Colour me skeptical about different CD players sending a bit stream to the same DAC sounding different. Out of the analogue outputs, yeah I can see that (differences in convertors etc). I'd be very interested to see a frequency response plot from the analogue outputs of that outboard DAC for each transport. I recently bought a new Bluray player that has only an HDMI output and I use my receiver to do the conversion. Very happy with the results.
It's clearly because you've not wired your house with audio grade mains cable /s. Yes, you're completely right of course. A CD transport is functionally an electromechanical thumb drive.
You can settle this argument with science. Record the digital output from both transports and then null sum it, if you get silence there is zero difference between them.
Numbers dont always bear out what you hear! Its an old argument, that something with the lowest THD should sound better and NOT always the case! Tube audio equipment measures TERRIBLY but can sound wonderful.
@@OrganNLou Any distortion produced by the transport would change the output. The null sum would not result in silence then as the would be a difference.
This isn't a real test because playback and "copying" are not the same thing. If you record the digital out, it will be identical. It's only during the real-time playback that you hear a difference. One thing he doesn't mention in here is that the transports clock is almost always the master (the DAC is using the transports clock signal, unless you have the ability to change it), so the clock signal is different for each transport. Also the clock sync uses square waves across the cable, which won't be perfectly square if you have a crappy cable or interference (could be in the transport itself) which can affect the timing for analog conversion. The 1 will still be a 1 and the 0 still a 0, but the TIMING can slightly fluctuate during PLAYBACK only (jitter). Jitter isn't an issue if you're recording digital to digital, (unless if was at such an extreme case that the 1's and 0's didn't make it correctly). I used to think the same thing, until I experienced it first-hand and had to learn what was going on. Science is only as good as the person performing it. This is what a lot of people have a hard time understanding is that playback and recording are not the same thing.
@@OrganNLou DIGITAL, you can make PERFECT copies, that is proof enough that nothing changes during the transport process, even if you transfer a multi gigabit blurray movie across the internet (and god knows how much crap kit is on route) a copy you make at the destination will be bit perfect to the copy sent. All digital traffic has multiple error correction protocols, TCP/IP for the internet, and other protocols built into the Red Book CD standard, and yet others built into USB standards. Spend more than $50 on a basic player with digital out and you are just wasting cash, save you cash for the lossy part of the process, the analog part. note, if you rip CD's on a PC with a $50 CD drive are the copies in any way not digitally perfect copies. You could copy it 1000's of times every single copy would be bit perfect.
Pearl did the same sort of test, but did not disable the external DAC re-clocking. Three young, expert subjects could hear no differences. So your result is misleading BS. Of course if you rig the test for digital outputs and still use the recovered clock from from the transport data stream, there will be differences. Those FIFO input buffers and accurate clock on a decent DAC are there for a reason. When the DAC is used properly, only uncorrected bit data errors from the transport matter.
in a nutshell how a cd works digitally.....simplified 1. the CD player/transport reads the data from the disk, any errors present and it re-reads until error perfect (these are the error-correction protocols, all in RED Book design docs). this data then goes to a buffer, this allows the error correction to take place without in any way effecting the stream of data to the DAC. 2. It then goes down a cable to the external DAC, during that process more errors can happen, they are then again corrected digitally until perfect as part of the USB protocols, they then go to another buffer in the DAC, which later processes the DIGITALLY PERFECT stream of data thus converting it into an analog signal. In short, all of the issues on the digital side are corrected (DIGITALLY PERFECT), the only issues arrive are as part of the ANALOG processes, and analog cables. A point, when you stream your Apple Lossless music across the internet using multiple Telco suppliers equipment, does it not work, perfectly? All down to the wonders of TCP/IP, the error connection protocol of the internet. Rant over...... ;-)
The background music adds ambiance, and the sound level is considerably lower than my voice. The music is at -26db. My voice is at +5db. Shouldn't be distracting. It's lofi beats, lol 😆
Thank god all my audiophile gear is budget and thrifted.. but from good brands, Yamah, Technics, etc. I don't need the stress to worry that this is better than that in my system. I just love eating popcorn on the sidelines and watching others burn their money. Oh that gear is superb you say?! Well good for you!
All wrong, my Friend, I'm sorry, but a "blind test" "cannot be made like this, as the hearing memory lasts not for so long. Usually people perform a so called "ABX" blind test: the "A" device plays for some seconds, then the "B" device plays in its turn, and then comes the "X" device, that can be the A or the B one. Guess which is which. There are of course other ways to do a good blind test, no one like yours. The very most of them reveal that DIGITAL sources usually cannot be recognized unless they have very poor specs/characteristics or tube-based-output-stages with high degrees of THD, for example. Please, don't hate me, I appreciate your efforts to tell something new, if I were in your shoes I' d go on with blind tests with the help of more people and after reading some literature. My Best Regards Sandro
The details of how you connected the equipment is not clear. You are comparing transports so presumably you are using the digital output from each transport? Coaxial? Optical? Same for each transport? If you used the analogue outputs (surely not) then you aren't comparing transports and you would likely hear differences. If comparing the transports only could you consistently pick each transport? Every time? Having personally conducted a similar test (different transports but comparing cheap with expensive) there was, as you would expect, no audible difference. Call me unconvinced!
I have a high-end Cambridge blue ray player and a very nice Yamaha CD player. I buy CD/DVD players from the 90's the little silver ones, they sound just as good as my more modern expensive ones for only 10 to twenty five dollars. I just buy them and stock pile a good supply and give some away to people trying to put a system together on a budget.
If the DAC is separate, the music server is simply transporting digital data, and not deliberately altering that data in any way, then it cannot make any difference whatsoever to the sound quality beyond not messing it up. The power supply doesn’t matter, the circuitry doesn’t matter, the cabling doesn’t matter (unless you’re running over 50m), oxidisation of components doesn’t matter, the shielding on the case doesn’t matter. If there’s some sort of problem with jitter then it’ll be screamingly obvious because jitter is never ‘subtle’. Think about this: digital data has been around for decades now. Take a digital file that originated in 1980s, and has been copied from computer to computer, disk to disk, USB stick to USB stick, sent over WiFi and down a gazillions cables, losslessly compressed and decompressed… and its contents will be EXACTLY the same. The is a fact that can easily be validated by comparing the binary data in any copy with the original. This is a major feature and use case of digital encoding. We can also do run this comparison with streaming data but collating it, and comparing it to the original. Unless something has gone horribly wrong, then it will be totally and absolutely identical, no matter which transport streamed it. The *only* way a file *could* be different is if lossy compression were allowed… but that’s up to the user. It’s the same with streaming, the data cannot change unless it undergoes lossy compression… so don’t use Bluetooth to stream music, and don’t encode music in MP3 etc. The sound absolutely is altered by electronic considerations at each part of the analogue chain, and also in the digital to analogue conversion stage (more of this in a moment), but not within the digital realm itself, not unless it’s undergoing some sort of processing intended to colourise it. Even the choice of speaker cable has INFINITELY more impact on the sound than digital transport does (meaning slightly less than zero). For avoidance of doubt, lossless digital transport that isn’t undergoing any sort of deliberate processing to alter its contents, has absolutely ZERO impact on sound. The noisiest power supply in the world will not affect the fidelity of digital data, not unless it somehow reaches a point where the system’s operational integrity has been compromised. For example a computer system with a horrible power supply does not affect the reproduction of MS Excel documents in the slightest. The numbers in the spreadsheet are not impacted, and do not change because the power supply is ‘noisy’… not unless it’s so bad that the computer cannot even be booted. The data being streamed enters is first collated into a buffer for error checking and correction. Under normal circumstances it will leave the buffer 100% correct. The only way that wouldn’t be the case is if there was massive issue with data corruption that wouldn’t be subtle. So no, a better clock won’t make any difference to something as trivial as streaming stereo audio from one device to another because they’re all up to that job. Where a superior clock becomes critical is inside or attached to a digital mixing system, where it might be transporting say… 128 channels data independently, that need to be perfectly synched across multiple devices over a network. Even in that scenario, if the clock isn’t up to the job then it won’t result in degraded sound, what will happen is, that devices will return clocking errors and disconnect from it. Same goes for anti-vibration measures. Non-SSD hard drives certainly can be affected by vibration… and should that happen then it will be hugely noticeable because the device will probably hard reset itself… but until that point it will faithfully reproduce the data with 100% accuracy. Unless the drive head crashes and destroys the disk. But outside of those scenarios it will not impact sound quality. In simple terms: digital is on or off. Sometimes I read or watch hifi reviews, and start to doubt my own sanity. These people talk about digital comms as though that were a form of analogue, where components play a part in the sound. This simply isn’t true; data doesn’t have a sound in the same what that the postal worker’s handwriting is irrelevant to the contents of the mail he or she delivers. The DAC is a different matter… but even here there’s a crucial piece of information that most people aren’t aware of: while no human has evolved who can hear beyond 24bit depth @48KHz, there is a physical issue with digital to analogue conversion that hasn’t yet been overcome by engineering. The long and short of it is that DACs function much better at higher sample rates, like 88.2K, 96KHz (and upwards into rapidly diminishing returns). So if you’re a practiced listener, who can discern a slight but noticeable difference between 96KHz audio and 48K audio, then that’s why. It’s not that your ears are picking up more frequencies or greater resolution; it’s just that DACs are not well optimised when running at 44.1KHz or 48KHz. Not even the really expensive ones. A cheap DAC running at 96K will likely work better than an expensive DAC running at 48K. This was an unforeseen flaw when the CD standard was devised as 16bit dept @44.1KHz. As an aside, only a child with exceptionally good hearing can distinguish the difference between a 48KHz sample rate vs a 44.1KHz sample rate, and only really practised listeners with good hearing can discern 24bit depth from 16bit depth. To all intents, 16bit depth @ 44.1KHz is at or beyond the limit of what *most* people can hear, due to the Nyquist rate. The advantage of using a higher sample rate is that the DAC will make a better job of the conversion. When it comes to digital transport though, choose a transport based on how good it looks, how good its build quality is, how good its connectivity and functionality are… because the one thing it shouldn’t do is alter the sound quality. If a digital transport does affect the sound, independently of the DAC, then there are five possibilities: 1. It’s actively and deliberately altering the underlying data as it streams that to the DAC, so as to colour the music. This is just sneaky software engineering, and not due to a lead encased power supply, anti-vibration measures, or cables made of gold. 2. It’s communicating with the DAC at 88.2K or more. 3. It’s outputting at a slightly higher volume (due to digital trim). 4. There’s a short circuit between the headphones. 5. The person listening to it is an ‘influencer’, and there’s an obvious reason as to why they are able to find the time to make those sorts of videos. I’d be interested to hear any scientific explanations of how cables, power supplies, or shielding magically alter digital data… Hope this was helpful!
@@audioarkitekts - I’m a qualified computer scientist, who’s also been involved in sound engineering for the past 25 years. The only thing I’d be able to compare is how much processing the device is doing, or how much digital trim is being added. You can do this by streaming the data into a file, and comparing that to the source file. Ideally the device should be doing zero processing otherwise it’s colouring the audio. If the device adds a little digital trim, then the output volume will be slightly louder, which can make is *seem* better, since it’s more audible. If you connect the digital transport to the DAC using asynchronous USB, then its clock never comes into play, so there won’t even be any jitter. Instead all the data is shovelled into the DACs buffer, and the DAC clocks itself. Even if you use S/PDIF, clocking is so good these days that any jitter will be well below the noise floor and therefore inaudible in all but the very worst devices. In terms of errors… well I’d expect one of those to occur on asynchronous USB, that’s operating within it’s specified cable lengths, roughly once every 10,000 years. That said 2-channel PCM isn’t really stressing it much as opposed to say 8K video, so probably even less frequent in reality.
@@CraigAdams-s9i As fas as I understood, there will be no differene if I use expensive CD Transport or Playstation 2 for data transport to the AMP or AVR. And th quality of the sound will mostly depends on the DAC perfomance of the AMP/AVR Then comes the question, what will be not the best but atleast very good AMP/AVR to make me happy from my music system. Strange fact is that I had 2 DVD s and tried to play same song, with same Optical cable also on same AVR, and the sound was differ. Asked a friend to make me blind test and I could recognise every time which DVD, which model was. I was also thinkind that there is no way to notice difference like that, I felt very strange, and I dont have answer of that...
@@audioarkitektsMe and my neighbor did a very similar test with an audio lab cdt7000 transport, an older CD player with coax out, and a Sony Blu-ray. All using coax in to the same external Cambridge DAC, same cables, system, speakers etc. the Audiolab blew the other two away.
