More 'Audiophile' bullsh*t
Discussion
Skewing the topic here but.....
Has anyone tried a 'real' recording? Actually un f@cked about with straight unprocessed?
I have a couple of WAV files from a local pub band, not the finest but a decent enough group.
Through my midrange ancient setup the sound is nothing short of amazing. Genuinely feels like the singer is in the room. Once over a fairly average budget i firmly believe the source is the limit. Yes the mega bucks may sound better on some stuff but only on old recordings where sound quality was important.
Anything recorded after the late 90s actually sounds better on a car stereo or cheap midi system as anything better shows how epically bad it is.
RIP audio, you died many years ago and are starting to smell decidedly wiffy!
(along with HiFi shops and those glorious Jap catalogues).
Has anyone tried a 'real' recording? Actually un f@cked about with straight unprocessed?
I have a couple of WAV files from a local pub band, not the finest but a decent enough group.
Through my midrange ancient setup the sound is nothing short of amazing. Genuinely feels like the singer is in the room. Once over a fairly average budget i firmly believe the source is the limit. Yes the mega bucks may sound better on some stuff but only on old recordings where sound quality was important.
Anything recorded after the late 90s actually sounds better on a car stereo or cheap midi system as anything better shows how epically bad it is.
RIP audio, you died many years ago and are starting to smell decidedly wiffy!
(along with HiFi shops and those glorious Jap catalogues).
Globs said:
It's always amazing just how good a straight recording is before it gets 'homogenised' so it sounds crap enough for the radio.
No clipping, no compression, no buggering about with the EQ.
Magic.
Agreed, see above.No clipping, no compression, no buggering about with the EQ.
Magic.
That's why vinyl sounds so good, you can't bugger it up as bad and it's still be playable.
The_Burg said:
see above.
It was in reply to your post 
The old Elvis era recordings etc. are quite revealing too - sometimes it's difficult to work out where commercial audio has improved since then.
I suppose the digital era is more flexible, but then the same record companies fought tooth and nail against using that, and still insist on us buying non error corrected lexan disks with limited sample rates, pitiful bit densities and waveforms that are severely clipped and compressed.
It's pretty sad than most multi-million dollar films on DVD are cheaper and have better sound quality than a simple audio CD.
Globs said:
<snip>
The old Elvis era recordings etc. are quite revealing too - sometimes it's difficult to work out where commercial audio has improved since then.
I have some Frank Sinatra stuff on CD too - the quality is amazing, given that much of it was recorded in the 60's.The old Elvis era recordings etc. are quite revealing too - sometimes it's difficult to work out where commercial audio has improved since then.
Globs said:
I suppose the digital era is more flexible, but then the same record companies fought tooth and nail against using that, and still insist on us buying non error corrected lexan disks with limited sample rates, pitiful bit densities and waveforms that are severely clipped and compressed.
It's pretty sad than most multi-million dollar films on DVD are cheaper and have better sound quality than a simple audio CD.
I agree with the DVD vs CD sound quality issue. I have actually ripped some tracks off my Crossroads DVD and written them to CD - I was knocked out by the quality of the sound emanating from supposedly inferior CD...It's pretty sad than most multi-million dollar films on DVD are cheaper and have better sound quality than a simple audio CD.
TonyRPH said:
If you have an eclectic taste in music - Radio Paradise is worth a listen.
No adverts either - just music, music, and more music!
And they have some very high quality streams too.
Doing some proper catch up on this now I am off for a few days. Very good. Cheers.No adverts either - just music, music, and more music!
And they have some very high quality streams too.
Agreed. Some old recordings sound stunning - particularly some of the stuff done in the 80's which was just amazing. The first digital releases were generally s
te - shrill, bright, screechy affairs, and now things have gone downhill further as a rule. Overblown bass, flat soundstaging, no dynamics. So much for progress . . . .
te - shrill, bright, screechy affairs, and now things have gone downhill further as a rule. Overblown bass, flat soundstaging, no dynamics. So much for progress . . . . Audio quality has been on the decline since the mid 70s when HiFi was at it's peak.
