[Veltliner]

My old single-tray CD player died.

I was thinking of using my old DVD player (4 years old) as a CD player and get a newer DVD player.

I hear using a DVD player to play CDs gets you better audio quality, as the signal-to-noise ration is better.

Is that true?

I just wonder how it will do with my stone old Kenwood receiver (still with needles showing the output peak levels).

[red rocket]

A DVD player is not going to magically improve the sound quality of your compact discs.

That said, audio DVDs played back on even a cheap, reasonably new DVD player will usually sound better than audiophile gold CDs played back on once expensive vintage CD players.

I would suggest just getting a new DVD player and use that for everything.

[Veltliner]

So that signal-to-noise ratio thing is true.

Good to know, as CD players cost twice what DVD players cost.

Thanks.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by Veltliner 

So that signal-to-noise ratio thing is true.

No, it's not, and red rocket didn't say it was.

What red rocket basically said, and what's true is that cheap-ass crap D/A stages built into players TODAY will possibly sound better than D/A converters built into CD players back when those were still hella expensive.

Given the same converters and analog circuitry, a DVD player is going to have exactly the same signal-to-noise ratio as a CD player.

You may be thinking of DVD-Audio discs, which have much higher audio resolution than CDs, and which are not CDs.


That's a little bit like expecting your VHS tapes to look a lot better on an HDTV flatscreen because it has much higher resolution.


If anything, the fact that a DVD player can handle so much more media than a CD player, they will have skimped on sound quality in favor of features and supported media types.

If the CD player costs twice as much as the DVD player and does one fourth as much and you don't hear a difference (assuming, of course, that nobody would buy an audio device without *listening* to it first, right?), either someone's ****ing you over or you're just too deaf for it to matter at all.

[Wiskedjak]

Sound aside, when I've played audio CDs on my DVD player, I've found it a pain to get to the point where I could actually get music playing (lots of menu navigation required) and the DVD player was moving from track to track when set to random.

In short, I think the quality of the experience will vary greatly from player to player.

[B Gallagher]

Originally Posted by Wiskedjak 

Sound aside, when I've played audio CDs on my DVD player, I've found it a pain to get to the point where I could actually get music playing (lots of menu navigation required) and the DVD player was moving from track to track when set to random.

In short, I think the quality of the experience will vary greatly from player to player.

Really? Any DVD player I've used all I've had to do is put the CD in and press play.

[turtle777]

All DVD players I have used for audio CDs were inferior in speed and usability.

I guess it all depends how often you use your CD player.

-t

[tooki]

Agreed. My first instinct when I read the thread title was to write about how long many DVD players take to boot up and read the CD. CD players just spin up and play. DVD players take their sweet time, spinning up, detecting what kind of disc it is, dawdling to read the track listing, and eventually start playback. But as Wiskedjak said, the experience varies wildly by model.

[Veltliner]

I don't need a high-end player...

(Well, maybe I need one, I just don't want to pay for one...)

So, if your CD player died, would you go for a CD player again? And which brand/model. I'm not really in favor of multi-disc changers.

[Veltliner]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

(...) a DVD player can handle so much more media than a CD player, they will have skimped on sound quality in favor of features and supported media types.

What's everybody's take on this?

versus

Originally Posted by red rocket 

audio DVDs played back on even a cheap, reasonably new DVD player will usually sound better than audiophile gold CDs played back on once expensive vintage CD players.

I would suggest just getting a new DVD player and use that for everything.

[Spheric Harlot]

Why "versus"?

I was AGREEING with red rocket.

Though your four-year-old CD player certainly doesn't qualify as "vintage", since it's about twelve years past the horrible "emphasis" age.

[ghporter]

I use my basic DVD player to play CDs for a couple of reasons. First, it's one less box to put in the stack. Second, my DVD player has optical audio out, which my old CD player did not. And my player is not all that slow in booting up; it starts in seconds and recognizes CDs pretty darn quickly.