8:06 a more expensive CD transport can very well provide better sound quality due to a higher quality transport mechanism Superior error correction capabilities cleaner power supply better vibration control improved output stage design these factors contribute to the accurate reading and transmission of digital audio data which ultimately affects the performance of the DAC and the resulting sound quality There are no "superior error correction capabilities" - the best algorithms to do error corrections using the additional error correction bits stored on an audio CD is well known and easy to implement. Its like claiming an expensive calculator would be able to some up the items on your cash register strip more accurate than a 5 USD china calculator. It can´t.... Same is for the transport itself - the technology used to read data from a CD using a laser pickup is available for more than 40 years - and it did its job 40 years ago already - meaning it does (under normal circumstances and with a normal not damaged CD) not create more reading errors than could be fixed by the error correction. Same is for vibrations - the laser pickup in every CD player needs (and has) a "stabilizer" which keeps the laser beam on the track - and this works also for normal vibrations in your living room. There is also no need for "accurate transmission" to the DAC itself - as long as the quality is not to bad the DAC can still decode the digital data perfect - so some noise on the signal does not matter.
Yet, a 20€ Pioneer DVD-R Drive (connected to a 100€ Intel Nuc running Windows Server and Jriver) easily thrashed my WADIA 860 used as Transport and connected to the same SMSL D1SE DAC...🙄
@@audioarkitekts Nah, that's almost a 20 years CD Player bought second hand many years for way less than its listing price, in any case it's a good indicator of much affordable great sounding Digital Audio has evolved, especially the last 2-3 years. BTW, Jriver reads the CD Disc multiple times at high speeds and uses Data Buffers until it gets it right, something that CD Transports are not capable off, downside is that they are bit mechanical noisy to spin a CD Disc 48x faster, there's a solution to this problem though.
« Transparency » is a word often used in audiophile reviews. It’s hard to figure what it actually means but I can tell you I understood right from the first seconds playing my CEC CD5! I will probably never sell it.
Great video. I had several folks beat me up when I said the AXA35 sounded fatiguing compared to a Sony Blu-ray player connected to a Schiit Modi DAC lol
Isn't it funny how we need an expensive source component to avoid transmission jitter, even though the data stream is 88.2 kbps, yet a cheap 8-port gigabit ethernet switch you can buy for a few tens of dollars can do it on a 8 simultaneous datastreams that are each about 12000x faster than red book audio. The issue is in clock signal recovery from the SP/DIF datastream (Side note - SP/DIF is a horribly designed interface). The variation you claim to have heard could only be as a result of sampling artifacts in the DAC as it attempts to remove the clock signal from the audio data. As such the more telling component to be testing would be the DAC. If you used a different DAC it would likely resolve the differences between the source units quite differently. Also, finally, you just can't reach conclusions with a sample size of one. The quartz oscillator in the source unit that generates the clock pulses may vary from unit to unit. But hey. What do I know, I'm only an electronics engineer. Keep pushing the idea that you gotta spend the big bucks to get the results....
"The issue is in clock signal recovery from the SP/DIF datastream (Side note - SP/DIF is a horribly designed interface)." S/PDIF uses a Biphase-Mark-Code to transmit the data and clock signal. This is not the most efficent method but still capable to transmit 24 Bit samples with a sample rate of 192 kHz in stereo. I would not call is "horrible" "Also, finally, you just can't reach conclusions with a sample size of one. " I agree - and also such tests should be performed as double blinded test to avoid things like expectation bias.
@@audioarkitekts thank you for your kind response Mike, and I suppose you are right. Still, they could be an improvement to the 6000 CDT, they invested in a separate power supply, shielding the circuits etc. Either way, I am happy many brands still do R&D on CD(t) players, cause CD's are still my go to source (I use my 6000a play-streamer only for Internet Radio, wich is awesome by itself!). All the best Mike!
That's a question I'm looking forward to getting answered, there is a review comparing the 6000 and 9000 on the tube somewhere. I have the 6000 so I'll have to get around to auditioning the 9000, but I can't see the 7 being a whole lot better than the 6 due to the comparative price between the two.
Fascinating ! The other issue is to try to understand if the sonic differences were very subtle or very obvious... as well as the $$$ differences of the players .. One would expect a $500k car will perform a lot better than a $50K car but the majority of people will just get the $50K car as it is "good enough" for most. ???
"Good enough" is fine for the greater part of the population. It's complacency because of a restricted budget. For those that want to truly find audio nirvana, that's when they cross over and test and compare until they find the perfect sound for them. Just like cars, the $500k car will be a complete experience inside and out and a lifestyle change, even though the $50k car could very well compete in speed. Great comment, thanks P G!
I don't buy it. A higher quality transport may produce a "truer" digital signal if it doesn't have to rely on its error correction as much when reading. However, unless the CD is ridiculously damaged or the transport itself is broken. Any errors would be undetectable to our ears. (CD error correction is ridiculously good). I have a 1986 Phillips CD player hooked up via Coaxial SPDIF into my DAC. I can assure you, if you play the exact same song ripped from the same CD on a PC using the same DAC it will sound identical as when playing from the CD player. I'll even go as far to say if you hooked the analogue output from the DAC into an oscilloscope you'd see the same output. If the source sends 1000110 and your DAC receives 1000110. That's what you'll hear, regardless of where it came from. No-one would ever sell a CD player with a digital output if they didn't think it was capable of sending the right information.
Try a more refined transport then return here with your experience. I can guarantee you, you WILL notice a difference. I’m totally with you on the science, it shouldn’t affect the sound audibly, but for one reason or another it does.
Agreed, Michael. I was actually really taken back by how different they were. I was expecting small subtle differences, but when I tested the Blu-ray player, it was painfully obvious.
@@audioarkitekts The absolute best CD (SACD) player I have ever heard/used in my system was an Esoteric. Just my experience. It was mind boggling. My son even said to me (on Pink Floyd's SACD copy of Have a Cigar...) "I have never heard that song sound like that before. That was amazing." I have never been more proud of my system.
I think that was an excellent summary... but I think you DO need to take it further. First off, unless you have a very badly damaged disc, the error correction should not matter. All transports should have two levels of correction that will result in a PERFECT output. (These are mathematical, based on the data itself, and should all be "equally perfect".) So, as long as your errors don't exceed the limits of that error correction, they don't matter. The third level of error correction - interpolation - should NEVER end up being used. Second off, assuming that the transport doesn't resample, the data itself should be the same. There's no real room for variation there... either the data is the same or it isn't. You can actually record the data from the output and compare it to the CD... (And, when you rip CDs on a computer, the data is actually verified to be absolutely perfect.) The only remaining issues then become jitter and noise. But THOSE depend quite heavily on the DAC you happen to be using. DACs range from being very sensitive to jitter and noise to being virtually immune to them. So, if the DAC you have is immune to those two things, then your transports WILL sound identical. And, if your DAC is sensitive to one or the other, then the transport is going to make a difference. Note that there are different types of jitter and of noise... So, if your DAC is sensitive to either, it may be sensitive in different ways and different degrees. However, what you will find is that actually measuring sensitivity to noise or jitter is very difficult, and requires rather complex and expensive test equipment, and neither DAC manufacturers nor transport manufacturers provide anywhere near detailed specs on either. So... Yes... if you had a PERFECT DAC then all transports WOULD have to sound identical. But, of course, there is no such thing as a perfect DAC... But that does mean that you should expect very different results with different DACs.
@@nicksterj What you said is true, or should be, for the DAC inside the CD player... because the data is sent, more or less directly, from the data buffer to the DAC... However, when you use an external DAC, things get a lot more complicated. When you read the data out of the CD player's data buffer, using the CD player's clock, that clock then becomes "embedded" in the data. Then, when you send that data to a separate DAC, the DAC must follow the clock that is embedded in the data and CANNOT use its own clock. And, if the clock in the CD player is imperfect, or the signal gets distorted in the cable between the CD player and the DAC, then the resulting clock will no longer be perfect. (And, yes, apparently even the tiny speed variations in many "pretty good" clocks can cause enough distortion in the output signal to be at least slightly audible.) In order to be able to use its own clock instead, the DAC must have its own high-quality clock, and it must also have some way to regulate the flow of the data. And, since the data coming from a coax or optical connection only goes one way, the DAC has no way to "tell" the CD player to send data slower or faster... so it must "let the data get a little bit ahead, and store some data in its own buffer, in case it needs it to catch up later". As it turns out, there are other ways of doing this, which involve something called an asynchronous sample rate converter", which some DACs use, but they make the design of that DAC much more complicated... and, as noted in the test results here, if the DAC fails to make those clock "corrections", or doesn't make them perfectly, then differences in the clocking on the transport may be audible. (Remember that an error or variation in the clock has much the same result as an incorrect value on a data point... the resulting "point" is "in the wrong place".) There are a whole bunch of "little black boxes" whose sole purpose is to "reclock the data"... and at least some of them do make an audible difference with some CD transports and some DACs. (But that's a whole separate, and rather complex, subject...) Now, when you use an ASYNCHRONOUS USB connection, the clock IS controlled by the DAC... With that type of connection the DAC requests the data and the DAC inserts the clock. And, even though the data must still travel over the connection, the timing and data clock ARE controlled by the clock in the DAC... This is why a properly designed DAC with an asynchronous USB input SHOULD be immune to the quality of the transport mechanism (as long as the data itself is perfect). HOWEVER, while this type of connection is the norm these days for connecting computers to DACs, and a few "computer-based" streamers also offer it, CD transports almost never do. (So, with CD transports, and most DACs, the DAC is forced to "lock onto and follow" the clock that is being sent by the transport... over the cable between them... and through quite a bit of circuitry along the way... and hopefully apply some sort of internal "correction" to avoid being affected by stuff like this.)
Back in their glory days I was a Levinson dealer for many years. Their Reference DAC (No. 31.5) was $9000. The matching Reference DAC (No. 30.6) was $17,000). Below that was their No. 37 transport at 4k and their No. 360S DAC at $8,000. So 26K for a world class CD player. But if you wanted to save some, many were tempted to do the Reference DAC and lesser transport. Wrong choice. The 31.5 paired with the lesser DAC for $12,000 was clearly superior to the lesser transport through the Reference DAC. Most were very skeptical but it was easily shown to be the case.
This old stuff is so fascinating, I just got a a 1988 accuphase cd transport & dac that retailed for $13k back in the day, no fooling it sounds better to my ears than my Chord Dave and this is almost 40yo digital technology. I experimented with feeding Spotify into the dac and it was musical bliss, haven’t tried feeding the transport into the Dave though. I think a lot of people fail to mix and match components to get the best of what they got, I know my Grado headphones can sound either fatiguing/screechy or nirvana-like off the same gear in your home just depending on how you chain them together. How many people get new speakers or headphones and return them thinking they’re crap just because they don’t have the right synergy behind it?
ruclips.net/video/TAOLGsS27R0/видео.html&ab_channel=PearlAcoustics Here is the Pearl test. Pay close attention to the second part where the digital outputs are connected to the external DAC. It's just an asynch file transfer in that case. The fact that old protocols allowed an old DAC to recover shaky timing from the bit stream has no relevance. The only way to explain what Mike found is that he did not use the DAC buffer/clock functionality.
@@ericjensen9091 Generally yes, and most DACs are flexible regarding buffering and clocking to support a variety of sources and connection protocols. The best approach to understanding digital audio is to avoid explanations from those trying to sell you very expensive stuff.
@@ericjensen9091 I'll also claim that connecting your disc player and streaming endpoints to a decent modern HTR using HDMI will result in audio quality indistinguishable from fancy external DACs. Any difference will originate in downstream analog stages. Spend your money on nice speakers in a nice room with nice furniture to sit on and good Scotch to sip while listening.
Isn't a cd transport a device without an internal dac ? I believe, it should only read and output a digital signal in an orderly manner to an external dac.
The draw or mechanism is very important ! Only a few companies address this ? Is like a cheap turntable…ie plastic ! pioneer and Teac tried to address this , but most companies use what’s available and build around it ? A machined version! With no plastic parts and isolated properly would be superior to any plastic transport ! I would love to make or have one made CNC like a watch! Then we can talk transports ! There is too many DAC’s now and no more development into CD technology ? What laser is being used? Just like phono cartridges…there’s a difference? I have Primare CD player and it has a terrible mechanism! My Mac mini same thing ? This is one of the reasons that dac and streaming are all over the place! Very bad mechanical implementation! You would need someone like VPI or SOTA to apply the same type of engineering to cd mechanism…but since the cd market is not booming no more support ! When I took my Mac mini to Mac they said we don’t support hard media? Key word….support!
Ye, but - how then a simplest BlueRay / DVD-RW ROM form ( or for ) a computer, gives not worse results with an OK sound-card / bluetooth headphones ?! Because I ALSO tested these >< a pretty fine CD player ( even an SACD player ). Do those RW things have much better overall performance ??
If you don't use an internal DAC and amp and just transport digital from the CD player to the external DAC, then there will be no difference at all-none, zero, because it's digital.
