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justin65

pfm Member
Hello ,
I am playing CDs through my Anthem amplifier. I am using a Panasonic UB820 4k Player. I know the Panasonic player as not got the best of Dacs on board so i sent it bitstream via Optical cable into the Anthem. The panasonic is only used for transport and I heard you can have a cheap CD Player for transport as long as you feed the signal into a good Dac. I thought it would sound very good but it sounds terrible. I find the cd sound is all boxed in. No soundstage whatsoever. I then switched my pure dab radio on to compare the music. Surely it should sound terrible compared to a CD. To my surprise it sounds fantastic. Very musical I must say.
The music is disengaged from the speakers and its got a wide open soundstage and my feet are tapping. Does it mean we can pump lots of money into equipment and still not get satisfaction. Sometimes we are better off with cheap equipment to get musical enjoyment.
 
Check Panasonic audio settings as mentioned in page 28 of the manual. Make sure Sound Effects, Dialog Enhancer and High Clarity Sound are all off.
 
justin65 said:
Hello ,
I am playing CDs through my Anthem amplifier. I am using a Panasonic UB820 4k Player. I know the Panasonic player as not got the best of Dacs on board so i sent it bitstream via Optical cable into the Anthem. The panasonic is only used for transport and I heard you can have a cheap CD Player for transport as long as you feed the signal into a good Dac. I thought it would sound very good but it sounds terrible. I find the cd sound is all boxed in. No soundstage whatsoever. I then switched my pure dab radio on to compare the music. Surely it should sound terrible compared to a CD. To my surprise it sounds fantastic. Very musical I must say.
The music is disengaged from the speakers and its got a wide open soundstage and my feet are tapping. Does it mean we can pump lots of money into equipment and still not get satisfaction. Sometimes we are better off with cheap equipment to get musical enjoyment.
Click to expand...
Normally, ah'd ignore posts like this as I think DACs, optical and fancy, extra, misleading and misdirecting cables and boxes are the Devil's spawn. Simpler is better. IMO, ye should relegate yer Panasonic tae yer TV system...Ah'm sure it'll do a sterling job there. Watch TV, films dvds etc - tae yer heart's content. Buy a cheap NOS or second hand CD player like a Rotel CD 11 Tribute player. Why is it so good ? because it's a CD player...nothing else, simply that... plug it into yer pre-amp, it's a cheap but superb player , even if it was 3 times the price, it'll still gub many other players. The likes of the Rotel will never need to be fed anywhere or receive feeds either. They have more than enough juice to operate on their own ! Also, sell the DAB and buy a very good FM tuner, ye can even find some with ...shock/horror ...remotes..!.. Ye can get ones which did cost £000s, for a couple of hundred now. No, they'll never have the convenience of the electronic home but the sound will be rewardingly and infinitely better. :cool:

ps...the DAC?...BURN IT...If yev had it more than 10-12 weeks... it'll be out of date by now...😟
 
justin65 said:
Hello ,
I am playing CDs through my Anthem amplifier. I am using a Panasonic UB820 4k Player. I know the Panasonic player as not got the best of Dacs on board so i sent it bitstream via Optical cable into the Anthem. The panasonic is only used for transport and I heard you can have a cheap CD Player for transport as long as you feed the signal into a good Dac. I thought it would sound very good but it sounds terrible. I find the cd sound is all boxed in. No soundstage whatsoever. I then switched my pure dab radio on to compare the music. Surely it should sound terrible compared to a CD. To my surprise it sounds fantastic. Very musical I must say.
The music is disengaged from the speakers and its got a wide open soundstage and my feet are tapping. Does it mean we can pump lots of money into equipment and still not get satisfaction. Sometimes we are better off with cheap equipment to get musical enjoyment.
Click to expand...
Have you tried connecting the analogue output of the cd player to the amplifier?

By the way, I've always followed source first to optimise my set up, and found it a very reliable guide. I think that means the cd transport is likely more influential on musicality than the DAC.

