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Are CDP Transports the same or similar? - NO!

radamel said:
BE,

Instead of reading TQ's webpage and measuring other cables why don't you just do an AB comparison between Tellurium Q USB and your printer cable (blind if you will)?
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Well, some very good reasons.

OK, I am pre-empting here, I am quite prepared to find I am wrong and share those findings if so, but;

I suspect their description of their cables allegedly combatting phase distortion is complete hairy bollocks.

So firstly why would I want to buy a cable that is marketed with technically inaccurate information? It shows they either dont know what they are talking about or they are deliberately taking the piss.

Secondly they cost hundreds of pounds.

Thirdly I have already satisfied myself I hear no difference betwen the jonny generic usb cables I have and another "reputable" ;) cable manufacturers, namely Wireworld, so what are Teleewhatever going to do differently?

OK, we are talking two different things here, USB and analogue, but I was immediately put on my guard by the Tellurium claims.

BTW I do think analogue cables can sound different, but there are good reasons for this, reasons that shouldnt be affecting USB in any significant way.
 
BE718 said:
BTW I do think analogue cables can sound different, but there are good reasons for this, reasons that shouldnt be affecting USB in any significant way.
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exactly.

Analog cables may sound different (within very much diminishing returns pretty quickly)

Digital cables used in some situations (e.g . spdif) could cause some issue

In digital application like USB, it's highly unlikely a digital signal could somehow corrupt the data a little or otherwise change the sound.

i.e. if it works well enough to print a document without garbage, or read/write data to a HDD, it's not going to somehow 'sound' different to another cable that does the same...

All assuming a sufficiently sound setup and dac. Sure if you buy a pound-shop special dac and it has bad noise management, some disturbance of the analog side could come from a noisy USB circuit. If problems like that exist, money spent on a better dac are where to start, not $$$ on a magic digital cable.
 
It still is. The discussion about transports sounding different has a lot to do with how DACs deal with the incoming data.

Is it the transport or the dac?

One opinion is that a usb cable makes a difference (insert spdif)


BTW, finished testing a bunch of interconnect cables and the phase didnt change one jot. Ill post the pics later. So I have no idea what Tellerium are referring to.
 
BE718 said:
It still is. The discussion about transports sounding different has a lot to do with how DACs deal with the incoming data.

Is it the transport or the dac?

One opinion is that a usb cable makes a difference (insert spdif)


BTW, finished testing a bunch of interconnect cables and the phase didnt change one jot. Ill post the pics later. So I have no idea what Tellerium are referring to.
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Just the usual BS, it's amazing people continue to fall for this guff...
 
Tellurium appear to be run by amateur marketeers rather than engineers, their PR guff looks extraordinary!

That's not to say the cables are without merit.

I actually know the engineer who invented the cable mentioned here, his explanation of what the cables are designed to do and how it is achieved is fascinating. Sadly, he is no longer involved with Tellurium (not by his choice) and I don't want to support a company run by (what in my view are) charlatans. I wont relay his explanation of the design here for that reason, nor would I think my friend would want me to.

Suffice it to say the cable in question, whilst in my opinion described with fairy tale 'explanations' by TQ's marketing dept' and being undoubtedly stratospherically priced for what it must be, does offer improvements that I've heard over standard cables. However, I won't be supporting the company (nor could I afford to at those prices).

Just a small point in conclusion, this engineer's experience is not limited to audio equipment. He has worked extensively for aeronautical companies, MOD, IBM, Hughes, NASA. He specializes in power supplies and is also a chemist. He is most certainly not a marketeer.
 
I don't think the cable has anything to do with the issues I encountered.

All of the issues with the first 2 transports disappeared when I used the Cambridge Audio CXC.

The Onkyo and Sony CDPs knocked down the performance of my entire system (Rega Osiris/Naim NBLs/Raven One TT) when they were connected through the coax cable. When I switched to an optical cable my TT playback improved, digital was slightly better. So I came to the conclusion that these CDPs were injecting noise into my entire system and the issue more than likely was impacting the transport function as well. That is why I bought the CXC, to try an affordable transport specifically designed for just that function (no internal DAC).

Then I hooked up the CXC and both my digital and TT sound improved. The improvement on the digital side was significant. I tried the CXC using the coax cable and optical cable and found no difference in performance. I'm happy :)

The quality of transports do matter! It's obviously not simply 0 and 1s.

