Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater interconnects

SurinderDhoti,
Do you use the analog connection for your CD listening, or use the digital connection for both DVD and CD?
lando

At this rate of having my foot shoved back in my mouth, I'm likely to develop a complex.

In any event, I've always understood that there are so-called "clock errors" when a DVD player reads CDs (excluding higher-end DVD players), which leads to significant problems playing back 2-channel.

SurinderDhoti, do you use analog or digital connections for CD music from your DVD player? If you stick with digital, may I ask what receiver you're using (that does a better job with music)?

Randyman

the brand new Denon's do that

check it out

www.denon.com

DVD9000 (i think, not sure) is the model.. 64 meg buffer, too

That's a very good point fhw, and a local friend of mine, the stereophile, was explaining it in the same way (about the processing onboard various components).
I have yet to actually buy a dvd player and originally my thinking was to get a dual dvd/cd usage out of it so i was looking for good priced 5 disk tray dvds (specifically i had it narrowed down to the new Panasonic CV52).
However, given the fact that i didn't like the sound of my friend's Panasonic (RC32?) dvd player for music (compared against my old technics and an all-in-one denon we have in our kitchen), i started re-thinking my purchase decision.
So now i'm left with trying to find a quality single tray dvd and a cd player that will have that sound i'm looking for. I think finding the cd player will be a more prolonged search but i'm leaning towards new technology with the latest encoding chips.

Any suggestions on good names for cd players and dvds? (I was told offhand that Panasonic, Toshiba, Hitachi and Sony are relatively reliable for quality and service).

Randyman, now the question is, which cd format will be supported in the future?
SACD or DVD-A? (beta vcr or vhs vcr? sound familiar?)

We should think about moving this to another thread, but...

Cambridge Audio, NAD, and Rotel make high-value CD players that are not that much more expensive than the mass-market stuff (around $600 Canadian). If you have the extra bucks to invest, I've been auditioning a bunch of very impressive "entry-level" products from Arcam, Rega, and Myryad. Just amazing clarity and soundstaging, but they get up into the $1000-1500 Canadian range (about $700-1000 USD).

You might think about taking your receiver into an audio shop and A/B auditioning the CD players, or leaving a deposit/credit card # and taking two players home to test with your system. Good dealers will usually let you do this.

chesseroo,

If I could predict THAT - then I'd be the next Bill Gates!!!

Audio/video history is full of this sort of thing:
Fortunately we in North America only had 2 major formats competing for video. Europe had 3!

In audio we went thru quadraphonic sound with QS and SQ matrix plus CD-4 discrete records. We had 4 and then 8 track, open reel tape (2 serious sizes), cassettes, elcasettes, two different digital cassette formats... (I could go on, but you get the idea)

After having been (ultimately) burned on the Beta vs VHS thing, I can say without a doubt, that quality is NOT the ultimate issue for competing formats. Marketing, licensing, and profits are the deciding factors (for the manufacturer). Convenience, price, and compatability seem to matter most for the (mass market) consumer.

I read a head to head test several months ago of the two new high end audio formats (I think it was Audio Review magazine - but not sure) Seems there is no clear winner (at least right now) but it looks like more companies are supporting DVD-A with their products. Once again it seems it's Sony (SCAD) against (almost) everybody else. What bothers me most is incompatibility. SACDs won't work on normal CD players.

But ultimately I see it all as a chance to sell more (new and more expensive) hardware AND incorporate very sophisticated anti-copying schemes into the hardware/software. The record companies really HATE those mp3 files ripped from "their" CDs! And companies like Sony and JVC (i.e. in the family of Matsushita/Panasonic/Techniques) are big into both the music business AND hardware manufacturing.

Sigh...... we little people will NEVER win!

Randyman

And if only the formats would stop there...but they don't.
THere is the big dvd-rw vs. dvd +rw
and of course we can't forget our all favorite HT encodings:
DTS
DTS 6.1
Neo
Dolby digital 5.1
etc etc etc

Just one suggestion, Chesseroo; don't deny yourself the convenience of a multi-disc cd/dvd player thinking that somehow a single-disc player would have better sound. This is yet another of the audio mythologies which are floating around.

I don't think it was a 5disk vs. single tray that was the issue but more that a dvd player may not be as well 'tuned' towards audio playback than a dedicated cd player.
We discussed a bit the other day about starting to compare DACs onboard the dvds, cdplayers and receivers to see if by specs any were truly lopsided in their potential performance.

I will probably give the Panasonic another try but with the analog connections to test out the DAC onboard that unit since last time it was really the Onkyo receiver DAC i was listening to.

I think a whole new thread on this topic should start up. I would be interested in knowing what others are using for dvd or cd player combos.