[Audio Empire]

On Mon, 9 Aug 2010 17:05:12 -0700, Arny Krueger wrote
(in article ):

"Audio Empire" wrote in message


On the playback end, it was D/A converters that were not
able to do a full 16-bits linearly (early Philips players
(Magnavox) didn't even try. They used 14-bit D/A
converters and the little Magnavox FD-1000 sounded MUCH
better than the Japanese 16-bit units of the day).

The above account ignores the fact that oversampling was used to obtain 16
bit performance from 14 bit parts. For all practical purposes, the
converters were 16 bit.

No, the D/A converters were 14-bit. They used 14-bit converters because
Philips believed (and rightly so) that the then current 16-bit DACs weren't
very linear. The fact that they used 4X oversampling to achieve 16-bit
resolution is irrelevant to my statement.

The claim that there was a signficant and large audible difference has been
investigated with DBTs and found to be yet another audiophile myth.

Sorry. I had both the Sony CDP-101 and The Philips-Maganvox FD-1000, and I
beg to differ. The Sony sounded awful (still does) and the little Maggie was
much more listenable (and still is). I ended-up giving the Sony to a friend -
he didn't like it either.

They
also had really crude multi-pole anti-alaising filters
and produced, what would be considered today,
unacceptable levels of quantization error.

As a rule there are no anti-aliasing filters in playback devices. Aliasing
is only possible in ADCs and resamplers.

Nyquist requires that the upper frequency response limit of the
reconstructed waveform (the Nyquist frequency) be half of the sampling rate
and the signal at the sampling rate must not have sufficient amplitude to be
quantifiable. This means that the reconstruction filter must be very steep to
avoid there being significant signal at 44.1 Khz. Meaning that above the
Nyquist frequency (in this case 22.05KHz) cutoff needs to be as absolute as
possible leading to designs of filters with as many as six poles (before the
advent of cheap digital filtering, that is).

Some players (like the aforementioned Philips) used oversampling to lessen
the burden of the reconstruction filter (which I've always heard generally
called an anti-ailasing filter, although you are right, technically.
Anti-ailasing is used to bandwidth limit an analog signal BEFORE quantization
in order to satisfy the Nyquist theorem) by allowing said filter to be less
steep.

Therefore the statement that crude multi-pole anti-alaising filters and
produced, what would be considered today,unacceptable levels of quantization
error" is a technical impossibility.

Thus the above claim must also be dismissed as an audiophile myth on the
grounds that it is a confused misuse of technical terminology.

I'm afraid the confusion is on your end, my friend. My statement: "They
also had really crude multi-pole anti-alaising filters AND produced, what
would be considered today, unacceptable levels of quantization error." are
actually two statements linked by "and" . If I had meant to say what you
characterize above, I would have said: "They also had really crude multi-pole
anti-alaising filters WHICH produced, what would be considered today,
unacceptable levels of quantization error." But I clearly didn't say (or
mean) that.

The first
generations of Sony CD players were just terrible and
even with good, modern CDs, they sound simply wretched. I
have an acquaintance who still uses a Sony CDP-101 (the
first publicly available CD player, IIRC) and thinks it's
just fine. Of course, he's 84 and deaf as a post. Anyone
would have to be to put-up with that wretchedness!

I still have an operational CDP 101 and so does a friend. They both have are
well-maintained and sound good.

Er, it's hard to account for a reaction like that...