In article ,
"Dave C" wrote:
"Trevor Wilson" wrote in message
...
On 11/18/2012 2:17 AM, Andrew Haley wrote:
snip
**You'd think. I sure did. Recently, I enlarged my workshop to include a
listening room, using high quality speakers and amplification. For some
time I've been using a Harman Kardon HD970 CD player as my main source. It
is an exceptionally good player, which also happens to be quite versatile.
A few weeks back a client sent a Marantz CD80 in for service and
modification. After a lens clean and lube I put it in my system for a
quick listen. WOW! A 23 year old player comprehensively beat my relatively
recently manufactured HK player. The difference was not measurable that I
could ascertain. Yet the sonic difference was certainly noticable (FR,
THD, et al were all beyond the limits of audibility). I replaced the
ancient 5534 OP amps with AD825 chips. No measurable improvement.
Sound-wise, I couldn't reliably hear any difference either. The client
claimed that there was a difference and he was happy.
Why did the Marantz sound better than the HK? Dunno.
The HK uses completely different DACs to the Marantz and a discrete
transistor output stage. I certainly did not expect the Marantz to provide
a superior sound to the HK. It's 23 years old! I expected that, at best,
there would be no audible difference. At worst, I certainly expceted the
HK to beat the Marantz.
--
Trevor Wilson www.rageaudio.com.au
For reasons of sanity I have stopped asking too many questions about the
why. For years I have been an advocate of the if you can really hear it you
can measure it camp - conditioning from 30 odd years in engineering..
And, if it measures different, it can sound different. Most DACs do
measure differently. These measurement differences are not so much
things like frequency response and distortion + noise (which tend to be
very low, and usually below the threshold of hearing. but are things
like the undithered sinewave waveform shape, jitter spectrum, impulse
response, etc. If you look at the test data in Stereophile for the
DragonFly vs (in the same issue Oct., 2012) the ubber-expensive MSB
Diamond DAC IV, it's easy to see that the MSB measures much better (it
ought to be perfect, it costs THAT much!).
However the blatant differences in things like CD players suggest either an
equally blatant disregard for the basics, or a deliberate "sound" design
(sic).
I sort of doubt the latter. Eventually, somebody is going to test it,
and any chicanery applied to a DAC to purposely alter its frequency
response from flat or a purposeful introduction of some kind of
distortion component is going be noticed. As for the former, That too
doesn't seem too likely, but could happen is very cheap players, I
suppose (although I would expect that really cheap players would do the
entire enchilada with a standard, off-the-shelf chip sets and
"cook-book" circuit topology.
I only listen now - not interested in the spec sheets, I can hear anything I
need to and once I've chosen one, get on with enjoying the music.
Good ploy. There's aways something better out there, and if you're the
type who are always stressing over the possibility that you don't have
the latest or the greatest, then I suggest that you are listening to the
music, you're listening to the equipment, and that's pretty much a
perversion of this hobby in my estimation. I say, buy the best you can
afford and enjoy the music that equipment pumps out.
Just have to occasionally beat into submission the little voice that starts
to say "but they should sound the same!!"
Again, a good idea. No matter how great the differences between two
components - even speakers, once you have chosen one and start to listen
to it, the differences that you might have noticed when comparing one
against the other quickly become irrelevant and the components that you
chose soon become merely your system and it sounds like it sounds and
that sound becomes the right sound (unless you have purposely bought
junk, in which case, you probably don't care about sound anyway).
Dave