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I was using my old Bryston BCD1 cd player as a transport, feeding the dac
in my PS Audio Stellar Gain Cell Dac/Preamp. The Bryston died, as I wrote
below, and I replaced it with a Cambridge CXC V2 cd transport.
The difference in sound quality is startling. With the Cambridge in place,
sound is tighter, better defined, instrument placement is more focused,
musical depth is greater, and I can more easily listen at louder levels
for longer periods of time. I do not understand how all this is possible
with just a change in transports, but I am quite happy about it.
Whether or not you can observe a thing depends upon the theory you use. It is the theory which decides what can be observed. - Albert Einstein
Follow Ups:
Hi,
It must be understood how Audio CD (as opposed to data CD) works.
It includes a basic CRC Code (to check data integrity), but no data redundancy, which would allow misread data to be reconstructed. If a "bad" word is detected it is "interpolated" from the last good and next good word, there is no attempt to re-read the data (as it would be with a Data CD) or reconstrut missing data.
The CD is a thin sliver of plastic and can deform as a result of being exposed to external acoustic waves, other vibrations or even tolerances in the drive mechanism.
While the laser system can track some of this, there are limits. The typical low cost linear drive systems with geared systems include "slack" and are especially limited. The old Philips Swingarm mechanisms were much better in this respect.
Once the CD is enough out of focus, the data will read incorrectly. Data will be interpolated. When we did the AMR CD-Players we had to look into this in more detail than I cared to learn about.
This explains the result of many mechanical tweeks, be it Teak VRDS or Pioneer Stable Platter mechanism, C.E.C Belt drive with a huge heavy clamp, they cancel many of the mechanical issues and prevent mis-read data and thus "interpolated data" which is not what was there originally.
The second element is the clock. A crystal oscillator can be "pulled" away from the nominal frequency a considerable degree by changing the power supply voltage.
Many transports and CD-players power the clock from the power supplies that also power the CD Processor IC, and even motors and servos. You can see the modulation of the clock power on a good oscilloscope, it's enough to mess up the jitter performance of the clock, even if with a clean power supply it would be adequate.
So the clock should have a really stable, low noise power supply that has at least a separate winding, better separate transformer to power it, so it is isolated completely from the rest of the circuit.
The third factor is the actual SPDIF Output stage. The quality of these varies widely. Actual output impedance, stability of output impedance with frequency, cabling etc. make a big difference on the recovered jitter.
Ideally the SPDIF signal is reclocked directly at the output jack using our super clean clock and then suitably adapted to correct levels and impedances within a few mm of the BNC jack (RCA Jacks are not as good on impedance match).
Which brings us to cable and DAC. Ideally a DAC should be designed to reject all source clock jitter on the SPDIF input. It is possible to do this, but rare (it's somewhat non-trivial, having done it several times on different hardware platforms).
In reality receiver chip, actual physical interface, connectors etc. play a role. Impedance mismatches cause excess jitter on the recovered clock, as does degraded waveform etc. Some times a cable with a "wrong" impedance actually works better than the correct impedance, because it actually matches the real circuit better.
So, in something that should be "in theory" a reliable and purely digital "It's all numbers right?!" pathway there is a huge amount of actually ANALOGUE and MECHANICAL problems which if unaddressed mess up our pure numbers.
Before switching to PC and USB as digital source (which has another set of problems, though most much less severe than SPDIF) my preferred transport was a modified Pioneer first generation DVD Player.
The DVD Player stored the data fromm the CD in RAM, it was reading the CD to immediately fill the RAM buffer to max and was able to attempt re-reads in case of CRC errors. This dealt with most mechanical issues in a cheap and easy way.
The output in the original design was reclocked and was transformerless and buffered by a discrete buffer, basically a video circuit almost exactly the same as the analogue video outputs and the waveform was exemplary.
The modifications were a new "super-clock" (for 44.1kHz CD Replay only) with it's own transformer and power supply and a new analogue stage (discrete, LC Audio) also with it's own power supply and transformer for the on board Legato Link DAC which I rather liked the sound and BNC connectors for Audio & Video.
