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I discovered that I have an old Sony CDP S7000 DVD/CD player and decided to check it out for selling. I honestly didn't know!
Connected it to a computer system which has Realtek HD audio and played a CD thru it, comparing this with a ripped PC version using Audition CS6 and Foobar as player with WASAPI output.
The Sony sounds vastly superior, with that concert hall make-believe whereas the ripped version has little life in it. Both outputs are from the same preamp into the same audio chain.
Music is BBC Last night at the Proms, with very familiar material. In fact the music thru the Sony reminds me of my recent visit to the Royal Albert, although there is a degree of hf digititise with less dynamics and sense of space and resolution etc.
As the Sony won't sell for very much, I shall now keep and use it for audio/video. No new CD player costing a couple of thousand pounds (and more) has the construction and quality of finish of the Sony. The remote itself is a luxury item.
It'll be interesting to use it to play upsampled CDs thru my dCS upsampler and various dacs.
Follow Ups:
If I understood your post correctly, you connected the Sony to your computer using the computer's built-in Realtek audio. Well, Realtek pretty much bites the big one (sucks) for sound quality.
I noted this in my review of the Berkeley Alpha DAC Serice 2, where the Realtek output sounded so disappointing that it made a proper evaluation of the Berkeley DAC difficult.
My music computer has an Intel motherboard and 2nd generation low power i3 CPU, and uses JRiver Media Center.
Happy listening.
Regards,
JerryS
Fmak-
the new breed likes computer-based audio for interface, storage (little to no physical medium) and convience. At this juncture, I am not impressed. OTOH, there is potential (someday as technology advances) for CA.
I have no time messing with tags and sorting and backing up 4TB disks and use a very simple scheme where different types of music are in different 512MB-1TB SSDs that insert into ejectable Sata slot drawers.
I also have no time messing with at least 4 remote presses to play a track and so I use a PC to execute simple play lists for background/mood listening that can be on for many hours.
I have no issue with finding a disc and pressing Play.
..."Newer vs. older technology"........ People have the natural presumption that newer is better......In the case of digital audio, I think the best sounding technology was the 1990s vintage CD players and DACs..... The Wadia 9 and Prism DA-2 still being the standard bearers.
With the exception of computers feeding external DACs via optical link, I have not been overly impressed with PC-based audio.
Edits: 08/31/14
I owned the Wadia 7/9. Compared to what is made today, the Wadia was dark sounding with a prominent bass and not very detailed.
Edits: 09/01/14
Wadias of that vintage never impressed me much. I just wouldn't buy any of them.
They sounded pretty good in 1992.
Not to me; they sounded artificially amusical, perhaps because of the tempo.
I am a CD/SACD diehard and will never give it up!
Ed Meitner Museatex Melior DAC from the 1990s.
Great pics! Duster.
I still own the Sony DVP-S7700.
I've always thought most of the hype surrounding computer audio was about the interface, storage, and convenience (if you can call ripping hundreds of CDs with titles into a PC convenient!).
Anyway ultimately the real arbiter of whether a cd sounds good is the recording values, which no upsampling is going to improve.
I was also happy with HDCD BTW.
Well said, I regard ripping as a chore, including the cataloguing and backing up that follows.
If you are looking to "improve" a "recording" via Upsampling you are probably just "spinning your wheels" with the added effort.
My contention is that the "music" you are listening to on the CD is'nt necessarily the best representation of all the musical information that was
recorded. For a lot of musical genres the low level information that never made it on to the disc is'nt significant enough to make much difference. It is a horrible miscalculation that was assumed by the Recording Industry to look at all recorded music as having the same requirements. I'm pretty sure the music I listen to was'nt "Recorded" (I know the recordings derived from analog masters & even most digital masters)at 16bit/44.1khz. If the majority of what you listen to is popular music & this is non factor for yourself it is still inaccurate to talk about CDs as being "the recording".
The crazy thing is some of the absolutely dopey things I hear from people
who have written the software/algoriths(?)about maybe just finding a better version of what I may be trying to upsample. Maybe they should stick to writing the great tools they provide me with
I've always thought most of the hype surrounding computer audio was about the interface, storage, and convenience ...
I wouldn't call it hype. Computer audio can sound at least as good as a good CDP, and even better if playing 'hi-res' music files... provided the original source material was well produced and mastered.
