What controls the tonality of a player?

Peter Larsen

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If you have a cd- or dvd-player, what controls the tonality (dynamic, flat, dark, light etc.)? I know the analog output must have something to say, but if you use the digital out with an external DAC, is the output tonality still controlled somehow by the player? Or is every tonal aspect controlled by the DAC?
 
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Anonymous

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Peter Larsen:is every tonal aspect controlled by the DAC?

Yes.
 

chebby

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Red Dwarf:
Peter Larsen:is every tonal aspect controlled by the DAC?

Yes.

No. Not in my experience.

I have heard a number of devices (DACs and CD players) all using the same WM8740 DAC chip and they all sounded different.
 

Peter Larsen

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So the player itself has not been adjusted in a specific tonal way that will always come true no matter what DAC you connect?

Its things like transport that influence the sound? How do you explain transport and how it affects the sound?
 
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Peter Larsen:
So the player itself has not been adjusted in a specific tonal way that will always come true no matter what DAC you connect?

Its things like transport that influence the sound? How do you explain transport and how it affects the sound?

I'll be surprised if you get an answer to that one. The clue is that some highly rated esoteric CD players use cheap computer style drives, which means so can you.
 

Andrew Everard

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No, the DAC - and the analogue circuitry downstream of it - will have the greater influence on the sound, to the extent that transports will sound different when used with different DACs.

The point I was making that the same DAC used with different transports, be they physical disc players or solutions involving streaming, or hard-disk or solid state storage, will also sound different, in my experience.

A lot of it has to do with the quality of digital signal being delivered to the DAC, in terms of the accuracy with which the data is read and transmitted, and the effects of jitter between digital source and digital conversion.
 

chebby

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Manufacturers offer different solutions to mechanical vibration/isolation, spurious reflections, scatter, noise, jitter, error recovery, analogue output stage, power supplies and lots of other factors.

These 'solutions' may include a 3rd party/OEM DVD transport costing a few dollars or an in-house engineered or modified design (like Rega and Naim).

Analogue output stages can incorporate opamp chips (of varying quality and price), discrete components or even valves!

Power supplies can vary depending on the quality of capacitors and transformers etc.

Component matching can be nil or painstakingly thorough. Engineering tolerances too.

Expensive light absorbent paint can be used to prevent spurious reflections/scatter or the manufacturer can ignore this and leave lots of bright shiny edges and surfaces in the effected area.

Similar arguments like "they all sound the same" or "all it has to do is turn at 33 1/3rd rpm" were levelled at turntables but despite universally accepted RIAA and (at one time) DIN 45500 standards, no-one could reasonably say all turtables sounded alike.

Two CD players from the same manufacturer can sound different and often the best ones were budget-mid priced models rather than top of the range versions.

Too many variables to simplify everything to one component being responsible for the 'voicing' of a whole player.
 

sthomas048

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this is a fascinating thread, interesting stuff.
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the nature of sound eh ?
 

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