It was the best transport for CD I found, and it ruled at many an audio meet. IIRC the unit new was 399 UK Pound, but I bought it discounted. The Video performance was also rather nice. For 480p SD TV.
Thor
At 20 bits, you are on the verge of dynamic range covering fly-farts-at-20-feet to intolerable pain. Really, what more could we need?
This may be tangential, does anyone know how Naim managed to get the sound they did out of their early CD players? I'm trying to remember the model number, CD2 or CD3 I think, saw one on Audiogon that sold in an hour. All the ad said was PRAT in a box. Which was a good description, those players sound like the pace of the sound was changing, in a good way.
It is clear by listening that there are better and worse transports. With a desire to increase production and reduce prices, unsurprisingly quality has decreased in many cases since the golden age of audio. No matter how much you electronically post-process a poor data stream, you have a poor data stream. GIGO Upsample, filter, enhance - you are just moving away from the intended signal and sculpting the output to make it more 'enjoyable'.
Use the wine analogy as to why the sound difference is not apparent to some. Some can't taste the difference, so why in the world would someone buy expensive wine?? Well, because others can, and enjoy the difference. Nothing wrong with the ones that cannot - a classic cheap date. Absolutely no need to pour expensive wine into them. They get great enjoyment out of anything, and that is actually a great, and fortunate, attribute.
Others might not have been fortunate enough to hear a system with great components and a great DAC. Perhaps they might notice a difference.
The cd clocking system was essentially mechanical in that the clock timing accuracy was based on the accuracy of the signal from the spinning disc. This gave rise to the overbuilt drives like the TEAC VRDS and the Accuphase/ Sony units. The stream from the laser read was the clock timing, so the speed of the disc and other mechanical considerations, like vibration truly mattered. A traditional cd system had to start at one speed (500rpm), then slow down as it played from the center radially outward to the outside edge (250rpm) in order to maintain a constant data rate. It was a complicated way to clock a signal and was completely dependent on the quality and speed accuracy of the motors, rational speed control circuits and the sleds. Its a miracle that it ever even worked well, frankly.Modern cd transports use computer data drives that are clock-independent from the signal data stream. Instead, data is read out in chunks into a large data buffer, then clocked out in a stream by a dedicated circuit which then provides the stream clock basis, much like the Genesis digital lens. These systems are significantly more accurate and lower in timing jitter mostly due to the advancement of techniques and mechanical independence from the cd medium, better clock crystals and significantly improved digital implementations.
Edits: 03/20/21 03/20/21
Hi Paul,
Are older transports like the Theta Jade (late 90's) which uses signal buffering at the output considered a "bad compromise" today compared to more modern transports which may have eschewed that type of buferring? Thanks..
Best answer: I don't know. Since I am not an audio or mixed-signal designer, I am unsure how the implementation at Theta differs from convention. I will say that the collective brainpower at Theta has historically been high. I personally still use an early 90's Sony ES player for a transport when I need one into HQPlayer through a pro-audio digital interface to my iMac. The proof is always in the listening.
Thanks Paul.. I appreciate the reply. Take care..
The disk speed is controlled by the clock, not the clock generated by the spinning disk! I don't think anyone that has posted in this thread understands how CD works.
13DoW
Feel free to disagree.
jm
And it appears, familiarity breeds contempt. But what of understanding the CD system and putting your findings into context?
I don't understand your comment about a missing word clock. CD timing is governed by an internal clock, as I noted, and the disc speed is regulated to keep the flow of data off the disc about right. It then goes into a buffer memory (FIFO) where it is clocked out exactly right. Symbol rates and frame rates are divided down from the system clock so it is all synchronized. How does a missing 'word clock', if one is missing, hinder things? Are you thinking of the SPDIF interface instead?
Your experiments with CD substrate material are interesting. I am sure there are ways to access flags in a player to see how much error interpolation or blanking takes place. As to 'error correction' the CD format includes much redundant data that is interleaved such that sections can be wrong or missing but when deinterleaved they are correct. So, my understanding is that even a perfect disc is still 'error corrected' and I would not expect a difference in the output data from a disc with errors (unless they were bad enough to require interpolation or blanking). But I could be wrong and you could contribute to knowledge by finding out.
