cd sound quality

[Guest Muon N']

After a series of modifications to my Marantz CD-60SE I'm getting a sound from well recorded CD's that has me very happy

 

An I used to be a vinylphile with a Sansui SR-838/2M Bronze+Valve Phono stage, so somethings working right.

[doogie44]

I used to despair at early sharp 2D dry digital sound but much of that poor digital recording settled down over the years. Now, compared to the ubiquitous compression and shocking equalising going on during recording/transmitting to produce FM, MP3 and abysmal low-res digital  today I feel quite nostalgic for the 'older' days. 

 

But for me nothing comes close to the sound of:

 

1. A well-executed analogue rig

2. A seriously competent high-end digital source

 

Note that 1 & 2 are slowly but steadily approaching each other over time (as is ultra high-end solid state approaching valve musicality). 

 

Not to inflame anyone's opinions of course. Just my 2c worth.

[MattyW]

I usually buy CD's and rip using JRiver to my NAS. I consistently find that files played back through JRiver outperform the original content. I put this down to better processing and fewer issues with jitter vs native CD playback. I have JRiver set to download the file into RAM and playback from RAM.

[crisis]

I play both records and CDs but appreciate the lack of noise and fluffing around with CDs. After spending a bit upgrading my analogue system I had this delivered this week for a bit of balance. A noticeable upgrade form my Primare CD22. As far as software goes I prefer the old CDs that had dynamic range before a lot of them ended up compressed. I look for the older second hand ones personally. I dont have quite the collection that some here do totaling probably 350 or so and among them are some terrible recordings but also some pure gems.

[scruffy1]

my collection runs to ~ 1200 cd's although some i confess are archived as backup for other people

 

anyways, i was pretty happy with "basic" cd - initially a denon (can't recall the model) in the late 80's, till it died and i moved on to a sony cdp xe300

 

then i started playing with the sound train - initially via high end sound cards in my desktop computer, then those with upgraded op amps, which migrated into a bespoke home theatre that could compete with the cd player through the same nad d3020 as amplification, and also compare to the onboard dac in the nad using usb

 

either option reveals more detail than the admittedly old generation onboard dac in the sony

 

double blind testing with foobar showed me that a ripped flac file was indistinguishable to cd, and often barely discernible from mp3 at 320kpbs (which has become my preferred mp3 rip before flac superseded it due to abundant space available on a network attached hard drive, and recognised superior reproduction

 

fwiw, i rip in 16bit / 44100 to hopefully avoid any useless alteration of the input

 

the sound card with cirrus dac is vastly better than the nad native dac if i let that do the decode by feeding it usb out

 

 

then i got a cheap but by no means nasty usb dac, the stoner acoustic ud110v2, and fed its analogue out to the nad d3020 - and discovered that it seriously outclassed the xonar hdav soundcard despite that card having a burson v5i op amp that had upped its abilities from the previous opa627's and way over the stock op amp

 

then the khadas tone board arrived !

 

wow !!!  game over !  the clarity, sound stage, bass tightness and attack, etc all just sang with a new intensity

 

my praise was so effusive that even my argumentative ocd russian jewish friend who recently updated his cd player to a current upmarket rotel beast was compelled to go out and investigate current dac technology, and came home a convert, although he chose an ifi black dac (? exact one) due to local availablity (and because he refuses to believe the chinese can create their own superior electronic stuff, or that my opinion was actually correct)

 

so, long story shorter...  cd sound quality is good, but imho in the cd player this is predicated by the chip doing the converting contained therein and now that this can be changed independent of the drive mechanism providing the digital signal, cd players are an anachronism like turntables - an "all-in-one" analogue source that is inherently limited by that necessary combination of read and then convert

 

doesn't mean good ones of either ilk don't make excellent sounds, but the single most important component to turn that to analogue out is a relatively cheap chip, which in most production machines is at least a generation or two behind current abilities, and imho does better with a simple digital storage feeding a more current generation dac

 

 

 

the question of the quality of cd's is another kettle of fish entirely

 

 

 

 

 

 

[aechmea]

6 hours ago, scruffy1 said:

 

 

so, long story shorter...  cd sound quality is good, but imho in the cd player this is predicated by the chip doing the converting contained therein and now that this can be changed independent of the drive mechanism providing the digital signal, cd players are an anachronism like turntables - an "all-in-one" analogue source that is inherently limited by that necessary combination of read and then convert

 

doesn't mean good ones of either ilk don't make excellent sounds, but the single most important component to turn that to analogue out is a relatively cheap chip, which in most production machines is at least a generation or two behind current abilities, and imho does better with a simple digital storage feeding a more current generation dac

 

the question of the quality of cd's is another kettle of fish entirely

 

I agree with that point.  I have a "transport" which almost asynchronously extracts the data from the disc and reassembles it in memory before sending it on with its own clock.  The actual spinning mechanism is now a moot point and spinning is achieved with a bog-standard computer SATA (or whatever) DVD drive.  And very easy to replace as required.  Because this box is essentially a bare bones firmware driven computer it may be able to also up-sample (mine can) if that is of any use.