However, I have no idea how I'll go the next time I change everything up. I like to minimize the number of remotes and the like, but I still like decent sound.

[turtle777]

Well, heck, I haven't used my CD player in ages. It all comes streaming from iTunes, via my AppleTV.

The last dedicated CD player I bought was sometime in the last century. Still works, but doesn't get a lot of action.

-t

[Wiskedjak]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

Well, heck, I haven't used my CD player in ages. It all comes streaming from iTunes, via my AppleTV.

The last dedicated CD player I bought was sometime in the last century. Still works, but doesn't get a lot of action.

-t

This is pretty much my use case as well. Where my CD player used to sit, I now have an AppleTV and a 4thGen iPod. The iPod is mostly for my wife who doesn't want to turn on the TV and navigate menus to get music playing.

[tooki]

Originally Posted by Veltliner 

What's everybody's take on this?

Well, first of all, if you're using a digital connection to your receiver, it becomes a moot point because the player is only reading the bits of audio, not converting at all.

Otherwise, I doubt it makes much of a difference. Adequate D/A converters (DACs) can be manufactured for peanuts now, and any DVD player's DAC will be sufficient for the average person.

That said, if you want to go on the safe side, pick up one of the combination DVD-Video/DVD-Audio/SACD players. Since they're designed with high-resolution audio discs in mind, they've got above-average DACs in them. I got such a player from Pioneer for just over a hundred bucks a few years back.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by tooki 

Well, first of all, if you're using a digital connection to your receiver, it becomes a moot point because the player is only reading the bits of audio, not converting at all.

Actually, no: Jitter

[ghporter]

If your receiver is doing the D/A conversion for your CD, then it's up to the receiver to have appropriately low levels of jitter in its converter. As the linked article points out, there's really no big deal with a bit of timebase error in digital-to-digital transfers, it's only in the D/A stage that this can be a problem.

[tooki]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

Actually, no: Jitter

As best I understand that article, it's supporting my and ghporter's position, that the choice of CD or DVD transport is basically irrelevant if you're not using its integrated DAC, it's the DAC in the receiver that would be important. (Of course, many home theater receivers contain excellent discrete DACs. DVD-A/SACD players also have better-than-average DACs.)

[tooki]

P.S. Given that jitter is simply timebase error, if the TV industry was able to solve timebase problems on extremely complex analog signals decades ago by using genlock and timebase corrector hardware (TBCs), why can't the same be done for digital audio? Almost all camcorders with analog inputs made for 10 years or so have TBCs built in, even cheap models...

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

If your receiver is doing the D/A conversion for your CD, then it's up to the receiver to have appropriately low levels of jitter in its converter. As the linked article points out, there's really no big deal with a bit of timebase error in digital-to-digital transfers, it's only in the D/A stage that this can be a problem.

The D/A stage is what produces the actual sound, though.

And jitter is a product of the interaction between the signal sender, the cable, and the receiver. It CAN be corrected by buffering the receiving end and reclocking the signal before piping it out to the D/A, but that comes with latency and additional expense, neither of which are typically employed in home stereo systems.

So the clean-ness of the original signal clock output by the digital source *directly* affects the perceived sound quality.

It does NOT affect the digital bits and bytes, were they to be written to a hard drive. But it DOES directly affect the sound quality in immediate reproduction.


The solution employed in studios is to use a master clock to synchronize equipment via wordclock or AES/EBU - either the best internal clock of any of the audio devices present, or an external master clock, such as the $1500 Apogee Big Ben.

[tooki]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

The D/A stage is what produces the actual sound, though.

And jitter is a product of the interaction between the signal sender, the cable, and the receiver. It CAN be corrected by buffering the receiving end and reclocking the signal before piping it out to the D/A, but that comes with latency and additional expense, neither of which are typically employed in home stereo systems.

That's a pretty big assumption. I'd be willing to bet that de-jittering circuits are built into any halfway decent DAC chip, certainly in any halfway decent home theater receiver with discrete DACs.

