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Post by hifinutt on May 27, 2024 14:31:38 GMT
why do cd transports sound different ? or maybe yiu think they dont ?
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Post by antonio on May 27, 2024 14:52:43 GMT
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Post by macca on May 27, 2024 14:59:18 GMT
I think most of them probably sound the same.
He talks a load of balls in that video, as usual. If some do sound different it won't be for any of the reasons he mentions.
I think my TEAC and Audiolab transports sound very slightly different but I strongly suspect that's because I know which one I'm listening to.
And I prefer the cool-looking, much more expensive one. It's all a bit suspicious.
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Post by lurch on May 27, 2024 15:28:05 GMT
Only things I can think off (not watched video as not like the twats voice or YT for that matter) is its in no particular order:
1. Smoothness/accuracy of the spin drive.
2. Smoothness of the laser traverse sled
3. Quality of power supply
4. General unit construction (damping, rigidity etc)
5. Quality of discrete components and pcb design.
Infact most of the things that differentiate tts via design & construction can be applied to CDTs.
To my ears (when looking for a lower cost replacement for the Lector) there was a distinct difference between a CXC V2 & Audiolab 6000CDT with the CXC sounding pretty poor in comparison.
Also when I auditioned the 9000CDT at Audio
T against my 6000CDT (blind audition, as kit behind me and fingers in ears during swaps) the 9000CDT was leagues ahead at both frequency extremes, way better bass and more tonally rich & nuanced.
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Post by misterc on May 27, 2024 15:55:14 GMT
Very simply CD drive mechanism quality/isolation/Servo drive design Power rail supply to servo drive/(which extacts the SAD)/ reciever chip/FPGA version/group plane circuit board stack up/How the extracted I2s is reassembled in the Bit/SD and word clock signal lines. Again and I cannot stress enough to this how much POWER RAIL cleaniness is paramount throughout and reference voltage distribution needs to be carefully considered within the scope of RF distrubencies/ internal generation resistance and induced emissions resistance to. Quality of transmission lines and connectors/opto coupling/signal isolation transformers etc
I have around a dozen or so CD transports (untouched) and they all sound different using exactly the same set up and NO clocks, how much different in most cases it really isn't a big amount, in others it is a very stark difference, also the output format pays a difference here as some manufactuers wished you to use a preferred method of DAT so SPDIF tended to be the method of choice, AES imho the best for sub 192Khz, above that correctly sorted RJ45 I2S is imho a cut above (Low Voltage differential Signals via HDMI)
The digital debate goes on and on bits are bits etc, in a CD it's not bit perfect hence the CRIC is required, that aside no one seems to mention the noise sitting on the transmission line for some unearthly reason, the signal maybe being placed in the correct slot/box etc but it doesn't take into account for spurious and inducted noise at all. imho
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Post by brucew268 on May 27, 2024 17:20:18 GMT
It seems logical that much of a transport's sound is due to clocking of the datastream and also that any electronic noise in the PSU or other circuits is transmitted along the ground common throughout the system, which has little to do with the transport being a digital component.
How much of the transport's mechanics affects clocking and how much affects noise due to errors or error correction, is my question.
