CD player replacement required

[StanleyB]

To add my own take on what Stan said; that may well be the case with OS level drivers for USB I/O or on-board outputs via motherboard but surely that can't also stand for semi-pro or pro level audio I/O cards and interfaces can it? That would render all studio Pro-Tools rigs down to Ableton Live set-ups pretty much a con after 25 years+ of development.

It is very much equipment and drivers dependent from what I could make out. mp3 files were the worst of the lot when it came to frequency errors.

[AlfaGTV]

Some very interesting and relevant thoughts from all contributors here! Good thread!

Like others i have resurrected quite a few CD-players with nothing more than miniscule amounts of teflon based grease for trays and CD mechanisms. And yes, most CD player mechanisms are in some way "floating", to isolate the sensitive laserplatform. Give it a try, apply some very small amounts of grease on a model aircraft paintbrush or similar and apply to all sliding parts contact surfaces.
This is often all it takes...
I sometime also try and get drive belts out and clean them thoroughly with glycerol which seems to rejuvenate natural rubber. Make sure it is proper clean before reinserting though!

Regading which sounds best, file based playback or using a CDP as transport there is no contest whatsoever to my ears. But, as someone stated, it is a true menace to get the stars to align when using a PC.
Dare i say, much more so, if you are Windows inclined?

There is, as usual, always the exception and in my experience a truly great CD-player needs to buffer the audio stream and let go of the real time playback. Thats the ticket, at least to my ears.

My own "CD" can play buffered audio on the fly, but it sounds noticeably better when i rip the CD to its internal SSD disc and play them back from their "file state".
Audio is almost up there when i feed it digital signal from a MacMini via short USB into a Gustard U10, which converts USB audio stream into balanced SPDIF (AES/EBU).
So, for me file based playback is the ticket, even if i occasionally play some discs without getting to annoyed!

[Macca]

Jitter i.e distortion caused by timing errors is well below audible levels on a CD player, and a lot lower than on a record deck. So I don't buy jitter as an sq issue.

Nor do I buy the idea that reading a file in real time should make any difference. Buffers were invented so that CD players would work in cars, or for portables whilst moving, i.e situations where vibration will cause read errors too large to be corrected, causing skipping. Error correction has no effect on the sound - it doesn't work that way.

You can't draw an conclusions about the superiority or otherwise of file/PC playback by comparing it to one CD player. CD players do vary in their SQ and presentation, quite a bit. As do music making computer set-ups. This would go a long way to explain why some are entrenched in the idea that one is superior to the other, intrinsically. In all cases the individual implementation will be the decider. My theory is that power supplies and the sophistication of the analogue output stage are what separates the wheat from the chaff, and these factors apply to both computers and CD players. Jitter, buffering, these are red herrings.

[Tony Moore]

Hi Martin,

I would very much agree with you that in all audio equipment it is the power supply and grounding that probably has the most bearing on sound quality, especially in the digital realm. What I'm not so sure about is exactly why that is. Is it RF noise from external sources? Interaction of different parts of the circuit causing current spikes and influencing other areas in unpredictable ways?

Personally I have not written off jitter as a possible cause. Jitter caused by noise on the power supply causing a small variance in the output timing of the samples. I've done a fair bit of DIY around TDA1541A DAC and using I2S from both a CDPRO2 mech and later Sqeezebox 3 and Squeezebox receiver and in all cases gating the clock and data signals through a very fast D flipflop clocked by Tent labs clock resulted in a marked improvement in SQ. Particularly bass which is a bit counter-intuitive. So for me I have not done measurements as I don't have the equipment to measure distortion, etc but I know from purely listening tests that there is something going on. Whether it's the timing of the signals being improved by the Tent clock or just simply buffering the signals and making the switching edges cleaner I do not know. However, the result of sloppy rounded clock signal would be jitter if the DAC can't get a consistent switching point.

Cheers,
Tony

[Macca]

Hi Tony

It is just a theory/hypothesis I am putting out there based on my own experiences. Jitter caused by distortion isn't something I had considered since the usual argument goes the other way i.e jitter causes audible distortion, which seems unlikely to me. It is a complicated cat to skin!