Amusingly listen to Sgt. Peppers, every instrument is distorted on purpose but still sound more like the real thing than any modern CD.
As someone said in an earlier post DVD audio tracks are better.
Here is another example, try listening to BBC1 TV on HD then SD. (Both worse than analogue).
Huge difference, even in just theme tunes. Never would have noticed but heard the Coronation St theme on SD the other night as the wife had not selected HD. Some great brass sounds with a proper 'fat' reverb. Even the cat on the chimney 'meow' was very clear.
Amusingly listen to Sgt. Peppers, every instrument is distorted on purpose but still sound more like the real thing than any modern CD.
As someone said in an earlier post DVD audio tracks are better.
Here is another example, try listening to BBC1 TV on HD then SD. (Both worse than analogue).
Huge difference, even in just theme tunes. Never would have noticed but heard the Coronation St theme on SD the other night as the wife had not selected HD. Some great brass sounds with a proper 'fat' reverb. Even the cat on the chimney 'meow' was very clear.
The_Burg said:
Audio quality has been on the decline since the mid 70s when HiFi was at it's peak.
Amusingly listen to Sgt. Peppers, every instrument is distorted on purpose but still sound more like the real thing than any modern CD.
As someone said in an earlier post DVD audio tracks are better.
Here is another example, try listening to BBC1 TV on HD then SD. (Both worse than analogue).
Huge difference, even in just theme tunes. Never would have noticed but heard the Coronation St theme on SD the other night as the wife had not selected HD. Some great brass sounds with a proper 'fat' reverb. Even the cat on the chimney 'meow' was very clear.
You're using Freeview as the basis for saying audio quality these days is crap and you expect to be taken seriously?Amusingly listen to Sgt. Peppers, every instrument is distorted on purpose but still sound more like the real thing than any modern CD.
As someone said in an earlier post DVD audio tracks are better.
Here is another example, try listening to BBC1 TV on HD then SD. (Both worse than analogue).
Huge difference, even in just theme tunes. Never would have noticed but heard the Coronation St theme on SD the other night as the wife had not selected HD. Some great brass sounds with a proper 'fat' reverb. Even the cat on the chimney 'meow' was very clear.
probedb said:
You're using Freeview as the basis for saying audio quality these days is crap and you expect to be taken seriously?
Sorry, bad mood yesterday but the point still stands as to why you're using Freeview audio as a judgement on quality audio? It's compressed to buggery to put it politely.Quote<<
Some things do make a definite improvement, speaker cables and stands make a very big difference.
In theory digital sources are pretty much identical as many have said a PC can't work if there is any error yet when i changed the soundcard in my Vortexbox source the difference was truly amazing, going from an onboard to a dedicated one, nothing special £50 job, this using the same DAC etc this was the only change.
I find it very hard to find anything truly listenable these days on my rather elderly mid price setup, (PC running Vortexbox / Pioneer PDS 901, MF X24/96 or Cambridge DAC2, Exposure XX and Rega Jura), compression and the old loudness war renders modern stuff painful. With a good recording, i have a few tracks recorded by a local band straight from the desk, uncompressed and f@cked with, it is quite staggering almost eerie.
Tip of the Day
If you want to improve the sound for free, unplug and replug everything in, twiddle the plugs a bit contacts do degrade with time.