Full disclosure, I am an engineer (not audio) and I appreciate the man years of design that went into CD play back. Rube Goldberg it is not. The consumer side , i.e. the players had new technology developed specifically for them, IMHO it kicked off a mini moon shot of IC design and DSP techniques.
And, or course, we all know the real story for 44.1kHz that Karajan bullied the head of Sony into making the playing time of a singke CD fit Beethoven's ninth:)
Regards,
13DoW
Thanks for the thoughtful comment.
Sorry for not being clear enough, yes, "kludge" was re: S/PDIF+cables. Digital cabling being coaxial 75-Ohm with BNC connectors was another heritage of Sony analog color-TV technology.
The problem I see there is that because the receiving device (in this era, usually a separate DAC) has to infer the timing from the zero-axis crossings, the actual length of the cable, as in, 56.5 inches vs. 60.5 inches, makes a difference in the robustness of the data stream.
BTW, your comment and the immediately above might be the reason that some very experienced listeners claim that the best CD playback they have ever heard was from cost-no-object one-box players, such as Gryphon's "moon-shot" player. Makes sense to me.
BTW, I am not an engineer. I studied translating French love poetry into English love poetry under the Poet in Residence at Brown. Among other things.
I would have to dig up some paperwork, but my recollection is that when Pre-Master CDs came out, the Sonic Solutions documentation that came with the PMCD included a log of error corrections. That stuff has been in boxes here for more than 20 years.
I am aware of the Reed-Solomon interleaving data-protection scheme, and I don't think that Sonic Solutions counted that as errors.
As far as substrates go, the theory was that a floppier, less rigid substrate (but not a rubbery pancake type thing) would resonate less and have greater self-damping if it or the transport were slightly eccentric or out of round or not of uniform density.
I do agree that the CD system was a feat of engineering. I just wanted to point out forcefully that commercial convenience meant that the recording end, as distinct from the playback end, took advantage of an installed base of expensive gear, rather than making customers buy new expensive gear. Very clever.
I caught the grin icon about vonK. The story I heard was that the President of Sony wanted LvB's Ninth on one CD. Again, very clever to choose a rate that was compatible with two different video systems.
jm
And sorry from me for not realizing you were only referring to SPDIF, I should have recalled you'd marketed one. I don't know the history of that interface, whether it was part of redbook or an add-on to allow external DACs. It is elegant in that it is a single co-ax with clock and data combined. The best place for the clock is close to the DAC so you really only need it send the clock to synchronize the receiver chip in the DAC box to extract the data correctly. Phase-locked loop(s) can do it but they got a bad rap as a source of added jitter. The ESS chips sample that data stream at a fast enough rate that it doesn't mater about being in exact synchronism, they can extract the data directly and synch it to the DAC clock.Your substrates are genuinely interesting as the CD system was designed to tolerate stuff like that but, maybe, there are still sensitivities. People have postulated that even though the laser focus and steering mechanism can cope with variations if the compensating servo mechanisms are always working it could modulate the power supply and couple over to the audio side. I remember seeing at a show in the UK back in the early days of CD a three-box prototype/experimental player from Cambridge (I think, maybe built by Stan Curtis) and one box had several displays. IIRC one showed the number of interpolated errors, one the number of blanking errors and the other the checksum errors from the de-interleaving process. That last one ticked-up at a pretty fast rate but, as I understand it, you can lose up to 2mm of data and still recover the audio from the de-interleaving. There was an early marketing claim for CD that you could drill a 2mm hole in the disc and it would still play. Not true as the laser guidance would lose the spiral. But I do have to hand it to the CD marketeers for the 'Perfect Sound Forever' slogan (a bit like watching a team you hate score a great touchdown - you still hate the team but have to admire that play).