[Spheric Harlot]

I doubt that, actually.

Buffering and re-clocking is complex to design, expensive to build, and apparently comes with its own trade-offs.

The real solution is to synchronize clocks, which *is* done in high-end systems and studios (but only there).

[ghporter]

There MUST be circuits in a DAC that align the data with the clock to ensure that no data is lost, and to ensure that actual data is being converted rather than noise there must be very robust squaring circuits. TI has been making really robust DACs for a couple of decades now, and they're quite good at it. And their chips are, because of the scale on which they make them, quite inexpensive.

[tooki]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

Buffering and re-clocking is complex to design, expensive to build, and apparently comes with its own trade-offs.

Do you really grasp the extent to which semiconductor manufacturing allows astonishingly complex circuitry to be reliably mass-produced for pennies?

Sure, the development cost may be high, but once the design has been made, it's incredibly cheap to build.

[tooki]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

TI has been making really robust DACs for a couple of decades now, and they're quite good at it. And their chips are, because of the scale on which they make them, quite inexpensive.

Ti, and Wolfson, and Burr-Brown, and so on.

[tooki]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

The real solution is to synchronize clocks, which *is* done in high-end systems and studios (but only there).

Synchronizing the clocks is only necessary when combining signals from MULTIPLE sources. In a typical situation, like this one, where you have a SINGLE source (DVD player) and a SINGLE destination (receiver), synchronized clocks aren't necessary, as long as the destination device can lock onto the clock signal (which is embedded in S/PDIF). That's how it works, too. The receiving device doesn't use its own clock, it's using the clock in the signal, thereby eliminating timing errors. (In fact, having a separate clock can introduce timing errors, which is why most computer buses have done away with a separate clock line.)

[ghporter]

To add to tooki's point about not needing a separate clock, the technique is called "clock regeneration," and this is precisely how the vast majority of DACs to it: they look at the incoming data and identify where the transitions are, and use that information to establish the incoming data's clock. As I said above, it's imperative to align the data with a clock, but that's done in one step.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

There MUST be circuits in a DAC that align the data with the clock to ensure that no data is lost, and to ensure that actual data is being converted rather than noise there must be very robust squaring circuits. TI has been making really robust DACs for a couple of decades now, and they're quite good at it. And their chips are, because of the scale on which they make them, quite inexpensive.

Again: Jitter is NOT about *data* loss - it's about loss of sound quality in *reproduction* due to timing errors.

And source-"immune" buffering/re-clocking has only recently (in the past five or six years - certainly not decades) become available in the ASRC chips, which *still* require high-quality local clocks.

ASRC's aren't widely used outside of studio/high-end gear, AFAIK, because although the chips themselves are not terribly expensive, building a *good* clock IS. (Plus, choosing a $12 chip over a $1 chip WILL make a considerable difference in price - it used to be that choosing a more expensive component results in a final price markup of component price x10.)

In consumer equipment, jitter induced by simply locking onto the S/PDIF signal is not likely to be a huge enough deal to justify the cost, especially since the stuff is still sold with the sales myth that "digital connections are all equivalent". It's hard to sell someone a $100 improvement in the digital stage whom you've just sold that "digital is digital".

Originally Posted by tooki 

Synchronizing the clocks is only necessary when combining signals from MULTIPLE sources.

Completely incorrect. Synchronizing clocks is the single most effective way of reducing jitter between multiple digital DEVICES (not just sources) - including, say, a CD laser and its attached signal processing circuitry. Or that signal processing circuitry and the D/A stage.

It is NOT necessary when dealing with ASYNCHRONOUS data - as via USB or Firewire, where data is not delivered in a just-in-time audio stream, but can be easily buffered and clocked out to the DAC.