Tried the computer path and wasn't really impressed with the results, it's still digital. Serious listening is with my TT. I just use the USB to watch movies through my laptop.
 
John Little said:
I don't think the cable has anything to do with the issues I encountered.

All of the issues with the first 2 transports disappeared when I used the Cambridge Audio CXC.

The Onkyo and Sony CDPs knocked down the performance of my entire system (Rega Osiris/Naim NBLs/Raven One TT) when they were connected through the coax cable. When I switched to an optical cable my TT playback improved, digital was slightly better. So I came to the conclusion that these CDPs were injecting noise into my entire system and the issue more than likely was impacting the transport function as well. That is why I bought the CXC, to try an affordable transport specifically designed for just that function (no internal DAC).

Then I hooked up the CXC and both my digital and TT sound improved. The improvement on the digital side was significant. I tried the CXC using the coax cable and optical cable and found no difference in performance. I'm happy :)

The quality of transports do matter! It's obviously not simply 0 and 1s.

Tried the computer path and wasn't really impressed with the results, it's still digital. Serious listening is with my TT. I just use the USB to watch movies through my laptop.
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The CXC transport as claimed by Cambridge is using a transport that only read CD (as compare to other transport like DVD player that not just read CD only) and using their own S3 servo software to optimise the data reading from CD. Would love to give it a try and compare to my Audiolab M-CDT.
 
Have a look inside the Sony and onkyo. Are there isolation transformers for the spdif? I don't think all spdif outputs are galvanically isolated. They probably should be. If not that's probably half the problem. Check out lampizators old site. Theres a whole ton of info on cd transports and the quality of the sq wave coming out of cd players. Regarding the shape of the square wave a faster rise time should produce more regular and definite triggering. I think that most logic ics don't nessesarily trigger at a precise voltage so a slower ramp is more likely to add (albeit subtle) variances in the timing that the zero becomes a one. Maybe if too slow you may even get bounce where the IC can't quite decide if it's a zero or a one. I'd imagine though you would only get that if you had particularly noisy power supplies.
 
cstanpfm said:
The CXC transport as claimed by Cambridge is using a transport that only read CD (as compare to other transport like DVD player that not just read CD only) and using their own S3 servo software to optimise the data reading from CD. Would love to give it a try and compare to my Audiolab M-CDT.
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I had been using my ARCAM FMJ DV29 CD/ DVD player as a transport into my Benchmark DAC2. After hearing the Cambridge Audio CXC in my system I sold the ARCAM which cost me £1395 ten years ago. The CXC is almost as good as my Apple iPod touch digital apple lossless files through the DAC2.
 
I have a modded Cambridge CXC and it's clearly better than an Audiolab 8200 CD that I tried as a transport.

The DAC is a Mytek Brooklyn.
 
Just thinking out loud. Is there a way to record the the digital data stream outputs of your players and compute the checksums? That should tell you immediately if there is a difference or not.


John Little said:
I recently bought a Rega DAC-R and have been trying different CDPs as transports and was curious how important the transport was in the equation. I posed this question on this forum and people directed me to the Rega Apollo-R as a transport and reported only subtle differences sonically.

Initially I used an Onkyo CDP and discovered the unit worked significantly better using the optical cable vs the coax cable. What was strange though was my system as whole improved (vinyl playback). This lead me to believe the CDP somehow was injecting noise into my system and the mechanical isolation of the CDP with the optical cable helped.

So I removed the Onkyo and tried a Sony SACD player I had in my other system which brought again more improvements.

This sparked my curiosity so I decided purchase a Cambridge Audio CXC to see if there were further improvements to be gained. I chose the CXC over the Apollo because the CXC is designed for a singular purpose vs the Apollo which is designed as a stand alone CDP as well. Thinking the simpler the design the better. I must say I'm shocked! this is like a complete CDP upgrade, lower noise floor, better tonal contrast, better dynamic contrast, deeper tighter bass and just better all around and again more improvement in my whole system and vinyl playback.

I always thought through the years my vinyl playback sounded much better when the CDP was completely disconnected from my system. This was with high end CDPs as well, are CDPs really that evil? :)
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Sure.

These were done by Qualiaphysic and included replacing the clock with a more precise one and upgrading the SPDIF interface.
 
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