Jim Lesurf wrote:

I was asking about it from the point of view of the manufacturers, or at
least, as a viable technical solution, rather than from the point of
view of the consumer. Sorry, that wasn't very clear.

Clearly, the discerning hi-fi consumer will buy whatever seems to work
for them at the right price.

But, why do the manufacturers design and build CD players the way they
do?

I'd say it was because each will have their own ideas about the 'best' way
to get good results *and* to make a saelable product. Different engineers
will take different approaches just as different users will have different
priorities and preferences - cf Bob's comments about being able to compare
with a genuine original sound. What suits him may not suit someone else.
Doesn't make either view totally invalid, just personal.


From the point of view of creating a device from available componentry,
and then perhaps putting it on the market to compete against other
high-quality CD-playing devices, it's:

* very cheap to get all the data off a CD into RAM or another buffer *

Is it? On *every* occasion? I fear people may have become so used to Audio
CD, optical drives, etc, that they've forgotten how remarkable it is that
it works at all! :-)

It is pretty remarkable. And it is remarkable, but also galling, that my
£20 USB optical drive can reliably read anything I put in it, while the
hi-fi CD players in the house that I spent considerably more on will
reliably refuse to play certain discs (and not all the same ones in each
case).

Have you read the orginal Philips papers? They are pretty good.

I haven't, no. I confess that my ambitions for technical reading rarely
extend beyond software documentation these days.

Daniele

D.M. Procida wrote:

-------------------


And it is remarkable, but also galling, that my
£20 USB optical drive can reliably read anything I put in it, while the
hi-fi CD players in the house that I spent considerably more on will
reliably refuse to play certain discs (and not all the same ones in each
case).


** CD players are unsurprisingly designed to play audio CDs made to the original 1982 Red Book standard. Such disks carry the rectangular logo: "Compact Disc digital audio".

OTOH optical drives are built to a later and very different standard that allows different laser wavelengths, higher speeds, finer track pitches and smaller pit sizes.

It should be no surprise the latter will play non standard audio CDs.

Such CDs should not carry the rectangular logo but rather have a warning to be played only in machines equipped with modern optical drives.



..... Phil

Phil Allison wrote:

D.M. Procida wrote:

-------------------


And it is remarkable, but also galling, that my
£20 USB optical drive can reliably read anything I put in it, while the
hi-fi CD players in the house that I spent considerably more on will
reliably refuse to play certain discs (and not all the same ones in each
case).


** CD players are unsurprisingly designed to play audio CDs made to the
original 1982 Red Book standard. Such disks carry the rectangular logo:
"Compact Disc digital audio".

OTOH optical drives are built to a later and very different standard that
allows different laser wavelengths, higher speeds, finer track pitches and
smaller pit sizes.

It should be no surprise the latter will play non standard audio CDs.

Such CDs should not carry the rectangular logo but rather have a warning
to be played only in machines equipped with modern optical drives.

I'm talking about standard audio CDs.

Daniele

D.M. Procida wrote:

-------------------



And it is remarkable, but also galling, that my
£20 USB optical drive can reliably read anything I put in it, while the
hi-fi CD players in the house that I spent considerably more on will
reliably refuse to play certain discs (and not all the same ones in each
case).


** CD players are unsurprisingly designed to play audio CDs made to the
original 1982 Red Book standard. Such disks carry the rectangular logo:
"Compact Disc digital audio".

OTOH optical drives are built to a later and very different standard that
allows different laser wavelengths, higher speeds, finer track pitches and
smaller pit sizes.

It should be no surprise the latter will play non standard audio CDs.

Such CDs should not carry the rectangular logo but rather have a warning
to be played only in machines equipped with modern optical drives.

I'm talking about standard audio CDs.

Daniele


** No you are not, cos like anyone you have no idea if a given CD is "standard" or not.

If you bothered to read my post, you would see that it refers to CDs being sold that do not comply despite having the rectangular logo.

The commonest example is CDs that exceed 74mins.



..... Phil

Phil Allison wrote:

** CD players are unsurprisingly designed to play audio CDs made to the
original 1982 Red Book standard. Such disks carry the rectangular logo:
"Compact Disc digital audio".

I'm talking about standard audio CDs.

** No you are not, cos like anyone you have no idea if a given CD is
"standard" or not.

If you bothered to read my post, you would see that it refers to CDs being
sold that do not comply despite having the rectangular logo.

Perhaps you ought to read what you write more carefully in that case.
And perhaps be a little less rude while you're at.

Daniele

D.M. Procida wrote:

-------------------



** CD players are unsurprisingly designed to play audio CDs made to the
original 1982 Red Book standard. Such disks carry the rectangular logo:
"Compact Disc digital audio".

I'm talking about standard audio CDs.

** No you are not, cos like anyone you have no idea if a given CD is
"standard" or not.

If you bothered to read my post, you would see that it refers to CDs being
sold that do not comply despite having the rectangular logo.

Perhaps you ought to read what you write more carefully in that case.


** Really - perhaps you can go **** yourself.


And perhaps be a little less rude while you're at.


** No need exists to be polite to brain dead trolls like you.




..... Phil