Your Preferred CD Player

[howard.zinman]

Do you have one? I am in the market for a new player. Thanks!

[jazzbo]

I've gone a transport to DAC route for over a decade but I have two friends who two years ago each bought a new cd player they were very happy with.

One: https://www.audioadvisor.com/prnt-macd6007?sku=NEW-MACD6007

a review: https://www.whathifi.com/reviews/marantz-cd6007

The other: https://www.audioadvisor.com/prnt-nac538?sku=NEW-NAC538

a review: https://www.whathifi.com/reviews/nad-c-538

Edited Sunday at 08:33 PM by jazzbo

[Dub Modal]

17 hours ago, jazzbo said:

a transport to DAC route for over a decade

Does this route play redbook, sacds, etc? 

[jazzbo]

Yes, I am using a PS Audio transport and a PS Audio DAC and they have purchased the right to pass the transport spun raw DSD files from SACD via HDMI to the DAC. Can also play files from a stick (I don't do that). 

[Dub Modal]

2 minutes ago, jazzbo said:

Yes, I am using a PS Audio transport and a PS Audio DAC and they have purchased the right to pass the transport spun raw DSD files from SACD via HDMI to the DAC. Can also play files from a stick (I don't do that). 

Nice. Thank you. My CD player has likely gone kaput so I'll be pricing options in the near future and will check this out. 

[Kevin Bresnahan]

If I were in the market for a straight-up player, I would likely look at Marantz or NAD like Lon recommended earlier. I wish Oppo Digital didn't exit the business. Their players were great bang-for-the-buck.

I personally think a transport and an external DAC is a solution looking for a problem. Most of the claims of improvement using this type of set-up revolve around jitter, which is proven to be 1) not a problem with almost any CD player made and 2) not audible even if it is really really bad.

[jazzbo]

Kevin, I have had many cd players. . . the sound of my Transport and DAC together is MUCH better. There are so many more factors besides "jitter." Of course the combo is more than many would spend for an entire system, so they should be.

Edited yesterday at 06:06 PM by jazzbo

[Kevin Bresnahan]

As I've told many people when I'm asked about stuff like this, try both side by side and see for yourself. I'd never stop someone from buying anything they like. We're all different.

Personally, I have heard several transport/DAC set-ups recently. One had a very expensive DAC. That system had an NAD CD player in the system as well. We went back & forth between the two playback systems and we just couldn't hear any differences. No change in the highs or lows and certainly no change in the noise levels. To our ears, there was no difference. As I've said before, this is a good thing to me, because it saves me a bunch of money by not forcing me to upgrade.  

To be honest, back in the days when my hearing was much better, I sampled a lot of CD players, probably close to a hundred players, and I was never able to tell much difference between any of them. There were stereo shops where I would compare CD player to CD player to CD player with the same CD with no discernible differences. I expected this because digital audio kinda works that way. The 1's and 0's get converted to analog and unless the player has a really shitty DAC, and I've yet to hear one that does, it will sound pretty much the same. The identical set of 1's and 0's simply cannot change the frequency response through a different DAC. Error correction can be improved, but error correction doesn't mess with the audio frequencies. Poor error correction just adds noise.

[jazzbo]

There are people who can't hear differences, and those who can, that is a conclusion I have come to over time. And there is more going on than 1s and 0s in terms of power supplies, etc. I hear all kinds of differences, not necessarily a good thing perhaps, but how it is. Over the years I have been told by you you don't hear differences. Vive la difference.

Edited yesterday at 08:13 PM by jazzbo

[Kevin Bresnahan]

I get what you're saying about power supplies & noise but again, a regular CD player would have to be terribly designed and manufactured for that to slip into a commercial product. I've yet to hear one with an audible (noisy) analog output.

But if we're talking about frequency response... to change the frequency response of an analog waveform coming out of a DAC, millions of 1's & 0's would have to change, not just a few hundred. Digital audio just doesn't work that way. Every 22 picoseconds, the audio is sampled and a 16 bit word is created for that small slice of audio. Just this one 16 bit word would have to radically change for the audio output frequency to change. To have a whole passage of music have altered frequency response, every single 16 bit word, one after the other, would have to change in the exact same way to have the analog output to have a shifted frequency response.

