More 'Audiophile' bullsh*t
Discussion
Mr_Yogi said:
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.
If you make this please do a thread on here about it, I was thinking of something similar but have zero idea how to start.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.
You may be lucky. The audio dealer I use said that I would faint if I saw how many Cyrus cd players went back for repair. Hopefully yours will be OK. Don't loose the receipt and at the very first sign of problems take it straight to the dealer. Don't have it upgraded. I cannot believe how What hiFi and others can constantly give them good reviews, they must be aware of the many unhappy customers!!
Cyrus cd players do sound good, but the big fault with them is in the design. To read information off the disc, the cd is run at a slower speed, this is supposed to mean that error correction is not needed so much, hence better sound. I wonder if this means they use a buffer. Also by reading a disc slowly it makes the chance that a minute mark will affect play very likely. The slightest mark on a disc will throw the cd player, so don't buy second hand. The carrier mechanism is also weird and can give disc errors if the disc is not precisely loaded. Is there time for you to take the Cyrus back? I personally wouldn't touch one with a bargepole. I thought that they were ceasing to produce cd players? Cyrus is run by an American guy now, so the good old friendly Brits ( hhaha ) are doing things his way.
I never liked dealing with Cyrus, they are a closed shop, you cant buy spares or parts. You can't talk to the technical department. They have a fixed repair charge of £250 ( Ok if it is something big, but for a switch?) The design means that everything is expensive. As I have stated before, all the buttons on the front panel are on one mount so if one goes the whole lot has to be replaced.
The cd player that I had was the most unreliable piece of kit I ever had. Only the fact that I had paid a lot of money made me keep using it and sending it for repair. Anything else and I would have chucked it. In the end after saying they would repair it free if it didn't have any signs of physical abuse ( it sat in a cabinet, how would it get physical abuse?), they declined to fix it free and I told them to keep it....hows that for frustration?!?
Good Luck, lol. No honestly you may be fine
Cyrus cd players do sound good, but the big fault with them is in the design. To read information off the disc, the cd is run at a slower speed, this is supposed to mean that error correction is not needed so much, hence better sound. I wonder if this means they use a buffer. Also by reading a disc slowly it makes the chance that a minute mark will affect play very likely. The slightest mark on a disc will throw the cd player, so don't buy second hand. The carrier mechanism is also weird and can give disc errors if the disc is not precisely loaded. Is there time for you to take the Cyrus back? I personally wouldn't touch one with a bargepole. I thought that they were ceasing to produce cd players? Cyrus is run by an American guy now, so the good old friendly Brits ( hhaha ) are doing things his way.
I never liked dealing with Cyrus, they are a closed shop, you cant buy spares or parts. You can't talk to the technical department. They have a fixed repair charge of £250 ( Ok if it is something big, but for a switch?) The design means that everything is expensive. As I have stated before, all the buttons on the front panel are on one mount so if one goes the whole lot has to be replaced.
The cd player that I had was the most unreliable piece of kit I ever had. Only the fact that I had paid a lot of money made me keep using it and sending it for repair. Anything else and I would have chucked it. In the end after saying they would repair it free if it didn't have any signs of physical abuse ( it sat in a cabinet, how would it get physical abuse?), they declined to fix it free and I told them to keep it....hows that for frustration?!?
Good Luck, lol. No honestly you may be fine
Edited by spikey123 on Sunday 16th March 11:16
A bit like Euro kwik fit, Mission Cyrus became Cyrus and Euro Kwik Fit became Kwik Fit. It is pity that mem sticks have a limited life, just think how much less space they would take up, how many albums you could get on one stick and no need for turntables, lasers, loading mechanisms, error corrections. Fantastic
My recollection from a number of years back was that Mission Cyrus was split into 2 separate companies. Mission for speakers, Cyrus for Electronics. If memory serves was owned by 2 Persian brothers at the time, operating out of Huntingdon.
