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How good a cd player do I need?

DimitryZ said:
This thread is worse than the MQA thread! I honestly didn't think that was possible.

I have gone through many digital phases, including transport/DAC for many years. Transports did sound different at that time. I even owned a belt driven transport and an Audio Note filterless DAC!

The best all-in-one used to be OPPO UDP-205, before they sadly left the business. It now fetches far higher prices, but is still highly competitive at anything other than crazy money. Does every kind of video/audio disc and is an awesome DAC as well. MQA capable with firmware updates.
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Aside from your personal experience (which cannot be denied) of the tranports sounding different it is highly improbable that they actually sounded different. A thought experiment: if I contacted a designer of transports and wanted him/her to design a transport which sounded darker than my current one - but not too dark - how would he/she go about it?
 
leroyd said:
For what it is worth, my wife prefers the sound of her google nest mini than my system costing 25 grand.
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That doesn't mean either of you have poor hearing. There are so many things at play. I think it's important to realize that hi-end Hi-Fi is a hobby and is totally unnecessary for musical enjoyment. Most people know this and are puzzled by the audiophile's reluctance to admit it.

We don't need to have a Hi-F system spell everything out for us. We instinctively know what people and instruments sound like and our brain fills in what is lacking when we listen to music on more basic replay systems. You remember rocking out to the cheap stereo in your bedroom as a kid? The music in the car? A portable radio in the shed or garden? As long as the basics are straight our brain fills in the blanks and tells us there are real artists somewhere behind the veil.

Ironically, a 'better' system can actually make things worse. Because it lets you hear so much more it, becomes harder to hide the fact that you are listening to a recording and not real people. Some systems are worse in this regard than others but this is why a simple system can play any disk while 'better' systems sound terrible on poor recordings.

Your eyes do a similar thing. You have a blind spot in your vision and most of it is monochrome but you don't realize it because your brain fills in what is not there. It's quite remarkable.

So it's not weird that your wife is happy with her simple system. It's us who are the oddities. We spend large sums of money on music systems that are at the end of the day, pointless.
 
Octavian said:
Aside from your personal experience (which cannot be denied) of the transports sounding different it is highly improbable that they actually sounded different.
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I'm sorry but it's you who are blinded by your own bias. There are well understood technical reasons why transports, DAC and CD players can sound different. It's not our fault you are ignorant of what they are. We just have to suffer your incessant whining because you'd rather be doing that than spending the time learning something which might necessitate admitting that you're wrong.
 
Mr Pig said:
That doesn't mean either of you have poor hearing. There are so many things at play. I think it's important to realize that hi-end Hi-Fi is a hobby and is totally unnecessary for musical enjoyment. Most people know this and are puzzled by the audiophile's reluctance to admit it.

We don't need to have a Hi-F system spell everything out for us. We instinctively know what people and instruments sound like and our brain fills in what is lacking when we listen to music on more basic replay systems. You remember rocking out to the cheap stereo in your bedroom as a kid? The music in the car? A portable radio in the shed or garden? As long as the basics are straight our brain fills in the blanks and tells us there are real artists somewhere behind the veil.

Ironically, a 'better' system can actually make things worse. Because it lets you hear so much more it, becomes harder to hide the fact that you are listening to a recording and not real people. Some systems are worse in this regard than others but this is why a simple system can play any disk while 'better' systems sound terrible on poor recordings.

Your eyes do a similar thing. You have a blind spot in your vision and most of it is monochrome but you don't realize it because your brain fills in what is not there. It's quite remarkable.

So it's not weird that your wife is happy with her simple system. It's us who are the oddities. We spend large sums of money on music systems that are at the end of the day, pointless.
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How very, very true.
 
Octavian said:
What are the well understood technical reasons for transports sounding different?
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If you want to know you can do what I did and go and research it yourself. I've got better things to do than waste hours of my time explaining things to someone who doesn't even want to know and who contributes nothing of worth to my life.
 
Mr Pig said:
That doesn't mean either of you have poor hearing. There are so many things at play. I think it's important to realize that hi-end Hi-Fi is a hobby and is totally unnecessary for musical enjoyment. Most people know this and are puzzled by the audiophile's reluctance to admit it.

We don't need to have a Hi-F system spell everything out for us. We instinctively know what people and instruments sound like and our brain fills in what is lacking when we listen to music on more basic replay systems. You remember rocking out to the cheap stereo in your bedroom as a kid? The music in the car? A portable radio in the shed or garden? As long as the basics are straight our brain fills in the blanks and tells us there are real artists somewhere behind the veil.

Ironically, a 'better' system can actually make things worse. Because it lets you hear so much more it, becomes harder to hide the fact that you are listening to a recording and not real people. Some systems are worse in this regard than others but this is why a simple system can play any disk while 'better' systems sound terrible on poor recordings.

Your eyes do a similar thing. You have a blind spot in your vision and most of it is monochrome but you don't realize it because your brain fills in what is not there. It's quite remarkable.

