Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Stereo Auditioned CD Player in my HT last night

I don’t get all that worked up over these debates. I just know what I know and what I’ve heard and seen.

That being said, in my case…

I have two Sony mega changers and one Integra 8.5 universal player. They are all feeding my Rotel Pre/Pro analogue inputs. I’ve done this time and time again for myself, and anyone else who cares to listen. When I play the same CD in the Integra, it sounds better. I’ve actually taken disks with scratches on them, played the track with the most noise on the Sony, then in the Integra. The Sony will skip, stutter, and sometimes not play the track at all. The Integra plays it just fine. I've also swapped good sounding disks back and forth for freinds and they've always been able to tell a difference.

Is this imaginary?? Fantasy? Ignorance? Or just wishful thinking on my part?? Maybe….but I doubt it. I’m not an audiophile and if I can tell a difference, any of you serious listeners surely can tell a difference.

Shawn, thanks for backing me up. Just to explain, I initialy was talking about other forums , not this one and therefore was not calling anyone names. Perhaps I could have written a more accurate post, i didn't think it was going to be taken so literally.

Anyway, if I have offended anyone, my apologies.

Chris

My comment was a general one in that I notice in these discussion alot of comments about digital connections vis a vis analog and which one sounds better. All digital signals need to be converted to analog somewhere in order for us to hear sounds.

If all we are using dvd/cd players as transports (ie digital read of the disk and digital transmission to a processor) there should be no difference at all since the processor is doing the digital to analog conversion not the players. If we compare two identical players and use one as a transport and connect the other by rca or XLR cables, it is possible there could be a sonic difference if the DAC chip in the player is different than the one used in the processor and secondly depending on how well the player or processor minimizes distortion or other interference from internal power transformers or RF from internal circuitry.

Similarly if we connect two different players side by side and use similar analog connections into the same processor it is possible to hear a difference because of there different engineering and specs. We would be relying on the players chips and circuits to convert from digital to analog sound. There should be no difference if we use digital connections to the processor since we are bypassing the player DACs.

So if you are happy with the sound of your receiver/processor it is a waste to buy anything other than a cheap player or use anything other than a dvd player .

I hear things in binary.

John,

I’m wondering if the transport can / can not make a difference though. I know for a fact that it does in video, but what about audio??

For example. Some of the video purists modify dvd players with a SDI connection to where the raw 480i data is pulled off the disk directly and then sent to the downstream video processor. The guys who do these mods search high and low for a dvd player with great MPEG decoder. A few of the older Panasonics are on their short list for this mod (and others).The new Oppo 981 and 970 are also being touted as having great decoders (they share the same decoder whereas the 971 had something different). I’m actually considering having a guy do this modification to a 981 I have. I bought a 970 because it was one of the very few dvd players that have true 480i via HDMI to send to my video processor. But I recently found out that it doesn’t send a raw data stream. The 970 sends 480i at 4:4:4 and the data on the disk is 4:2:2, so the machine is doing something to it.

So taking that into consideration, wouldn’t the same logic apply to audio?

You raise a good point Mike, one which I have seen before. It reminds me of the long threads about whether you get less artifacts with 8 bit 4:4:4 processing or 10 bit 4:2:2 processing. I think I've developed a permanent squint looking for the difference but I've convinced myself there are fewer problems with 10 bit.

I can see the difference between MPEG decoders. On the Oppos, hdmi720p using the FL2310 decoders in the 971/981 looks better with less grain and artifacts than the Mediatek decoder in the 970 at same resolution. I've played with all the Oppos and looked closely at them on my 720p projector and 1080p display. Where do you want to do the interlacing and upconverting, at the player or in the display? Same issue we were discussing above with audio and with the same answer, it depends where you have the better chip, circuitry and processing.

I know people concern themselves with jitter and loss of data in digital transmission but I doubt that's an issue with the better designed players, dvd or cd. Most of the internal firmware in these things has sophisticated error correction algorithms to deal with that potential problem, so how many ones and zeros can you possibly lose anyway? In that regard, I had fun with some fellow audio enthusiasts last winter to see if we could hear or see any difference with uncompressed copied cds/dvds. Needless to say no one could tell the difference and the guy who swore he could tell the difference ended up buying the drinks.

Whether the Oppo mod is worthwhile depends on how good your display is at video processing. Most good players like the Oppo have better chips/processing than most 720p/1080i displays I have seen. On the other hand if you use a 1080p display or plan to buy one eventually, it may be more productive to let the display upconvert to 1080p and run the 970 at hdmi480i.

While it may not be representative, I thought the upconverted 970 hdmi480i image wasn't as good as the the 971/981 hdmi720pimages. That was also confirmed when my ISF guy scoped the 970 hdmi480i with his accupel and there were some strange jiggles on his test patterns that weren't there at other resolutions. So I sold it.

I'm about to spring for a Toshiba hd-dvd XA2 because Toshiba has implemented that killer Gennum chip into its processing.

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