I don't understand $2000 cd players...

T

timestretch

Limp Gawd
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Mar 19, 2011
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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.
 
Because the cd player is a source as well, and has much better quality components then your avg pc-grade equipment. It makes sense in a hifi setup if you are an elderly dude with a decent cd/sacd collection in your nice house connecting it to your hifi amplifier probably of the same series with a nice pair of B&W speakers. For the rest of us.. well it's just not made for us in the same way a formula 1 car is not made for rally.
 
Most of the money is in the analog part of the equation, not in moving bits. A $2k CD player doesn't belong anywhere near a Denon-level receiver, and likely wouldn't be connected via SPDIF. (unless, of course, it was connected to a very expensive outboard DAC of audiophile grade).

Audiophile-grade gear does suffer from diminishing returns, but they are audible. Generally I find the real difference to be constant phase accuracy across the entire audible range of frequencies and not frequency response itself. This leads to the subtle-yet-remarkable ability to create a 3D sound stage with two channels, and allow secondary instruments like tambourines or ridged sticks to remain clearly audible and never fade into the background, just like if there was a guy with a tambourine in the room with you. When I listen to recordings on real audiophile gear (I don't actually own any at this point - it's yet another hobby/interest with no funding) the artists can continue to add layer after layer of instruments and you can still hear all of them in their original location on the soundstage.

You have to hear it to get it.
 
Research the "power of suggestion" with regard to audiophiles. You may find this to be an entertaining read.
 
In a proper A/B test I doubt you would hear a difference so long as the cheaper CD player is up to spec. Some audio equipment is strictly for those with more money than sense who buy into the advertising hype.
 
There is an ongoing debate about the impact of the digital-side components of an audio setup.

Everyone (pretty much) agrees that the analog side can impact sound. Speakers, amps, etc definitely have an impact. Most believe that really good or bad cables can have a slight impact as well.

On the digital side, many believe that lossless is lossless is lossless. Others cite nuances, such as timing, "jitter," and other jargon. It is almost a matter of faith.

I will say that we see with digital media that not all things are equal -- e.g. video lag on LCDs, microstudder with games and SLI rigs, bad drivers, etc.

One solution is to split the difference. Don't buy the $2000 CD transport, but don't go with the $39 Best Buy weekend special either. In audio, the diminishing returns mean that unless you have a golden ear, few people can distinguish between excellent and extraordinary equipment.
 
When you have a $5k interconnect, $2k 'conditioned' power cable, $2k speaker wire, and shakti stones (or whatever the f they are called) and magic marker pens to 'increase the harmonics', nothing except a $2k cd 'transport' (can't call it player) will do.

Which of course has to go into a pre-pro, monoblock amps, full range speakers *and* multiple subs, obviously with the crossover completely bypassing the subs in the speakers, and a dedicated sub-eq, speakers whose lacquer finish costs more than the drivers, and years of obsession over minute details which no one can ever tell apart in any controlled test (blind or not).

Of course the whole bloody setup has to be repeated for 'pure 2 speaker music listening', with 'pure analog' amps for "richer" sound, because god forbid the same setup could be used for HT and music, and every year components need to be replaced to go from 5.1->7.1->9.2->10.2, because the 0.000001% of source material that can take advantage of all those extra speakers is just so critical.

I suppose its a harmless way for people with more money than sense to amuse themselves.
 
MrCrispy said:
When you have a $5k interconnect, $2k 'conditioned' power cable, $2k speaker wire, and shakti stones (or whatever the f they are called) and magic marker pens to 'increase the harmonics', nothing except a $2k cd 'transport' (can't call it player) will do.

Which of course has to go into a pre-pro, monoblock amps, full range speakers *and* multiple subs, obviously with the crossover completely bypassing the subs in the speakers, and a dedicated sub-eq, speakers whose lacquer finish costs more than the drivers, and years of obsession over minute details which no one can ever tell apart in any controlled test (blind or not).

Of course the whole bloody setup has to be repeated for 'pure 2 speaker music listening', with 'pure analog' amps for "richer" sound, because god forbid the same setup could be used for HT and music, and every year components need to be replaced to go from 5.1->7.1->9.2->10.2, because the 0.000001% of source material that can take advantage of all those extra speakers is just so critical.

