timestretch
Limp Gawd
- Joined
- Mar 19, 2011
- Messages
- 200
First, I'll say that I have never personally heard a multi-thousand-dollar CD player, but here's what I'm thinking:
You have DAC/amp (maybe a nice denon receiver, maybe a nuforce HDP or benchmark dac-1, whatever floats your boat) and coming out of this audio setup is a pair of speakers or headphones.
Plugged into the digital inputs of that setup you have a $2000 CD player and also a PC.
In the CD player is some CD, let's say Pink Floyd's The Wall. In the PC hard drive is an EAC-ripped lossless audio file of The Wall, copied directly from the very CD that sits in that $2000 CD player. Play both, swap between them and test the sounds you get from the CD player vs the PC, both through the same amplifier, speaker and headphones.
How can the CD player possibly sound any different or better? What does that $2000 CD player do that makes it worth its price? I think it would be exciting if there was a fancy science explanation that justifies the costs of multi-thousand dollar transports like the NAIM CD555, but I am skeptical that gear like that exists for any other reason than to be sold to the wealthy-gullible class of audiophiles.
You have DAC/amp (maybe a nice denon receiver, maybe a nuforce HDP or benchmark dac-1, whatever floats your boat) and coming out of this audio setup is a pair of speakers or headphones.
Plugged into the digital inputs of that setup you have a $2000 CD player and also a PC.
In the CD player is some CD, let's say Pink Floyd's The Wall. In the PC hard drive is an EAC-ripped lossless audio file of The Wall, copied directly from the very CD that sits in that $2000 CD player. Play both, swap between them and test the sounds you get from the CD player vs the PC, both through the same amplifier, speaker and headphones.
How can the CD player possibly sound any different or better? What does that $2000 CD player do that makes it worth its price? I think it would be exciting if there was a fancy science explanation that justifies the costs of multi-thousand dollar transports like the NAIM CD555, but I am skeptical that gear like that exists for any other reason than to be sold to the wealthy-gullible class of audiophiles.