I was a ones and zeros guy who burned my cds to a roon source with an inexpensive dvd cd rw Either streaming from qobuz or my nas into my dac. Had a few dollars and there was a clearance in a project rs box. It is a pure cd read box laser reader and it doesn’t read cd rw disks. I have been buying used cds and haven’t used my turntable in weeks. Just amazing dynamics of cd with the natural sound of analog
Love the channel. I think you do believe you heard a major difference. Now I have old ears, and can only say that I can not tell the difference between my Cambridge cxc Transport and Yamaha CD player running through a schiit multibit. Not a dam thing. And it drives me nuts. The one good thing I guess is my Cambridge stack looks clean as hell and matches. I wish I could hear a difference, because I think my CDs sound a whole lot worse than streaming or vinyl. Now that's a whole other story where people would say...nope. Vinyl is the worst. so who the hell knows.
Means the Sony has more jitter than the Cambridge or the Lyngdorf. But it illustrates that in order to have a clean S/Pdif coax or tos!ink there is a lot of work to do on the clocks and buffering of both the transport and the receiving dac. So connect your Sony Blu-Ray player through HDMI instead since it carries both data and timestamp to your HDMI "in" of the receiver/DAC and live long and Prosper.... There is nothing magic done in the transport : the tonal, dynamics and stereo sound stage information is on the CD, it just gets Lost in translation Somewhere when data is no longer locked to its Time in the machine. Invest in HDMI, not fancy Hi-Fi.
A tip, stick with analog issues, digital may be subject to interference, etc, BUT the error correction protocols fix any issues, so using a $50 CD player will do the job just fine. a point, when you rip a disk for a streamer you are likely as not using a cheap CD reader in a PC/Mac. The copy you make if lossless is digitally perfect, identical in every way to the original. Agreed? So why does the transport make any difference? Also, when music is stream all across the world over the internet, in hi-res, digitally. All errors corrected by the protocols present. Whilst I understand that the signal can be damaged by the digital-analog process, all the while the signal stays digital it is perfect.
I compared a couple transports using the same external DAC and my impressions are; 90 percent the same. One had more/thumpier bass. Both sounded about the same besides that. I could live with either. My system is pretty resolving.
I actually think you interesting and quite engaging... I used to be a serious audiophile but after meeting a designer of high end audio explained to me how they use sound shaping to differentiate they're products by levels of value... They also audition the sounds of competitors then they revisit their own products to ensure they are in line with the lineage of their products... The goal is mostly to sound different and that becomes the focus... The use of upgraded components are to justify the higher price... The heavy panels and added shielding is to add weight which consumers equate to being a much more expensive product... They do use the excess material in the lower in products because they don't change the end result but are expected by true audiophiles. The digital signal does not change because they had to be used in computers. Essentially it's the signature sound of each brand that appeals to different people. Denon and Marantz use this to differentiate their amps... Denon being somewhat to different analytical and Marantz being smoother to sound more analog... Somewhat like a tube amp. It's sound shaping to appeal customers
It’s facts, as long as the CD transport performs according to the Red Book standard (which it should do if it says it can play CD’s), there should be NO DIFFERENCE (seriously, we can mathematically prove it) between the output of two different mechanisms. THE ONLY THING that can make your CD’s sound different are the analog components present in the DAC circuitry. You can even test it. Record the digital output from two different machines with a PCM recorder (at CD quality) and compare both files in audacity. They are going to be exact copies (bit perfectly) of one another.
The only way there would be any difference using a digital output signal is if one CD player is not reading and/or transmitting all the data and the other one is. Or maybe one is introducing "extra" data that shouldn't be there. I invite any other technically sound explanation. It's 1s and 0s man. They're either all there, or they're not.
100% agree with you. I have an audiolab 8000 cd transport and dac both of them bought in NZ in 1997 for a cost of $6,000. As the Lazer was getting tired I just purchased a new audiolab 8000 transport to run through my dac for NZ 2000. Compared to the old transport the new chinese made transport is crap Soundstage gone. Flat and lacking detail. The NZ importer refused to acknowledge the fact. You gets what you for. Especially if you buy from exclusivity mongers trading on a name brand
I've test with my 2 identical cd into ca cxc v2 and onkyo c7030, from cxc use coax to eversolo dmpa6 me and optical to ca cxa81. From onkyo use optical to eversolo dmp a6me and rca into cxa81. Its sound different. But not sure which one better between onkyo vs cxc v2. But for sure the best option is use dmp a6 me for dac.
I would expect a better player to perform better but I converted everything to FLAC using a secure ripper and stream it across my home network and I'm curious how that compares to an expensive player.
I bought the Cambridge cxu top the range blu ray player.USB music doesn't sound as good as my ps3-qed reference optical-yamaha dac. It's not wishful thinking,I dearly wanted the Cambridge to sound better after spending 600 notes on it.
So what was the point of the blind test? You never stated the statistics. How may times were the sources changed and how many times did you accurately pick the corresponding source? This sounds like most other subjective reviews, you based your feelings off of looks and price.
I didn’t believe it too, but after trying many transports and dacs, both cheap and expensive, I hate to say it but it is real. Even my totally hi Fi disinterested Wife could clearly hear the difference. As many electronics engineers as you like can say it is bs, but this is one sceptic who ultimately could not deny what he heard.
I totally agree AND disagree with you. A drive CAN make a big difference in a real time system, when the DACs input chipset allows systematic timing errors to pass and proceed into the conversions clocking. As soon as the clocks deviation contains a spectrum different from random noise or hiss, this jitter makes disharmonic distortion. Sometimes up to levels you simply want to switch off. As soon as a sophisticated input chipset eliminates those jitter frequency's - better: shifts them out of the audio band to subsonic or HF hiss, the drive (or cable or whatever influences the jitter spectrum) can no more influence the performance. Those DACs will NOT allow to detect the drives characteristic. In your Video you have bypassed the DACs Jitter filter, clearly visible in the display. Repeat the test with Jitter filter activated. If it keeps what it promises, you hardly find out which drive is active...
I've worked in production in Radio for years. You fade the music when the content begins. If sounds like it sounds like it was produced by an amateur. IN WHICH YOU'RE Not.
The main reason for the diiference in what you hear from a transport is Jitter and Error correction, althogh error correction is only going to happen now and then. A true reconstruction of the sine waves is only posible with 0 jitter, even a few hundred pico second can be measured on simple equipment. Still There may be other reasons as well.
That's why DACs use FIFO buffers and their own clocks. Transport jitter has no effect at all in that case. Jitter is a non issue in modern digital equipment unless the DAC is junk.
Sorry, too brief, not enough info on setup. And why the cheap DAC? A good DAC will nix jitter almost 100%. I have the Cambridge CDC and Chord Qutest through a highly resolving system. I think a dedicated CD player would be a better choice than a multi-format player such as a blu-ray or DVD. But if you have CD only players through a top quality DAC then you would struggle to hear differences. Read Stereophile review of Qutest, particularly the measurements, and also the designer's (Rob Watts) comments in his blog on Head-fi
Set measuring microphone with digital studio recorder and using same setup rotate those 3 transports after recording a song then in editing software subtract the differences... you will see the truth.
If error correction was a major player for the degraded sound quality in inferior transports, how do data CDs with very similar, if not the same, mechanicals in their drives manage to not be corrupted when read? Is it the process of error correction itself? Can we get an engineer that worked on creating the pickups and electronics for CD layers and transports to weigh in? Most reviews and comparisons are treating CD players/transports as grey boxes that are only partially understood.
Watch my video on Jitter, and that will explain a lot, I will do my best to get an engineer for the follow-up video to explain how he designs the CD players in detail.
@@audioarkitekts Thanks. I'm looking forward to the next video. I watched the video, and understand what jitter is, and generally how it affects audio (secondary peaks so many dB down from the main peak of a pure tone). Would all of the jitter caused by the three sources be corrected by the jitter eliminator on the DAC? If so, what's left to account for the differences you heard? I admit, I am still in the bits-is-bits (once gross jitter is accounted for) camp yet!
I'm an engineer. If the DAC buffers and reclocks the data then transport jitter is irrelevant. It just needs to deliver the sample bits without errors. We see this nonsense all the time. It helps sell a lot of useless gadgets.
@@audioarkitekts I am thinking you put a Moon Audio from Cary, NC digital adapter in between or use USB and i2s to your favorite DAC. Game over. Audio is going to sound as good as the DAC output reclocked. Better speedier Bass. I am still using a Camelot Dragon 5.1 SPDIF Dragon dejitter device from 20 years ago for up to 24 / 96 stereo.
I only ever once heard a huge difference between two CD-players that were hooked up to the same DAC. One sounded fine, the other thin and metallic. This was a difference that was so big that even the biggest sceptic would have been unable to deny it. The reason for the difference was simple: one of the transports was showing defects in the laser sled mechanism and probably also adjustment of the laser (Sony KSS-150 or similar, these don't self-adjust like more modern drives) .
Mike, Ya gave me the Idea of Experimenting with a few Blu-Ray Players. Well, Really I've already thought about it. Lol... You Reminded Me and Maybe Speed up the Process of Experimenting with an Older Panasonic Blu-Ray player BD55 (which had some good reviews but was really selling out), a newer Panasonic UB820 4k Blu-Ray Player, and the last of the Oppo UDP-203 4k Blu-Ray player. Most of the time I'm looking at movies and sometimes I'm Streaming used to be Pandora, but now My Favorite is SomaFM: Groove Salad (Chill). Now My Cds becoming like Me playing My Albums; sometimes wanting to hear a different Sound Quality. Or the Music I have not heard in a Long time! Etc... What a Fun Hobby! Now that I think about it, Mike G. might have Mention You to Me. If I Remember Right, told him I look at a lot of RUclips on Audio-Video Related On My 4k Tv. Right now on My Computer, so I'm able to comment but not on the TV. Again Great Video, Thank You For Everything!
@@audioarkitekts Yes, I Love it! Getting the Most out of Your Audio Products sometimes Requires Experiments! Even at Low prices! Like You Say Mostly for Fun!
Interestingly, I did a similar test with my Rotel CD player to the coax input of my Schiit Modi 3 against an external CD ROM drive plugged into my laptop and into the MODI via USB. I listened using DT 770 studio monitor headphones, and came to a different conclusion... Many variables at play though.
@@audioarkitekts that would be excellent. Not doubting anything but hard data is fantastic. Techmoan did one recently testing the green pen trick on CDs this way.
TOSLINK is great for isolation, but If you believe that jitter is problematic in digital playback, TOSLINK typically performs worse in terms of jitter than SPDIF.
I did a similar listening test a while ago : Sony DVD player into roksan dac vs audiolab CD transport. The Sony sounded very digital, and flat while the CD transport sounded more fluid and spacious. The difference was night and day.
There are so many myths and conceptions in hifi. Even people heavily into this industry/hobby have things to learn. There are totally honest companies and products and snake oil cons. It can be hard finding the truth, as in life in general. I find an open mind is key. Learn from experience and theory and logic, but be prepared at times to question what you thought you knew was right.
Which is exactly what happened. I didn't know I was going to be able to tell THAT much of a difference. I was blown away! Thank you for the great comment @coneman3
"Learn from experience and theory and logic, but be prepared at times to question what you thought you knew was right." And if still in doubt - do double blind tests...
Don't ever try/ a Sony Blu Ray for it's digital out, great dynamics, but complete mude. Are their enineers daft or wot? Audio Nirvana spkrs through EL84 tube amp..
I think the idea that all transports sound the same plays a role in why many people believe that vinyl is the superior format. Notice how this same logic isn't applied to turntables. If you compare an expensive turntable to a cheap Blu-ray player obviously the turntable is going to sound better. But to someone who believes that all CD transports are the same, they will assume it's the format at fault and not the player.
"If you compare an expensive turntable to a cheap Blu-ray player " Jitter is on a more abstract level using data at the wrong point of time. That happens also to a turntable if its rotation speed is not 100% correct and 100% constant. If you compare the variances of even an high end turntable with the jitter of an average CD player the turntable has a much higher jitter ... "obviously the turntable is going to sound better." That is far away from obviously. At the end "sound better" is a subjective rating - like Pizza smells better than Spaghetti....
I saw the title and had hoped that you were comparing transports and not CD players. I'd be interested in these same units going through the same external DAC.
@@audioarkitekts ahh. I walked away for a moment and must have missed that part. Good to know. I have a couple Sony UBP-X800 4K Blu-ray players and I use one of them for CDs going through my Denefrips Ares II DAC. I don’t have much listening time with it but I am interested in a “real” CD transport/player. Your comments on the Cambridge were enlightening and has steered me in another direction. Thanks.
Just getting back into music(with an old set of ears, lol), and will be purchasing a new CD player or Blue Ray Player - is there typically a material difference in sound quality b/w a CD transport and Blue Ray transport other than the video side all other things being equal?
I agree with the other comment. Go for a CD player if you don't need the Blu-Ray option. However, now I am inspired to do another video about this subject in itself.