Tighten all the screws up in your speakers and stands, these work loose over time and can make a huge difference, do it while music is actually playing and you can hear the change. endquote>>>
Hurrah!! the Pioneer PDS901. I have one of these and back in the 90s Russ Andrews provided an upgrade service to stuff ( they do the sky box now) and if you told them the name of the piece of kit they got the circuit diagram and marked all the capacitors and components that would improve the system. I actually bought all of the things he suggested from Radio Spares and made my Pioneer a real contender. The power supply caps were upgraded as were most of the other electrolytics. the wiring was improved and the one thing that made a huge difference was putting better op amps in the output circuit. These are real changes, making big differences. The problem with mass produced kit is that it is built to a price. To hear any difference I had to upgrade to an Arcam alpha cd player, because I thought that the plucked guitar on the Doors cd sounded "crisper". Then after this I got myself a Cyrus cd8SE. The Cyrus was the most unreliable cd player I ever had, it skipped and jumped on discs like a little lamb. It would't play some and gave disc errors. The audio supplier said to me " Ah, but it sounds so good". I still can't equate "sounds good" with doesn't like some discs. My Pioneer played everything I threw at it. As someone has said, digital is 0 an 1s, if the player reads them then after that the differences will be in the DAC and analogue sections. But, after a certain price point can you really make/hear any improvement? There is much talk of warmth or involvement, but this must be salesman talk, mustn't it. I mean they used to say valve sound was "warm". Surely that is a distortion of the source? I always laugh when people say that vinyl is better sounding than cd. I say that what about the pops and crackles? If that isn't sound artifacts, then I can'T hear. I can just imagine that a vinyl fanatic would be happier if there amongst the live symphony orchestra he has gone to see there were players in a noise section consisting of a pop maker, a scratch player and a pop blower. Recently my Cyrus once again went wobbly and I dug out my 1992 Pioneer cd player. I have been rooted to the sofa re listening to my cds, not so much hearing things I never heard before ( I think that really means never noticed, like never noticing a house that you walk past regularly), but for some reason, free of the expectations to hear "involving" " warm" "invigorating" "pacey" music. I am just enjoying the music again. Listening to Sgt Pepper the mono remaster is lovely.
Oh I nearly forgot, to make the £1000 Cyrus sound better they advise you to purchase a £500 external power supply...do they mean that the player isn't adequate on its own? Imagine if when you bought anything the sales guy said that you needed to buy attachments. Oh sir, this BMW is very good, but to get out of it what you expect, you have to buy this external engine to help the one it it.....get away.
As for connections I bought some deoxit from Russ Andrews, expensive switch cleaner methinks
The live band recordings you talk of, the problem is for years bands and producers have messed with the straight sounds to achieve sounds that they prefer, echo, distortion phasing. This is because they don't like the bare sounds, a bit like singers who want reverb on their voices
Oh one last thing, does the centre foot on your Pioneer touch the ground? mine seems to float a few mms above, should I put some cork under it? ( or silver dust laced with diamonds haha)
Some things do make a definite improvement, speaker cables and stands make a very big difference.
In theory digital sources are pretty much identical as many have said a PC can't work if there is any error yet when i changed the soundcard in my Vortexbox source the difference was truly amazing, going from an onboard to a dedicated one, nothing special £50 job, this using the same DAC etc this was the only change.
I find it very hard to find anything truly listenable these days on my rather elderly mid price setup, (PC running Vortexbox / Pioneer PDS 901, MF X24/96 or Cambridge DAC2, Exposure XX and Rega Jura), compression and the old loudness war renders modern stuff painful. With a good recording, i have a few tracks recorded by a local band straight from the desk, uncompressed and f@cked with, it is quite staggering almost eerie.
Tip of the Day
If you want to improve the sound for free, unplug and replug everything in, twiddle the plugs a bit contacts do degrade with time.