Not being a boffin, I'm better at decribing whether there is a difference. When I was auditioning several transports at home years ago, most in my price range did not impress, so I chose the one that did even though I wanted to spend half that amount. When that transport broke a few years later, I tried a couple others and found they didn't come close to the SQ of what I'd lost. On my current 6000CDT, the sound changes noticeably when a weight is added to the top or when the power supply capacitors or rectifier are changed. |
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Post by macca on May 27, 2024 17:57:55 GMT
Very simply CD drive mechanism quality/isolation/Servo drive design Power rail supply to servo drive/(which extacts the SAD)/ reciever chip/FPGA version/group plane circuit board stack up/How the extracted I2s is reassembled in the Bit/SD and word clock signal lines. Again and I cannot stress enough to this how much POWER RAIL cleaniness is paramount throughout and reference voltage distribution needs to be carefully considered within the scope of RF distrubencies/ internal generation resistance and induced emissions resistance to. Quality of transmission lines and connectors/opto coupling/signal isolation transformers etc
I have around a dozen or so CD transports (untouched) and they all sound different using exactly the same set up and NO clocks, how much different in most cases it really isn't a big amount, in others it is a very stark difference, also the output format pays a difference here as some manufactuers wished you to use a preferred method of DAT so SPDIF tended to be the method of choice, AES imho the best for sub 192Khz, above that correctly sorted RJ45 I2S is imho a cut above (Low Voltage differential Signals via HDMI)
The digital debate goes on and on bits are bits etc, in a CD it's not bit perfect hence the CRIC is required, that aside no one seems to mention the noise sitting on the transmission line for some unearthly reason, the signal maybe being placed in the correct slot/box etc but it doesn't take into account for spurious and inducted noise at all. imho
so many ways for it to go wrong it's a wonder we can get any sound out at all! I take the view that the only thing (barring data corruption) that's going to have an audible effect is noise transmitted along with the digital signal. This would explain why cheaper transports don't tend to sound as good, there isn't the budget to do it properly or they decided it was 'good enough' for a budget implementation. Noise bleeds in from the power supply and smothers the low level detail we use to distinguish good sound from bland, boring or grainy. PM doesn't mention noise in his video I suspect because his DACs are very noisy and he doesn't want to draw attention to that. Instead he talks about transport clocks (the DAC reclocks, at least since the late 1990s so that makes no sense) and of course Jitter. Jitter always plays well in the sticks even though its been a solved problem since the 1970s. |
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Post by misterc on May 27, 2024 19:13:18 GMT
I think you are on the right lines Martin, its a cost excerise in many cases, jitter is important as their are many types, though mostly its not a big concern I will agree.
Also what is really the difference between hey thats good to oh that's what I missing, 64 thousand $ question?
The PS audio dac's lol don't get me started, more noise that an out of tune Ned's Atomic Dustbin concert on a good day 
Pretty much every dac I've really dug into has inheient noise both electrical/RF and to a degree some mechanical (though to be fair most of these vibrational issues have been resolved on the whole)
Many years ago when I started designing dac, I took on board an RF engineer to run through the designs, it was a steep learning curve for me shall we say.
Just to finish up. he is a project I have been working on, this a histogram and FFT spectum of the whole cleock frequency in time domain, do check out the mean measurment it is Attoseconds, an order of magnitute below femtosec, also this is measured in the real world with cabling, not straight off the circuit board with a probe that cost more than street in Liverpool!
Just a side bar two weeks ago I took in a K-1x whatever the next acronym was grandiso player and fed it into my dac and compared with the mid range streamer I use, the Eso was 4 times the cost and couldn't match the streamer it took the word clock to get close, things have moved on chaps.
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Post by sq225917 on May 27, 2024 20:06:24 GMT
Get a nice eye pattern and a receiver that rejects noise from signal and it should be all good. Buffer and reclock in the dac, with the conversion clock driving the dac chip and hey presto.
Sure you can spend a bazillion pounds on the transport if you really want, but good enough, ie beyond audibility, comes in pretty cheap.
Cos ears are Sh#t and measurement kit is several orders of magnitude better.
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Post by antonio on May 28, 2024 4:54:29 GMT
sq225917 What I'm waiting for is the name of this super duper dac that negates the use of expensive sources so we can just go and dig out our old DVD players knowing we can't do better than that.
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Post by jandl100 on May 28, 2024 6:35:57 GMT
CD transports sound different from each other.
It's not subtle at all to me.
Why?
No idea.
I prefer streaming now anyway.
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Post by misterc on May 28, 2024 8:46:08 GMT
Simon,
I agree in principle, although reality is a little different.
There will never been a perfect transport whether a streamer or optical drive that is the way of universe and the law of physics, what you can do is reduce the amount of errors/noise and recosntruction alising to a level where the difference is not audiable agreed.
In the world of high speed digital communications even if you have a eye pattern that is a wide as possible at the transmit end and has as close to a transmission insertion loss to 1 as humanly possibly the recieve end is so closed
(eye pattern) that the protocol requires software maniplulation to artifcally open the eye at the receive end, this jitter is called ISI (Intersymbol interference) so software measures are used to open the eye up as much as possible without introducing other artefacts.
However preception goes way beyond our organic abilities of hearing, harmonics of instruments strech way beyond that of human hearing even when young @ 23Khz.
Yes human hearing is flawed to a degree, yet our brians perceptive ability is quite something.
Anyway I have come up with a little idea based on your reply last night that will help the group understand why transports can & do sound different, not to much techno speak more illistrative images.
I'll try and set up this experiment at the weekend, this week is bonkers busy.
Good thread by the way.