I have found when tuning different digitalstreaming setups that the DAC quality is much less impactful than the source streamer. I've experimented with PC and Pi based streamers.
 
There's a lot more to getting satisfaction/enjoyment than just the cost of a system.

I'd be concerned if DAB sounds the best digital source you have. When I tried a quality separate DAB tuner in my system it sounded very poor, unlistenable compared to other sources, lacking detail, dynamics, soudstage, everything. Lots written on this subject at the time, many pointing the finger at the broadcasters (for pushing out lots of poor quality signals, rather than a small number of good quality ones) as opposed to the underlying technology.
 
Thanks for the tips. I have not tried the analogue out from the player because the reviewers said the ub820 was not made for the best stereo audio. They recommend the Panasonic ub9000 but I wont do that because i already have a great cd player so i dont need it. Do you think the rotel is better than the naim cds3 that i own at the moment. I find that cd player gives great sound quality. I thought that the ub820 would sound good going into a anthem Dac but as you point out the player transport itself can even effect the sound quality I heard FM is great for live classical music but its still not really audiophile grade. I found it too noisy.
 
CD players are funny old things. I have 5 disc spinners in the house and on CD alone 3 are pretty equal (Marantz Universal disc player, battleship build Denon DVD player and a fairly high end Denon CD player from the ‘golden age of CD’). The fourth, a low level Denon player from the 90’s is adequate at best but the real surprise is the fifth player which is a tatty old Philips DVD recorder which despite its slightly noisy drive, slow loading etc., sounds stunning.
 
Maybe the Anthem dac is crap. You said above you've got a Naim cd3, so why are you bothering playing CDs via the Panasonic?
 
I have checked the settings and switched video setting off. I am not going to use this cd player for stereo but I was just experimenting and wanted to know how it compared to the Naim. I thought it would play music with acceptable sound but was surprised it performed abysmally with the Anthem Dac. It seems fine with bluray movies but it just goes to show how good the Naim cd player is in comparison.
When I play blueray films through the Anthem I cant complain about the Audio. I guess its because its coming out of 5 speakers with better audio codecs.
 
Locheeboy said:
Locheeboy said:
Normally, ah'd ignore posts like this as I think DACs, optical and fancy, extra, misleading and misdirecting cables and boxes are the Devil's spawn. Simpler is better. IMO, ye should relegate yer Panasonic tae yer TV system...Ah'm sure it'll do a sterling job there. Watch TV, films dvds etc - tae yer heart's content. Buy a cheap NOS or second hand CD player like a Rotel CD 11 Tribute player. Why is it so good ? because it's a CD player...nothing else, simply that... plug it into yer pre-amp, it's a cheap but superb player , even if it was 3 times the price, it'll still gub many other players. The likes of the Rotel will never need to be fed anywhere or receive feeds either. They have more than enough juice to operate on their own ! Also, sell the DAB and buy a very good FM tuner, ye can even find some with ...shock/horror ...remotes..!.. Ye can get ones which did cost £000s, for a couple of hundred now. No, they'll never have the convenience of the electronic home but the sound will be rewardingly and infinitely better. :cool:

ps...the DAC?...BURN IT...If yev had it more than 10-12 weeks... it'll be out of date by now...😟
Click to expand...
I’m not into foo cables and just use something of the right spec for the job and will last more than five minutes… I’m not into foo jewellery either, but a better DAC is a better DAC, they most definitely don’t all sound the same, and neither do digital sources… price doesn’t always equate with performance/enjoyment though and for CD playback on a small budget, one of the best products I’ve heard (and own) on a small budget is the Rotel RCD-971, fabulously lush, musical and punchy sounding thing. It just brings music to life… mine cost me about £100. I do have better and much more expensive players but I’m loathed to part with the Rotel because should another more expensive machine fail, I’d not be at all disappointed listening to it.
Click to expand...
 
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