What does seem evident is that current thinking and developments in digital are not addressing these issues and are instead concentrating in other areas that are really not worth the trouble, especially if the basics have been ignored.

Most issues in audio, once you wash away the bullshit, seem to boil down to noise and distortion and reducing them. With digital my theory is that noise of all types and all sources is the main issue, the result is that it masks the sound, simultaneously making it bland and 'mushy'. But you only notice this when it is removed, otherwise you just assume it is what digital sounds like. Abandoning active pre-amplification (a potential additional source of noise and distortion) and using various players that have had attention paid to their power supplies and output stages made a big improvement on the results I was getting, hence I have extrapolated from there. As to the actual mechanism by which the noise is affecting the signal, I have no idea, that is out of my depth.

Having said all that I am prepared to accept that I am wildly wrong. But I do keep hearing things that re-affirm this theory.

[AlfaGTV]

....
Having said all that I am prepared to accept that I am wildly wrong. But I do keep hearing things that re-affirm this theory.

No Martin, you are perhaps mildly wrong!
If i gave the impression that my experience and theories are based upon only one CD/Computer playback system then i didn't make meself clear.
CD playback for me is decent enough from the standard run of the mill player in "buyable" price zones. But they are all bettered by a correctly fettled PC file playback. But perhaps therein lies the contradiction, "correctly fettled" is hard to define and i have deffo heard computer based solutions that sound like shite.
If this is about jitter i couldn't say for sure. Perhaps i am just re-affirming my theories!

What i do know is that the two best CD playback systems i've heard for any length of time, they both grab the tracks and play them back asynchronously!
They are, my Embla which rips the disc to PCM files and plays them back from SSD and then my good friends MSB Platinum DAC IV/MSB Universal Transport which also reads the CD's into a big buffer and plays the stream from there.

As always, YMMV and these are my personal experiences!
Atb /Mike

[Macca]

What i do know is that the two best CD playback systems i've heard for any length of time, they both grab the tracks and play them back asynchronously!
They are, my Embla which rips the disc to PCM files and plays them back from SSD and then my good friends MSB Platinum DAC IV/MSB Universal Transport which also reads the CD's into a big buffer and plays the stream from there.

Ah but do you know that the buffering was the reason they were good? Could it not be some other property they both have?

[cargar]

[AlfaGTV]

Ah but do you know that the buffering was the reason they were good? Could it not be some other property they both have?

Absolutely! But as a garden shed empirical researcher i tend to go for the lowest hanging fruits!

To steer the discussion somewhat back on track, my local dealer sells Exposure and have never had anything other than praise for these product, particularly their CDP's. When in need of a transport, for evaluating DAC's, he almost always gets an Exposure CDP out!
And i agree, they are well built and sound good!
But on the other hand he has yet to discover file based audio

[OD1]

Sam,
As you suggested, I opened the Exposure & greased the drawer mechanism, checked the belt & the various cogs, all ok. I checked the laser glass & this was clean. I then inserted a disk & this located ok & ran with no problems.
After fitting the cover, I noticed that when the tray was closed, I was able to move it by about 0.5mm left to right while pushing from the front, resulting in a change to the noise of the transport, but no skipping from the CD.
After removing the cover I managed to find a piccy (from a post on the Wam) & checked against my player, I could not see anything missing so looks like my cd tray is ok

After doing the above, I decided to purchase a Caiman II, (thanks Stan for the very swift delivery ).

Yesterday morning I connected it to my Panasonic BD55 blu ray player (via Coax), & even straight from cold, was impressed with what I was hearing.
To be honest, I was not expecting a £300 blu ray player (used as a transport only) to even come close to a £600 dedicated CD player, & was looking at this as a short term fix, but I could certainly live with the current combination as is

When I get the chance, I will have a listen to the Exposure via the Caiman vs the Panny, & if i hear an improvement, I will get the Exposure serviced, if not much difference I will keep the Panny & give the Exposure to my son

Many thanks to all for the excellent advice.
Oliver