I also agree 100%. I can hear the difference between my Marantz CD 63 II KIS compared to my yamaha CDN500. I am taking about only CD transport via coax output to external DAC (thus by right should have bypass the DAC in the CD player). My Marantz is fuller and heavier in bass extension, Yamaha sound thinner thus kind of larger sound stage, guitar sounds more cutting. I test it with the song, "Women" from Scorpion. Then I compared the 2 CD transport with my Pioneer DVD DV2032K player, and the cheaper DVD player, has no detail and sounds congested. So, I am now a true believer!
Nice video! I have improved my iMac as a source to my older Metrum Octave Dac over the past year or two. I have an oppo BD 103 that I’ve tried via optical. And I have my cd player- Synthesis Pride which took significant audition time to pick out. The cd mfg has the advantage of tuning a cohesive unit. Using the spdif output isn’t what the design was optimized for. I’d guess a transport is though. Adding an iFi spdif iPurifier 2 at the input of my dac, and using an iFi iPower X to power it improved things a lot for my iMac source. It might be worth trying in this type of test. I appreciate a skilled listener’s perspective Mike! I’ll certainly tune in for more of your videos! I also fuss more about tweaks and tuning :)
@@audioarkitekts I really “thought” I had a good chain from iMac to dac, so much so that it seemed a dac was the next upgrade. Prior chain - Pangea Ag usb cable > lps - audiophellio2 > 25’ coax to Metrum octave. Improved chain: with Pangea XL usb cable ( separate data and power lines ), lps > iFi usb ipurifier 3 > audiophellio2 > 25’ coax > iFi spdif iPurifier2 with upgraded iPower X. Each of these made noticeable improvements. Literally the dac sounds completely different in a good way, cleaner, more uniform freq response, much better bass definition, more distinct coherent imaging. Not as sensitive to computer activity. Using Amarra Luxe as the player in bypass mode. But sounds better now with Amazon Music HD too.
@@audioarkitekts usb cables or Pangea usb cables? I was a little skeptical, but yes, it does make a difference. I may have tried an audioquest carbon at some point too. I’ve tried the old Pangea pocc, the solid silver or Ag, and most recently the XL. Each sounds different. But the Pangea cable designer says it’s important to keep the power and signal side away from each other as in the XL. Reviews at audio advisor, were reporting significant improvements of the XL over the silver ( which was better to me than the pocc ). These use better cardas copper. The Pangea usb cables and their power cables and some of their silver plated hdmi cables have been good. The Ag cable seemed clear after breaking in, had more liveness than the mellower pocc. The XL is more refined sounding with more image density and better low end freq. Have not had as much luck with Pangea headphone extension cable, or interconnects. My first iFi test was the iSilencer + coming off the computer. It helped in some ways - punchy, clarity, frequency range, but lost some depth. Adding the iFi usb ipurifier 3, created a more relaxed, layered, refined sound. iFi in the newer generations of purifiers are using better caps which take some hours to realize their full potential.
Why doesn't anyone ever dump the "1's and 0's" into a computer from all three devices on test, to see if there is actually a difference- this would put the whole debate to bed once and for all if they turned out to be identical (or not) as the computer could not only analyse the data, but also the precise timing of the datastream - maybe we could even develop a benchmarking scheme for the parameters to demonstrate a level of quality???? I'm too busy to do it myself and not good at coding, but I'm sure someone is out there.
That would be a fun experiment but at its core, quality is oftentimes a subjective experience. As much as a computer can tell us, there are still other variables that could impact our self perceived opinion of quality. I really want to do that test though! Thanks for the comment!
@@audioarkitekts "quality is oftentimes a subjective experience" If quality is often a subjective experience then your comparison of CD transports is as useful as somebody comparing italian dishes and telling that spaghetti is better than pizza...
I always wondered about this, but from another viewpoint: CD transport to DAC vs Flac send through the USB connection (to same DAC). Again this should sound identical, but it doesn't. When playing CD's (via optical) the sound always sounds more 'heavy/ hard-edged' ; it makes me want to lower the volume just for that. When playing FLAC ; the sound is crisp and 'light' in a very nice way. (CD player is a Marantz CD17 mk2 through Audiolab M-Dac).
There's a lot more going on than you seem to think... When you play a FLAC file on a computer the actual data should be the same as was on the original CD (FLAC files are lossless assuming they were encoded correctly). However, when you use an optical connection, you are forcing the DAC to use the clock that is embedded in the data. Depending on the source, this clock may or may not be very good and, depending on the DAC, the DAC may take measures to "repair or improve it", or it may not. The same would be true if your DAC has an old-style "isochronous" USB input. However, if your DAC uses an "asynchronous" USB input, which most modern DACs now do, then with that USB input the clock is controlled by the DAC, and the quality of clocks in DACs also varies rather widely. And, in addition to all that, many modern DACs also include other methods for "improving" or "fixing" the quality of the clock after they receive the signal. Odds are that the "heavy hard edged sound" you are hearing is the result of the clock that is being received over that optical connection along with the data not being very good... and the DAC having limited or no ability to correct it once it is received.
Thanks. That would mean though that connecting through the (asynchronous) USB input gives superior sound than the optical port on the same DAC. The Marantz is a somewhat older player, but was considered high end at the time, maybe i'll try with a modern transport and see what happens (as I can't hear any difference in sound when switching between the CD players' optical output and it's analogue output ' ). @@keithlevkoff8579
Excellent test! For the similar price to the Lyngdorf you can buy the Jay's Audio CDT2 which has an OCXO clock and should reduce jitter sent to the Dac even more.
@@audioarkitekts Sounds fantastic. Btw based on my research of all other audio channels + demos + forums, the best price comparable Dac to hook up the Jay's to (preferably with i2s) is Musician Audio Aquarius. That is the front end I plan to invest in shortly anyway.
@@audioarkitekts Musician Aquarius (like the Jay's) has an OCXO clock which is a massive advantage, but the overall design is high quality. Also it easily beats the highly rated Denafrips Pontus on an A-B test here: ruclips.net/video/Qj2rEgiGCBU/видео.html Also it even beats the far more expensive Denafrips Terminator Plus in terms of dynamics according to other demos from another respected reviewer.
Try using a modern DAC. It's not the transporets that sound different, it's how older DACs buffer the data from the transport. You seem to know this full well - that's why you used an older DAC. Just more BS for the punters.
This is really helpful. I'm considering the CDC transport from Cambridge Audio. I already have the CXA81 and the CXN-V2 so this would complete the CX trinity. I, like you, was simply skeptical and didn't want to be the fool to spend the extra money. Thanks for your work. Looking forward to seeing more on this.
just dönt... my a85 amp just ´schätz dövvn spöRädicälly and read similäiR reports online -.- yes avm göt even möre expen$ive... x202 es very decent as i read with teac vcrs or so 2500 $ thingey. maybe a bürmeestäR€ v??v
Well at this point obsolete is a better way to describe it since Oppo walked away from making players altogether. It's unfortunate because the Oppo players were an exception to the rule.
I have ripped my CDs to FLAC files. I currently use my Sony UBP-X800M2 to stream from my 256 GB thumb drive to a Marantz AV7704 Sound processor (32 bit AKM 4458VN DAC). The rest of the system (for 2 channel) includes Emotiva XPA-1 Gen-1 monoblocs driving Magnepan 2.7 QRs and a swarm of subs (5). Should I expect an audible improvement were I to use a DAC with a price point of say a Geshelli J2 which you review elsewhere and feed unbalanced analog into the AV7704?
I'm not Mike, but I would say yes you should hear a difference, how much will depend on your gear. I never had any luck sound wise using an AVR, my last was the Denon X4400H, a pretty decent unit. I sold it to my buddy and went two channel. I kept my Emotiva XPA-2 amp, using it right now on a mix of Denafrips and Schiit Audio amps and preamps. I just installed the Venus II 12th, which replaced the very good sounding Ares II. KLH Model 5's and two SVS SB-3000 subs providing the sound. You know, it will depend on that Marantz unit, even with pass through or pure audio, I was never happy with the sound out of that Denon. I would give the Geshelli a try, everything I have heard regarding their DACs has been nothing but positive. And I will say this, DACs do matter.
100% agree. Clean, beefy analog power supplies and low jitter are the key to getting digital audio to sound good.Once engineers understood the importance of low jitter (and maybe more importantly how to achieve) digital sound finally lived up to the original hype.
@@audioarkitekts Like most things, there is a point of diminishing return on price to performance. So I suppose the question becomes, what is the price for entry into the the realm of very good sound? I dunno, as I've not bought in new audio gear in years. The only good advice I can give to stay on a sane budget is to buy higher end gear used or factory refurbs rather than lower end stuff new. People flip perfectly good equipment all the time.
Colour me skeptical about different CD players sending a bit stream to the same DAC sounding different. Out of the analogue outputs, yeah I can see that (differences in convertors etc). I'd be very interested to see a frequency response plot from the analogue outputs of that outboard DAC for each transport. I recently bought a new Bluray player that has only an HDMI output and I use my receiver to do the conversion. Very happy with the results.
It's clearly because you've not wired your house with audio grade mains cable /s.
Yes, you're completely right of course. A CD transport is functionally an electromechanical thumb drive.
You can settle this argument with science. Record the digital output from both transports and then null sum it, if you get silence there is zero difference between them.
Numbers dont always bear out what you hear! Its an old argument, that something with the lowest THD should sound better and NOT always the case! Tube audio equipment measures TERRIBLY but can sound wonderful.
@@OrganNLou Any distortion produced by the transport would change the output. The null sum would not result in silence then as the would be a difference.
This isn't a real test because playback and "copying" are not the same thing. If you record the digital out, it will be identical. It's only during the real-time playback that you hear a difference. One thing he doesn't mention in here is that the transports clock is almost always the master (the DAC is using the transports clock signal, unless you have the ability to change it), so the clock signal is different for each transport. Also the clock sync uses square waves across the cable, which won't be perfectly square if you have a crappy cable or interference (could be in the transport itself) which can affect the timing for analog conversion. The 1 will still be a 1 and the 0 still a 0, but the TIMING can slightly fluctuate during PLAYBACK only (jitter). Jitter isn't an issue if you're recording digital to digital, (unless if was at such an extreme case that the 1's and 0's didn't make it correctly). I used to think the same thing, until I experienced it first-hand and had to learn what was going on. Science is only as good as the person performing it. This is what a lot of people have a hard time understanding is that playback and recording are not the same thing.
@@OrganNLou DIGITAL, you can make PERFECT copies, that is proof enough that nothing changes during the transport process, even if you transfer a multi gigabit blurray movie across the internet (and god knows how much crap kit is on route) a copy you make at the destination will be bit perfect to the copy sent.
All digital traffic has multiple error correction protocols, TCP/IP for the internet, and other protocols built into the Red Book CD standard, and yet others built into USB standards.
Spend more than $50 on a basic player with digital out and you are just wasting cash, save you cash for the lossy part of the process, the analog part.
note, if you rip CD's on a PC with a $50 CD drive are the copies in any way not digitally perfect copies. You could copy it 1000's of times every single copy would be bit perfect.
@@grahampearce2405 TOTAL BULLCRAP!
Pearl did the same sort of test, but did not disable the external DAC re-clocking. Three young, expert subjects could hear no differences. So your result is misleading BS. Of course if you rig the test for digital outputs and still use the recovered clock from from the transport data stream, there will be differences. Those FIFO input buffers and accurate clock on a decent DAC are there for a reason. When the DAC is used properly, only uncorrected bit data errors from the transport matter.
in a nutshell how a cd works digitally.....simplified
1. the CD player/transport reads the data from the disk, any errors present and it re-reads until error perfect (these are the error-correction protocols, all in RED Book design docs). this data then goes to a buffer, this allows the error correction to take place without in any way effecting the stream of data to the DAC.
2. It then goes down a cable to the external DAC, during that process more errors can happen, they are then again corrected digitally until perfect as part of the USB protocols, they then go to another buffer in the DAC, which later processes the DIGITALLY PERFECT stream of data thus converting it into an analog signal.
In short, all of the issues on the digital side are corrected (DIGITALLY PERFECT), the only issues arrive are as part of the ANALOG processes, and analog cables.
A point, when you stream your Apple Lossless music across the internet using multiple Telco suppliers equipment, does it not work, perfectly? All down to the wonders of TCP/IP, the error connection protocol of the internet.
Rant over...... ;-)
Tip, no background music when talking
good call/agreed -- it's distracting
He’s romantic 😳
The background music adds ambiance, and the sound level is considerably lower than my voice. The music is at -26db. My voice is at +5db. Shouldn't be distracting. It's lofi beats, lol 😆
@@audioarkitekts I like your channel: trust me dude, it's distracting
I appreciate that, Andre! I'll work on a better solution. 😌
I suspect your methodologies are broken. Just another objectivist audio review where the most expensive unit wins. Knock me over with a feather.