Originally Posted by tooki 

In a typical situation, like this one, where you have a SINGLE source (DVD player) and a SINGLE destination (receiver), synchronized clocks aren't necessary, as long as the destination device can lock onto the clock signal (which is embedded in S/PDIF). That's how it works, too. The receiving device doesn't use its own clock, it's using the clock in the signal, thereby eliminating timing errors. (In fact, having a separate clock can introduce timing errors, which is why most computer buses have done away with a separate clock line.)

You're missing my point ENTIRELY:

What you describe is precisely WHAT CAUSES THE PROBLEM: Jitter introduces timing instabilities into the clock signal. THAT'S WHAT JITTER IS. The receiving end locks onto the clock signal, WHICH HAS BEEN COMPROMISED BY JITTER DURING THE TRANSFER FROM THE SOURCE.

Even if the signal is reclocked, jitter will remain as noise in the signal, as its effects spill over into the rest of the (analog) circuitry. ASRC chips have greatly reduced this, but as mentioned, the surrounding circuitry is not cheap to build. In addition, these chips introduce latency to the signal (arguably not an issue in home playback, though).

(Ironically, I've heard - but can't be arsed to research ATM - that using the clock embedded into S/PDIF CAUSES timing problems, as it introduces variable word length and messes up the clock - it's fairly well known that S/PDIF is the LEAST useful digital signal path; studios employ AES/EBU with separate clocking via wordclock wherever possible.)


In any case, all of this may be relevant to what Veltliner was asking, but it's certainly FAR beyond what Veltliner actually wanted to hear.

[ghporter]

We are indeed WAY out in left field in this discussion. I think that it would take sophisticated instruments and lots of time and study to identify quality loss due to jitter versus loss due to dirty discs, cheap, undersized cables, thermal effects in any number of components, etc., etc.

Considering how most home equipment and rooms are far from optimized for each other, whether you get detectable jitter or not is most likely moot at the consumer level. I'd worry more about using large-enough gauge speaker wires than timing errors within ICs in my receiver.

[Spheric Harlot]

Jitter is quite noticeable, and given circumstances affecting playback quality that I can change (cabling, components) over ones that I can't or that are prohibitively expensive (acoustic treatment of a room), it makes perfect sense to change what you can given geographic/budget constraints.

And as I've said in another thread, your ears are the only measurement tool that really matters.



Which brings us back to this thread:

OF COURSE there's a difference between a CD player and a DVD player of the same price. There's bound to be differences between various CD players of the same price, as well.

There's various factors affecting this - not the least marketing aspects like Sony's tendency to replace models at the same price point with a follow-up with more software features but noticeably degraded sound quality. (In the case of the CDP-7/77/777, they even turned around and sold "upgrade" kits through a third party for the two follow-up models, but not for the original CDP-7.)

Listen with your own ears before you buy. "Good enough" is always "good enough".

[Veltliner]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

We are indeed WAY out in left field in this discussion. I think that it would take sophisticated instruments and lots of time and study to identify quality loss due to jitter versus loss due to dirty discs, cheap, undersized cables, thermal effects in any number of components, etc., etc.

Considering how most home equipment and rooms are far from optimized for each other, whether you get detectable jitter or not is most likely moot at the consumer level. I'd worry more about using large-enough gauge speaker wires than timing errors within ICs in my receiver.

I'm also getting the idea that many people underestimate what actually makes or breaks audio quality: the speakers, who actually transfer the signal back into analogue waves our analogue ears can enjoy.

[Veltliner]

This got very interesting.

I'm currently not building a high-end system, and was just checking if my buying a new DVD player and using the old for audio would be a bad idea.

Looks like it's not a bad idea.

But before I throw my old Sony CD player out, I'll open it up (after it has been unplugged for a while, of course).

Even though I don't know a lot about electronics, the fault is sometimes easy to detect and not complex.

Like I once repaired a tape deck, where the drive motor's attachment had broken.

Maybe there's just a big blob of dust in the CD player.

[tooki]

Originally Posted by Veltliner 

I'm also getting the idea that many people underestimate what actually makes or breaks audio quality: the speakers, who actually transfer the signal back into analogue waves our analogue ears can enjoy.

