what makes a good CD player?

[hybridauth_Facebook_1501104106582061]

Whats the hardware difference between a "good" cd player and a cheap one? I don't know much about this subject and I've been wondering; I have a few hypotheses which some of you guys can either confirm or disspell... The part of reading the information from the CD shouldn't be much different: it's digital information and there are error correction steps so the information taken from the CD should be identical whether it's a cheap reader or a god reader. Maybe the better readers' optics will more easily read scratched discs or have longer longevity? Appart from that, in terms of sound quality, what else is in a CD player? DAC and pre-amp? I can see how those could affect sound quality. Are those the main difference between the bad and the good stuff? If so, why don't we have more options for modularity? (reader sold separate from DAC etc.) I'm guessing the more expensive CD players will also have more robust internal mechanisms that will last longer, generally speaking. What are your thoughts and opinions on this subject?

 

[Al ears]

Whats the hardware difference between a "good" cd player and a cheap one? I don't know much about this subject and I've been wondering; I have a few hypotheses which some of you guys can either confirm or disspell... The part of reading the information from the CD shouldn't be much different: it's digital information and there are error correction steps so the information taken from the CD should be identical whether it's a cheap reader or a god reader. Maybe the better readers' optics will more easily read scratched discs or have longer longevity? Appart from that, in terms of sound quality, what else is in a CD player? DAC and pre-amp? I can see how those could affect sound quality. Are those the main difference between the bad and the good stuff? If so, why don't we have more options for modularity? (reader sold separate from DAC etc.) I'm guessing the more expensive CD players will also have more robust internal mechanisms that will last longer, generally speaking. What are your thoughts and opinions on this subject?

To me it's quite obvious. Build quality, nature of the power supply and quality of the components and the CD drive mechanism itself. There are renown drive mechanism, well at least two. This is probably why many produce a transport only system that you can attach to a separate DAC of your choosing.

It's the same with all hifi including amplifiers, do separate pre / power sections here? Only those that have their own opinion can answer this.

Longevity of components and ability to access spare parts always enter the equation.

 

[hybridauth_Facebook_1501104106582061]

Hmmm interesting, I hadn't thought of the power supply.

By drive mechanism are you referring to the mechanisms that holds/spins and reads the disc when it's being played, and not the mechanism to load/extract CDs from the player? Does it really make a difference in sound? It somehow surprises me that it would... mostly because I'm making the link with CD readers in computers that are used to extract software from discs, and even the cheap ones have to extract it with 100% accuracy. So I thought that in the world of HiFi, both cheap and good CD players should be able to extract identical information from a CD if it is in good condition. That's just my impression and why it surprised me you mentionned there were renowned drive mechanisms, but out of curiosity what are those two that you alluded to?

 

[CnoEvil]

One of the best CDPs that I've heard was the EMC 1 UP from Electrocompaniet. A quick read-through of the specs/features tells you why:

http://www.electrocompaniet.com/products/classic/digital/emc_1_MKIV.html

It measures well, sounds great and has been very meticulously designed.

http://www.hi-fiworld.co.uk/cd-dvd-blu-ray/62-cd-reviews/188-electrocompaniet-emc-1-up.html

 

[Blacksabbath25]

One of the best CDPs that I've heard was the EMC 1 UP from Electrocompaniet. A quick read-through of the specs/features tells you why:

http://www.electrocompaniet.com/products/classic/digital/emc_1_MKIV.html

It measures well, sounds great and has been very meticulously designed.

http://www.hi-fiworld.co.uk/cd-dvd-blu-ray/62-cd-reviews/188-electrocompaniet-emc-1-up.html

take a look at the Yamaha sacd s2100 player then So Starting with the transport, the system is highly vibration resistant, including a high rigidity aluminum tray which results in quiet operation as well as fewer read errors. Similar to the A-S2100, the CD-S2100 features symmetrical construction with isolated digital and analog circuitry, down to separate power supplies. Digital to analog conversion is provided by ESS Technology’s ES9016 SABRE32 chip, which offers 32 bit processing and ESS’ patented jitter eliminator to ensure pristine sound quality. With eight channels on board, the ES9016 can also operate in dual differential mode with stereo sources, further reducing noise and distortion. Last but not least, one other nice touch is that Yamaha includes several digital inputs on the CD-S2100 (one USB, optical, and coaxial input), allowing owners to make use of the quality afforded by the SABRE chip with other sources.

