advertisement


Ditch CD for Blu-Ray Player?

jimbob75

jimbob75

pfm Member
Last night the missus and I were listening to a compilation CD-R through the DVD player, since my dedicated CDP, a Mk1 Roksan Caspian turns its nose up at most CD-R discs. After I pointed out how flat the sound was through the DVD player, I couldn't resist playing the same track we were listening to on a redbook CD through the Caspian, side-by-side...wow, the difference was thoroughly underwhelming..!

I had to ask the wife to do a 'blind' test for me (oh yes, those long winter nights just fly by in our house) and yes, I preferred the sparkle of the Caspian, but this is a (admittedly old - however it was serviced 3 years ago) £900 CD player against a 5 year old £70ish budget DVD player!

Either the Caspian is showing it's age, my hearing is degrading, or digital 'hi-fi' is a bloody con!

So, having wanted to upgrade to blu-ray for some time now, I'm thinking why not ditch the CDP and use a blu-ray player for audio too. Are decent modern blu-ray players good at audio? I guess I could use an external DAC but I'd really rather not bugger around with extra boxes and cables.
 
I thought the same some years back when Blue Ray first arrived on the mass market
I bought a Sony BDP-S550 with the intention of ditching a stand alone CD player, but when I tried a CD I found it seriously lacking
It performed less than my (then) Marantz CD63SE in all areas; treble thin, mid muddled, bass weak, dynamics less & sound stage restricted.
I concluded that Sony had not done much to make this a CD player, they just slotted a few chips in & wrote it up as able to play CD for the brochure specs.
The Marantz was not sold, but it was in my move to Naim period & eventually a CDX2 arrived - what a revelation that was.

But the Sony was a sonic star when playing Blue Ray & DVD music video material; e.g. David Gilmour at Gdansk is a DVD video + CD set. The DVD is stunning & in some respects the music played via HDMI to TV & TV via Toslink into the Supernait DAC is superior to the CD disk of the same recording played on the CDX2.

My advise is try it but audition with both ears long & hard
I have a feeling however you might - like me - find the answer is quite simple
 
lately on a personal project to evaluate whether tis the time to "revolutionalise" my CD collection with digital albums. have been ripping several disc versions: XRCD, LPCD45, HDCD, AMCD, SACD, Redbook, to audio file formats: flac, wma, wav.

and on the hardware. got a QED J2P (3.5mm Jack to 2x RCA) to connect iPad2 Line Out to Audiolab 8200Q. set up NAS to stream audio file Wifi to Oppo95 (or via ext HDD/thumb drive), where Oppo95 is using dedicated Stereo RCA (QED Ref Audio Evolution) to Audiolab 8200Q. Incidentally Oppo95 is using similar Sabre 32-bit audio DAC from ESS Technology, being adopted on Audiolab 8200CD/CDQ.

So far, by my aging hearing competence ;) with all these recent DAC available on most CD player (eg. Audiolab and Cambridge Audio), IMHO, with lossless digital audio file, it is possible eventually disc could be less prominent. Even with iPad2 Line Out to a Preamp sounds 'good'.

However, I tends to still like the "harshness" of music played from a disc. Digital audio based on my current setup tends to compromise on LOW (less bass), but cleaner music spolit by marginal background 'hissing' noise. The noise may be due to the ripping software.

In short, this early project does propel me to consider digitising my disc collections to ext HDD (or iPad2/iTune).

:cool:
 
I use a Sony S-370 playing through my DAC for music. Not a world of difference between it and my CD player, which will now be hitting ebay next week.
 
jimbob75 said:
I guess I could use an external DAC but I'd really rather not bugger around with extra boxes and cables.
Click to expand...

The dac can make a big difference. I've compared a £20 Tesco Panasonic player, a £100 Sony S380 and a £3k Marantz SA11S2.
The Marantz is streets ahead on analog, the Panasonic is so bad it's unusable on analog.
On digital out the Marantz (Toslink) is pretty similar to the Panasonic (coax).
The sound is different but i was amazed at how good the cheap ones are.
If on a budget i'd say get a basic decent dac and use it for your cd/bdp; an added benefit is it may well improve the sound from your computer and tv tuner.
Spotify premium can sound good with a decent soundcard and dac.
 
Thanks for the comments.

Oppo and CA look good, albeit pricey - bear in mind I shall be sharing the player with heavily thumbed Fireman Sam & Postman Pat DVDs. I do like the idea of SACD though.

Mike-B - interesting comments, and the description of the failings of DVD audio in comparision with a dedicated player chime with mine, although less pronounced than I would have liked! Question is could I live with it?

cn9601 - I'm trying to bury my head in the sand as far as ripping and computer audio is concerned, although I understand the limitations of redbook CD.

Dweezil - Would bypassing the Caspian's own dac with a 'basic' dac really improve matters? Seems a backwards step to me. My aim is to simplify, less boxes, less tweaking etc, so the idea of a universal player is very appealing. I do listen to computer audio (just basic, laptop to active M-Audio speaks or Senns) upstairs, but have no real intention of introducing it to my main system.
 
Found similar caparisons myself lately, as I sold my Rega Apollo - partly from lack of use and partly to raise much needed funds. I compared it against my Sony S550 and Mac Mini + M-Audio Audiophile USB + iTunes lossless. Yep, analogue out form the S550 is pretty basic, not a patch on the Apollo. However the analogue out from the M-Audio card comes pretty damned close. One of the main reasons the Apollo had seen so little use; it was only a bit better, the the convenience of iTunes/Spotify won over in the end.