So it's not weird that your wife is happy with her simple system. It's us who are the oddities. We spend large sums of money on music systems that are at the end of the day, pointless.
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what a good post and no trace of rancour...I agree with nearly everything you have mentioned. Us the oddities need something to do, which we still have control of? So hifi fills the gap quite nicely! This perhaps is the point of hifi? With our worsening hearing and buying expensive hifi equipment seems absurd to sensible people..but they don't know the feeling of getting a new cd player etc and playing it for the first time! Or the simple joy a new set of cables can bring to the hifi experience..its a strange alchemy that only us the oddities know about! And those sensible people have no idea about this and in my opinion its their loss...
 
Mr Pig said:
That doesn't mean either of you have poor hearing. There are so many things at play. I think it's important to realize that hi-end Hi-Fi is a hobby and is totally unnecessary for musical enjoyment. Most people know this and are puzzled by the audiophile's reluctance to admit it.

We don't need to have a Hi-F system spell everything out for us. We instinctively know what people and instruments sound like and our brain fills in what is lacking when we listen to music on more basic replay systems. You remember rocking out to the cheap stereo in your bedroom as a kid? The music in the car? A portable radio in the shed or garden? As long as the basics are straight our brain fills in the blanks and tells us there are real artists somewhere behind the veil.

Ironically, a 'better' system can actually make things worse. Because it lets you hear so much more it, becomes harder to hide the fact that you are listening to a recording and not real people. Some systems are worse in this regard than others but this is why a simple system can play any disk while 'better' systems sound terrible on poor recordings.

Your eyes do a similar thing. You have a blind spot in your vision and most of it is monochrome but you don't realize it because your brain fills in what is not there. It's quite remarkable.

So it's not weird that your wife is happy with her simple system. It's us who are the oddities. We spend large sums of money on music systems that are at the end of the day, pointless.
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If you enjoy ‘Music’ it doesn’t really matter what you hear it on. It kindles passion, memories and wistfulness from wherever it flows. If you enjoy ‘Hi-fi’ it’s a different thing.
 
Mr Pig said:
Ironically, a 'better' system can actually make things worse. Because it lets you hear so much more it, becomes harder to hide the fact that you are listening to a recording and not real people.
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When I first became interested in hi-fi as a teenager I read an interview in one of the mags with a guy who had an incredible system (complete with cable risers!). The thing that really struck me was that he said he couldn't enjoy 95% of (classical) recordings because they weren't recorded well enough for his system.

I was mostly listening to hardcore punk and death metal at the time, much of it gloriously lo-fi. I remember thinking how awful it would be to feel I couldn't listen to it because my hi-fi was too 'good'.
 
paulfromcamden said:
When I first became interested in hi-fi as a teenager I read an interview in one of the mags with a guy who had an incredible system (complete with cable risers!). The thing that really struck me was that he said he couldn't enjoy 95% of (classical) recordings because they weren't recorded well enough for his system.

I was mostly listening to hardcore punk and death metal at the time, much of it gloriously lo-fi. I remember thinking how awful it would be to feel I couldn't listen to it because my hi-fi was too 'good'.
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Classic case of distraction by hifi.
 
Mr Pig said:
That doesn't mean either of you have poor hearing. There are so many things at play. I think it's important to realize that hi-end Hi-Fi is a hobby and is totally unnecessary for musical enjoyment. Most people know this and are puzzled by the audiophile's reluctance to admit it.

We don't need to have a Hi-F system spell everything out for us. We instinctively know what people and instruments sound like and our brain fills in what is lacking when we listen to music on more basic replay systems. You remember rocking out to the cheap stereo in your bedroom as a kid? The music in the car? A portable radio in the shed or garden? As long as the basics are straight our brain fills in the blanks and tells us there are real artists somewhere behind the veil.

Ironically, a 'better' system can actually make things worse. Because it lets you hear so much more it, becomes harder to hide the fact that you are listening to a recording and not real people. Some systems are worse in this regard than others but this is why a simple system can play any disk while 'better' systems sound terrible on poor recordings.

Your eyes do a similar thing. You have a blind spot in your vision and most of it is monochrome but you don't realize it because your brain fills in what is not there. It's quite remarkable.

So it's not weird that your wife is happy with her simple system. It's us who are the oddities. We spend large sums of money on music systems that are at the end of the day, pointless.
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Agree for the most part. I probably enjoyed music more back in the 70's on my crap Sony TT than I do now. The money had to be hard earned to afford an LP, unlike the convenience and comparatively cheap as chips way we can access recordings nowadays.
The first time I heard DSOTM on that crap TT, will always be etched in my mind. I worked my socks off to get the cash to buy that and many other LP's
However my system means so much in terms of what I need nowadays to enjoy music. The soundstage on offer from the google nest does not cut it for me.
 
Octavian said:
The SOS article is full of FUD and idle speculation, with very little actual evidence.
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Hugh Robjohns has been the technical editor of one of the world's best selling pro audio magazines for 24 years. Prior to that he taught at a BBC technical training centre. I've always found his writing insightful and FUD-free.
 
paulfromcamden said:
Hugh Robjohns has been the technical editor of one of the world's best selling pro audio magazines for 24 years. Prior to that he taught at a BBC technical training centre. I've always found his writing insightful and FUD-free.
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Indeed. Maybe this article is an exception.
 
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