with a
friend who has spent stupid money on a high end optical disc player, then
you may well hear better sound from the more expensive player. That's the
major problem with sighted evaluations - you never know why you perceive
what you may think you perceive.

Doing a decent job of comparing optical disc players is a often lot of
work - the big problem is getting and keeping the discs in synch. I've
done it, and the results were amazingly small audible differences, some of
which were found to be imaginary when the statistical analysis was
complete.

**Agreed. And some differences were audible, when used with suitably high
quality speakers. In some cases, the differences are not subtle, though
these instances are rare. In the case of the HK, I've compared with some
obscenely high priced players and some very cheap players. In most
instances, the HK has won hands-down.

Trevor Wilson

"Bob Latham" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Arny Krueger wrote:
"Trevor Wilson" wrote
in message

It's well over 200UKP. Why does it sound better than a
Sony £30 DVD player?

**Send me the schematic of your 30 Squid Sony and I'll
tell you. The HK has a number of significant technical
details which, IMO, make it sound better than all the
cheap players (and most of the expensive ones) I've ever
heard.

I thought that all named CDPs sound identical nowadays?!

**I suggest you do some listening. You may well be in for
a shock.

If you listen with a salesman in attendance, or after reading the usual
ignorant hype in one of the high end ragazines, or if you speak with a
friend who has spent stupid money on a high end optical disc player,
then you may well hear better sound from the more expensive player.
That's the major problem with sighted evaluations - you never know why
you perceive what you may think you perceive.

All CD players sound the same. Is there any time scale to this? I have not
compared CD players since around 1990. At that time most CD players to my
ears sounded pretty grim and the Meridian 207 and 208 were the only
players I had the opportunity to hear that did the job at all well. If the
popular wisdom here is that even then they sounded the same, then I need
to find a new group to read.

**I, for one, know full well, that all CD players were/are not created
equal. Far from it. In those days, the Meridians were, indeed, the best
available.

Trevor Wilson

On Tue, 18 Dec 2007 08:00:40 GMT, Bob Latham
wrote:

All CD players sound the same. Is there any time scale to this? I have not
compared CD players since around 1990. At that time most CD players to my
ears sounded pretty grim and the Meridian 207 and 208 were the only
players I had the opportunity to hear that did the job at all well. If the
popular wisdom here is that even then they sounded the same, then I need
to find a new group to read.

Intereting historical footnote. Relevence?

"Bob Latham" wrote in message

In article ,
Arny Krueger wrote:
"Trevor Wilson"
wrote
in message

It's well over 200UKP. Why does it sound better than a
Sony £30 DVD player?

**Send me the schematic of your 30 Squid Sony and I'll
tell you. The HK has a number of significant technical
details which, IMO, make it sound better than all the
cheap players (and most of the expensive ones) I've ever
heard.

I thought that all named CDPs sound identical
nowadays?!

**I suggest you do some listening. You may well be in
for a shock.

If you listen with a salesman in attendance, or after
reading the usual ignorant hype in one of the high end
ragazines, or if you speak with a friend who has spent
stupid money on a high end optical disc player, then you
may well hear better sound from the more expensive
player. That's the major problem with sighted
evaluations - you never know why you perceive what you
may think you perceive.

All CD players sound the same.

Nope. The CD player function of the typical computer CD ROM drive (output
via an analog output) is probably so flawed that you will hear a difference.
Portable CD players, particularly the ones with non-defeatable electronic
skip protection, are often so flawed that you hear a difference. An old CD
player with dried-out electrolytic caps (I've got a Sony like this) can be
so flawed that it sounds different. Any CD player that doesn't track certain
kinds of CD well, particularly CD-Rs, will sound different.

CD players have analog outputs that range from about 1 volt RMS to 2.5 volt
RMS, and unless you address that situation they sound different. If you
don't do a near-perfect job of time-synching the two players you compare
within about 10 milliseconds, they will sound different. If you listen to
one player and then move the disc over to another player and listen to it,
you will remember their sounds differently, because of the difference in
time since you heard them, and they will sound different to you. The first
few generations of CD players had DACs that had considerably different
frequency response, and they sounded different from each other.

Is there any time scale to this?