The Cambridge Audio 650BD does look very tempting and very reasonably priced. Am I right in saying its no longer being built and superseded by the new 751BD?
 
Would bypassing the Caspian's own dac with a 'basic' dac really improve matters?

Sorry, was more thinking you could ditch that and the DVD player and use the cash towards a multiplayer.
If the dac is done correctly it should always be good in anything but a very basic player so have a listen before purchase if possible.
The Caspian dac should be fine.
Unfortunately i didn't try the Sony analogue out but i suspect that will be pretty good if you're thinking about a multiplayer but try and audition using the same settings as you plan at home.
i.e. Probably setting audio out to pcm stereo rather than using a stand alone decoder.
 
I've tried this too a while back using a Marantz 63KI as the standard.

An Asda, Toshiba and Panasonic were used along with a laptop for films and cd's.


At first, the Tosh and Panasonic seemed to sound good enough to listen to long term, but over the course of a week or two swapping between the pair and the KI it quite quickly became obvious that both dvd players had no musical soul. They playeed cd's with a bland competance.

The Marantz on the other hand played all music with a hugely better grip, more depth, width and pizzaz. Real music to listen too as opposed to background stuff with the vdv players.

The Asda special and laptop were not even a joke.

Then I changed the rules with an old but very good MF X-ACT dac.

Both the Panasonic and Toshiba were transformed into serious cd players at least as good as the KI. The laptop had no digi out so I couldn't check it and the Asda player seemed better for the few seconds I listened to it but the Mech was far too nousy for real listening.

As for films, the soundtrack got a massive boost from the dac. Clearer, bigger phatter. great stuff.

As a test the Marantz through the MF dac was different to it's own presentation, again a wider stage, a fraction more detail but perhaps not as funky. I liked both sounds.

The conclusion here?

Imo, a dac is a must if you are using a less than stellar dvd player. Flog the Caspian and get a dac.

Some of the older MF's are quite cheapish and even the new ones are not too outlandish. Along with the Rega, Arcam and the eventually to arrive, Audiolab MDac, there is a plentiful chioce.
 
So I guess it comes down to: at what price point does the quality of the blu-ray player negate the need for an external dac? Although I suppose, looking further down the line, a dac would prove more versatile should I start to utilise computer derived audio etc.

I have only vague ideas about digital connections and what one needs to make a dac speak to an amp; however my Cairn amp seems to be pretty well geared up for it. Plus it has balanced inputs, if that means 'owt useful.
 
You should have a listen to the Arcam Blu-Ray player - it makes an excellent CD player too - doubly so if you use a high quality external DAC, but it's own DAC is really quite reasonable
 
Having heard and used many of the worlds finest optical disc players over the last 25 yrs,i would have to say for pure red book playback,a dedicated cdp or transport is superior,however since the inception of higher res music became available,first via DVD,then HD-DVD/BLu-RAY,it was obvious that long term 16 bit/44.1k sampling leaves a lot to be desired.
 
jimbob75 said:
So I guess it comes down to: at what price point does the quality of the blu-ray player negate the need for an external dac? Although I suppose, looking further down the line, a dac would prove more versatile should I start to utilise computer derived audio etc.

I have only vague ideas about digital connections and what one needs to make a dac speak to an amp; however my Cairn amp seems to be pretty well geared up for it. Plus it has balanced inputs, if that means 'owt useful.
Click to expand...

Worth noting that my Sony S380 bdp has a USB input so that might well do the dac if you were to need it for a computer at a a later date.
 
if it helps....

a friend of mine has swapped his long term audiolab CDP 8000 (E) for the aforementioned CA bd player.

I have listened to it quite extensively as his sole source and must say that it sounded rather good!

Also , I have played a few CD's thru my PS3 and was shocked at how good it was, to the point I even contemplated selling my loved MF A5.
 
Thanks for the continued ideas. I have a few pals with PS3s - be interesting to listen to in my system, should be comparable to blu-ray players at that price point.
 
I have to say that I found my nephew's PS3 to be an appalling cd player :(

Just dull with no beans!

Most horribly, in quiet passages of music you could here the almighty hum from the fan or whatever it uses. :eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:

Decent bluray player though. :)

From what you seem to be saying hear the CA sounds the best bet.

I have an older CA DVD 87 and it's no slouch, perfectly listenable to with cd's and quite very good with film music and soundtracks.

I can only imagine the better specced BluRay player to be an excellent choice.
 
Oppo 95 is just brilliant for the money.

Bluray, DVD, CD, DVD-Audio, SACD all great.

Attach a hard disc to get the benefits of the Dacs in the Oppo

Whats not to like?
 
I would recommend a used Denon 3800BD either as a player or transport fed into a good DAC such as a CA DacMagic or Rega DAC. I have the latter fed by the 3800 via dig coax and in my system (Naim/PMC) was a marked improvement over a dedicated CA 840C cd player offering a more richer and fuller sound but kept the rhythm and timing in tact.

Others on here such as IWC I believe have come to a similar conclusion and I picked up a used 3800 for less than £400 recently which as a flagship blu-ray machine is superb value. These were around £1500-1800 new when released 2-3 years ago.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.


advertisement


Back
Top