[jazzbo]

I'm not even talking about the digital signal. What happens after that is often different, power supplies, wiring, connecting hardware. I could go on, but I'm not going to continue arguing with you about audio matters. I don't agree with a lot of your "insights," you seem to belittle the experiences of those who do hear differences, vive la difference. Hear what you want to or not hear what you want to. I know what I hear and trust it.

I gave the recommendation/opinion the OP asked for.

Edited 23 hours ago by jazzbo

[howard.zinman]

I've been looking at the Denon CD/SACD player but I've never heard an SACD.

The Marantz is very well regarded and I always have liked NAD. Thanks!

[Kevin Bresnahan]

14 hours ago, jazzbo said:

I'm not even talking about the digital signal. What happens after that is often different, power supplies, wiring, connecting hardware. I could go on, but I'm not going to continue arguing with you about audio matters. I don't agree with a lot of your "insights," you seem to belittle the experiences of those who do hear differences, vive la difference. Hear what you want to or not hear what you want to. I know what I hear and trust it.

I gave the recommendation/opinion the OP asked for.

You say you're "not talking about the digital signal", but this discussion is around an external DAC. A DAC is only involved in the digital stream. What happens after the digital is converted to analog happens outside the DAC, no matter if it's internal or external. I try to stick to one topic but you keep expanding it.

Look Lon, I don't want to argue what you hear. You hear what you hear. I hear what I hear.

My statements here are for others, as you constantly discount my scientific explanations for what is happening in digital audio systems. I stick to the science because I know it is the best predictor of what will happen to a signal. Do I have to apologize for being an electrical engineer who worked in the semiconductor industry for over 40 years, mostly as a test engineer? I have lived with the science of electrical signals for a very long time. I have used this knowledge to guarantee that many of the components in a lot of the equipment used in many of our audio systems work as they were designed to work. The next time someone pops open their gear, see how parts say ADI or Analog Devices on them.

Truth be told, if it wasn't for science, we'd all still be listening to wind-up Victrolas.

It's true that people can ignore science, but I feel that is a mistake. Too many businesses out there take advantage of people who ignore science, advocating or selling solutions to problems that don't exist. This is happening everywhere, not just in the world of audio. It's pervasive in our society. It's particularly bad in the area of healthcare these days, but that veers too close to politics, so I won't go down that rabbit hole.

Back to the topic...

I believe a CD player is fine to use. A transport and DAC is fine to use as well. I would recommend a Marantz CD player.

11 hours ago, howard.zinman said:

I've been looking at the Denon CD/SACD player but I've never heard an SACD.

The Marantz is very well regarded and I always have liked NAD. Thanks!

I haven't owned a Denon CD/SACD player but Denon & Marantz are the same company and I have owned a Marantz CD/SACD player. It should sound very good.

As for getting into the CD vs SACD debate... SACDs should be able to present the audio better than CDs. But in practice, it all comes down to the mastering. If an SACD is created with a poorly mastered analog source, the SACD will re-create that lousy audio perfectly. I have some incredible-sounding SACDs and some poor-sounding ones. But as we've established already, I hear what I hear.

[Eric]

20 hours ago, Kevin Bresnahan said:

If I were in the market for a straight-up player, I would likely look at Marantz or NAD like Lon recommended earlier. I wish Oppo Digital didn't exit the business. Their players were great bang-for-the-buck.

I personally think a transport and an external DAC is a solution looking for a problem. Most of the claims of improvement using this type of set-up revolve around jitter, which is proven to be 1) not a problem with almost any CD player made and 2) not audible even if it is really really bad.

Yep, I have had good luck with both those brands.  Still using a Marantz player circa 2000 in my office and love it.

[Kevin Bresnahan]

One thing I will agree with Lon about here is that some of the cheaper CD players have lousy transports, which is one reason to look at a set-up like his.