Edits: 03/22/21
Welp, I guess I didn't remember that correctly at all. It been a long time since I looked at that chapter from Pohlmann's book and I definitely blew it. It does appear that a clock is used for the motor feedback loop control and also that the read rate and motor rate can vary a bit depending on whole loaded the data buffer is. But these are definitely deep-dives for the EE's here, rather than being general descriptions of why a modern transport might sound a lot better than an older one. And, I would respectfully point out that the way that cd data is read out now is different as I described based on cd-rom drives and that while the same EFM and de-interleaving is based on Redbook, the precision and generation of the bitstream is different and much improved. Functionally, the discussion is moot because the cd is essentially dead and all modern manufactured transports no longer use a cd-drive, but rather rom/dvd drives.
Just like everything on the Internets, you pays yer money and ya takes yer chances...
Sorry, missed your reply. I don't know why transports sound different over SPDIF. Some things it could be:
1. Is the transport extracting the audio data correctly?
2. How jittery is the SPDIF coming out of the transport?
3. Is electrical noise being conducted into the DAC ground through the SPDIF cable?
My Vulcan half thinks these should be provable and addressable. I am sure DAC manufacturers are aware of these issues and design around them but I've no direct experience. I have a one-box CD player that has an SPDIF input and I connect a Pi-based streamer to it. One of these days I'll have to do a direct comparison of CD vs. SPDIF input.
Regards,
13DoW
1. External vibration, especially seismic type, but also acoustic vibration.
2. Scattered laser light getting into the photodetector. Amazing nobody's figured this out. Well maybe not that amazing.
3. Vibration and flutter of the disc itself. Bad gnus.Geoff Kait
Machina Dynamica
Not too chicken to change
Edits: 03/19/21
4. old worn out AA batteries
Your stand up needs more work.
if I have to explain the joke to you it won't be funny plus you'll feel bad for not getting it ... do you want to feel bad?
it's better to say nothing or just pretend polite laughter don't you think?
don't answer, I still don't want you to feel bad
Two swings, two misses. Three strikes you're out.
'Three strikes you're out' [sic]
don't feel bad. if it comes up again you can find three more examples of things that destroy the sound of all transports. then you'll have six!!
good luck!
Nearly everything "makes a difference" in digital audio, and there are at least two reasons for that.
1) The Sony-Philips recording system and therefore the CD was based on the existing Sony video recorders and the Sony commercial/professional U-matic 3/4-inch video cassette. This fact cannot be disputed successfully. The reason the CD sampling rate is 44.1kHz, when a "round" number such as 50kHz would seem to make more sense, is that the number 44.1k can be divided both by the PAL TV system scan-line number, and the NTSC TV system scan-line number. When I say "divided," I mean divided into whole numbers. That was necessary because some TV recorders were set to PAL scanning and some set to NTSC scanning.
The S/P system encoded data that was "deemed to be" digital data as Black & White Analog TV VIDEO "snow" in a checkerboard pattern. You can watch a PCM 1630 digital-audio recording as a television show, but the character development is really slow... [smirk]
2) The Sony-Philips recording system and therefore the CD does not have a separate Time Code or Word Clock. The CD word clock must be "recovered" (even though I think that the more accurate term would be "synthesized") with reference to the zero-crossing points in the analog voltage that carries what is "deemed to be" digital data.
I have two (I think) rather remarkable stories to tell about this.
I was speaking at a meeting of the Boston Audio Society. I told them I was going to play the exact same recording on three different CDs, and I wanted them to guess what the (to me, obvious) differences arose from.
So, OK, I might have skewed the results by announcing that I thought the differences were obvious. I also stated that I had not made the recording.
I played the CDs, and it was obvious that most of the audience heard differences. I then asked, "What do you think."
One of the big shots stated, "Well, obviously, the EQ was different, and perhaps (JM: IIRC) there was different reverb."
I took some other responses.
I then explained that the "digital" information was identical in all three cases. The CDs were stamped from the exact same stamper. The differences were in the physical composition of the CD disc itself.
The first was plain-vanilla aluminum on polycarbonate. The second was gold on polycarbonate. The third was gold on polyolefin.
The big shot then LOUDLY spluttered, and in a really "betrayed" tone of voice, "The only reason that we heard differences was that you wanted us to hear differences!!!"