Tighten all the screws up in your speakers and stands, these work loose over time and can make a huge difference, do it while music is actually playing and you can hear the change. endquote>>>
Hurrah!! the Pioneer PDS901. I have one of these and back in the 90s Russ Andrews provided an upgrade service to stuff ( they do the sky box now) and if you told them the name of the piece of kit they got the circuit diagram and marked all the capacitors and components that would improve the system. I actually bought all of the things he suggested from Radio Spares and made my Pioneer a real contender. The power supply caps were upgraded as were most of the other electrolytics. the wiring was improved and the one thing that made a huge difference was putting better op amps in the output circuit. These are real changes, making big differences. The problem with mass produced kit is that it is built to a price. To hear any difference I had to upgrade to an Arcam alpha cd player, because I thought that the plucked guitar on the Doors cd sounded "crisper". Then after this I got myself a Cyrus cd8SE. The Cyrus was the most unreliable cd player I ever had, it skipped and jumped on discs like a little lamb. It would't play some and gave disc errors. The audio supplier said to me " Ah, but it sounds so good". I still can't equate "sounds good" with doesn't like some discs. My Pioneer played everything I threw at it. As someone has said, digital is 0 an 1s, if the player reads them then after that the differences will be in the DAC and analogue sections. But, after a certain price point can you really make/hear any improvement? There is much talk of warmth or involvement, but this must be salesman talk, mustn't it. I mean they used to say valve sound was "warm". Surely that is a distortion of the source? I always laugh when people say that vinyl is better sounding than cd. I say that what about the pops and crackles? If that isn't sound artifacts, then I can'T hear. I can just imagine that a vinyl fanatic would be happier if there amongst the live symphony orchestra he has gone to see there were players in a noise section consisting of a pop maker, a scratch player and a pop blower. Recently my Cyrus once again went wobbly and I dug out my 1992 Pioneer cd player. I have been rooted to the sofa re listening to my cds, not so much hearing things I never heard before ( I think that really means never noticed, like never noticing a house that you walk past regularly), but for some reason, free of the expectations to hear "involving" " warm" "invigorating" "pacey" music. I am just enjoying the music again. Listening to Sgt Pepper the mono remaster is lovely.
Oh I nearly forgot, to make the £1000 Cyrus sound better they advise you to purchase a £500 external power supply...do they mean that the player isn't adequate on its own? Imagine if when you bought anything the sales guy said that you needed to buy attachments. Oh sir, this BMW is very good, but to get out of it what you expect, you have to buy this external engine to help the one it it.....get away.
As for connections I bought some deoxit from Russ Andrews, expensive switch cleaner methinks
The live band recordings you talk of, the problem is for years bands and producers have messed with the straight sounds to achieve sounds that they prefer, echo, distortion phasing. This is because they don't like the bare sounds, a bit like singers who want reverb on their voices
Oh one last thing, does the centre foot on your Pioneer touch the ground? mine seems to float a few mms above, should I put some cork under it? ( or silver dust laced with diamonds haha)
Edited by spikey123 on Thursday 13th March 11:42
spikey123 said:
Quote<<
Some things do make a definite improvement, speaker cables and stands make a very big difference.
In theory digital sources are pretty much identical as many have said a PC can't work if there is any error yet when i changed the soundcard in my Vortexbox source the difference was truly amazing, going from an onboard to a dedicated one, nothing special £50 job, this using the same DAC etc this was the only change.
I find it very hard to find anything truly listenable these days on my rather elderly mid price setup, (PC running Vortexbox / Pioneer PDS 901, MF X24/96 or Cambridge DAC2, Exposure XX and Rega Jura), compression and the old loudness war renders modern stuff painful. With a good recording, i have a few tracks recorded by a local band straight from the desk, uncompressed and f@cked with, it is quite staggering almost eerie.
Tip of the Day
If you want to improve the sound for free, unplug and replug everything in, twiddle the plugs a bit contacts do degrade with time.