 

I am of the opinion that the quality of the recording/mixing/mastering seen on CDs is a strong contender for the weakest part of my system.

[THOMO]

I wonder if the early to late 90s was really the golden age of both CD players and CD recording?Although I also have plenty of great CDs from the 2000s.

I good indicator of that was the Sony CDP715CD player which cost around $700 in 1995 and which sounds wonderfully transparent and 3D.Very very few modern DACs sound as good as that player. There were also some very good sounding Marantz and Accuphase players from that era.

Also some terrific recordings like Shawn Colvin-Cover Girl,James Taylor -Hourglass,Lyle Lovett-Joshua Judges Ruth and Lisa Ekdahl-Back to Earth.Recordings with convincing presence and harmonics which most of the earlier digital recordings seemed to lack.

Edited December 20, 2019 by THOMO

[davewantsmoore]

On 06/11/2019 at 10:41 PM, audiofeline said:

And their before/after pic on their site (https://www.bedini.com/clarifier.htm) seems to suggest it reduces dynamic range, which I don't see as plausible or a good thing. 

No scale

Low resolution

You don't know which one is "correct" (ie. "what is the 'DR' supposed to be?)

Even if they have something with their 'clarifier', they are IMVHO either 'stupid', or 'evil', or both, for posting such a graph.

[audiofeline]

1 minute ago, davewantsmoore said:

No scale

Low resolution

You don't know which one is "correct" (ie. "what is the 'DR' supposed to be?)

Even if they have something with their 'clarifier', they are IMVHO either 'stupid', or 'evil', or both, for posting such a graph.

Yes.  The old marketing trick of posting something technical so it looks plausible to the non-technical, without containing any substance.  I recall entry-level stereo record players in the 1970's that printed freq. response graphs and other spec's on the case, I used to think it must be good quality if they were that open about it, however years later when I learned what these were I realised they were actually publicising how bad the gear was. 

[Assisi]

On 23/11/2019 at 11:35 PM, doogie44 said:

2. A seriously competent high-end digital source

Yes

[scruffy1]

to follow my previous observations, re quality of cd

 

there is quite marked variation in my experiences

 

so much so that i have a few 128kbps rips (dating back to napster) that sound vastly better than poor cd's i possess

even back in days of yore when i was the user of a high end hitachi cassette deck, the dbx dynamic range expander that i used made the sound pretty good

 

current trends of massive compression to supply maximal volume for minimal quality playback mean that even quite impressive composition and musicality is swamped by lack of finesse

 

is higher than cd quality better ?  from my few higher bit rate samples, ripped presumably from good analogue sources meaning that technically there are infinite bits being sampled, yes, they are "better"

 

miles davis at 24bit / 96khz reveals that what i initially thought was background hiss from old vinyl is actually jimmy cobb's sublimely ambient brush work on the drums on flamenco sketches

 

at twice that sample rate it makes the nuances of simon and garfunkel on mrs robinson very much like an acoustic performance in the living room

 

but it does that using about quarter the info chunk contained on a normal cd, for a performance under 4 minutes long

 

 

there doesn't seem to be any predictability of quality on cd either, some cheap stuff is better than re-release (and likely compressed) favourites

 

somewhere between performance and final pressing there's a whole lot of interference, sometimes to the benefit, but obviously not always

[Guest Muon N']

So many support their biases when talking about audio and how to get great quality playback, some think that newer must be better, some think PC as a source must be better, some think hi res must be better, some think digital is automatically better than analogue.

 

All can be done well and provide great quality playback, or done poorly and not, the only difference besides personal biases is the choice each of us choose to follow.

[scruffy1]

4 hours ago, Muon N' said:

So many support their biases when talking about audio and how to get great quality playback, some think that newer must be better, some think PC as a source must be better, some think hi res must be better, some think digital is automatically better than analogue.

 

All can be done well and provide great quality playback, or done poorly and not, the only difference besides personal biases is the choice each of us choose to follow.

 

let's be really honest, everyone supports their own biases

 

it's what fanaticism audiophilia is all about 

[LogicprObe]

 

We must realise that are a lot of fake CD's that came out of.......AHEM!.............................somewhere in Asia that were made from any available source, including the MP3 torrent sites.

Now, I will admit that while some MP3 conversions sound reasonable, when they are converted back to 'CD Quality' (you can't recover the losses) they sound quite strange.

[Guest Muon N']

@LogicprObe I avoid questionable origin CD's and It's even more difficult with files purchased on the internet, so I stick to early production CD's, although I have a hybrid Tracy Chapman CD from China and the CD layer is bloody awesome!

[LogicprObe]

I have an AC/DC box set that was too cheap to be legit.

Sounds like it was copied from CDs if it is.