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Post by sq225917 on May 28, 2024 23:31:52 GMT
I'm far from poo pooing the whole thing, I've heard differences with some kit, just when I can't see them I can't tell which is playing with my on kit. And searching for any that might sound diffetent doesn't interest me, my digital is a done deal until it ages such that it needs replacing.
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Post by antonio on May 29, 2024 5:06:19 GMT
I'm far from poo pooing the whole thing, I've heard differences with some kit, just when I can't see them I can't tell which is playing with my on kit. And searching for any that might sound diffetent doesn't interest me, my digital is a done deal until it ages such that it needs replacing. Poo pooing is exactly what you have been doing, you have stated before you cannot hear any difference. I have absolutely no idea why you would do this, I thought you had a Gustard dac, which certainly isn't the worst dac in the world. I'm happy for you that digital is a done deal, just remember, for many on forums it is a continuing journey. |
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Post by sq225917 on May 29, 2024 11:34:49 GMT
I'm shitting on bits, not all of it.
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Bigman80
Grandmaster
AA Founding Member & Bigbottle Audio Creator
Posts: 16,262
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Post by Bigman80 on May 29, 2024 15:13:36 GMT
Ok.....not sure what's going on here, but let's move on ay.
Cdts sound different for a multitude of reasons, as do DACs. Whether you can or cannot hear that difference is what differs between person to person.
Move on please!
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Post by mayebaza on Jun 4, 2024 8:34:14 GMT
I have always had the opinion that if the mechanical construction of the transports differ...
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Post by hifinutt on Jun 7, 2024 8:39:33 GMT
thanks to bruce for posting this video
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Post by macca on Jun 8, 2024 7:28:02 GMT
thanks to bruce for posting this video I like Steve he's a genuine enthusiast even if he is a salesman, but he doesn't actually know anything worthwhile (or if he does he keeps it to himself) and he doesn't say anything in that video about why the transports could sound different. At the last NEBO we had various digital sources - CD players, transports, streamers. Swapping them about didn't do anything really noticeable. We had four sets of speakers - Canton, Triangle, Magneplanar and one other I can't recall the name of. Swapping them about made big differences. Only other thing I notice was the Triangles were quite a bit better with Ali's Neurochrome monoblocs than with their owner's Temple Audio monoblocs, but that would be a power/current thing as they're not an easy load. |
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Post by sq225917 on Jun 10, 2024 10:22:14 GMT
The room, the speakers...
Everything else
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Post by brucew268 on Jun 10, 2024 10:37:21 GMT
The room, the speakers... Everything else I'm not sure if you're trying to pick a fight or just keep one going? Yes, we all agree that speakers and room have far more effect on the sound than anything else. That's not the topic of this thread.
As a response to why CD transports sound different, it's a bit thin when each time I change to a different power supply smoothing cap in my transport the resulting sound is different and when I add or remove fibre washers to the PCB, the sound changes. So certainly different transports can sound different for any number of reasons within the component. |
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Post by misterc on Jun 10, 2024 12:37:18 GMT
Well, it's down to the little pixies who secretely inhabit all optical drive playback devices, depending on how they feel if the owners are worthy or not of their foo foo dust, quite simple really chaps! Can't understand the need for all the posts |
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Post by macca on Aug 18, 2024 8:23:54 GMT
I think most of them probably sound the same. He talks a load of balls in that video, as usual. If some do sound different it won't be for any of the reasons he mentions. I think my TEAC and Audiolab transports sound very slightly different but I strongly suspect that's because I know which one I'm listening to. And I prefer the cool-looking, much more expensive one. It's all a bit suspicious. Postscript to this. Sold the Audiolab 6000CDT yesterday to Gary (Stryder) of this parish. Hooked it up in the morning and ran it for a few hours just to make sure it was working fine, which it was. This did give me the chance to do a proper back to back comparison with the TEAC transport. Okay I only used one album (Nucleus - 'Alleycat'). But if there was any difference at all I couldn't hear it. And yes, my system is 'very resolving' so maybe it's my hearing (I don't think so) or I'm 'not listening for the right things'. I think I can say for certain that if there is really any difference it is so small you would have to be incredibly picky to care about it. |
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Post by hifinutt on Aug 18, 2024 9:36:56 GMT
Must say i recently got a moon cd260dt and hooked it up to my EIX via AES , previously was using a humble but excellent marantz sa8005 as a transport . the difference and improvement was not subltle , it was very good . and so far the moon has not missed a beat . I am impressed so far . not keen on the remote though , fortunately the marantz works well instead
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