Oh, my goodness yes. Though every component is important, the speakers do the final heavy lifting, and IMHO, the relative difficulty in making good speakers is much higher than for the other components. Doubling the price of, say, an amplifier won't make as big a difference as spending double on speakers.

I don't agree with your analysis/interpretation of jitter, but it's indeed far afield of the context of this thread.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by Veltliner 

I'm also getting the idea that many people underestimate what actually makes or breaks audio quality: the speakers, who actually transfer the signal back into analogue waves our analogue ears can enjoy.

Originally Posted by tooki 

Doubling the price of, say, an amplifier won't make as big a difference as spending double on speakers.

This, also, is absolutely, provably, and 100% incorrect.

Speakers can only reproduce more or less accurately the signal the source and amplifier supply - if that signal is lacking, then speakers can fake a booming bass and sizzling highs, but the sound will not have anything to do with what's on the record.

No amount of investment in following stages of the audio chain will EVER make up for what the source doesn't glean from the medium.

Unless you've actually tried this and heard the difference, nothing is going to convince you.


But two examples to illustrate what I'm saying:

If you hook up a DVD player that only outputs 8-bit color, then you can play that back through best, biggest, most expensive HDTV screen in the world, and it will do NOTHING but make obvious how crap the source signal is. The reds are incredibly accurate, and the blues just shine, the color reproduction has fantastic fidelity - to the utterly mediocre 256-color gamut that it's supplied with.


Physical modelling (digital reproduction) Hammond organs sound pretty much identical to real Hammonds on transistor radios and most home consumer systems. Play it back on a good system, and the difference becomes immediately apparent.


Good speakers will expose how bad the source is; they can NOT make it sound better.



For the record:

Replaced "reference" quality Linn Nexus speakers with total trash speakers I'd literally found in the attic of my new apartment and invested the cash not in a better amplifier, but in the Circus kit subchassis assembly for the Linn Sondek turntable.

There was absolutely no contest, whatsoever. None at all.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by tooki 

I don't agree with your analysis/interpretation of jitter, but it's indeed far afield of the context of this thread.

There's no "interpretation" - that's the DEFINITION of jitter.

[red rocket]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot

Good speakers will expose how bad the source is; they can NOT make it sound better.

True.

Then again, maybe it is worth remembering that studios frequently optimise music for playback on less than perfect speakers. Playback of such recordings on the best professional studio speakers will arguably not enhance the listening experience, and the ‘best’ speakers for playing back these recordings may very well be speakers that, on paper, are less than optimal, but have been subjectively tuned to deliver the most pleasing reproduction of that particular source material. Since you’re using Linn equipment, you obviously know all this, but I thought it might be worth pointing out to the general public that ‘good speakers’ are a somewhat subjective field.

[tooki]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

This, also, is absolutely, provably, and 100% incorrect.

Speakers can only reproduce more or less accurately the signal the source and amplifier supply - if that signal is lacking, then speakers can fake a booming bass and sizzling highs, but the sound will not have anything to do with what's on the record. Good speakers will expose how bad the source is; they can NOT make it sound better.

I'm not "100% incorrect", because by your logic, you could, and should, take the most expensive audio system possible and connect it to the worst speaker you can find, lest the speaker unmask some defect earlier on. That's absurd. There is no point in buying speakers so good that they showcase the defects in your amp/source, but then again, there's also no point in buying an amp/source whose performance significantly exceeds what your speakers can reproduce.

Furthermore, your logic seems to imply that better speakers enhance the defects without enhancing the part of the source that's good. It stands to just as much reason (and experience) that there will be an improvement in sound reproduction, since a better speaker will add less distortion/errors/defects of its own.

Can a speaker correct problems on the source it's receiving? Of course not. And I didn't claim that. But the fact is, no matter how good your source is, your speakers must do the final conversion from electricity to motion, so their performance is incredibly critical.