I told him that if I were that persuasive, my love life would be more interesting, to be sure.
BTW, I played those discs for Bob Ludwig, and he heard differences.
At another audio club gathering, I played a CDR made for me by a famous engineer who is not Bob Ludwig, from four identical passes of the original analog master tape (a famous jazz recording), saying that they all might be the same, or one might be different, or more than one different, or they all might be different. Everyone listened closely.
At the end, Micha Shattner, whose hearing is phenomenal, loudly stated, "I have no idea what is going on, but the second and the fourth passes are probably from the same designer."
(Micha was right: #2 and #4 used different products from the same manufacturer.)
"Anyone else?" I asked. "Bueller? Bueller?"
When nobody else volunteered, I revealed that the ONLY difference in the setup--NOT THE SIGNAL CHAIN! THE SETUP--was that for each pass, there was a different POWER CORD on the Analog-to-Digital converter.
They rose up as one, screaming "BURN THE HERETIC."
Well, the last part, I made up.
Instead of announcing "Pure Perfect Sound Forever," perhaps they should have admitted,
"We are coming out with a fundamentally compromised,
very fragile system that is a Rube Goldberg kludge,
but it will succeed because it runs on the installed
base of commercial broadcast analog color TV
recorders and tapes made by Sony."
But but but but!!! The blanket-clingers pant. Error correction! Reclocking! Digital is Perfect!!!! AYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!
"Forget about it, Sonny. Save your breath. It's analog, all the way down."
jm
I never understood the need for "reclocking"..... It would only make sense if the original A/D had perfect timing..... Zero jitter.....
I then realized that preserving the original "jitter signature" from the A/D yielded the best sound..... So using early pressings with the least processing usually yielded the best sonic result.
It's been almost 40 years since Sony/Philips launced "perfect sound forever." Many millions of dollars have been spent by audiofools on various tweaks, cables, tubes, components, etc, etc to render the imperfect medium palatable.After decades, what do we have now? People using USB, Wi-fi, bluetooth, HDMI, etc, none of which were designed with audio quality as number one goal. People are buying "audiophile" ethernet cables, usb cables, spdif cables, even motherboard cables for thousands of dollars as band-aids.
Almost brings tears to my eyes...
Edits: 03/19/21
interesting; which cables WERE designed with audio quality in mind Jon L?
regards,
It's not the cables but the digital protocols that were never designed with audio quality as primary criteria, e.g. HDMI protocol, USB protocol, etc.I'm not in the "cables-don't-make-difference" camp at all, but the point is no matter how much effort one puts into making better cables, the digital standard/protocol is flawed to begin with.
Edits: 03/19/21
ah ... I see your point there and it's a good one
I'm sure that's improving though with more specific coding for protocols
actually, I'm not dead certain but it's bound to be evolving
the pros demand it plus there's bragging rights, not to mention marketing
regards,
another set of "audiofools" is spending lots of money of things analog,
such as: 5 figure turntables, 4 and 5 figure phono cartridges and tone
arms and phono preamps, record cleaning devices of many sorts, inner and
outer record sleeves, stylus alignment and weighing gizmos ... all so they
can listen to a medium which degrades every time you play it and is subject
to static electricity and sensitive to all sorts of vibrations. Not to
mention that the average LP costs twice what a CD of the same music costs ... but analog (vinyl) is quite superior, of course ...
Whether or not you can observe a thing depends upon the theory you use. It is the theory which decides what can be observed. - Albert Einstein
Thanks John for the information, interesting read.
In your CD media composition exercise that yielded a sound difference, was there a general preference? And which, would you say, sounded closest to the 'master/remaster', if such was available, on that same system?
I absolutely believe CD composition can make a difference, big enough to hear within seconds of changing a disc. At a Stereophile show in New York, my friend, George Bischoff went to the Meridian speaker room. We borrowed a copy of Galadiator and copied onto a disc he had treated. The difference took about 3 seconds to hear of which about 2 seconds were because I had to reset my belief system. I know the treatment was an analog(pun intended) of changing the disc material.