I suppose its a harmless way for people with more money than sense to amuse themselves.
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10 ch is actually 8+2 coz two are independent headphone paths
 
Audiophillia industry is fueled by the following of greatest importance:
- Ruthless profiteering by deceitful companies
- Sycophantic audio magazine editors and reviewers who are in cahoots with these companies
- Fashion, a form of 'audio jewelery' that is expensive, looks expensive and gives the owner bragging rights and a feeling of superiority
- Ignorance of consumers who are fooled by superficial pseudo-scientific marketing, reinforced by the parroting dogma of true-believer audiophiles

Frankly, buying a $2000 cd player in the year 2011 is the height of stupidity whatever way you look at it.
Overpriced, rediculous profit margins. Antiquated and inconvenient (why bother loading a disc into a tray when you can store 1000s of albums in FLAC on a HDD). Impractical due to mechanical nature... disc transport destined to fail eventually, leaving you with a paper-weight untill you replace the mechanism, no doubt expensive since it uses an esoteric part no longer mass produced.

In audio, room acoustics are king. This is a bitter pill to swallow for the average moron who has spent so much on exotic power cords, interconnect cables and gear that he could be driving a new Ferrari instead. It can't be emphasised enough how important acoustics are, if one reads into modal ringing, comb filtering, standing waves etc etc. it'll make your head spin.
Or maybe you'll just laugh out loud how people can obsess over miniscule electronic differences between gear that are an order of magnitude of millions times smaller than the frequency response errors of their own listening rooms.

A well treated room and a great set of speakers (like QUAD electrostats / Meridian digital actives / B&W 800 series), quality amps with enough power (not expensive) and a say DAC like the Benchmark DAC1 that Timestretch mentioned.. it measures nearly 'perfectly'.
Such a setup is close to heaven for any audio lover, and if it is not, then the listener is likely incapable of ever being satisfied by anything. In other words they are neurotic, obsessive compulsives.
 
phide said:
That's what audio reviewers like to tell people whenever they review a high-end product. And people, for whatever reason, believe it.
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Yes, I guess there is no difference between a $1000 52" LCD and a $3500 52" LCD, it's all in your head.
 
phide said:
That's what audio reviewers like to tell people whenever they review a high-end product. And people, for whatever reason, believe it.
Click to expand...

I am not defending a $2000 CD player. I'm talking about the jump from Best Buy into what is considered to be audiophile-class - as in 'why not a $5 CD player'. The first thing people seem to shop for is "loud". After that they get into frequency response - can it reproduce a full range of frequencies? "Listen to those highs" "Solid bass!" "Look at the fancy DSP room equalizer!" Once you've conquered frequency response there's nothing left, right? Wrong.

Generally under-appreciated concepts are dampening and phase accuracy. Other than trying to explain sound staging or describe how each instrument out of a dozen remains distinguishable in a complex score it's hard to say anything but "you have to hear it".

Even on "expensive" low grade gear bass gets muddy, all the bass can sound like it only has one note, or it will fall victim to enclosure and room resonances so that a walking bass line will grossly emphasize one particular note or range of the register. Really accurate gear (plus good recordings) allow all of the instruments to remain distinct instead of collapsing into background mush like listening to pop music on a clock radio.

The audiophile hobby is fraught with ridiculous people behaving ridiculously but, in general, there are returns, albeit diminishing, as you move up the price scale. Audio systems can also suffer from a "weakest link" which leads to the constant A/B comparisons, forum arguments and upgrade-itis. You WILL hear the difference between a $10k system and a $1k system from Best Buy (unless the person who built it was an idiot and spent $9k on Monster cables or you only listen to 96k heavy metal MP3s on it) and that's all I'm trying to say. That $2k CD player may or may not be better or worse than a $1k or $3k player, but it will definitely have better analog output than the $50 one for sale at your local retail store. Digital output differences should be negligible - then it's just jewelery.

On a ~$10k system a friend put together when he came into some money, I could sit and listen to styles of music I don't even like because it sounded "live". Seemingly pedestrian recordings from artists like The Tragically Hip suddenly showed depth, texture, and background instruments I couldn't even pick out on a reasonable retail system. Improvements and accuracy at each stage of the game resulted in a great listening experience. Sometimes what can you say other than "you have to hear it" to know what you can't usually hear?
 
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Not only is it easy to dismiss what isn't objectively quantified by audio reviewers, it's rational to do so.
 
It's rational to dismiss any assertions made that are subject to bias or subjective interpretation as being accurate or true just because the assertion is made. It's always feasible, of course, that what a reviewer is saying about a component indeed jives with what can be quantified (in other words what jives with reality), but it's not something to take on mere 'faith'.
 