Hmm, for the last 10 years, any reasonably competent CD player would have
been very difficult or impossible to distinguish from any other or the
ideal, provided you did a far more careful comparison than just about any
audiophile ever did.

I have not compared CD players since around 1990.

I have done carefully-done comparisons from time to time up until just
recently, and the two long paragraphs above catalog just about every
difference I have ever heard.

At that time most CD players to my ears sounded pretty
grim and the Meridian 207 and 208 were the only players I
had the opportunity to hear that did the job at all well.

Compared to vinyl or analog tape, just about any reasonable CD player, even
either of the two first-generation models, did an absolutely stunning job of
reproducing music.

If the popular wisdom here is that even then they sounded
the same, then I need to find a new group to read.

I can virtually guarantee you that unless you are among the few dozen people
in the world who have done a technically near-perfect job of comparing CD
players, every CD player you've heard has sounded different.

If you do that technically perfect job of comparing CD players that are good
modern optical players, just about all of them will sound alike. Thing is,
you might easily find a $39.95 DVD player in your collection of modern
competent optical players that sound alike. Certainly, if you competently
compare just about any 2 ca. $100 optical players, or any of them with a
good high-end player $1,000, they will sound very much alike.

The genesis of CD player sound quality is that while each of the two first
CD players on the market could be distinguished from each other in a really
sensitive listening test. But, either sounded very good by any reasonble
standard, if just a tiny bit flawed. In the second generation, there were
several pairs of players that could not be distinguished from each other or
the ideal, they were that good.

By the time we did the CD player listening ABX tests that were published in
Stereo Review in the late 80s, I recall that only the legacy first
generation player could be distinguished from the rest. But, they were a
pretty august group - no utter cheapies in the list.

Trevor Wilson wrote:
"Rob" wrote in message
...
Trevor Wilson wrote:
"Martin "Schöön"" wrote in message
...
Gentlemen,

I replaced the driving belt of my trusted old Thorens TD166
this week and today I find the CD-player has become so
upset by this it refuses to play or even acknowledge the
existence of the CDs I feed it.

The CD player is a Cambridge Audio thing (everything
important inside is labeled Sony) about five years
old (the Thorens is 25 years old).

So, even though the Thorens 166 works just fine and
I have a number of LPs to play I am in the market
for a CD-player.

I don't care much for fancy brand names and exotic
design but I want good sound reproduction. (and
reliability).

Any recommendations?
Second hand? (New models are not always better)
DVD-players?
**Forget second hand, unless you are prepared to throw a new laser in a
decent exotic machine. IMO, the best value around today is the Harman
Kardon HD970. Brilliant machine for not too much cash. It'll even play
MP3s.

Trevor Wilson
It's well over 200UKP. Why does it sound better than a Sony £30 DVD
player?

**Send me the schematic of your 30 Squid Sony and I'll tell you. The HK has
a number of significant technical details which, IMO, make it sound better
than all the cheap players (and most of the expensive ones) I've ever heard.


Can't help with that I'm afraid. The manual just has a list of specs,
rather than components (it's a xd-ax10, badged Aiwa). From what I gather
(from this NG):

1. DACs are a 'done deal', and have been for about 10 years -
differences such as they are are inaudible;
2. Transports are transports - it's not possible to have an audio
signature, they work or they don't;
3. Analogue amplification has to be mightily wrong to create difference,
and it's so simple and cheap it has no effect in practice.

OTOH, if I believe what I read in the mags, differences are either
presented as obvious, or technically valid (an article on jitter, for
example, laid claims IIRC). Which leads me to ...

I thought that all named CDPs sound identical nowadays?!

**I suggest you do some listening. You may well be in for a shock.


I have. I *think* I can detect difference, but I've never been able to
reliably distinguish between digital sources using the same material,
and I certainly can't state whether one's better than t'other.

To this end, most of my digital music is on HD/lossless compression, and
plays through a Mac Mini. I've given away about 500 CDs, and kept about
200 for some reason, probably sentimental. I use lossless compression
because I can hear the effects of mp3 compression - not always
objectionable, although I find the sound a little 'thin'.