I believe that this is due to the manufacturers moving towards cheaper parts or even buying a transport "off the shelf" from a major supplier. A lot of CD players were using PC transports but that market has basically evaporated, as almost all internal optical drives these days are "laptop" or slimline CD drives.

[jazzbo]

3 hours ago, Kevin Bresnahan said:

You say you're "not talking about the digital signal", but this discussion is around an external DAC. A DAC is only involved in the digital stream. What happens after the digital is converted to analog happens outside the DAC, no matter if it's internal or external. I try to stick to one topic but you keep expanding it.

Look Lon, I don't want to argue what you hear. You hear what you hear. I hear what I hear.

My statements here are for others, as you constantly discount my scientific explanations for what is happening in digital audio systems. I stick to the science because I know it is the best predictor of what will happen to a signal. Do I have to apologize for being an electrical engineer who worked in the semiconductor industry for over 40 years, mostly as a test engineer? I have lived with the science of electrical signals for a very long time. I have used this knowledge to guarantee that many of the components in a lot of the equipment used in many of our audio systems work as they were designed to work. The next time someone pops open their gear, see how parts say ADI or Analog Devices on them.

Truth be told, if it wasn't for science, we'd all still be listening to wind-up Victrolas.

 

 

 

Geez Kevin, it seems you have misinterpreted what I meant in what I wrote. I'm not ignoring science, maybe it's semantics that has tripped us up. Once a digital signal is decoded--and there are different designs to do that--there is still the amplification of the signal and how it is output, differing in how the power supply is formatted, what topology solid state or tube or transformer, whether discreet or op-amps are in the signal path and the parts chosen, the quality of the wiring and the connector components, switching and often volume control. . . many other factors. I'm not talking about just a digital to analog chip or board, but the DAC as the stereo component is called. A DAC  component is NOT just the decoding of the digital signal. A DAC is a component that is MORE than that. And they can sound extremely different as a result.  

 

Edited 5 hours ago by jazzbo

[Kevin Bresnahan]

I get you are worried about noise in your signal path. That is a valid concern in most audio designs. However, I don't think it's as much of a concern in this particular path as in others closer to your ear. The signal amplification after the internal DAC chip in your DAC box is simply to amplify or attenuate that analog signal to match the required DAC box's line level output voltage, which is typically .3-.4 Volts. If your line level output voltage is much higher than that, you could overload your preamp input and end up with very noisy playback. It's not like it's driving your speakers.

From what I've Googled, there's not much of a circuit needed to convert the DAC chip's output signal to a line level output. It looks like it's usually done a simple op amp. There doesn't appear to be a lot of circuit design variations to clean this up. I suppose someone could use a shitty opamp but that would be pretty stupid on their part.

To be honest, I would hope that any circuit designer would make sure that the signal coming out of their box, be it a CD player or DAC, had very low noise or they wouldn't be a circuit designer for very long.

I personally wouldn't worry too much about it either, as long as you stick with reputable companies and not some cheapie manufacturer like Crosley. Then again, many of my "work friends" over the years have been circuit designers. Sure, I worked with some lazy designers but even they had to make the circuit work as expected or no one would buy the resulting product. I have had to get down into the guts of a lot of these circuits to help these designers debug their circuits when they didn't work as expected. Every single one of them knew their circuits inside and out.

When I graduated from college, I tried getting a job in the audio industry but no one was hiring back then. Instead, I stuck with RF products (50 MHz-100 GHz signals) so I worked a little higher in frequency than audio.  

I bet I've debugged thousands of RF circuits at this point in my life. Sometimes I miss doing that, but then I remember all the office politics and the shitty commutes and I thank my brother Dan again for making me stuff so much money into my 401K so that I could retire early.

[jazzbo]

I really don't want to continue discussing this with you other than to say for years I have been working to eliminate "noise" throughout my system and it has paid dividends in improved sound. That's the simple truth of my experience.

I'm done discussing, I don't wish to make any further comments about yours..  

Edited 1 hour ago by jazzbo