Audio reviewers are charlatans, here's some choice comedy gems from the largest hi-fi magazine in Europe:

A wooden hi-fi rack that:
"serves up a muscular sound that times well, and is able to handle production dynamics and subtleties with ease"
"this is a fast-paced rack that will give your kit a full sound along with a wide soundstage." (fast paced rack? better nail it to the floor.. don't want it running out the door!)
"An easy listen, you'll hear, too, that the sound isn't as hard as that you can find with some metal and glass racks, with a softer edge that helps to make listening easy."

£275 power cable that in their own words is "detailed, involving and full-bodied, giving instruments plenty of space to breathe. Basslines are tightly controlled, delivering plenty of power and depth, while vocals sound wonderfully smooth and emotive. Worth every penny."

£50 USB cable: "The gains in low-end body and punch, midrange spaciousness and detail, and high-end smoothness alone are significant. And, when you take into account the additional scale, superior timing and altogether more vivid presentation, the Ultraviolet 5/2 becomes a compulsory audition, if not an automatic purchase."

Such intelligence insulting nonsense. They even claim in their reviews that power cables "unearth extra layers of detail and wows you with added subtlety", or even improve image quality on a digital HDTV "an increase in picture sharpness and reduction in on-screen noise."
You can't take anything they say seriously, they have no credibility. You might aswell ask Buddha or pray to the Golden Calf for purchase advice.
 
Many products are bs. That is certainly true. In most cases, audio tweaks such as the audio rack with robust sound are the culprit.

However, you really can't pass judgement on something without actually experiencing it. Some things do help, like vibropods or something that keeps your source from being vibrated by the floor or speakers. I spent a whopping $40 on all of my such tweaks. Including some large cork stoppers used to get my sub up off the floor so it would stop vibrating the damn floorboards, bookshelf and windows.

As for actual gear, the truth is that:

There is a point of diminishing returns. After a certain level is achieved, you spend more for each little change or improvement. Instead of a $300 part making a big difference, you have to spend $3000 for a similar result.

IMO a great stereo can be achieved for less than $2000 easily. The least expensive route is actually headphones but even a sweet speaker stereo that gives you 95% of a system 5X the price is $2000 max. Buying used helps btw.
 
Post the specs of a 2000usd cd drive and a 20usd one and lets start to work it from there.
 
The problem with high-end 'audiophile' equipment is that there's a very witch doctor mentality towards looking at it.

Op-amps are a favorite of mine - there's a decent cult of audiophiles who claim that op-amps are a transgression against quality audio reproduction. The more charitable among them are okay with discrete transistors - the most hard core sneer at any silicon based devices, using only vacuum tubes.

Of course, they don't realize that the tubes have much greater distortion than the op-amp - however, the tube distortion sounds better.

That's the problem. On one end of the scale, we have the good old 741. Going up the scale of op amps from the 741 to the highest end Burr Brown parts, there's an exponential decay relationship of diminishing returns. Ultimately, audio reproduction is not the magic it is made out to be - after all, we're only dealing with 20 kHz of bandwidth. Even the old 741 has a decent enough gain response across that.

Those audiophiles who claim to be able to hear the last 0.001% are going to switch between 2000$ sources, even though they're likely using the same chips. At some point, there's a D/A converter, which will have some analog output circuitry. They're going to be listening for the tiniest differences caused by manufacturing variations, and equivalent parts.

Ultimately, the greatest contributions to the 'coloring' of sound are a. the speakers/earphones and b. the listener. I'd like to see a plot of perceived loudness versus frequency for the morons who buy into 50,000$ signal cables. Once one starts to compare two well-designed, functional DACs, the differences have become very small.

Source comparison is a much bigger deal with analog equipment, for obvious reasons.
 
Many products are bs. That is certainly true. In most cases, audio tweaks such as the audio rack with robust sound are the culprit.
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I was making a point about the rediculous language and absurd claims they try to pass off on the ignorant consumer public. Any magazine that prints such drivel has no credibility or authority.
These type of discussions always make me want to invoke Bertrand Russel's 'Celestial Teapot'.
 
Solstice said:
I was making a point about the rediculous language and absurd claims they try to pass off on the ignorant consumer public. Any magazine that prints such drivel has no credibility or authority.
These type of discussions always make me want to invoke Bertrand Russel's 'Celestial Teapot'.
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I was agreeing with you. ;)
 
I want more money than sense. And I have a lot of sense, so that is a lot of money.
 
spaceman said:
Many products are bs. That is certainly true. In most cases, audio tweaks such as the audio rack with robust sound are the culprit.