The sad part of the story is that the treatment could be done in quantity for pennies. George took it around to CD producers, big commercial ones and smaller ones that did remastered super CDs at high cost claiming sonic superiority. Everyone heard the difference(as an improvement). George wanted a minimal fee for the process but no one gave a damn. No one really cared about the sonic improvement.
Nt
Let's be tactful, and say that the gold/polyolefin "appeared" to convey a greater amount of detail.
I made gold CDs of Arturo Delmoni's "Songs My Mother Taught Me," and I treated 50 of those to cryogenic processing, and they sounded so good. I never had the money to do polyolefin. Which was IIRC like $3.65 per pressed CD, as opposed to 65 cents for aluminum/polycarb. Or IIRC $1.60 for poly Gold.
Back in the day, I did that 3-CD demo many times, at times for important music business personages... and the funniest reaction was when one immensely important music biz person, on blind listening, definitely preferred the aluminum/polycarb.
I asked him why he preferred that, and he deadpanned "Because it put me farther away from the music"(which he obviously had not been grooving on).
My lips are sealed; it would be a low blow to the producer and the artist and the engineer to name them.
Gold has a unique atomic composition--its outer ring of electrons has a gap in it that forms a perfect resonant trap for the frequency of the photons of Cobalt Blue light, so: the color Gold is "White Light minus Cobalt Blue."
It is also the case that gold is uniquely ductile. You can hammer out a 1-inch cube of gold, and it will cover a football field--very thinly.
It's the ductility of gold that enables it to "wrap" more closely around the rims or brinks of the pits in a CD. In comparison, aluminum is more like icicles, with spurs hanging over into space rather than conforming to the plastic substrate.
The thing about polyolefin is that it has a lower modulus of elasticity with a different Q factor, and so it has superior self-damping, and therefore it "flutters" less as it spins, and therefore needs less help from the Laser Read Correction circuitry.
amb,
jm
I guessing most of us listen to Files, not CDs anymore anyway.
Would ripped files from a Gold CD sound better than from standard CD?
As long as my Photo in the Freezer doesn't appear to age,
I'll be fine...
Ripped files from an isolated CD player would sound better, too. Ripped files from a CD that had damping applied would sound better, too. And from a CD that was spinning perfectly level, too. And a player and CD that had been frozen.
Edits: 03/21/21
John Swenson discovered that using star quad DC cable improved the sound of his Squeezebox Touch. He thinks its low inductance is responsible.
I made a DIY version for the microRendu I had at the time and agreed. What surprised me was that it improved low level dynamics. Now use it for both ultraRendu and RPi.
The studio where the mastering engineer who made the "Power Cord Test CDR" for me did their own double-blind experiments. They ended up putting home-brewed power cords on all their equipment.
The "recipe" is a dark secret, I am sure both for competitive reasons, and because they don't want incompetent DIYers burning their own houses down.
ciao,
john
PS: Micha Shattner, a brave thinker if there ever was one, told me once that most audible problems in audio are mechanical in origin rather than electrical or electronic in origin. He believed that what was going on in power cords was mechanical resonances, from the electromagnetic force's making the power cord conductors jump.
George Cardas seems to believe the same thing about speaker cables; he specifies a loose braid for his conductors, so there is more self-damping for EMF induced mechanical motion. Further, he appears to believe that loudspeaker cable break-in is a matter of mechanical "settling" as much as it is the "forming" of the dialectric.
I myself think that that's why a true "Oliver Heaviside" solid-core coaxial cable for S/PDIF usually sounds better than AES/EBU.
The mechanical aspect has always lurked in the back of my mind as being a big deal. After all, cryogenic treatment of most materials apparently does not change the chemical structure (I'm told that an exception is for certain ferrous based materials), but instead relieves internal mechanical stress. I've read that musicians, like brass instrument players, often can change the sound of their instrument through cryogenic treatment. Of the instrument, not them.
Coincidence??
With regard to to power cables, I think that one needs to look at what they do.
