analog CD sound
- Thread starter Rushboy
- Start date
Julf
Facts are our friends
Is this a repetitive cyclic argument, or just a particularly bad straw man?
Julf
Facts are our friends
Salamander
pfm Member
Since you're in Germany you could look for Accustic Arts. I looked on hifi shark and came up with this. https://www.quoka.de/hifi-audio-tv-...225a260227673/accustic-arts-player-es-mk.html
flatpopely
Prog Rock/Moderator
Or you could answer the question.
Hi.
A CD player can sound more analogue, due to much lower noise floor and much higher dynamic range.What I think you are referring to is euphonic distortion, or medium-specific distortion. Unlike tape or vinyl, digital files do not have a “sound” until they are converted to analogue.
A lot of people do like vinyl sound though. “The medium is the message.” ...
Digital artefacts are far more grating and noticeable than analogue ones, vinyl sounds “nice”, but jittery or badly filtered / upsampled digital to analogue conversion can sound flat, glassy, hard etc. Get rid of those artefacts, and then we have analogue sound.
Julf
Facts are our friends
To answer your question - no, not all CD players sound the same. Some don't have modern buffering and re-reading, so have to "fake it" if they came across unreadable sections of the CD. Others have analog stages that are "voiced" on purpose. Some even have tube buffers to add noise, coloration and distortion.
Julf
Facts are our friends
Fortunately those are pretty much a thing of the past.
Mullardman
Moderately extreme...
When I can muster sufficient strength to overcome my vinyl snobbery and abandon my Orbe SE/Audiomods S5/DV17D3 for a moment.. I still find that my venerable and unmodified Rotel RCD 965 BX sounds nicely smooth and analogue..ish.
Darren L
Egalitarian
+ 1 for the Rotel, great sounding CD player, Meridian also sound good, Rega as well
Chefren
pfm Member
I have a Rega DAC-R which supposedly is similar sounding to the Apollo. I'm pretty happy with it. If the disc/file being played is taken from an analogue source and mastered to sound authentic, the result I get out of it doesn't have any digital artifacts. If the disc/file sounds like crappy remastered digital, the Rega won't hide that fact either. In any case it doesn't sound like when I play vinyl on my record player and I don't think any DAC or CDP will.
If the target is to provide a warm, slightly fuzzy and comfortable sound that will hide some of the issues with badly mastered records, try to find some NOS DAC with tube output or similar arrangement. Unfortunately the Naim has no digital output, so you can't just plug such a DAC in and switch between that and the player's analogue output depending on the record. But maybe such an arrangement with two options is what you want in the end?
I'd try something from Audio Note like https://www.audionote.co.uk/dac0-1x, but don't buy blind. I didn't hear any AN DACs in my own system so don't take this as a recommendation, only as a tip on where to start looking.
I think you'll find the apollo sounds great, but whether it sounds better than your cd5i on the 'sometimes annoying' recordings is i'm going to suggest, unlikely. The sad reality is that the variation in quality of different CD players once you've hit those sorts of prices is very minimal, as they are all basically implementations of DAC reference designs which measure equally well. Sure, there are differences that you can spot with the right measuring equipment, and something about the rest of your kit might make one difference audible in the right conditions, but i'm going to suggest the real issue is the content you are playing.
The variations in recording quality completely trumps variations in CD players. Chances are the 'bad recordings' are 'bad recordings' and you are hearing them with your equipment, and the only way to avoid this is to listen with *worse* equipment
My advice would be to stick with what you have, and adjust your expectations. Don't avoid bad recordings, enjoy them for what they are. If a punk band in the 70s threw out a recording in a day, it's not going to sound like the LPO in Abbey Road studio 1, and should be enjoyed as the slice of history and attitude that it is.
Seanm
pfm Member
I had a Rega DAC and now have an Exposure 3010S2. I mostly listen to records and the Rega was the first digital source I heard that I really liked (not that I'd heard many). I'm not sure it has the main quality I associate with records (a kind of exaggerated separation of instruments) but it didn't sound flat and glassy, which my previous CD player had. I actually had a hard time getting my analogue sources to sound as good as the Rega. I only replaced it with the Exposure to cut back on boxes. The Exposure is leaner, cleaner and possibly more 3D sounding than the Rega - better, really, but the Rega was as good as I needed digital to be. I understand the Apollo sounds very similar.
maverick20
Active Member
+1 for Meridian 506.24 and for me the 1st player (I have had others) that sounded analogue, I should sell it as I've ripped all my CDs but I still love it and it's built like a battleship with a proper mech, gathers nice comments when demonstrated.
but I should sell it really <sigh>
Hi.
Digital files do have a sound and it is usually described with a four-letter word...
Julf
Facts are our friends
GIGO?