Early Philips and Marantz CDPs

[Macca]

My views on early CD and CD players is based on listening experience, listening and like a few other rushing into buying CD players. The early players had crude filters and some were 14 bit because they were rushed out. Philips did all they could to get 16 bit players as soon as they could.

My observations on sound are based on a whole range of systems including a Krell 600 monoblock wtih Wilson speakers. The speakers were closers to 4 ohms than 8 ohms so the amps could generate 1000 watts per channel so there were was no shortage of power or level. And I do listen er...loud as my neighbours can testify even though we live in a detached house.

The delta sigma based players have a dynamically flat sound but that is not true of all of them. The sound of 16 bit R2R based CD players sounds more dynamic but maybe a little cruder. But music has to be about dynamics and I will put up with a slight divergence from a perfectly flat frequency response to get more lifelike dynamics.

I agree on the differences between LPs and CDs and both to me now sound good, different but good. We can now have a good choice between the sound and the 'experience' of both formats. But a similar sound between the very early (14 bit?) CD players, the multi-bit 16 bit and delta sigma players.....no.

The 14 bit players were not rushed out. On the contrary the standard was going to be 14 bit and Sony decided to change it at a late stage to 16 bit. 14 bits gives more than adequate dynamic range for all but a few recordings, it isn't an arbiter of sound quality.

Altering the frequency response from flat won't change the dynamic range. If you are talking about 'perceived dynamics' that's different, a perception could be a result of many things.

I'm not saying that players sound the same, I have around 15 of them and they all have a different take on the music. I don't think it is possible to ascertain which aspects of the players make them sound like they do. Just because some reviewer has an opinion on that doesn't make it so. Two players could use the same chip set and sound quite different since many aspects of the design affect the presentation and the quality of the sound.


One thing I have noted (in my set up) is that regardless of the cost of the player or the quality of the engineering none of them sound aggressive, harsh or fatiguing. The budget efforts have a flatter soundstage, maybe sound a little cruder, but they don't sound unpleasant.