Which sounds better ?

[manicm]

The cheapest CDP is better than the best turntable by technological leaps ahead.

That's patently not true, just a year ago I was auditioning some speakers where the dealer had a cheap Cambridge Audio CD deck connected - and it made a dog's breakfast with the Scary Monsters CD I mentioned in another thread. It was sibilant as hell. By substituting it with my system - same speakers remained, the sound was much better.

Make no mistake - contrary to popular belief cheap CDPs can sound pretty awful.

 

[Vladimir]

The cheapest CDP is better than the best turntable by technological leaps ahead.

That's patently not true, just a year ago I was auditioning some speakers where the dealer had a cheap Cambridge Audio CD deck connected - and it made a dog's breakfast with the Scary Monsters CD I mentioned in another thread. It was sibilant as hell. By substituting it with my system - same speakers remained, the sound was much better.

Make no mistake - contrary to popular belief cheap CDPs can sound pretty awful.

I said that in absolute technical terms, not from a person's individual perspective. Human hearing is terribly unreliable, as well as all mechanical transducers.

 

[manicm]

@Max

As a musician, would you say Donald Fagen The Nightfly and Dire Straits Brothers In Arms are well recorded?

Actually I think The Nightfly has a lot of heart, and you can hear it's a digital recording but it only enhances the album. Listening to the first side - you'd have to be pretty emotional all the time not to find any heart in it. If Becker had been involved this should have been the successor to Aja, although Gaucho does have some brilliant tracks too.

 

[manicm]

I said that in absolute technical terms, not from a person's individual perspective. Human hearing is terribly unreliable, as well as all mechanical transducers.

Yes maybe, but cheap awful CD players DO exist, and SOUND it as well.

 

[VOE]

[/quote]

Yes maybe, but cheap awful CD players DO exist, and SOUND it as well.

[/quote]

Agreed BUT price is all relative. To someone who owns a £75,000 Burmester CDP all CDP's are "cheap and awful" !

 

[manicm]

10. Supernatural by Carlos Santana

It does have soul baby!

:roll: Supernatural had a few moments, but I found it meh, and it was the product of his record boss (politely) holding a gun to his head,

 

[MajorFubar]

Truth is they haven't found a complete process from recording->duplication which doesn't distort the music to some degree. Choose the medium which has the compromises you're happiest to live with. At least with digital, the only unavoidable distortion occurs at the capturing-stage, and from that point on, the captured audio has the potential to be duplicated generation upon generation and distributed a billion times without any further corruption. Whereas with analogue, deterioration occurs in every step of the process and is absolutely unavoidable. For me, the compromises I'm happiest to live with are the digital ones. Almost universally, that means listening to CDs and recording digitally in my home studio. But other opinions are available.

An important footnote is that there is a lot of (modern) music out there which for the most part has never existed as an analogue sound to start with (obviously except vocals), having been created entirely 'in the box' using virtual sounds and effects found in Digital Audio Workstation apps like ProTools, Logic and Cubase. From a technical standpoint there is almost no benefit whatsoever to be gained from listening to such music on an LP, but of course that doesn't mean it will be less enjoyable if you do.

 

[Vladimir]

I said that in absolute technical terms, not from a person's individual perspective. Human hearing is terribly unreliable, as well as all mechanical transducers.

Yes maybe, but cheap awful CD players DO exist, and SOUND it as well.

Yup. Very cheaply executed analogue section after the DAC chip, just like with most laptops.