Tighten all the screws up in your speakers and stands, these work loose over time and can make a huge difference, do it while music is actually playing and you can hear the change. endquote>>>
Hurrah!! the Pioneer PDS901. I have one of these and back in the 90s Russ Andrews provided an upgrade service to stuff ( they do the sky box now) and if you told them the name of the piece of kit they got the circuit diagram and marked all the capacitors and components that would improve the system. I actually bought all of the things he suggested from Radio Spares and made my Pioneer a real contender. The power supply caps were upgraded as were most of the other electrolytics. the wiring was improved and the one thing that made a huge difference was putting better op amps in the output circuit. These are real changes, making big differences. The problem with mass produced kit is that it is built to a price. To hear any difference I had to upgrade to an Arcam alpha cd player, because I thought that the plucked guitar on the Doors cd sounded "crisper". Then after this I got myself a Cyrus cd8SE. The Cyrus was the most unreliable cd player I ever had, it skipped and jumped on discs like a little lamb. It would't play some and gave disc errors. The audio supplier said to me " Ah, but it sounds so good". I still can't equate "sounds good" with doesn't like some discs. My Pioneer played everything I threw at it. As someone has said, digital is 0 an 1s, if the player reads them then after that the differences will be in the DAC and analogue sections. But, after a certain price point can you really make/hear any improvement? There is much talk of warmth or involvement, but this must be salesman talk, mustn't it. I mean they used to say valve sound was "warm". Surely that is a distortion of the source? I always laugh when people say that vinyl is better sounding than cd. I say that what about the pops and crackles? If that isn't sound artifacts, then I can'T hear. I can just imagine that a vinyl fanatic would be happier if there amongst the live symphony orchestra he has gone to see there were players in a noise section consisting of a pop maker, a scratch player and a pop blower. Recently my Cyrus once again went wobbly and I dug out my 1992 Pioneer cd player. I have been rooted to the sofa re listening to my cds, not so much hearing things I never heard before ( I think that really means never noticed, like never noticing a house that you walk past regularly), but for some reason, free of the expectations to hear "involving" " warm" "invigorating" "pacey" music. I am just enjoying the music again. Listening to Sgt Pepper the mono remaster is lovely.
Oh I nearly forgot, to make the £1000 Cyrus sound better they advise you to purchase a £500 external power supply...do they mean that the player isn't adequate on its own? Imagine if when you bought anything the sales guy said that you needed to buy attachments. Oh sir, this BMW is very good, but to get out of it what you expect, you have to buy this external engine to help the one it it.....get away.
As for connections I bought some deoxit from Russ Andrews, expensive switch cleaner methinks
The live band recordings you talk of, the problem is for years bands and producers have messed with the straight sounds to achieve sounds that they prefer, echo, distortion phasing. This is because they don't like the bare sounds, a bit like singers who want reverb on their voices
Oh one last thing, does the centre foot on your Pioneer touch the ground? mine seems to float a few mms above, should I put some cork under it? ( or silver dust laced with diamonds haha)
Thought as i read that it sounded familiar.Some things do make a definite improvement, speaker cables and stands make a very big difference.
In theory digital sources are pretty much identical as many have said a PC can't work if there is any error yet when i changed the soundcard in my Vortexbox source the difference was truly amazing, going from an onboard to a dedicated one, nothing special £50 job, this using the same DAC etc this was the only change.
I find it very hard to find anything truly listenable these days on my rather elderly mid price setup, (PC running Vortexbox / Pioneer PDS 901, MF X24/96 or Cambridge DAC2, Exposure XX and Rega Jura), compression and the old loudness war renders modern stuff painful. With a good recording, i have a few tracks recorded by a local band straight from the desk, uncompressed and f@cked with, it is quite staggering almost eerie.
Tip of the Day
If you want to improve the sound for free, unplug and replug everything in, twiddle the plugs a bit contacts do degrade with time.