Thank god all my audiophile gear is budget and thrifted.. but from good brands, Yamah, Technics, etc. I don't need the stress to worry that this is better than that in my system. I just love eating popcorn on the sidelines and watching others burn their money. Oh that gear is superb you say?! Well good for you!
It's always great to reach the point of self content.
All wrong, my Friend, I'm sorry, but a "blind test" "cannot be made like this, as the hearing
memory lasts not for so long. Usually people perform a so called "ABX" blind test:
the "A" device plays for some seconds, then the "B" device plays in its turn, and then
comes the "X" device, that can be the A or the B one. Guess which is which.
There are of course other ways to do a good blind test, no one like yours.
The very most of them reveal that DIGITAL sources usually cannot be recognized
unless they have very poor specs/characteristics or tube-based-output-stages
with high degrees of THD, for example. Please, don't hate me, I appreciate your
efforts to tell something new, if I were in your shoes I' d go on with blind tests
with the help of more people and after reading some literature.
My Best Regards
Sandro
The details of how you connected the equipment is not clear. You are comparing transports so presumably you are using the digital output from each transport? Coaxial? Optical? Same for each transport? If you used the analogue outputs (surely not) then you aren't comparing transports and you would likely hear differences. If comparing the transports only could you consistently pick each transport? Every time? Having personally conducted a similar test (different transports but comparing cheap with expensive) there was, as you would expect, no audible difference. Call me unconvinced!
In the video, I said we used the same coax cable for each transport in the digital test.
He did not use the DAC clock. If he had, jitter would be meaningless.
you right, i dont believe the result. even if they tricked you and used the same source each time you would most likely say you heared a difference.
I have a high-end Cambridge blue ray player and a very nice Yamaha CD player.
I buy CD/DVD players from the 90's the little silver ones, they sound just as good as my more modern expensive ones for only 10 to twenty five dollars.
I just buy them and stock pile a good supply and give some away to people trying to put a system together on a budget.
Send me one haha
If the DAC is separate, the music server is simply transporting digital data, and not deliberately altering that data in any way, then it cannot make any difference whatsoever to the sound quality beyond not messing it up. The power supply doesn’t matter, the circuitry doesn’t matter, the cabling doesn’t matter (unless you’re running over 50m), oxidisation of components doesn’t matter, the shielding on the case doesn’t matter. If there’s some sort of problem with jitter then it’ll be screamingly obvious because jitter is never ‘subtle’.
Think about this: digital data has been around for decades now. Take a digital file that originated in 1980s, and has been copied from computer to computer, disk to disk, USB stick to USB stick, sent over WiFi and down a gazillions cables, losslessly compressed and decompressed… and its contents will be EXACTLY the same. The is a fact that can easily be validated by comparing the binary data in any copy with the original. This is a major feature and use case of digital encoding. We can also do run this comparison with streaming data but collating it, and comparing it to the original. Unless something has gone horribly wrong, then it will be totally and absolutely identical, no matter which transport streamed it.
The *only* way a file *could* be different is if lossy compression were allowed… but that’s up to the user. It’s the same with streaming, the data cannot change unless it undergoes lossy compression… so don’t use Bluetooth to stream music, and don’t encode music in MP3 etc.
The sound absolutely is altered by electronic considerations at each part of the analogue chain, and also in the digital to analogue conversion stage (more of this in a moment), but not within the digital realm itself, not unless it’s undergoing some sort of processing intended to colourise it.
Even the choice of speaker cable has INFINITELY more impact on the sound than digital transport does (meaning slightly less than zero). For avoidance of doubt, lossless digital transport that isn’t undergoing any sort of deliberate processing to alter its contents, has absolutely ZERO impact on sound.
The noisiest power supply in the world will not affect the fidelity of digital data, not unless it somehow reaches a point where the system’s operational integrity has been compromised. For example a computer system with a horrible power supply does not affect the reproduction of MS Excel documents in the slightest. The numbers in the spreadsheet are not impacted, and do not change because the power supply is ‘noisy’… not unless it’s so bad that the computer cannot even be booted.
The data being streamed enters is first collated into a buffer for error checking and correction. Under normal circumstances it will leave the buffer 100% correct. The only way that wouldn’t be the case is if there was massive issue with data corruption that wouldn’t be subtle. So no, a better clock won’t make any difference to something as trivial as streaming stereo audio from one device to another because they’re all up to that job. Where a superior clock becomes critical is inside or attached to a digital mixing system, where it might be transporting say… 128 channels data independently, that need to be perfectly synched across multiple devices over a network. Even in that scenario, if the clock isn’t up to the job then it won’t result in degraded sound, what will happen is, that devices will return clocking errors and disconnect from it.
Same goes for anti-vibration measures. Non-SSD hard drives certainly can be affected by vibration… and should that happen then it will be hugely noticeable because the device will probably hard reset itself… but until that point it will faithfully reproduce the data with 100% accuracy. Unless the drive head crashes and destroys the disk. But outside of those scenarios it will not impact sound quality. In simple terms: digital is on or off.
Sometimes I read or watch hifi reviews, and start to doubt my own sanity. These people talk about digital comms as though that were a form of analogue, where components play a part in the sound. This simply isn’t true; data doesn’t have a sound in the same what that the postal worker’s handwriting is irrelevant to the contents of the mail he or she delivers.
The DAC is a different matter… but even here there’s a crucial piece of information that most people aren’t aware of: while no human has evolved who can hear beyond 24bit depth @48KHz, there is a physical issue with digital to analogue conversion that hasn’t yet been overcome by engineering. The long and short of it is that DACs function much better at higher sample rates, like 88.2K, 96KHz (and upwards into rapidly diminishing returns). So if you’re a practiced listener, who can discern a slight but noticeable difference between 96KHz audio and 48K audio, then that’s why. It’s not that your ears are picking up more frequencies or greater resolution; it’s just that DACs are not well optimised when running at 44.1KHz or 48KHz. Not even the really expensive ones. A cheap DAC running at 96K will likely work better than an expensive DAC running at 48K. This was an unforeseen flaw when the CD standard was devised as 16bit dept @44.1KHz. As an aside, only a child with exceptionally good hearing can distinguish the difference between a 48KHz sample rate vs a 44.1KHz sample rate, and only really practised listeners with good hearing can discern 24bit depth from 16bit depth. To all intents, 16bit depth @ 44.1KHz is at or beyond the limit of what *most* people can hear, due to the Nyquist rate. The advantage of using a higher sample rate is that the DAC will make a better job of the conversion.
When it comes to digital transport though, choose a transport based on how good it looks, how good its build quality is, how good its connectivity and functionality are… because the one thing it shouldn’t do is alter the sound quality. If a digital transport does affect the sound, independently of the DAC, then there are five possibilities:
1. It’s actively and deliberately altering the underlying data as it streams that to the DAC, so as to colour the music. This is just sneaky software engineering, and not due to a lead encased power supply, anti-vibration measures, or cables made of gold.
2. It’s communicating with the DAC at 88.2K or more.
3. It’s outputting at a slightly higher volume (due to digital trim).
4. There’s a short circuit between the headphones.
5. The person listening to it is an ‘influencer’, and there’s an obvious reason as to why they are able to find the time to make those sorts of videos.
I’d be interested to hear any scientific explanations of how cables, power supplies, or shielding magically alter digital data…
Hope this was helpful!
Have you tried a similar comparison?
@@audioarkitekts - I’m a qualified computer scientist, who’s also been involved in sound engineering for the past 25 years. The only thing I’d be able to compare is how much processing the device is doing, or how much digital trim is being added. You can do this by streaming the data into a file, and comparing that to the source file. Ideally the device should be doing zero processing otherwise it’s colouring the audio. If the device adds a little digital trim, then the output volume will be slightly louder, which can make is *seem* better, since it’s more audible.
If you connect the digital transport to the DAC using asynchronous USB, then its clock never comes into play, so there won’t even be any jitter. Instead all the data is shovelled into the DACs buffer, and the DAC clocks itself. Even if you use S/PDIF, clocking is so good these days that any jitter will be well below the noise floor and therefore inaudible in all but the very worst devices.
In terms of errors… well I’d expect one of those to occur on asynchronous USB, that’s operating within it’s specified cable lengths, roughly once every 10,000 years. That said 2-channel PCM isn’t really stressing it much as opposed to say 8K video, so probably even less frequent in reality.
@@CraigAdams-s9i As fas as I understood, there will be no differene if I use expensive CD Transport or Playstation 2 for data transport to the AMP or AVR. And th quality of the sound will mostly depends on the DAC perfomance of the AMP/AVR Then comes the question, what will be not the best but atleast very good AMP/AVR to make me happy from my music system.
Strange fact is that I had 2 DVD s and tried to play same song, with same Optical cable also on same AVR, and the sound was differ. Asked a friend to make me blind test and I could recognise every time which DVD, which model was. I was also thinkind that there is no way to notice difference like that, I felt very strange, and I dont have answer of that...
@@pingui1488 - I suspect that some of them apply an EQ curve to colour the sound.
@@audioarkitektsMe and my neighbor did a very similar test with an audio lab cdt7000 transport, an older CD player with coax out, and a Sony Blu-ray. All using coax in to the same external Cambridge DAC, same cables, system, speakers etc. the Audiolab blew the other two away.
8:06 a more expensive CD transport can very well provide better sound quality due to a higher quality transport mechanism Superior error correction capabilities cleaner power
supply better vibration control improved output stage design these factors contribute to the accurate reading and transmission of digital audio data which ultimately affects the performance of the DAC and the resulting sound quality
There are no "superior error correction capabilities" - the best algorithms to do error corrections using the additional error correction bits stored on an audio CD is well known and easy to implement.
Its like claiming an expensive calculator would be able to some up the items on your cash register strip more accurate than a 5 USD china calculator. It can´t....
Same is for the transport itself - the technology used to read data from a CD using a laser pickup is available for more than 40 years - and it did its job 40 years ago already - meaning it does (under normal circumstances and with a normal not damaged CD) not create more reading errors than could be fixed by the error correction.
Same is for vibrations - the laser pickup in every CD player needs (and has) a "stabilizer" which keeps the laser beam on the track - and this works also for normal vibrations in your living room.
There is also no need for "accurate transmission" to the DAC itself - as long as the quality is not to bad the DAC can still decode the digital data perfect - so some noise on the signal does not matter.
I have several CD players a Marantz, Technics and Sony and the Technics is the better sounding of the three and its 39 years old.
Yet, a 20€ Pioneer DVD-R Drive (connected to a 100€ Intel Nuc running Windows Server and Jriver) easily thrashed my WADIA 860 used as Transport and connected to the same SMSL D1SE DAC...🙄
That's a $10k CD player... I guess that's not a very good look for Wadia. Hope you kept your receipt.
@@audioarkitekts
Nah, that's almost a 20 years CD Player bought second hand many years for way less than its listing price, in any case it's a good indicator of much affordable great sounding Digital Audio has evolved, especially the last 2-3 years.
BTW, Jriver reads the CD Disc multiple times at high speeds and uses Data Buffers until it gets it right, something that CD Transports are not capable off, downside is that they are bit mechanical noisy to spin a CD Disc 48x faster, there's a solution to this problem though.
Transports might matter with coax, with asynchronous USB they absolutely don't. Also, anything but an ABX double-blind test is absolutely useless.
« Transparency » is a word often used in audiophile reviews. It’s hard to figure what it actually means but I can tell you I understood right from the first seconds playing my CEC CD5! I will probably never sell it.
I made an audiophile dictionary on my website lol because I find myself having to use it to decipher some of these obscure terms 😅
Ok so you didn't have a single dedicated CD "transport" in the mix.
Great video. I had several folks beat me up when I said the AXA35 sounded fatiguing compared to a Sony Blu-ray player connected to a Schiit Modi DAC lol
Lol. After this test, I am selling most of my players and will go on the hunt for the perfect player/transport/DAC combo.
@@audioarkitekts can't wait to see what you land on - as we all know, the hunt is always the best part!
Not surprised by your experience
Isn't it funny how we need an expensive source component to avoid transmission jitter, even though the data stream is 88.2 kbps, yet a cheap 8-port gigabit ethernet switch you can buy for a few tens of dollars can do it on a 8 simultaneous datastreams that are each about 12000x faster than red book audio.
The issue is in clock signal recovery from the SP/DIF datastream (Side note - SP/DIF is a horribly designed interface). The variation you claim to have heard could only be as a result of sampling artifacts in the DAC as it attempts to remove the clock signal from the audio data. As such the more telling component to be testing would be the DAC. If you used a different DAC it would likely resolve the differences between the source units quite differently.
Also, finally, you just can't reach conclusions with a sample size of one. The quartz oscillator in the source unit that generates the clock pulses may vary from unit to unit.