[lemarquis]

I play 50/50 CDs through the Halcro and hi res files through the Gross dac. Sometimes I spend days just on CDs as the SQ is still awesome (the Halcro is a top shelf player so YMMV). Most of my CDs are classical (tend to be well transferred / mastered) with the rest being CDs from the 80s-early 90s (when music stopped IMO). 

 

Can't say I've had any CDs that sound really bad, although some sound less good. 

Edited January 6, 2020 by lemarquis

[Guest deanB]

I only have one album that, sq wise, is unlistenable.

It's the first Blackfoot album, No Reservations. Tape hiss out the wazoo and no dynamics.

I also have two versions of a Julian Cope album, Jehovahkill. The single disc version is fine but the double disc deluxe album has random background noise that reminds me of excess sibilance but doesn't necessarily coincide with the actual vocals. But I've played it 4 times and it has sounded better with each play. The first time was pretty bad (and I bought the single disc version) but now it's mostly ok. Disc 2 is fine, disc 1 was the problem child and gets better as it gets towards the end. It's such an awesome body of work, I've persisted with it.

I also have a couple of albums that have vinyl background noise added for some weird reason. FTFO with that nonsense, he cried.

[Herbs]

Is there a possibility some are bootlegs/fakes

I noticed this with wax when on discogs I started checking run out grooves with OG pressings. I always wondered why some vinyl sounded ****, really noticed with headphones I gave a whole crate away for 50$

Just a suggestion

Edited January 6, 2020 by Herbs
Maybe

[LogicprObe]

22 minutes ago, Herbs said:

Is there a possibility some are bootlegs/fakes

I noticed this with wax when on discogs I started checking run out grooves with OG pressings. I always wondered why some vinyl sounded ****, really noticed with headphones I gave a whole crate away for 50$

Just a suggestion

 

What are OG pressings please?

[Herbs]

Original, i bought alot of vinyl from shops and heaps of it was fake/bootleg only found out 10-15 years later checking discogs

Edited January 6, 2020 by Herbs
Yes

[jessandkerry]

On 06/11/2019 at 2:06 PM, ray4410 said:

cd sound quality

just wondering if others have found that some cds especially early ones sound pretty darn good

I've yet to hear a streamer or computer H/D  best my CD transport/dac setup, and yes I've found the earlier/first cd version to be better, probably because they are less compressed than the later squashed up re-masters.

You can see this here. 

http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/list?artist=Moody+Blues&album=Days+Of+Future+Passed

Just type in your band and album up the top. then click on the one with the most green and get the cat no. and get it used for $5 on ebay or gumtree

Jess

Edited January 6, 2020 by jessandkerry

[scruffy1]

4 hours ago, jessandkerry said:

I've yet to hear a streamer or computer H/D  best my CD transport/dac setup, and yes I've found the earlier/first cd version to be better, probably because they are less compressed than the later squashed up re-masters.

 

 

the source and the chain are what makes the music

 

so cd versus digital storage is not actually of any consequence if the digital storage is either a direct or lossless copy of a good source

 

i can't understand why people are so resistant to the idea that the dac (and its implementation) are the single most significant part of the system between equivalent sources and amplifier; whether that dac is part of an expensive cd player, or a stand alone "good" dac, or even a hybrid dac / amp (with an excellent dac), it's the dac that does it

 

everyone that likes their own system is welcome to do so, but denying my simplistic explanation for where the magic happens is like religious zealotry arguing over who worships the best god

 

 

in essence, no argument that a good non-compressed cd is the best source; whether you use that or a "good"  digital copy of that to feed a quality dac is of no consequence

 

 

Edited January 7, 2020 by scruffy1

[MattyW]

25 minutes ago, scruffy1 said:

 

the source and the chain are what makes the music

 

so cd versus digital storage is not actually of any consequence if the digital storage is either a direct or lossless copy of a good source

 

i can't understand why people are so resistant to the idea that the dac (and its implementation) are the single most significant part of the system between equivalent sources and amplifier; whether that dac is part of an expensive cd player, or a stand alone "good" dac, or even a hybrid dac / amp (with an excellent dac), it's the dac that does it

 

everyone that likes their own system is welcome to do so, but denying my simplistic explanation for where the magic happens is like religious zealotry arguing over who worships the best god

 

 

in essence, no argument that a good non-compressed cd is the best source; whether you use that or a "good"  digital copy of that to feed a quality dac is of no consequence

 

I'm in 100% agreement with everything you've said here. I hear little difference between PC playback and a CD player when using the same DAC.

 

I find the DAC, and cartridge + phono stage make the biggest difference to my enjoyment of my sound system. Then again if the rest of the sound chain weren't so resolving this probably wouldn't be the case.

[Guest Muon N']

On 24/12/2019 at 8:28 PM, scruffy1 said:

 

let's be really honest, everyone supports their own biases

 

it's what fanaticism audiophilia is all about 

It's a shame you are blind to your own.