..(if you can call ripping hundreds of CDs with titles into a PC convenient!).
But you rip just once! And then you put your CDs away and never have to swap them in and out of a CDP every time you want to hear a particular album.
Anyway ultimately the real arbiter of whether a cd sounds good is the recording values, which no upsampling is going to improve.
True. It appears that the whole 'upsampling' craze for CDPs took place back in the 1990s. Are manufacturers still pushing that gimmick? But with computer audio as with CDs, you can't escape a poor recording.
The DVPS7000 has a switching power supply which is well shielded and implemented.
However, it didn't sound much good when connected to the same mains source as my modem. Plug it into a good filter and the sound is transformed.
I guess I don't understand your A-B setup. Are you saying the Sony CDP sounds better using its own internal DAC compared to your computer's motherboard's built-in DAC chip?
Yes to your question.
And blamed the computer audio. I can not remember that I have ever seen anyone who claimed that built-in computer analog output is as good as CD player, CDP+DAC, or Computer+DAC.
The whole purpose of using computer is to use it as a "transport" to feed a DAC.
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"One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite insane."
Actually, the question was confusing in that there were two questions, one in the title and the other in the text with the meaning of a "yes" or "no" answer going in opposite directions. This makes a simple "yes" answer useless due to ambiguity.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
I misunderstood confusing and ambiguous answer, as well as fmac's initial post. If he used the same DAC and hears so much difference toward worse, there must be some major f...-up with the setup.
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"One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite insane."
irrational post and quite stale
To summarize:
You f.. up original posts on this subject so that no one knows what you really compared.
You f.. up when you did not respond to my request to clarify what you are doing, that would really bring this conversation to the point.
You f.. up the response to Jon L'a very simple question .
You f.. up the response to my posts by calling them stale which is attempt attack me personally for my moniker.
That is on top of the actual f.. up in setting up your system, one way or the other.
I could think of a few more uses for the phrase f.. up when your post are concerned, but will refrain myself.
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"One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite insane."
and f-uped response
If you use the same DAC with two different inputs, then the reality is you are not using the same DAC. It's not the same as "apples vs. oranges" but there are different types of oranges.
The various inputs on my Mytek DAC sound different. (But then this is just my cheap "mid fi" DAC, not some kind of quality product such as a "serious" audiophile might own.)
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
You maybe are being a bit sarcastic, but you are not far off from the truth. The MyTek is indeed MidFi at best. If you don't need the volume control, the filters, and the other "pro" features it is competitive with $700 DACs.
Just once, take the time to compare it to DACs in the $3000 range you will regret owning the MyTek.
Lastly, if a DAC sounds drastically different input to input, then I question the competency of the designer. The source should be far more of an influence then the inherent quality of the input.
The Mytek is somewhat quirky. Its weakest point is the high output levels, but these are fixed by changing the jumpers for the IV resistors. The next weakest feature is the use of the stock filters that come with the SABRE chip, particularly when playing at 44.1 kHz, but all of the filter issues go away when operating at DSD128. Next comes the OP amps that buffer the IV circuit and also include the analog volume control. Since I have removed the first two problems (by changing jumpers and converting to DSD128 in my computer) this is the main issue that I have with the DAC. The first step is to avoid using the analog volume control. There is a bypass relay which takes this out of the circuit when you use the digital volume control. This eliminates most of the euphonic mid-fi distortion. There is another bonus, which is that the remaining op-amps are now being driven at a lower level and they are much more linear. The downside of this is that one loses bits of digital resolution and there is more noise. However, the SABRE chip is a 32 bit DAC and I run it around -6 to -22 dB for most playback, hence I am not losing any digital resolution, nor am I losing much noise from the DAC chip which is at -129 dB. The gain staging in my system (which uses active speakers driven at balanced pro audio levels) is such that I can not hear any sound out of any of the drivers, even if I hold my ear right up to them, regardless of volume control setting (when playing 24 bit files that have digital black or dither noise).The Mytek is a Swiss Army knife of features and has a difficult user interface that is not understandable by inmates who are computer challenged and who stubbornly refuse to RTFM. It was quite competitive at the time I purchased it. However, I doubt very much that I would enjoy much better sounding music were I to replace it, or at least, this would be about the last part of my system that I would plan to upgrade.