My point was -- and remains -- this: suppose you have $1000 to spend on speakers and an amp. If you spend $900 on the amp and $100 on speakers, your system will be s**t. Of course, if you do the exact reverse and spend $900 on speakers and just $100 on the amp, it'll also be s**t. But I believe that amps improve in quality more quickly than speakers do, so I wouldn't spend $500 on each, I'd spend $250 on the amp and $750 on the speakers, because halving the price of an amp reduces its quality it to a smaller degree than halving the price of speakers.

Moreover, the logic you audiophiles use almost by definition results in a never-ending cycle of spending, because whatever component you upgrade now makes the others look bad. To an average person, it's not about that, it's about getting a system where the parts are evenly matched to produce a harmonious system. There is no point whatsoever in spending $10K on a CD player, $20K on an amp, and $2K on cables if you are then broke and have to buy $1K speakers because you're out of money. You'd be better off balancing the spending amongst the components to find a nice balance of components whose performance is a good match.

Believe it or not, I'm not the audio imbecile you believe me to be -- as I've improved my listening devices over the years, I have noticed (as expected) that they show off when another component or source is bad, where the older, less precise speakers or headphones masked the defect. But overall, the listening experience is improved and I enjoy my music more, which is the whole point of the exercise.

I do understand the "only as good as the weakest link" philosophy, there's nothing wrong with it, except for it not taking into account that budgets are limited, and that at some point, you must accept a compromise and be OK with it. The point is about allocating resources where they make the most sense to produce the best output, regardless of philosophical ideals.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by tooki 

I'm not "100% incorrect", because by your logic, you could, and should, take the most expensive audio system possible and connect it to the worst speaker you can find, lest the speaker unmask some defect earlier on. That's absurd. There is no point in buying speakers so good that they showcase the defects in your amp/source, but then again, there's also no point in buying an amp/source whose performance significantly exceeds what your speakers can reproduce.

I'm sorry, but the reason that makes no sense to you is that it makes no sense to me either: It's not what I said.

Each and every component in an audio chain does one thing, and one thing ONLY: It REMOVES fidelity to the original source.

No matter WHAT you do, you are ALWAYS LOSING signal fidelity. The effects of certain components may be desirable and pleasing to the ear, such as an equalizer to boost certain frequencies that might have been lost earlier in the chain, but even every bit of equalization comes at a cost: phase shifting and feedback behavior around the cutoff frequency.

Part of what you're saying here, however, IS true: The better a system, the more music just falls by the wayside as it's exposed as RELATIVE garbage. An excellent example is Jamiroquai - sounds great on a mid-level system, but dump it on a Sondek, and it becomes painfully obvious how little experience the musicians had at multitracking. The whole thing just falls completely apart. They just don't groove.

OTHER records, however, become better and better and better the better the system gets.

Originally Posted by tooki 

Furthermore, your logic seems to imply that better speakers enhance the defects without enhancing the part of the source that's good. It stands to just as much reason (and experience) that there will be an improvement in sound reproduction, since a better speaker will add less distortion/errors/defects of its own.

See above:

A better speaker will better reproduce WHAT GOES INTO IT FROM THE PRECEDING PIECE OF EQUIPMENT IN THE CHAIN.

What's destroyed cannot be reproduced.

Originally Posted by tooki 

Can a speaker correct problems on the source it's receiving? Of course not. And I didn't claim that. But the fact is, no matter how good your source is, your speakers must do the final conversion from electricity to motion, so their performance is incredibly critical.

But even the best speakers cannot ever reproduce WHAT HAS ALREADY BEEN REMOVED FROM THE SIGNAL.

Originally Posted by tooki 

My point was -- and remains -- this: suppose you have $1000 to spend on speakers and an amp. If you spend $900 on the amp and $100 on speakers, your system will be s**t. Of course, if you do the exact reverse and spend $900 on speakers and just $100 on the amp, it'll also be s**t. But I believe that amps improve in quality more quickly than speakers do, so I wouldn't spend $500 on each, I'd spend $250 on the amp and $750 on the speakers, because halving the price of an amp reduces its quality it to a smaller degree than halving the price of speakers.