As an aside, Roksan was also owned by a Persian - Touraj Moghaddam -, also based in Huntingdon
As an aside, Roksan was also owned by a Persian - Touraj Moghaddam -, also based in Huntingdon
Edited by StescoG66 on Sunday 16th March 15:41
Cyrus are very offhand, expensive, yet not what you would expect from folks that sell expensive stuff. How can £250 for every repair, etc make it faster and cheaper for the customer? I wonder how when loads of their kit fails regularly, they get 5 star reviews from What HiFi? The power of advertising money I think, else the feedback from unhappy customers would drop that rating.
Anyway back to snake oil, I wonder how much of the sound of a cd player is in our heads, I mean do we all hear the same and is my green or blue the same as yours? So many adjectives are used for hifi, but warmth etc? Warm sound, that is like green taste. I just wonder how when you exceed say £1000, you can get any better? Surely at this price the components are peak and any further expense is for things you can't hear?
Anyway back to snake oil, I wonder how much of the sound of a cd player is in our heads, I mean do we all hear the same and is my green or blue the same as yours? So many adjectives are used for hifi, but warmth etc? Warm sound, that is like green taste. I just wonder how when you exceed say £1000, you can get any better? Surely at this price the components are peak and any further expense is for things you can't hear?
Hi spikey,
I didn't realise that Cyrus CD players had such a poor track record.
I've had a Cyrus Straightline and XPA amplifiers for several years, with no issues, and was attracted to their upgrade offer, which is why I have stuck with the brand. I also like the Cyrus sound.
My dealer told me that Cyrus don't actually upgrade your old kit, they scrap it and supply new items. So I upgraded to a Cyrus 8A and X-Power amplifiers, and needing a new CD player, it seemed to make sense to buy the CDi, which has been getting very good reviews. The CDi has recently been launched to replace the CD6 & CD8 SE2.
I look after my cd's, which are all new, and the CDi doesn't have a slide out drawer, you push the cd into a slot.
I've only had all of the new kit for a week, so it's early days.
I also found their customer support department ( not sure if it's what you mean by the technical dept) very approachable when seeking advice on what I was proposing to do.
I didn't realise that Cyrus CD players had such a poor track record.
I've had a Cyrus Straightline and XPA amplifiers for several years, with no issues, and was attracted to their upgrade offer, which is why I have stuck with the brand. I also like the Cyrus sound.
My dealer told me that Cyrus don't actually upgrade your old kit, they scrap it and supply new items. So I upgraded to a Cyrus 8A and X-Power amplifiers, and needing a new CD player, it seemed to make sense to buy the CDi, which has been getting very good reviews. The CDi has recently been launched to replace the CD6 & CD8 SE2.
I look after my cd's, which are all new, and the CDi doesn't have a slide out drawer, you push the cd into a slot.
I've only had all of the new kit for a week, so it's early days.
I also found their customer support department ( not sure if it's what you mean by the technical dept) very approachable when seeking advice on what I was proposing to do.
Not really read any of this thread but just skimmed the last couple of pages and people saying digital transports sound the same.
Cobblers.
All hifi manufacturers put their own sonic signature on kit, sounding the same is the last thing they want.
Then you have the fact that one transport may upsample and use an apodising filter before sending out its signal. Some Ayre players allow you to select the filter you want, think they call it 'measure' and 'musical' which says a lot about building a transport that sounds completely flat.
I used to do a demo of a Philips SA963 vs a Meridian 500 vs an original PS3.
Everyone could tell a difference between each one, and every time and everyone was very impressed by the PS3.
The differences were far from subtle.
Having said all that though, I went to Meridian DSP speakers and they tend to make everything sound nice, so I'm not so fussed about transports any more.
Cobblers.
All hifi manufacturers put their own sonic signature on kit, sounding the same is the last thing they want.
Then you have the fact that one transport may upsample and use an apodising filter before sending out its signal. Some Ayre players allow you to select the filter you want, think they call it 'measure' and 'musical' which says a lot about building a transport that sounds completely flat.
I used to do a demo of a Philips SA963 vs a Meridian 500 vs an original PS3.
Everyone could tell a difference between each one, and every time and everyone was very impressed by the PS3.