Tighten all the screws up in your speakers and stands, these work loose over time and can make a huge difference, do it while music is actually playing and you can hear the change. endquote>>>
Hurrah!! the Pioneer PDS901. I have one of these and back in the 90s Russ Andrews provided an upgrade service to stuff ( they do the sky box now) and if you told them the name of the piece of kit they got the circuit diagram and marked all the capacitors and components that would improve the system. I actually bought all of the things he suggested from Radio Spares and made my Pioneer a real contender. The power supply caps were upgraded as were most of the other electrolytics. the wiring was improved and the one thing that made a huge difference was putting better op amps in the output circuit. These are real changes, making big differences. The problem with mass produced kit is that it is built to a price. To hear any difference I had to upgrade to an Arcam alpha cd player, because I thought that the plucked guitar on the Doors cd sounded "crisper". Then after this I got myself a Cyrus cd8SE. The Cyrus was the most unreliable cd player I ever had, it skipped and jumped on discs like a little lamb. It would't play some and gave disc errors. The audio supplier said to me " Ah, but it sounds so good". I still can't equate "sounds good" with doesn't like some discs. My Pioneer played everything I threw at it. As someone has said, digital is 0 an 1s, if the player reads them then after that the differences will be in the DAC and analogue sections. But, after a certain price point can you really make/hear any improvement? There is much talk of warmth or involvement, but this must be salesman talk, mustn't it. I mean they used to say valve sound was "warm". Surely that is a distortion of the source? I always laugh when people say that vinyl is better sounding than cd. I say that what about the pops and crackles? If that isn't sound artifacts, then I can'T hear. I can just imagine that a vinyl fanatic would be happier if there amongst the live symphony orchestra he has gone to see there were players in a noise section consisting of a pop maker, a scratch player and a pop blower. Recently my Cyrus once again went wobbly and I dug out my 1992 Pioneer cd player. I have been rooted to the sofa re listening to my cds, not so much hearing things I never heard before ( I think that really means never noticed, like never noticing a house that you walk past regularly), but for some reason, free of the expectations to hear "involving" " warm" "invigorating" "pacey" music. I am just enjoying the music again. Listening to Sgt Pepper the mono remaster is lovely.
Oh I nearly forgot, to make the £1000 Cyrus sound better they advise you to purchase a £500 external power supply...do they mean that the player isn't adequate on its own? Imagine if when you bought anything the sales guy said that you needed to buy attachments. Oh sir, this BMW is very good, but to get out of it what you expect, you have to buy this external engine to help the one it it.....get away.
As for connections I bought some deoxit from Russ Andrews, expensive switch cleaner methinks
The live band recordings you talk of, the problem is for years bands and producers have messed with the straight sounds to achieve sounds that they prefer, echo, distortion phasing. This is because they don't like the bare sounds, a bit like singers who want reverb on their voices
Oh one last thing, does the centre foot on your Pioneer touch the ground? mine seems to float a few mms above, should I put some cork under it? ( or silver dust laced with diamonds haha)
Edited by spikey123 on Thursday 13th March 11:42
Still stand by everything i said though.
The BMW analogy is interesting, a remapped 335d is faster than light. Well it isn't but it makes a huge improvement. Using high octane fuel can make a huge difference in some cars, much like using expensive cables etc.
The_Burg said:
Using high octane fuel can make a huge difference in some cars, much like using expensive cables etc.
Bad analogy. Using high octane fuels is nothing like using expensive cables. One has an effect, the other a good way to waste money. By your reasoning all data centres should be using Chord Company's £1600/m ethernet cable.....except they don't.spikey123 said:
In theory digital sources are pretty much identical
I assume you mean that once in digital form, all sources would see the same thing (true). It's just a file. (Getting an analogue source into digital form using different equipment will not result in identical files)
However, the conversion of digital data into something we can hear varies widely between equipment.
Basically, you have to turn a number into a voltage. The converter chips to do this aren't perfect, you get noise and distortion. Analogue outputs always pick up some noise from the digital circuit.
The other key thing is the time at which the number gets turned into a voltage. I'm working with some 24-bit resamplers at the moment and we have timing accuracies down a few trillionths of a second (<10ps) to get the required performance.
Digital clocks aren't perfect and any variation in cycle times ends up as distortion in the analogue outputs.
I have gone full circle in the past 15 years. From believing way too much of the Audiophile snake oil. To then start questioning and dismissing much of it, to the point of using DIY speaker cables, etc. and truly believing that all digital transports (should?) sound the same. Then I went to Cyrus and witnessed a demo of their top CD transport against their streamer. The streamer was playing FLACs from the same CDs as the transport was playing, and much to my distress there was a difference. It wasn't huge, but it was there.