You just need to shop around for better speakers.

This does come down to taste a lot, though, since I'm all about the feel of the music, and the quality of the musicianship or performance.

If massive, wall-shaking bass is paramount to you, you're looking at expensive speakers, since a two-way system probably won't shatter your coffee table, and three-way speakers are very very difficult (and expensive) to design *well*, as the phase response and crossovers take a lot of design and a hell of a lot more listening by engineers.

My personal experience as related above amounts to $6000 (as sold new) speakers sold used and replaced with complete trash, with the money spent on a new subchassis for the turntable.

There was absolutely no contest. None whatsoever.

For a given sum of money, I'd invest half in the player, 30% in the amp, and 20% in the speakers, although the new power supply for the turntable dropped the bass another octave (due to lack of overtones caused by motor-stepping-induced phase distortion), so it's got to the point where it'll just be more *fun* to have slightly bigger speakers.

My own system is probably at around 70%-20%-10% at the moment, since I've just splurged a bit on upgrading the turntable.

A nice pair of Keilidh speakers will probably set me up for life, though. I've got what I'm likely to ever want.

Originally Posted by tooki 

Moreover, the logic you audiophiles use almost by definition results in a never-ending cycle of spending, because whatever component you upgrade now makes the others look bad. To an average person, it's not about that, it's about getting a system where the parts are evenly matched to produce a harmonious system.

Now *you* are painting *me* as an imbecile.

It is the nature of audio equipment that there is *always* something that can be improved upon. But there is a law of diminishing returns.

I've said, time and again, in every thread that brings this up (and in this one), that "good enough" is good enough - for everybody.

I think I've clarified above what that means for me, personally.


I'd rather be spending my money on music than on cars.

Originally Posted by tooki 

There is no point whatsoever in spending $10K on a CD player, $20K on an amp, and $2K on cables if you are then broke and have to buy $1K speakers because you're out of money. You'd be better off balancing the spending amongst the components to find a nice balance of components whose performance is a good match.
[....]
The point is about allocating resources where they make the most sense to produce the best output, regardless of philosophical ideals.

No argument here.

I think you may have mistaken me for one of those audio fools.


(nothing personal, btw)

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by red rocket 

True.

Then again, maybe it is worth remembering that studios frequently optimise music for playback on less than perfect speakers. Playback of such recordings on the best professional studio speakers will arguably not enhance the listening experience, and the ‘best’ speakers for playing back these recordings may very well be speakers that, on paper, are less than optimal, but have been subjectively tuned to deliver the most pleasing reproduction of that particular source material. Since you’re using Linn equipment, you obviously know all this, but I thought it might be worth pointing out to the general public that ‘good speakers’ are a somewhat subjective field.

Naturally.

The real skill, of course, is making records that sound great both on high-end home systems AND their intended market - be that completely overdriven club PAs or mono transistor radios on a workspace shelfboard.

I have enough records sitting around that prove it can be done. But it is, of course, much more difficult (and thus expensive) than producing for a limited set of conditions.

[Veltliner]

Do you really need a high end amplifier to produce a good signal?

I think that's the point where the discussion has turned. Can you get by with a moderate amplifier/DVD player and spend your money on speakers?

Regarding speakers: I have a set of very old JBL speakers, and I can tell you I am glad I have them. Very nice, full sound. Good definition. I wouldn't exchange them for speakers half their size that you find in some home theater systems, or those tiny speakers for book shelves. There must be volume and mass getting to vibrate, those are physical laws that you can't really beat. And for this one has to pay.

PS: Sure, there are some de-optimized recordings. But not in Jazz or classical music. A recording engineer that would do such a thing would simply be decapitated by an angry violinist using a violin string.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by Veltliner 

Do you really need a high end amplifier to produce a good signal?