The differences were far from subtle.
Having said all that though, I went to Meridian DSP speakers and they tend to make everything sound nice, so I'm not so fussed about transports any more.
I thought the whole thing about cd was that it didn't need equalising or filtering, or tone manipulation? In that case you don't want digital signatures on music, just a straight reproduction of what the original producer designed. Sounds tantamount to a red filter or green filter on a dvd player to make it more red or green. graphic equalisers were the toy of the cassette and vinyl brigade, whereas cd was supposed to have a flat frequency and dynamic response. Are you saying that manufacturers are changing the sound to make it individual? What happened to dynamic range and clarity and what goes in comes out?
Hand me that fake tan and earmuffs, I want to change the world
Hand me that fake tan and earmuffs, I want to change the world
I think its all simply............................................subjective.
I am extremely happy with my dedicated mini pc playing via an ages old Arcam Dac into an ages old Rotel RC 890 into a RB890 into 2 x Sony APM 22 Speakers.
Then again I like my Meridian CD through the same amp and I even quite like my Denon Tuner as well.
The only equipment I had to return after good advice on here was unfortunately an Internet radio separate that decided to quite literally go bang after overheating. I returned it and they gave me the money back as they were unable to supply a replacement as they had returned stock to manufacturer due to some issues. I can't help feeling they may have been safety issues.
I haven't replaced the internet radio separate as it gave me chance to think was it worth it for the radio I listen to.
I am extremely happy with my dedicated mini pc playing via an ages old Arcam Dac into an ages old Rotel RC 890 into a RB890 into 2 x Sony APM 22 Speakers.
Then again I like my Meridian CD through the same amp and I even quite like my Denon Tuner as well.
The only equipment I had to return after good advice on here was unfortunately an Internet radio separate that decided to quite literally go bang after overheating. I returned it and they gave me the money back as they were unable to supply a replacement as they had returned stock to manufacturer due to some issues. I can't help feeling they may have been safety issues.
I haven't replaced the internet radio separate as it gave me chance to think was it worth it for the radio I listen to.
spikey123 said:
I thought the whole thing about cd was that it didn't need equalising or filtering, or tone manipulation? In that case you don't want digital signatures on music, just a straight reproduction of what the original producer designed.
But it is about pulling that signal off the disc and loosing as little detail as possible.That is where the advancements are still happening.
spikey123 said:
Sounds tantamount to a red filter or green filter on a dvd player to make it more red or green. graphic equalisers were the toy of the cassette and vinyl brigade, whereas cd was supposed to have a flat frequency and dynamic response.
Not at all. Think of it like having more resolution on a display. To be fair, having an decent graphic on a mid priced tape deck wasn't a bad thing.
Adding is to a high end Sony S or Nak deck didn't add much.
spikey123 said:
Are you saying that manufacturers are changing the sound to make it individual? What happened to dynamic range and clarity and what goes in comes out?
Hand me that fake tan and earmuffs, I want to change the world
If anyone thinks manufacturers don't add their sonic signature to kit they are nuts. Hand me that fake tan and earmuffs, I want to change the world
Listen to a Naim CD player and then listen to a Meridian, the Naim is very forward and fast, always an extension on the upper mid range to give it an exciting toe tapping sound, then listen to the Meridian, it sounds very smooth in comparison, in fact some may say it sounds a bit too laid back, but listen carefully and there is better detail, bigger and more focused sound stage and an almost analogue sound to it.
The Naim is great for a short burst, but the Meridian you can listen to at reference level all day and night and it never sounds tiring.
These are obviously tailored by the companies who produce them to sound the way they do, the one thing they have in common is they want to pull as much detail off the source as possible.
If you have an interest in this stuff it is well worth following Paul McGowan's blog, he is the guy behind PS Audio and is right up there in regard to digital, along with Bob at Meridian.
Some seriously, seriously impressive kit coming from PS Audio at the moment, and Meridian. Making CD sound almost as good as the best HD material imho.
http://www.pstracks.com/category/pauls-posts/
gizlaroc said:
But it is about pulling that signal off the disc and loosing as little detail as possible.