Obviously, their primary mission is to supply 50/60 Hz AC current to the equipment. Or, DC. Actually, there's also multiple harmonics of the AC mains frequency, too, since most rectifier systems used in electronic products only conduct during part of the AC waveform and that creates harmonic currents from the basic supply. This is a well known engineering consideration and can be easily measured. And, is measured all the time.
But, in addition to that mission, power cables also provide a path for common mode currents between various pieces of electronics. This is also a well known engineering consideration, but is usually ignored for some reason. This can be measured as well. And, is measured almost never.
Along the way, common mode signals can be, and often are, converted to differential mode signals which is what audio electronics nominally runs on. (Again, this can be measured.) The very high frequency signals found in digital equipment easily find their way around systems. They may be outside the usual audio frequencies, but they are inside the frequency ranges used by digital audio processing circuits. Plus, most analog circuitry has really lousy linearity outside the audio band and various distortion products and noise can find their way into the frequency ranges we're interested in. And, the common mode currents are often switched on and off at the AC mains frequency by those same rectifier systems for varying period of time depending on the instantaneous current demands. Not so well controlled, eh?
OK, that all sounds like techno-babble arm waving.
So, consider this:
If power cords and AC conditioners actually change the sound quality of a system - for better or worse - doesn't that say that there's more going through the AC mains than just 50/60 Hz AC? In the case of DC, there should be nothing but plain old DC, right? So, why should anything matter as long as the basic voltage drop of the 50/60 Hz or the DC isn't too severe?
Cryogenic processing changes the crystalline structure of steel.
And therefore, in a sense, its chemical composition, I guess.
The tip of a fascinating iceberg, if you can excuse the punsical allusion.
Also:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S092150931000794X
jm
Lots of groups other than audiophiles use cryo treatment. None of the cryogenic treatment service companies could get by if their customer base was just audio enthusiasts. I think a lot of their business comes from machine tool users and people who build race cars and so on. Some musical instrument companies, too.
I'd have thought that my comment about common mode noise currents and loops thereof would have brought more attention. But, I guess that's not the sort of thing that's on audio equipment customers' radar, so it shouldn't be surprising that the manufacturers aren't much concerned either.
Cryogenic treatment affects all materials, even plastic, non ferrous metals, ceramics, polycarbonate, paper, wood, etc. for example golf balls will travel further after cryo. Razor blades will last longer. There's more to cryo than meets the eye for audio applications, however. A lot more, it's not all about the relatively obvious physics. Perhaps another day we can delve into it.
Edits: 03/20/21
Isn't that what I wrote?
Now that I re-read your post yes. Physically cryo redistributes the molecules or atoms more homogeneously, that's what relieves stress in metals - the atoms and molecules get mashed up when drawn, bent or rolled or formed. As I said in my last post there's more to it than just the physics of materials. I was one of the very first to use cryo for audio applications. Also one of the first to use home freezers for audio applications.
Geoff Kait
Machina Dramatica
Not too chicken to change
What inspired you to try it?
I was trying to remember what first inspired me and found a lot of threads on the subject of cryogenic treatment right here on Audio Asylum, mostly on Tweakers Asylum, and just saw a post of mine from 2000 where I commented I had been cryogenically treating things for "many many years."
My guess, circa 1987 because I recall it was after the release of the North Star LP of Arturo Delmoni's "Songs My Mother Taught Me," and we were in discussions with MFSL to make the CDs that North Star did not want to.
Herb Belkin believed that cryo was not necessary, because gold CDs were so good.
BTW, when I had a bunch of CDs cryo'ed for my own use, when I put on the Arturo Delmoni Ysaye-Kreisler-Bach solo recital, the woman I was married to at the time, who was a cellist and choral singer, recoiled and exclaimed,
"WHAT have they done to Arturo's violin?!?!? It sounds like a VIOLA being played in the fifth position!!!