However, you really can't pass judgement on something without actually experiencing it. Some things do help, like vibropods or something that keeps your source from being vibrated by the floor or speakers. I spent a whopping $40 on all of my such tweaks. Including some large cork stoppers used to get my sub up off the floor so it would stop vibrating the damn floorboards, bookshelf and windows.

As for actual gear, the truth is that:

There is a point of diminishing returns. After a certain level is achieved, you spend more for each little change or improvement. Instead of a $300 part making a big difference, you have to spend $3000 for a similar result.

IMO a great stereo can be achieved for less than $2000 easily. The least expensive route is actually headphones but even a sweet speaker stereo that gives you 95% of a system 5X the price is $2000 max. Buying used helps btw.
Click to expand...

can be done alot cheaper depending on how diy capable someone is.
 
Solstice said:
In audio, room acoustics are king. This is a bitter pill to swallow for the average moron who has spent so much on exotic power cords, interconnect cables and gear that he could be driving a new Ferrari instead. It can't be emphasised enough how important acoustics are, if one reads into modal ringing, comb filtering, standing waves etc etc. it'll make your head spin.
Or maybe you'll just laugh out loud how people can obsess over miniscule electronic differences between gear that are an order of magnitude of millions times smaller than the frequency response errors of their own listening rooms..
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precisely.
 
The major thing with the price you are talking about a small company that's probably expecting to sell a few thousand units at most. And the cost of development is being pushed to your laps.

I think this happened with Oppo. Their disc players used to be pretty expensive and then they were acquired by a Chinese company and the prices dropped like a rock. Part of the issue is small companies with low capital, limited distribution, and needing to meet payroll.

In reality the quality difference could be difference in chips between the Onkyo 1007 and the 3007. If it was mass produced it would basically be only 30% more expensive than a regular CD player.
 
I have listened to >$2k CD players (some really nice Meridian stuff).

The answer to OP's question is that you would not hook one of those up to a Denon receiver, or to a similarly priced DAC. A significant portion of that $2k goes to the analog output stage. Sure, the digital output has less jitter, and the disc mechanism is better. To spend $2k on a CDP, you'd probably be either outputting analog out to a high quality analog amplifier (not an AVR), or using digital output to a $5k+ DAC. You would not hook up the digital output to use a $500 DAC or AVR, because the DAC in that is probably a significantly lower quality than the DAC in the $2k CDP. There's significant debate as to how much the quality of the digital equipment affects sound, but there's little debate as to how much the quality of the analog equipment affects sound. You would not be spending $2k on a digital transport, and $500 on your DAC. You'll get much better results with a $2k DAC and a $500 digital transport. Most of the audiophiles I knew that had nice $1k+ DACs would use ~$250 CD/DVD players as digital transports. The ones that have $2k+ CD players don't use separate DACs. I remember one hugely popular transport was this NEC (I think) external SCSI CD-ROM drive from the early 90s that had a coax digital output. For $40, it had a better quality digital output than anything else in the price range.
 
That is why I use a X-FI as a dig trans into a $3000 receiver (I paid $400 for it)

Is it worth $2000 for a cd player? Not to me. For someone who wants it simple and has the $$. Cd player>Amp>Speakers = yes.
 
Solstice said:
In audio, room acoustics are king.
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I agree but having a room with good acoustics is not always possible, especially if you are a renter. I do some room treatments with carpeting on the wall and built my own bass trap but I also have the speakers putting out sound waves across the rooms shorter dimension which is not recommended. If I owned my own place I would have someone curve all the corners in the room. Good acoustics will give far more better SQ than a new $10,000.00 amp.

Anyone ever read that article where Bob Carver made one of his $2,000.00 amps sound exactly the same as a competitors $4,500.00 amp? All he did was change some filter and they both sounded the same in an A/B/X comparison. Just because an amp may have a slightly different sound signature to another does not mean it is necessarily better, just means it sounds a bit different.
 
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Yea, some musician for some symphony orchestra paid 10g for speaker cables and then claimed the SQ was like night and day after people ridiculed him. The thing is if you are a musician there is a good chance your hearing has been damaged so you are not even a credible judge of SQ.
 
I have had some clients that have some of those two thousand dollar + cd players, and even more money spent on cables, and ceramics that lift the cables off the floor, plugged into what should be amazing speakers (Wilson Audio etc).... essentially you are staring at a Ferraris worth of gear.. .and the speakers are pressed up against the wall... and while it's loud, and has exaggerated detail in some portions of the audio spectrum (due to voicing for people the 50+ croud who can't hear anything above 12khz). It sounds utterly and completely WRONG!