But hey. What do I know, I'm only an electronics engineer. Keep pushing the idea that you gotta spend the big bucks to get the results....
"The issue is in clock signal recovery from the SP/DIF datastream (Side note - SP/DIF is a horribly designed interface)."
S/PDIF uses a Biphase-Mark-Code to transmit the data and clock signal. This is not the most efficent method but still capable to transmit 24 Bit samples with a sample rate of 192 kHz in stereo. I would not call is "horrible"
"Also, finally, you just can't reach conclusions with a sample size of one. "
I agree - and also such tests should be performed as double blinded test to avoid things like expectation bias.
I ripped all my CDs to a Roon/Plex music server. Completely takes out issues with S/PDIF and audible noise from the CD motor.
where you bought that shirt!! its awwsomeee , share link please
michael-andrew-shop.fourthwall.com/products/cd-logo-tee
The sound quality is much better when listening to a CD compared to a ripped CD to a WAV file..........
Thank you
I'm curious how the new audiolab 9000 and 7000 cd-transports perform...
It would be an interesting test. On the digital side, I would guess they would be practically identical.
@@audioarkitekts thank you for your kind response Mike, and I suppose you are right. Still, they could be an improvement to the 6000 CDT, they invested in a separate power supply, shielding the circuits etc. Either way, I am happy many brands still do R&D on CD(t) players, cause CD's are still my go to source (I use my 6000a play-streamer only for Internet Radio, wich is awesome by itself!). All the best Mike!
@@gerlachsieders4578 thank you for the kind words. The world of digital audio has become quite exciting!
That's a question I'm looking forward to getting answered, there is a review comparing the 6000 and 9000 on the tube somewhere. I have the 6000 so I'll have to get around to auditioning the 9000, but I can't see the 7 being a whole lot better than the 6 due to the comparative price between the two.
Fascinating ! The other issue is to try to understand if the sonic differences were very subtle or very obvious... as well as the $$$ differences of the players .. One would expect a $500k car will perform a lot better than a $50K car but the majority of people will just get the $50K car as it is "good enough" for most. ???
"Good enough" is fine for the greater part of the population. It's complacency because of a restricted budget. For those that want to truly find audio nirvana, that's when they cross over and test and compare until they find the perfect sound for them. Just like cars, the $500k car will be a complete experience inside and out and a lifestyle change, even though the $50k car could very well compete in speed. Great comment, thanks P G!
I don't buy it. A higher quality transport may produce a "truer" digital signal if it doesn't have to rely on its error correction as much when reading.
However, unless the CD is ridiculously damaged or the transport itself is broken. Any errors would be undetectable to our ears. (CD error correction is ridiculously good).
I have a 1986 Phillips CD player hooked up via Coaxial SPDIF into my DAC. I can assure you, if you play the exact same song ripped from the same CD on a PC using the same DAC it will sound identical as when playing from the CD player.
I'll even go as far to say if you hooked the analogue output from the DAC into an oscilloscope you'd see the same output.
If the source sends 1000110 and your DAC receives 1000110. That's what you'll hear, regardless of where it came from. No-one would ever sell a CD player with a digital output if they didn't think it was capable of sending the right information.
Try a more refined transport then return here with your experience. I can guarantee you, you WILL notice a difference. I’m totally with you on the science, it shouldn’t affect the sound audibly, but for one reason or another it does.
@@audioarkitekts no difference, it's a placebo.
I'm not surprised in the least. Anybody who says CD players (and transports) all sound the same obviously have not heard a good CD player.
you know that especially those good ones should sound the same as they just dont alter the sound? xD
@@Negatywny2 Huh?
Agreed, Michael. I was actually really taken back by how different they were. I was expecting small subtle differences, but when I tested the Blu-ray player, it was painfully obvious.
@@audioarkitekts The absolute best CD (SACD) player I have ever heard/used in my system was an Esoteric. Just my experience. It was mind boggling. My son even said to me (on Pink Floyd's SACD copy of Have a Cigar...) "I have never heard that song sound like that before. That was amazing." I have never been more proud of my system.
@@michaelcollins2473 So were you playing the SACD layer or the CD layer of the Pink Floyd disc? Not quite sure from your post.
I think that was an excellent summary... but I think you DO need to take it further.
First off, unless you have a very badly damaged disc, the error correction should not matter.
All transports should have two levels of correction that will result in a PERFECT output.
(These are mathematical, based on the data itself, and should all be "equally perfect".)
So, as long as your errors don't exceed the limits of that error correction, they don't matter.
The third level of error correction - interpolation - should NEVER end up being used.
Second off, assuming that the transport doesn't resample, the data itself should be the same.
There's no real room for variation there... either the data is the same or it isn't.
You can actually record the data from the output and compare it to the CD...
(And, when you rip CDs on a computer, the data is actually verified to be absolutely perfect.)
The only remaining issues then become jitter and noise.
But THOSE depend quite heavily on the DAC you happen to be using.
DACs range from being very sensitive to jitter and noise to being virtually immune to them.
So, if the DAC you have is immune to those two things, then your transports WILL sound identical.
And, if your DAC is sensitive to one or the other, then the transport is going to make a difference.
Note that there are different types of jitter and of noise...
So, if your DAC is sensitive to either, it may be sensitive in different ways and different degrees.
However, what you will find is that actually measuring sensitivity to noise or jitter is very
difficult, and requires rather complex and expensive test equipment, and neither DAC
manufacturers nor transport manufacturers provide anywhere near detailed specs on either.
So...
Yes... if you had a PERFECT DAC then all transports WOULD have to sound identical.
But, of course, there is no such thing as a perfect DAC...
But that does mean that you should expect very different results with different DACs.
@@nicksterj
What you said is true, or should be, for the DAC inside the CD player... because the data is sent, more or less directly, from the data buffer to the DAC...
However, when you use an external DAC, things get a lot more complicated.
When you read the data out of the CD player's data buffer, using the CD player's clock, that clock then becomes "embedded" in the data. Then, when you send that data to a separate DAC, the DAC must follow the clock that is embedded in the data and CANNOT use its own clock. And, if the clock in the CD player is imperfect, or the signal gets distorted in the cable between the CD player and the DAC, then the resulting clock will no longer be perfect. (And, yes, apparently even the tiny speed variations in many "pretty good" clocks can cause enough distortion in the output signal to be at least slightly audible.)
In order to be able to use its own clock instead, the DAC must have its own high-quality clock, and it must also have some way to regulate the flow of the data. And, since the data coming from a coax or optical connection only goes one way, the DAC has no way to "tell" the CD player to send data slower or faster... so it must "let the data get a little bit ahead, and store some data in its own buffer, in case it needs it to catch up later". As it turns out, there are other ways of doing this, which involve something called an asynchronous sample rate converter", which some DACs use, but they make the design of that DAC much more complicated... and, as noted in the test results here, if the DAC fails to make those clock "corrections", or doesn't make them perfectly, then differences in the clocking on the transport may be audible. (Remember that an error or variation in the clock has much the same result as an incorrect value on a data point... the resulting "point" is "in the wrong place".)
There are a whole bunch of "little black boxes" whose sole purpose is to "reclock the data"... and at least some of them do make an audible difference with some CD transports and some DACs. (But that's a whole separate, and rather complex, subject...)
Now, when you use an ASYNCHRONOUS USB connection, the clock IS controlled by the DAC... With that type of connection the DAC requests the data and the DAC inserts the clock. And, even though the data must still travel over the connection, the timing and data clock ARE controlled by the clock in the DAC... This is why a properly designed DAC with an asynchronous USB input SHOULD be immune to the quality of the transport mechanism (as long as the data itself is perfect).
HOWEVER, while this type of connection is the norm these days for connecting computers to DACs, and a few "computer-based" streamers also offer it, CD transports almost never do. (So, with CD transports, and most DACs, the DAC is forced to "lock onto and follow" the clock that is being sent by the transport... over the cable between them... and through quite a bit of circuitry along the way... and hopefully apply some sort of internal "correction" to avoid being affected by stuff like this.)
Back in their glory days I was a Levinson dealer for many years. Their Reference DAC (No. 31.5) was $9000. The matching Reference DAC (No. 30.6) was $17,000). Below that was their No. 37 transport at 4k and their No. 360S DAC at $8,000. So 26K for a world class CD player. But if you wanted to save some, many were tempted to do the Reference DAC and lesser transport. Wrong choice. The 31.5 paired with the lesser DAC for $12,000 was clearly superior to the lesser transport through the Reference DAC. Most were very skeptical but it was easily shown to be the case.
This old stuff is so fascinating, I just got a a 1988 accuphase cd transport & dac that retailed for $13k back in the day, no fooling it sounds better to my ears than my Chord Dave and this is almost 40yo digital technology. I experimented with feeding Spotify into the dac and it was musical bliss, haven’t tried feeding the transport into the Dave though. I think a lot of people fail to mix and match components to get the best of what they got, I know my Grado headphones can sound either fatiguing/screechy or nirvana-like off the same gear in your home just depending on how you chain them together. How many people get new speakers or headphones and return them thinking they’re crap just because they don’t have the right synergy behind it?
ruclips.net/video/TAOLGsS27R0/видео.html&ab_channel=PearlAcoustics
Here is the Pearl test. Pay close attention to the second part where the digital outputs are connected to the external DAC. It's just an asynch file transfer in that case. The fact that old protocols allowed an old DAC to recover shaky timing from the bit stream has no relevance. The only way to explain what Mike found is that he did not use the DAC buffer/clock functionality.
Michael Cohen, will using my Marantz CD6005 with an outboard dac be as good as with a dedicated transport like the Cambridge or Audiolab?
Do all dacs have dac/buffer clock functionality? I confess I don't understand this.
@@ericjensen9091 Generally yes, and most DACs are flexible regarding buffering and clocking to support a variety of sources and connection protocols. The best approach to understanding digital audio is to avoid explanations from those trying to sell you very expensive stuff.
@@ericjensen9091 I'll also claim that connecting your disc player and streaming endpoints to a decent modern HTR using HDMI will result in audio quality indistinguishable from fancy external DACs. Any difference will originate in downstream analog stages. Spend your money on nice speakers in a nice room with nice furniture to sit on and good Scotch to sip while listening.
@@nehocm123 Thanks, and your YT subscription list has some interesting channels.
Isn't a cd transport a device without an internal dac ? I believe, it should only read and output a digital signal in an orderly manner to an external dac.
He wasn't using the DAC internal clock and blaming transport jitter. It's bs.
A CD 'transport' is not the same of a CD player. It's a CD reader with no D/A converter, it just outputs a bitstream.
Nobody said it was the same. However internally it does quite a bit which is why there is a difference amongst CD transports.
The draw or mechanism is very important ! Only a few companies address this ? Is like a cheap turntable…ie plastic ! pioneer and Teac tried to address this , but most companies use what’s available and build around it ? A machined version! With no plastic parts and isolated properly would be superior to any plastic transport ! I would love to make or have one made CNC like a watch! Then we can talk transports ! There is too many DAC’s now and no more development into CD technology ? What laser is being used? Just like phono cartridges…there’s a difference? I have Primare CD player and it has a terrible mechanism! My Mac mini same thing ?
This is one of the reasons that dac and streaming are all over the place! Very bad mechanical implementation! You would need someone like VPI or SOTA to apply the same type of engineering to cd mechanism…but since the cd market is not booming no more support ! When I took my Mac mini to Mac they said we don’t support hard media? Key word….support!
Ye, but - how then a simplest BlueRay / DVD-RW ROM form ( or for ) a computer, gives not worse results with an OK sound-card / bluetooth headphones ?! Because I ALSO tested these >< a pretty fine CD player ( even an SACD player ). Do those RW things have much better overall performance ??
If you don't use an internal DAC and amp and just transport digital from the CD player to the external DAC, then there will be no difference at all-none, zero, because it's digital.
I was a ones and zeros guy who burned my cds to a roon source with an inexpensive dvd cd rw Either streaming from qobuz or my nas into my dac. Had a few dollars and there was a clearance in a project rs box. It is a pure cd read box laser reader and it doesn’t read cd rw disks. I have been buying used cds and haven’t used my turntable in weeks. Just amazing dynamics of cd with the natural sound of analog
Very nice! I'm glad you are having fun with it! That is what it's all about!
Love the channel. I think you do believe you heard a major difference. Now I have old ears, and can only say that I can not tell the difference between my Cambridge cxc Transport and Yamaha CD player running through a schiit multibit. Not a dam thing. And it drives me nuts. The one good thing I guess is my Cambridge stack looks clean as hell and matches. I wish I could hear a difference, because I think my CDs sound a whole lot worse than streaming or vinyl. Now that's a whole other story where people would say...nope. Vinyl is the worst. so who the hell knows.
Thanks for the kind words. Luckily for us sound is subjective!
Vinyl is king and I can't remember when a cd ever went up in value.