That really happened!
jm
You beat me to it. I remember Meitner was cryoing his electronics and I know cryo had caught on in the early 2000s somewhat because Walker was using it on some of the parts of his fabulous turntable, and many high end cable companies were using cryo as part of their routine. I probably got the idea for home freezing from Peter Belt who promoted home freezing since the 80s, I deep froze all manner of CD players, CDs, LPs, cables. I first sent cables and CDs to the cryo lab around 1996. By 1997 I was cryoing steel rods and other hardware for my Nimbus sub Hertz platform. Getting back to the Belts for a second, they were the ones who taught me deep freezing non-audio related things produced better sound. Things like books, magazines, DVDs, photos.
Called "Museatex Cryogenics."
I gather that funding all that over the long haul got tired for Kurien Jacob, and so Museatex is now just an asterisk.
Ed is not only very smart, he is very funny.
jm
Jena Labs another nasa dude had an in-home operation dipping audio stuff in liquid nitrogen. Strangely, AudioQuest never got on board the Cryo train, which is weird because they're such big fans of directionality. (Troll buzzword) Other hi tech dudes like Purist and Shunyata most likely have been using cryo like forever. Also strange that Bob Crump and John Curl never got on board the Cryo train.
Bob Crump explained exactly why:https://db.audioasylum.com/mhtml/m.html?forum=cables&n=79362&highlight=cryo+rcrump&search_url=%2Fdefault.mpl%3Fsearchtext%3Dcryo%26b%3DAND%26topic%3D%26topics_only%3DN%26author%3Drcrump%26date1%3D%26date2%3D%26slowmessage%3D%26sort%3Dscore%26sortOrder%3DDESC%26forum%3DALL
https://db.audioasylum.com/mhtml/m.html?forum=cables&n=84763&highlight=cryo+rcrump&search_url=%2Fdefault.mpl%3Fsearchtext%3Dcryo%26b%3DAND%26topic%3D%26topics_only%3DN%26author%3Drcrump%26date1%3D%26date2%3D%26slowmessage%3D%26sort%3Dscore%26sortOrder%3DDESC%26forum%3DALL
And, Chris VenHaus has this to say: https://www.vhaudio.com/cryo.html
Note his comments at the very bottom.
Edits: 03/22/21
Nt
Nt
Hey! I'm just reporting what Bob said.
I'll know better next time.
Bob's not here to speak for himself so I'll dispute what he said with impunity.
Plinius also at least for a while supposedly was into cryo.
jm
Shunyata
Purist audio
Jena Labs
Stealth Audio
Furutech
VH Audio
JW Audio
JPS Audio
Snake River Audio
VooDoo Cable
Museatex
Ice Age Audio
Kubla-Sosna
AudioMinor Headphone Cables
Lakeshore Cryotronics
Reality Cables
Anti Cables
Townshend Audio
Van den Hul shares a similar theory, and argues IIRC that every time one moves speaker cables, they need another short period of "break-in" which is not really break-in, but the cables resettling mechanically.
molecules realign.
Has anyone compared the Cambridge transport to the similarly priced Audiolab?
And to add to what seems to be the mystery put some of the new feet to control vibration under the transport. I did with something called Pontoons which look like plastic cylinders on their sides and it's like I bought a different, new, improved transport. More and more it's obvious that there's a lot going on in electronics that we don't really understand yet and certainly
don't and can't measure.
Replaced a Classe CDP-1. digital has come a long way.
So if you take the transport out of the equation, Rip your CD to hard disk then play it with a cheap Raspberry Pi does that equate to an expensive transport?
Good deal. So the Bryston dying is a blessing in disguise.
So the 1's and 0's are not the same between transports I guess.
take the digital readout and use a program to change 0's to 1's and 1's to 0's.
would Paul still die?
Would this be similar to playing a heavy metal record backwards?
I wouldn't have expected the Cambridge to sound that much better either, go figure.
after the backward Beatle debacle they tried to find evidence of other "subliminal brainwashing being perpetrated upon the youth"
In my experience - yes, transports make a difference. I switched from a McCormack UDP-1 to the deluxe version of the same player, and heard significant improvements with the remaining audio chain (amp, DAC, cables, speakers) intact.
there is circuitry involved in the 'digital out'. And if the original laser had problems you're gonna hear that too.
I can agree with this logic.
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