A crap amplifier will destroy the signal.

Hi-fi speakers will tend to "colour" the sound, which can make ruined audio sound somewhat more pleasing, but will also taint the sound of any remaining signal that might come through that's still "good".

Originally Posted by Veltliner 

I think that's the point where the discussion has turned. Can you get by with a moderate amplifier/DVD player and spend your money on speakers?

Of course you CAN.

I wouldn't.

Regarding speakers: I have a set of very old JBL speakers, and I can tell you I am glad I have them. Very nice, full sound. Good definition. I wouldn't exchange them for speakers half their size that you find in some home theater systems, or those tiny speakers for book shelves. There must be volume and mass getting to vibrate, those are physical laws that you can't really beat. And for this one has to pay.

Excellence in engineering will produce results that are hard to believe.

Large membranes have a lot of inertia/momentum, which means that they're *extremely* difficult to drive precisely. This means that transients will be delayed and impulse response is messed up. Speaker manufacturers will often use multiple smaller membranes instead, but that comes with its own set of tradeoffs.

Also, speakers - even excellent speakers - will have far less trouble if the signal they receive is precise and not bloated and phase-fracked by a crap source/amplifier/EQ.

Some of the best speakers I've heard under $1,000 were slightly larger than a postcard, and about 1 1/2 times as deep. I had to look around the room for a while, searching for the subwoofer, until I saw the sales guy grinning.

Excellence in engineering.

Originally Posted by Veltliner 

PS: Sure, there are some de-optimized recordings. But not in Jazz or classical music. A recording engineer that would do such a thing would simply be decapitated by an angry violinist using a violin string.

True.

If you're producing for less than 5% of the market, you can afford to make it a luxury.

[tooki]

Originally Posted by Veltliner 

Do you really need a high end amplifier to produce a good signal?

I think that's the point where the discussion has turned. Can you get by with a moderate amplifier/DVD player and spend your money on speakers?

My belief is that the electronics industry has made it possible to buy very good (i.e. better than adequate for most listeners) amps for relatively little money. I believe that designing a good speaker is more challenging than designing a good amp, and that it shows when you compare the relative quality of them.

I would NOT buy a home-theater-in-a-box, as I would not expect it to have the power or quality of a separate receiver. But I believe that a good midrange receiver model from one of the better brands (e.g. Denon, Yamaha, Pioneer, H/K) will do well combined with a set of great speakers. Naturally, remember to pick an amp with power to spare. Not so much that you'll accidentally blow out your speakers, but enough that all of your listening is happening well below maximum amp capacity, as nearly all audio components suffer when pushed to their limits.

[tooki]

P.S. I agree with this completely:

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

A crap amplifier will destroy the signal.

But I also believe that you can find a non-crap amp within the stuff you can buy at, say, Crutchfield.

[OreoCookie]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

Some of the best speakers I've heard under $1,000 were slightly larger than a postcard, and about 1 1/2 times as deep. I had to look around the room for a while, searching for the subwoofer, until I saw the sales guy grinning.

Just out of curiosity: what speakers were those exactly?

[Spheric Harlot]

Linn tukan.

I pretty much stopped keeping track of their product line about ten years ago, so I have no idea if they make equivalent or better speakers in that format now, but those were just...

[webraider]

Originally Posted by Veltliner 

My old single-tray CD player died.

I was thinking of using my old DVD player (4 years old) as a CD player and get a newer DVD player.

I hear using a DVD player to play CDs gets you better audio quality, as the signal-to-noise ration is better.

Is that true?

I just wonder how it will do with my stone old Kenwood receiver (still with needles showing the output peak levels).

For My entertainment center, I used only a DVD player for my CD's. It works fine. I had a TV, And a surround sound system. I just didn't see the point in having a CD player and a DVD player. If you are setting it up in your main room, why have both a DVD player for CD's and a DVD player for DVD's. Use one player for both. It works and it's one less remote control.