That's what £2000 buys

 

[NSA_watch_my_toilet]

Whats the hardware difference between a "good" cd player and a cheap one?

An expensive cd player is not better than a cheap one in term of audio quality (when made with correct methods and components). But could be more sturdy, and has better overall components. Sometimes, maybe better service and availability of parts in the old age.

 

[chebby]

You'd think someone would know after 33 years!

 

[nopiano]

The oft cited difference between reading data for computer purposes and cd replay is this: the cd replayed is 'real time' and there is no opportunity to re-read until correct. There is error correction which will interpolate missing data caused by scratches and thumb prints, and some machines are better at this than others.

Therfore, avoiding vibrations and any other 'interference' is more important for cd use. For these reasons, many believe that rips to hard disc sound better than the original cd, because the replay is less susceptible to those instantaneous errors. Others will say that the better the replay signal, the less hard the error correction needs to work, and hence better sound.

I think someone here recently posted a picture of the insides of a (c £5,000) Naim NDX which contained a £15 cd reader as the disc drive.

 

[Al ears]

Hmmm interesting, I hadn't thought of the power supply.

By drive mechanism are you referring to the mechanisms that holds/spins and reads the disc when it's being played, and not the mechanism to load/extract CDs from the player? Does it really make a difference in sound? It somehow surprises me that it would... mostly because I'm making the link with CD readers in computers that are used to extract software from discs, and even the cheap ones have to extract it with 100% accuracy. So I thought that in the world of HiFi, both cheap and good CD players should be able to extract identical information from a CD if it is in good condition. That's just my impression and why it surprised me you mentionned there were renowned drive mechanisms, but out of curiosity what are those two that you alluded to?

One of the best was the Phillips CD M2 Pro but unfortunately this is no longer in production.

You have to remember that music CD players are reading the data from the disk in real time, however as you say just about any CD drive can read data from a disk but many are poorly built and don't last long.

 

[thewinelake.]

If some of you are suggesting that read-errors are the problem, then presumably reading a ripped CD from a USB stick or NAS should be just as good? Failing that, a second or so of buffering should do the job.

Maybe it's jitter?! ;-)

would love to blind test these things

 

[MajorFubar]

As far as I'm concerned the biggest opportunity for differences is in the analogue sections. Good clean power supply, high quality components with narrow tolerances, well-constructed circuitry with sensible signal paths. That's where it's at.

At one point I almost bought into the foo surrounding sound quality differences between transports until the penny dropped that in the digital world no difference at that end of the chain can give you deeper bass, crisper highs, better defined midrange and a wider soundstage unless the numbers extracted from the disc have been significantly manipulated by a digital signal processor, such as a digital EQ or spacial enhancer, ahead of the DAC. CDs are read under a continuous stream of errors, but Reed-Solomon error correction has been incorporated into the red-book standard since day one, and as a result, what comes out the transport is either correct or the sound skips/clicks/stutters. There are no gray areas inbetween where one transport has better bass and crisper highs than another, unless it is somehow digitally manipulating the data. The only people who think otherwise are the people who don't understand why they are wrong.

 

[MajorFubar]

If some of you are suggesting that read-errors are the problem, then presumably reading a ripped CD from a USB stick or NAS should be just as good? Failing that, a second or so of buffering should do the job.

The problem with that logic is those people are wrong to start with, for the reason I gave in the post above yours. Feel free to Google Reed-Solomon error correction