Means the Sony has more jitter than the Cambridge or the Lyngdorf. But it illustrates that in order to have a clean S/Pdif coax or tos!ink there is a lot of work to do on the clocks and buffering of both the transport and the receiving dac. So connect your Sony Blu-Ray player through HDMI instead since it carries both data and timestamp to your HDMI "in" of the receiver/DAC and live long and Prosper.... There is nothing magic done in the transport : the tonal, dynamics and stereo sound stage information is on the CD, it just gets Lost in translation Somewhere when data is no longer locked to its Time in the machine. Invest in HDMI, not fancy Hi-Fi.
A tip, stick with analog issues, digital may be subject to interference, etc, BUT the error correction protocols fix any issues, so using a $50 CD player will do the job just fine.
a point, when you rip a disk for a streamer you are likely as not using a cheap CD reader in a PC/Mac. The copy you make if lossless is digitally perfect, identical in every way to the original. Agreed? So why does the transport make any difference?
Also, when music is stream all across the world over the internet, in hi-res, digitally. All errors corrected by the protocols present.
Whilst I understand that the signal can be damaged by the digital-analog process, all the while the signal stays digital it is perfect.
I used Philips blue ray player and it's digital out for dac, sound great
I compared a couple transports using the same external DAC and my impressions are;
90 percent the same. One had more/thumpier bass. Both sounded about the same besides that. I could live with either. My system is pretty resolving.
I actually think you interesting and quite engaging... I used to be a serious audiophile but after meeting a designer of high end audio explained to me how they use sound shaping to differentiate they're products by levels of value... They also audition the sounds of competitors then they revisit their own products to ensure they are in line with the lineage of their products... The goal is mostly to sound different and that becomes the focus... The use of upgraded components are to justify the higher price... The heavy panels and added shielding is to add weight which consumers equate to being a much more expensive product... They do use the excess material in the lower in products because they don't change the end result but are expected by true audiophiles. The digital signal does not change because they had to be used in computers. Essentially it's the signature sound of each brand that appeals to different people. Denon and Marantz use this to differentiate their amps... Denon being somewhat to different analytical and Marantz being smoother to sound more analog... Somewhat like a tube amp. It's sound shaping to appeal customers
It’s facts, as long as the CD transport performs according to the Red Book standard (which it should do if it says it can play CD’s), there should be NO DIFFERENCE (seriously, we can mathematically prove it) between the output of two different mechanisms. THE ONLY THING that can make your CD’s sound different are the analog components present in the DAC circuitry. You can even test it. Record the digital output from two different machines with a PCM recorder (at CD quality) and compare both files in audacity. They are going to be exact copies (bit perfectly) of one another.
The only way there would be any difference using a digital output signal is if one CD player is not reading and/or transmitting all the data and the other one is. Or maybe one is introducing "extra" data that shouldn't be there. I invite any other technically sound explanation. It's 1s and 0s man. They're either all there, or they're not.
100% agree with you. I have an audiolab 8000 cd transport and dac both of them bought in NZ in 1997 for a cost of $6,000. As the Lazer was getting tired I just purchased a new audiolab 8000 transport to run through my dac for NZ 2000. Compared to the old transport the new chinese made transport is crap
Soundstage gone. Flat and lacking detail. The NZ importer refused to acknowledge the fact. You gets what you for. Especially if you buy from exclusivity mongers trading on a name brand
I've test with my 2 identical cd into ca cxc v2 and onkyo c7030, from cxc use coax to eversolo dmpa6 me and optical to ca cxa81. From onkyo use optical to eversolo dmp a6me and rca into cxa81. Its sound different. But not sure which one better between onkyo vs cxc v2. But for sure the best option is use dmp a6 me for dac.
I would expect a better player to perform better but I converted everything to FLAC using a secure ripper and stream it across my home network and I'm curious how that compares to an expensive player.
I bought the Cambridge cxu top the range blu ray player.USB music doesn't sound as good as my ps3-qed reference optical-yamaha dac. It's not wishful thinking,I dearly wanted the Cambridge to sound better after spending 600 notes on it.
Science proves that the ones and zeros are exactly the same on every transport. Debate over.
So what was the point of the blind test? You never stated the statistics. How may times were the sources changed and how many times did you accurately pick the corresponding source? This sounds like most other subjective reviews, you based your feelings off of looks and price.
I didn’t believe it too, but after trying many transports and dacs, both cheap and expensive, I hate to say it but it is real. Even my totally hi Fi disinterested Wife could clearly hear the difference. As many electronics engineers as you like can say it is bs, but this is one sceptic who ultimately could not deny what he heard.
I totally agree AND disagree with you. A drive CAN make a big difference in a real time system, when the DACs input chipset allows systematic timing errors to pass and proceed into the conversions clocking. As soon as the clocks deviation contains a spectrum different from random noise or hiss, this jitter makes disharmonic distortion. Sometimes up to levels you simply want to switch off. As soon as a sophisticated input chipset eliminates those jitter frequency's - better: shifts them out of the audio band to subsonic or HF hiss, the drive (or cable or whatever influences the jitter spectrum) can no more influence the performance. Those DACs will NOT allow to detect the drives characteristic. In your Video you have bypassed the DACs Jitter filter, clearly visible in the display. Repeat the test with Jitter filter activated. If it keeps what it promises, you hardly find out which drive is active...
I've worked in production in Radio for years. You fade the music when the content begins. If sounds like it sounds like it was produced by an amateur. IN WHICH YOU'RE Not.
The main reason for the diiference in what you hear from a transport is Jitter and Error correction, althogh error correction is only going to happen now and then. A true reconstruction of the sine waves is only posible with 0 jitter, even a few hundred pico second can be measured on simple equipment. Still There may be other reasons as well.
Agreed. I just didn't realize how polarizing jitter and other variables in a CD/DVD player can make such a difference.
That's why DACs use FIFO buffers and their own clocks. Transport jitter has no effect at all in that case. Jitter is a non issue in modern digital equipment unless the DAC is junk.
Sorry, too brief, not enough info on setup. And why the cheap DAC? A good DAC will nix jitter almost 100%. I have the Cambridge CDC and Chord Qutest through a highly resolving system. I think a dedicated CD player would be a better choice than a multi-format player such as a blu-ray or DVD. But if you have CD only players through a top quality DAC then you would struggle to hear differences. Read Stereophile review of Qutest, particularly the measurements, and also the designer's (Rob Watts) comments in his blog on Head-fi
Set measuring microphone with digital studio recorder and using same setup rotate those 3 transports after recording a song then in editing software subtract the differences... you will see the truth.
If error correction was a major player for the degraded sound quality in inferior transports, how do data CDs with very similar, if not the same, mechanicals in their drives manage to not be corrupted when read? Is it the process of error correction itself? Can we get an engineer that worked on creating the pickups and electronics for CD layers and transports to weigh in? Most reviews and comparisons are treating CD players/transports as grey boxes that are only partially understood.
Watch my video on Jitter, and that will explain a lot, I will do my best to get an engineer for the follow-up video to explain how he designs the CD players in detail.
@@audioarkitekts Thanks. I'm looking forward to the next video. I watched the video, and understand what jitter is, and generally how it affects audio (secondary peaks so many dB down from the main peak of a pure tone). Would all of the jitter caused by the three sources be corrected by the jitter eliminator on the DAC? If so, what's left to account for the differences you heard? I admit, I am still in the bits-is-bits (once gross jitter is accounted for) camp yet!
I'm an engineer. If the DAC buffers and reclocks the data then transport jitter is irrelevant. It just needs to deliver the sample bits without errors. We see this nonsense all the time. It helps sell a lot of useless gadgets.
@@nehocm123 Thank you!
Thanks Mike. Would love to see you revisit the KLH Model 3.
That one is long gone, unfortunately. It was ok, not as good as the Model 5, though, in my opinion.
Can you do it 9 times out of 10, eliminate guessing?
I could have in a different test, but that wasn't the parameters of this specific test.
@@audioarkitekts May I recommend something to you? :)
Can't all this be compensated with a dejiter re-clocker device in between the transport and the DAC?
It could be, but that's not what we were trying to accomplish with this particular test.
@@audioarkitekts I am thinking you put a Moon Audio from Cary, NC digital adapter in between or use USB and i2s to your favorite DAC. Game over. Audio is going to sound as good as the DAC output reclocked. Better speedier Bass.
I am still using a Camelot Dragon 5.1 SPDIF Dragon dejitter device from 20 years ago for up to 24 / 96 stereo.
LIKE TO SEE YOU DO A REVIEW THAT INCLUDES THE SHANLING EC 3, PLAYER/TRANSPORT ~ $600!
I’m still using a decades old Denon 3520 ( THE BEAST!)
That is a beast I would love to hear it someday!
I only ever once heard a huge difference between two CD-players that were hooked up to the same DAC. One sounded fine, the other thin and metallic. This was a difference that was so big that even the biggest sceptic would have been unable to deny it. The reason for the difference was simple: one of the transports was showing defects in the laser sled mechanism and probably also adjustment of the laser (Sony KSS-150 or similar, these don't self-adjust like more modern drives) .
Sounds like a fault or a config issue.
But do they play hdcd to it's full potential? Talk about missing the boat!
i got the cambridge cxc and want to upgrade to the jays cdt 2. This video confirms it probably will sound better
I can't confirm anything about Jay's Audio other than it's a CD transport. However, Primare, I feel, could give it a run for its money.
@@audioarkitekts Thanks for the info. But if im upgarding i want a i2s port. Not many CD players/transports have those :(
I like the 50 dollar dvd players from Walmart. Or a PlayStation. No joke
I have a PS1 one of the first models that produced phenomenal sound, I did a video about it!
@@audioarkitekts cool, I’ll check it out.
Cd player, it is memorable . Sound quality super.
Mike! How much fun are you! I loved this video 👏
Thanks so much! Glad you enjoyed it!
Mike, Ya gave me the Idea of Experimenting with a few Blu-Ray Players. Well, Really I've already thought about it. Lol... You Reminded Me and Maybe Speed up the Process of Experimenting with an Older Panasonic Blu-Ray player BD55 (which had some good reviews but was really selling out), a newer Panasonic UB820 4k Blu-Ray Player, and the last of the Oppo UDP-203 4k Blu-Ray player. Most of the time I'm looking at movies and sometimes I'm Streaming used to be Pandora, but now My Favorite is SomaFM: Groove Salad (Chill). Now My Cds becoming like Me playing My Albums; sometimes wanting to hear a different Sound Quality. Or the Music I have not heard in a Long time! Etc... What a Fun Hobby! Now that I think about it, Mike G. might have Mention You to Me. If I Remember Right, told him I look at a lot of RUclips on Audio-Video Related On My 4k Tv. Right now on My Computer, so I'm able to comment but not on the TV. Again Great Video, Thank You For Everything!
Experimenting is the most fun because you get to hear the artwork that the engineers were creating inside these devices.
@@audioarkitekts Yes, I Love it! Getting the Most out of Your Audio Products sometimes Requires Experiments! Even at Low prices! Like You Say Mostly for Fun!
Interestingly, I did a similar test with my Rotel CD player to the coax input of my Schiit Modi 3 against an external CD ROM drive plugged into my laptop and into the MODI via USB. I listened using DT 770 studio monitor headphones, and came to a different conclusion... Many variables at play though.
I was expecting to see a graph or something to show the results
Respect
Would be good to takes a recording from the speaker outputs for each of the tests and examine the data.
This was meant to be only a subjective test. Perhaps for the sequel, I will do objective tests.
@@audioarkitekts that would be excellent. Not doubting anything but hard data is fantastic. Techmoan did one recently testing the green pen trick on CDs this way.
That's true. I don't believe the results.
I didn't either until I heard it for myself.
Was hoping you'd test via Toslink since it would eliminate any possibility of noise from the cheaper transport affecting the results.
TOSLINK is great for isolation, but If you believe that jitter is problematic in digital playback, TOSLINK typically performs worse in terms of jitter than SPDIF.
I have a Pro-Ject DS3 transport that I like very much. My DAC is a DCS Bartok so it certainly helps quite a bit...Together they sing.
thats why I have 40 different cd players some cds sound better in different players but I am nuts but I love sound
These are goals right here!
Come on now
If you can't hear the differences between transports, you need a better system.
If you hear a difference, it's due to something other than the transports.
Totally agree with you. CD transports do make a difference. Thnx Mike for the tests.
No problem, thanks for the support!
I did a similar listening test a while ago : Sony DVD player into roksan dac vs audiolab CD transport. The Sony sounded very digital, and flat while the CD transport sounded more fluid and spacious. The difference was night and day.
Many of the naysayers have never done an actual listening comparison, I’m glad you noticed a difference!