The conclusion I've come to - that if there is a difference it doesn't
matter - could be a result of mid-fi speakers (Castle and Dynaudio),
room acoustics, my hearing or some psychological factor. Or that CDPs
(and indeed digital playback) are sufficiently indistinguishable.

FWIW, if I did find the HK sounded better, my guess would be that
something was going on in the analogue amplification stage.

Rob

"Rob" wrote in message
...
Trevor Wilson wrote:
"Rob" wrote in message
...
Trevor Wilson wrote:
"Martin "Schöön"" wrote in message
...
Gentlemen,

I replaced the driving belt of my trusted old Thorens TD166
this week and today I find the CD-player has become so
upset by this it refuses to play or even acknowledge the
existence of the CDs I feed it.

The CD player is a Cambridge Audio thing (everything
important inside is labeled Sony) about five years
old (the Thorens is 25 years old).

So, even though the Thorens 166 works just fine and
I have a number of LPs to play I am in the market
for a CD-player.

I don't care much for fancy brand names and exotic
design but I want good sound reproduction. (and
reliability).

Any recommendations?
Second hand? (New models are not always better)
DVD-players?
**Forget second hand, unless you are prepared to throw a new laser in a
decent exotic machine. IMO, the best value around today is the Harman
Kardon HD970. Brilliant machine for not too much cash. It'll even play
MP3s.

Trevor Wilson
It's well over 200UKP. Why does it sound better than a Sony £30 DVD
player?

**Send me the schematic of your 30 Squid Sony and I'll tell you. The HK
has a number of significant technical details which, IMO, make it sound
better than all the cheap players (and most of the expensive ones) I've
ever heard.


Can't help with that I'm afraid. The manual just has a list of specs,
rather than components (it's a xd-ax10, badged Aiwa). From what I gather
(from this NG):

**Then, without a schematic, it is impossible for me to highlight what
problems the Sony may have (or not). Specs do not tell the whole story.


1. DACs are a 'done deal', and have been for about 10 years - differences
such as they are are inaudible;

**Not IME.

2. Transports are transports - it's not possible to have an audio
signature, they work or they don't;

**I'd be inclined to agree with that.

3. Analogue amplification has to be mightily wrong to create difference,
and it's so simple and cheap it has no effect in practice.

**Wrong. There are a raft of issues with analogue stages in CD players,
where mistakes are often made. Here's a few things I've found wrong with
cheap players:

* Cheap, crappy OP amps used in the critical output stages. I've even found
4558-class OP amps used. These date from the late 1970s and are vastly
inferior to the 5532/4 - LM833 OP amps used in the first generation Sony and
Philips machines. The cost difference is minor.
* High value series resistance in the output of the analogue section.
* Poorly implemented muting transistors, which short output to ground. A
relay is a much better idea. And costs marginally more.
* The use of LM78XX and LM79XX regulators, instead of the vastly superior
LM317/LM337 regulators. Again, the cost difference in in the order of a few
cents.
* Poor quality filters (not so much of a problem nowadays).


OTOH, if I believe what I read in the mags, differences are either
presented as obvious, or technically valid (an article on jitter, for
example, laid claims IIRC). Which leads me to ...

I thought that all named CDPs sound identical nowadays?!

**I suggest you do some listening. You may well be in for a shock.


I have. I *think* I can detect difference, but I've never been able to
reliably distinguish between digital sources using the same material, and
I certainly can't state whether one's better than t'other.

**You've compared the HK to a cheapo Sony?


To this end, most of my digital music is on HD/lossless compression, and
plays through a Mac Mini. I've given away about 500 CDs, and kept about
200 for some reason, probably sentimental. I use lossless compression
because I can hear the effects of mp3 compression - not always
objectionable, although I find the sound a little 'thin'.

The conclusion I've come to - that if there is a difference it doesn't
matter - could be a result of mid-fi speakers (Castle and Dynaudio), room
acoustics, my hearing or some psychological factor. Or that CDPs (and
indeed digital playback) are sufficiently indistinguishable.

FWIW, if I did find the HK sounded better, my guess would be that
something was going on in the analogue amplification stage.

**That would be a reasonable assumption. HK have clearly put a lot of effort
into building a quality analogue section in that machine.

Trevor Wilson