I've then done further reading into DACs, jitter and the susceptibility of SPDif to electrical interference. I have witnessed the significant changes a linear PSU's and firmware mods have made to my squeezebox, which is acting purely as a digital transport. I have also tried my HTPC which has SPDif out as a transport, and that sounds different to the squeezebox with the same FLAC files.
I'm currently looking at building a dedicated PC based music streamer, something along the lines of the Computer Audiophile CAP servers, and the more I read the less I am dismissing, even those ridiculously priced USB cables. While I would never pay some of the (IMHO) stupid prices, maybe paying £20 for a well made USB cable doesn't seem as absurd to me as it once did. Maybe if I had a DAC with a decent asynchronous USB input I might not be so concerned, but I'd be using a USB to SPDif converter.
So while I fully appreciate that in the digital domain of a PC, digital information is not concerned with the quality of the cable, once you start plugging in analogue electronics, electrical interference starts to become a potential problem. For example; I could never see myself spending $70 on a filtered SATA cabled, however I'm not willing to dismiss any improvement out of hand without first actually listening to it myself.
I've then done further reading into DACs, jitter and the susceptibility of SPDif to electrical interference. I have witnessed the significant changes a linear PSU's and firmware mods have made to my squeezebox, which is acting purely as a digital transport. I have also tried my HTPC which has SPDif out as a transport, and that sounds different to the squeezebox with the same FLAC files.
I'm currently looking at building a dedicated PC based music streamer, something along the lines of the Computer Audiophile CAP servers, and the more I read the less I am dismissing, even those ridiculously priced USB cables. While I would never pay some of the (IMHO) stupid prices, maybe paying £20 for a well made USB cable doesn't seem as absurd to me as it once did. Maybe if I had a DAC with a decent asynchronous USB input I might not be so concerned, but I'd be using a USB to SPDif converter.
So while I fully appreciate that in the digital domain of a PC, digital information is not concerned with the quality of the cable, once you start plugging in analogue electronics, electrical interference starts to become a potential problem. For example; I could never see myself spending $70 on a filtered SATA cabled, however I'm not willing to dismiss any improvement out of hand without first actually listening to it myself.
I returned my Cyrus cd8SE2 to Cyrus this week. It has been in and out of Cyrus since I got it. The standby button broke on the front panel, but apparently all the buttons are on a moulding so to replace any of the buttons means a new front. They have a fixed "service" price of £250. Now I accept that the buttons are all part of one moulding, but this still in the end amounts to £250 for one button. It was last in July 2013 and had been replaced 3 times before for disc reading issues. They say that they are not going to fix it under warranty from the last time, so I have told them to keep it ( that was the politest I could manage ). Anyway, enough grumbling, what I was meaning to say was that I have gone back to my Pioneer legato link cd player and have been rooted to the sofa relistening to my cd collection. The cd player is built like a brick out house and the recapping and op amp changes I made have really given it a wonderful sound. new players are trying to get more out of a cd by fancy software, or in the case of the Cyrus, actually slowing the disc down to get more information....what toss, we already agreed that all cd players read the files, it is not here that the problems occur. I think to a large extent, it is perception of a difference, not actually better or worse. I tried silver cables that I was loaned, they were hugely expensive, but did they sound better? No they sounded different. I too went down the fancy mains leads, speaker leads and interconnects. They made small differences, nowhere in relation to their cost. I think cds could be good, it is just that they chose sample rates that were too low in order as rumour has it to fit the directors wish to fit Beethovens 9th onto one disc ( or something like that). We were told it was wonderful, but then had to suffer cds mastered direct from equalised and poor vinyl tape sources. The whole thing lurched from overpriced poor quality cds ( remember cd rot and the holes in the backing) then along came remasters and re remasters. Then the loudness war and catering for folks ripping to mp3s and listening on their phones. Cd should have been getting better and better, now the whole industry is in a mess and loosing out. They are even trying to sell cds as collectible by including T shirts and books and once again charging silly prices.
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