There are so many myths and conceptions in hifi. Even people heavily into this industry/hobby have things to learn. There are totally honest companies and products and snake oil cons. It can be hard finding the truth, as in life in general. I find an open mind is key. Learn from experience and theory and logic, but be prepared at times to question what you thought you knew was right.
Which is exactly what happened. I didn't know I was going to be able to tell THAT much of a difference. I was blown away! Thank you for the great comment @coneman3
"Learn from experience and theory and logic, but be prepared at times to question what you thought you knew was right."
And if still in doubt - do double blind tests...
Don't ever try/ a Sony Blu Ray for it's digital out, great dynamics, but complete mude. Are their enineers daft or wot? Audio Nirvana spkrs through EL84 tube amp..
Wish list.. CEC TL5 or Oymann Mod on CDT6000 from Audiolab.
I think the idea that all transports sound the same plays a role in why many people believe that vinyl is the superior format. Notice how this same logic isn't applied to turntables. If you compare an expensive turntable to a cheap Blu-ray player obviously the turntable is going to sound better. But to someone who believes that all CD transports are the same, they will assume it's the format at fault and not the player.
CORRECT!
"If you compare an expensive turntable to a cheap Blu-ray player "
Jitter is on a more abstract level using data at the wrong point of time.
That happens also to a turntable if its rotation speed is not 100% correct and 100% constant.
If you compare the variances of even an high end turntable with the jitter of an average CD player the turntable has a much higher jitter ...
"obviously the turntable is going to sound better."
That is far away from obviously.
At the end "sound better" is a subjective rating - like Pizza smells better than Spaghetti....
I saw the title and had hoped that you were comparing transports and not CD players. I'd be interested in these same units going through the same external DAC.
They did. They went through the Yulong DAC.
@@audioarkitekts ahh. I walked away for a moment and must have missed that part. Good to know. I have a couple Sony UBP-X800 4K Blu-ray players and I use one of them for CDs going through my Denefrips Ares II DAC. I don’t have much listening time with it but I am interested in a “real” CD transport/player. Your comments on the Cambridge were enlightening and has steered me in another direction. Thanks.
That's what they did, but they disabled the DAC clock so the test is crap.
technics and philips cd transport 4/19 is the best invention.
Just getting back into music(with an old set of ears, lol), and will be purchasing a new CD player or Blue Ray Player - is there typically a material difference in sound quality b/w a CD transport and Blue Ray transport other than the video side all other things being equal?
I agree with the other comment. Go for a CD player if you don't need the Blu-Ray option. However, now I am inspired to do another video about this subject in itself.
@@audioarkitekts thanks Mike & AT - now onto CD player research…
@Gary Dumas I have several reviews on relevant players. Check them out. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out. 😊
I also agree 100%. I can hear the difference between my Marantz CD 63 II KIS compared to my yamaha CDN500. I am taking about only CD transport via coax output to external DAC (thus by right should have bypass the DAC in the CD player). My Marantz is fuller and heavier in bass extension, Yamaha sound thinner thus kind of larger sound stage, guitar sounds more cutting. I test it with the song, "Women" from Scorpion. Then I compared the 2 CD transport with my Pioneer DVD DV2032K player, and the cheaper DVD player, has no detail and sounds congested. So, I am now a true believer!
Nice video!
I have improved my iMac as a source to my older Metrum Octave Dac over the past year or two.
I have an oppo BD 103 that I’ve tried via optical.
And I have my cd player- Synthesis Pride which took significant audition time to pick out.
The cd mfg has the advantage of tuning a cohesive unit.
Using the spdif output isn’t what the design was optimized for.
I’d guess a transport is though.
Adding an iFi spdif iPurifier 2 at the input of my dac, and using an iFi iPower X to power it improved things a lot for my iMac source.
It might be worth trying in this type of test.
I appreciate a skilled listener’s perspective Mike!
I’ll certainly tune in for more of your videos!
I also fuss more about tweaks and tuning :)
I love ifi's offerings, and I will definitely try those components on my PC.
@@audioarkitekts I really “thought” I had a good chain from iMac to dac, so much so that it seemed a dac was the next upgrade.
Prior chain - Pangea Ag usb cable > lps - audiophellio2 > 25’ coax to Metrum octave.
Improved chain: with Pangea XL usb cable ( separate data and power lines ), lps > iFi usb ipurifier 3 > audiophellio2 > 25’ coax > iFi spdif iPurifier2 with upgraded iPower X.
Each of these made noticeable improvements. Literally the dac sounds completely different in a good way, cleaner, more uniform freq response, much better bass definition, more distinct coherent imaging.
Not as sensitive to computer activity.
Using Amarra Luxe as the player in bypass mode. But sounds better now with Amazon Music HD too.
@@ScottoGrotto did you notice a difference with the Pangea USB cable? I've always been curious if those things actually work! 🤔
@@audioarkitekts usb cables or Pangea usb cables?
I was a little skeptical, but yes, it does make a difference. I may have tried an audioquest carbon at some point too.
I’ve tried the old Pangea pocc, the solid silver or Ag, and most recently the XL. Each sounds different. But the Pangea cable designer says it’s important to keep the power and signal side away from each other as in the XL. Reviews at audio advisor, were reporting significant improvements of the XL over the silver ( which was better to me than the pocc ).
These use better cardas copper.
The Pangea usb cables and their power cables and some of their silver plated hdmi cables have been good.
The Ag cable seemed clear after breaking in, had more liveness than the mellower pocc. The XL is more refined sounding with more image density and better low end freq.
Have not had as much luck with Pangea headphone extension cable, or interconnects.
My first iFi test was the iSilencer + coming off the computer.
It helped in some ways - punchy, clarity, frequency range, but lost some depth.
Adding the iFi usb ipurifier 3, created a more relaxed, layered, refined sound.
iFi in the newer generations of purifiers are using better caps which take some hours to realize their full potential.
Why doesn't anyone ever dump the "1's and 0's" into a computer from all three devices on test, to see if there is actually a difference- this would put the whole debate to bed once and for all if they turned out to be identical (or not) as the computer could not only analyse the data, but also the precise timing of the datastream - maybe we could even develop a benchmarking scheme for the parameters to demonstrate a level of quality???? I'm too busy to do it myself and not good at coding, but I'm sure someone is out there.
That would be a fun experiment but at its core, quality is oftentimes a subjective experience. As much as a computer can tell us, there are still other variables that could impact our self perceived opinion of quality. I really want to do that test though! Thanks for the comment!
You have assumed that the test was actually intended to do what it claimed.
@@audioarkitekts "quality is oftentimes a subjective experience"
If quality is often a subjective experience then your comparison of CD transports is as useful as somebody comparing italian dishes and telling that spaghetti is better than pizza...
I always wondered about this, but from another viewpoint: CD transport to DAC vs Flac send through the USB connection (to same DAC). Again this should sound identical, but it doesn't. When playing CD's (via optical) the sound always sounds more 'heavy/ hard-edged' ; it makes me want to lower the volume just for that. When playing FLAC ; the sound is crisp and 'light' in a very nice way. (CD player is a Marantz CD17 mk2 through Audiolab M-Dac).
There's a lot more going on than you seem to think...
When you play a FLAC file on a computer the actual data should be the same as was on the original CD (FLAC files are lossless assuming they were encoded correctly). However, when you use an optical connection, you are forcing the DAC to use the clock that is embedded in the data. Depending on the source, this clock may or may not be very good and, depending on the DAC, the DAC may take measures to "repair or improve it", or it may not. The same would be true if your DAC has an old-style "isochronous" USB input. However, if your DAC uses an "asynchronous" USB input, which most modern DACs now do, then with that USB input the clock is controlled by the DAC, and the quality of clocks in DACs also varies rather widely. And, in addition to all that, many modern DACs also include other methods for "improving" or "fixing" the quality of the clock after they receive the signal.
Odds are that the "heavy hard edged sound" you are hearing is the result of the clock that is being received over that optical connection along with the data not being very good... and the DAC having limited or no ability to correct it once it is received.
Thanks. That would mean though that connecting through the (asynchronous) USB input gives superior sound than the optical port on the same DAC. The Marantz is a somewhat older player, but was considered high end at the time, maybe i'll try with a modern transport and see what happens (as I can't hear any difference in sound when switching between the CD players' optical output and it's analogue output ' ). @@keithlevkoff8579
Excellent test!
For the similar price to the Lyngdorf you can buy the Jay's Audio CDT2 which has an OCXO clock and should reduce jitter sent to the Dac even more.
I'm hoping that hits the test bench soon!
@@audioarkitekts Sounds fantastic. Btw based on my research of all other audio channels + demos + forums, the best price comparable Dac to hook up the Jay's to (preferably with i2s) is Musician Audio Aquarius. That is the front end I plan to invest in shortly anyway.
@@connorduke4619 another piece I will have to look into as well.
@@audioarkitekts Musician Aquarius (like the Jay's) has an OCXO clock which is a massive advantage, but the overall design is high quality. Also it easily beats the highly rated Denafrips Pontus on an A-B test here: ruclips.net/video/Qj2rEgiGCBU/видео.html
Also it even beats the far more expensive Denafrips Terminator Plus in terms of dynamics according to other demos from another respected reviewer.
I wish you took Cambridge dedicated transport 600usd worth for such test instead of their budget CD player
Unfortunately I don't have an unlimited stock of CD players.... yet 😆
What if these transpoorts are fed into a streamer such as an Auralic Aries G2.1 and then to the dac. Would there still be a big difference?
I would go directly to the DAC.
Try using a modern DAC. It's not the transporets that sound different, it's how older DACs buffer the data from the transport. You seem to know this full well - that's why you used an older DAC. Just more BS for the punters.
This is really helpful. I'm considering the CDC transport from Cambridge Audio. I already have the CXA81 and the CXN-V2 so this would complete the CX trinity. I, like you, was simply skeptical and didn't want to be the fool to spend the extra money. Thanks for your work. Looking forward to seeing more on this.
Thanks for the feedback, Scott. I am certain you'll be happy with the CDC.
just dönt... my a85 amp just ´schätz dövvn spöRädicälly and read similäiR reports online -.-
yes avm göt even möre expen$ive...
x202 es very decent as i read with teac vcrs or so 2500 $ thingey. maybe a bürmeestäR€ v??v
Very good video and tactfully done. I do believe that the transport will make a difference also. Thanks for doing the tests and for your opinions.
Thank you for your support and the kind words.
i would not call my Oppo universal CD/Blue ray player a cheap mass market player
Well at this point obsolete is a better way to describe it since Oppo walked away from making players altogether. It's unfortunate because the Oppo players were an exception to the rule.
Is the sound difference enough to justify the price difference?
Not really. For most people good enough is good enough. It’s for those that want to spend that kind of money for 15-20% improvement
I have ripped my CDs to FLAC files. I currently use my Sony UBP-X800M2 to stream from my 256 GB thumb drive to a Marantz AV7704 Sound processor (32 bit AKM 4458VN DAC). The rest of the system (for 2 channel) includes Emotiva XPA-1 Gen-1 monoblocs driving Magnepan 2.7 QRs and a swarm of subs (5).
Should I expect an audible improvement were I to use a DAC with a price point of say a Geshelli J2 which you review elsewhere and feed unbalanced analog into the AV7704?
I'm not Mike, but I would say yes you should hear a difference, how much will depend on your gear. I never had any luck sound wise using an AVR, my last was the Denon X4400H, a pretty decent unit. I sold it to my buddy and went two channel. I kept my Emotiva XPA-2 amp, using it right now on a mix of Denafrips and Schiit Audio amps and preamps. I just installed the Venus II 12th, which replaced the very good sounding Ares II. KLH Model 5's and two SVS SB-3000 subs providing the sound. You know, it will depend on that Marantz unit, even with pass through or pure audio, I was never happy with the sound out of that Denon. I would give the Geshelli a try, everything I have heard regarding their DACs has been nothing but positive. And I will say this, DACs do matter.
What Michael said, me too ;)
Interesting. For your next tests please include a non-mechanical transport (such as SDCard based reader)... as a reference point.
That's a great idea, I will keep that in mind.
100% agree. Clean, beefy analog power supplies and low jitter are the key to getting digital audio to sound good.Once engineers understood the importance of low jitter (and maybe more importantly how to achieve) digital sound finally lived up to the original hype.
We still have ways to go with the mass market stuff.
@@audioarkitekts Like most things, there is a point of diminishing return on price to performance. So I suppose the question becomes, what is the price for entry into the the realm of very good sound? I dunno, as I've not bought in new audio gear in years. The only good advice I can give to stay on a sane budget is to buy higher end gear used or factory refurbs rather than lower end stuff new. People flip perfectly good equipment all the time.
No one can hear jitter. It's well into the noise floor. It doesn't manifest itself like xruns or digital skipping, it's just noise.
Jitter mgmt is also negated by the DAC, not the transport
This explains why all the Excel spreadsheets on my PC look blurry. It’s because it doesn’t have a linear power supply!