I once attempted to fix the sound, when asked to, as I was setting up a media center.
I removed the audiophilia, put the speakers in the right position, took a some measurements with true rta, and then eq'd the crap away. The client was so happy that it sounded amazing, when I came back there a year later the speakers where back against the wall and he bought some other cables. There is no hope for some of these people.

They buy it because they can, and they gain an emotional competent out of it. The best investment a budding audiophile can make is a decent set of headphones, and if your music is on a computer... pick up a xonar, or an external dac/amp.

Electronics, above a certain reasonable point, don't affect the sound in audible ways unless they are poorly designed, or are designed to sound a particular way (and are poorly designed for wealthy people).
Yes you can go for broke and get the benchmark dac, tact, or if your brave deqx.... and all of which are a much better investment than some cable jewlery, or over priced amplification.



In audio the most important part is the source material, the speakers, and their interaction with the room.

But what do you do when consumer speakers are voiced for people are used to mp3s running off of 10 dollar ipod buds, and the music is mastered to sound tolerable on those?
You hit up telarc, chesky, mofi, sheffield, and hdtracks.
https://www.hdtracks.com/index.php?file=catalogdetail&valbum_code=HD678277163720 If you like acousitc guitar and you have some open back headphones... this is worth a listen.

And there's the case of stuffing a 400 dollar player in a nice looking case and selling it for 3500.

http://www.audioholics.com/reviews/transports/high-definition-dvd-players-hd-dvd-blu-ray/lexicon-bd-30-blu-ray-oppo-clone/oppo-inside-lexicon-outside-1




And of course there's always DIY, if you can build a computer, you can build some speakers, and you can get somthing that sounds wonderful for around 1500
https://www.madisound.com/store/product_info.php?cPath=35_425&products_id=8591.

Or you could get an Orion, and plug it in to a sony discman... and I can promise you it will sound better than the 2,000 dollar cables, 3,0000 CD player, feeding a bose life style system (Yes it's been done).

/end inspired rant>
 
Or you could just look around for one of the first two revisions of the Playstation and con someone out of it for $50. The original PS1s have been blind tested hundreds of times against some very nice and super expensive CD transports and been found to be equal and many times superior. This is widely known the audio nerd realm. Even the later revisions, which are not as good and not as highly prized, are still very good transports for the money. Look into it.
 
caniba said:
don´t forget the speaker cables.
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WTF had to look twice $8,450.00?????
Look at what they buy after viewing this lol
Monster Ultra Series THX 1000 Speaker Cable with Monster Tips 15 ft. pair Speaker Cable (ULT S1000MT-15/15) $37.50 lol
saved them a few thousand

You get of lot of this in the audio world. Heres a example
The Denon AVR 5800 claims 170 watts/ch for all 7 channels. If this implies continuous power for all channels driven, than the receiver must consume (170*7) / 0.40 (efficiency factor of class AB) = 2975 watts for the power section alone. This is an iimpossible considering that the common wall socket can only produce 120V*15amps = 1800 watts
 
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Spooony said:
Post the specs of a 2000usd cd drive and a 20usd one and lets start to work it from there.
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Again, I'm not defending a $2k CD player, and I'm not defending all the retards who say that a $1000 power cord noticeably changed their listening experience but.... If you're shopping on specs alone, you still haven't understood what I, and a couple of others here, have been saying.

When you start moving into the audiophile space "specs" don't describe what is different about the experience. There is no "spec" for phase accuracy. There is no "spec" for low frequency damping. There is no "spec" to describe why my friend's $10k system sounded so great, revealed instruments (and even vocalists) I couldn't pick out of the same CD previously, and why it felt like "live music" and captured my interest in genres I hate. Even if the high-end boys started listing specs for these things, then you wouldn't find the same specs on the lower end gear you're looking to compare to anyways.

You're going to find "20Hz - 20kHz +/- 3dB" (or whatever) on both $20 and $2000 players, but I can tell you that the analog output from the second one will sound quite different presuming all of the downstream components can also reproduce sound well (and isn't a pair of cans that came with your iPod).

Why do people notice a lot of onboard audio sucks? Where the spec to prove it? Why do people like headphone amps? Specs? It SOUNDS better, and it's not always captured by published specs. Shopping for audio isn't like shopping for a CPU where all that matters are specs. Audio is an analog, environmental experience of the senses and is more complicated than a frequency response and THD spec. That's why audio reviewers sound like wine tasters (and idiots a lot of the time). There are wine "specs", but they can't properly convey taste.
 
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