In general, if I had $5000 to blow, it would be on purchasing more recordings... That is about as far as I would go in any event. It makes no sense to spend more money on a DAC then was spent on the ADC that captured the original analog signal. And as to those expensive front panels, these are for those laggards who haven't figured out that life is not about having more and shinier stuff than one's neighbors. I am not in the least bit interested in Veblen goods.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
Edits: 09/03/14
You can continue to go by your own belief system, but repeating it over and over does not make it so. I understand the audiophile ostrich mentality, because finding out there something better than you own, for not that much more, can be a pain.The MyTek user interface is not that big of deal to figure out. It took me all of 15 minutes. I was lazy about adjusting the jumpers, which I did a while ago. Programming a Cable DVR is more complicated than the MyTek.
You doubt you can do better, but have not done any active comparisons to speak of, so it conveniently fits into the story you tell yourself.
Your logic in that why buy a DAC costing more than the the ADC used during the recording/conversion process is crazy. Most of the best, most celebrated recordings of our time were done with cables, outboard gear, and monitors that cost less than the average audiophile interconnect today.
With that line of thinking you could say there was no such thing as power conditioning in studios, so why bother using it today? Flawed logic.
And I assure you not all DACs costing more than the MyTek are equipped with useless thick faceplates. Most of the products in the $3000-$4000 range have functional casework that does not rattle (unlike the MyTek,lol) and front panels that are also functional. There is not enough margin for audio jewelry there. For that, see MSB, dCS, Berkeley, Briscasti, Chord, Light Harmonic etc, and they are priced accordingly.
Listen to the mid line Naim DAC and the MyTek side by side. It's like two totally different recordings being played. Everything starts with the source.
Edits: 09/03/14
tell what something will sound like.
There are many different elements, beyond just the DAC (or DACs), that go into making up the final sound of the product. The quality of the power supply, what type and if the damping materials, quality of connectors, case, etc.
Just like redbook CD players, it's not just the digital to analog conversion process that matters. It's impossible to tell that the mid-fi NAD cd player sounds like a lo-fi CD player as opposed to the mid-fi Arcam CD 92 sounds like a high end player without listening to them to compare.
"Asylums with doors open wide,
Where people had paid to see inside,
For entertainment they watch his body twist
Behind his eyes he says, 'I still exist.'"
...and that being said, I find it hilarious when folks obsess and making purchasing decisions based on DAC chips and other components that are but one element of the final product.
Sordidman,
I completely agree with your contention that you need to listen to a disc player. Some of the folks at AVS have castigated me for claiming that I prefer analog stereo from my Ayre C-5xeMP to that from my Oppo BDP-105. They claim I wouldn't be able to tell the difference in a double blind test. One guy claims all you need is a transport and a $2 DAC; after that, they're all the same.
I believe my perception, not their claims.
db
with your excellent AYRE player, as well as the OPPO.
I find it ironic that the same people who (don't listen) and then make the general claim that transports don't matter: turn around a minute later and say that the OPPO and the Ayre use the same transport and therefore sound the same.
CH of Ayre of pointed out that he looked at the ESOTERIC transport: and found it to be cost prohibitive given the level of what he wanted to achieve with the other internal components of the player.
It takes less than two seconds, (when listening through good downstream components), to know that the Ayre is TONS better sounding than the Oppo.
Cheers,
"Asylums with doors open wide,
Where people had paid to see inside,
For entertainment they watch his body twist
Behind his eyes he says, 'I still exist.'"
there is no single answer for adjusting/not adjusting them.
In the default setting, the output is screaming loud.
I too am confused still what fmak said "yes" to..
Since his Sony DVPS 7000 only has spdif output but no digital input, I am assuming he is comparing the Sony DVPS 7000 analogue output to computer motherboard's analogue output.
''Are you saying the Sony CDP sounds better using its own internal DAC compared to your computer's motherboard's built-in DAC chip?''
Yes means yes to your question. You posed, I replied, what's the problem.
He is rarely clear in his writing so it is often not possible to understand what he is saying. Others have called his posts 'cryptic'. He's gotten better over the years. Some used to call his criticisms one-liner 'hit and run' posts.
What to make of that! I have a Oppo from a few years back. It was modded by Shawn Fogg to output 24/88 (sourced from sacd)out of one its digital outputs. Whenever I compared a disc to its equivalent files via cmp^2, cmp smoked it. Wasn't even close, so much so that it was laughable. I have since migrated to JRiver MC 19.
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