That is where the advancements are still happening.
What extra detail do you think they've still not managed to pull off CDs....after 30+ years? Are you saying that current CD players are still somehow unable to read the data from the CD?That is where the advancements are still happening.
In the distant past, I seem to recall somebody reading the spdif stream from a CD player into a file on a PC and then perfoming a comparison of repeated reads, and the files were found to be different.
This will of course depend on how good a condition the CD is in the first place, as a scratched CD will potentially require more error correction, and (presumably) said error correction is not 100% consistent across plays.
Whether or not we can hear these differences is a moot point.
However, reading bits form a CD should be relatively trivial these days, given the bit density of a Blu Ray disk vs. a CD.
If reading a CD was as difficult as some suppose it to be, then reading a Blu Ray disk should be even more prone to error, which clearly it isn't.
This will of course depend on how good a condition the CD is in the first place, as a scratched CD will potentially require more error correction, and (presumably) said error correction is not 100% consistent across plays.
Whether or not we can hear these differences is a moot point.
However, reading bits form a CD should be relatively trivial these days, given the bit density of a Blu Ray disk vs. a CD.
If reading a CD was as difficult as some suppose it to be, then reading a Blu Ray disk should be even more prone to error, which clearly it isn't.
I see this thread is still chasing it's tail 
My advice to those that don't understand is to do a bit of research and THEN post.
No, not all CD players can pull off a bit-perfect stream. That's why I rip using EAC - http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/
If the data was being read 100% accurately then the red book standard wouldn't include an error correction specification
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_Disc_Digital_...
Of course getting an accurate copy of the orginal data is just the starting point. The real issues are then getting that data in and out of the DAC
My advice to those that don't understand is to do a bit of research and THEN post.
No, not all CD players can pull off a bit-perfect stream. That's why I rip using EAC - http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/
If the data was being read 100% accurately then the red book standard wouldn't include an error correction specification
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_Disc_Digital_...Of course getting an accurate copy of the orginal data is just the starting point. The real issues are then getting that data in and out of the DAC
Well at the risk of being accused of not doing my homework first and downloading a copy of EAC. WHY, do modern cd players have so much trouble simply playing cds? The Rega Apollo does weird things, The Cyrus does weird things. By weird I mean skipping or giving disc errors or empty disc errors. Now excue me I'm off to read Wikipedia and gen up on all those essential facts that I need to know before posting. Then I can be arrogant too :>)
gizlaroc said:
spikey123 said:
Sounds tantamount to a red filter or green filter on a dvd player to make it more red or green. graphic equalisers were the toy of the cassette and vinyl brigade, whereas cd was supposed to have a flat frequency and dynamic response.
Not at all. Think of it like having more resolution on a display. Graphic equalisers were intended to enable you to obtain a flat response where you could offset any inaccuracies in your deck's eq'ing. However they turned into a bit of a gimmick and were used to whack the bass and treble up instead. But yes digital recordings should have a flat response by nature and thus negated the need for eq'ing a recording and they disappeared from audio equipment, helped save space also which was a plus for folk that like smaller audio equipment.
hey have you seen this? http://www.digitaltrends.com/music/neil-youngs-pon...
I must admit to being sceptical, they are testing in a car and mainly comparing to MP3s. I can already see the need to once again rebuy all the albums we have bought over and over.
yes vinyl had to perform to a certain curve ( I have forgotten the letters of the acronym ). My one arguement against vinyl being better sounding than cd due to being a continuous wave pattern not steps, is that there is a limit to how well the stylus can track the grooves. I remember Frank Zappa wanting more information and faster on vinyl, but the format wouldn't support it. I also remember the album Satanic Majesties Request that had some really heavy bass and it used to make the arm jump. Also the noise floor of vinyl is never as good as cd and if the cds were mastered correctly then their dynamic range was far greater than vinyl. Add to this warped records, worn records, heavyweight vinyl, lightweight vinyl, virgin vinyl, coloured vinyl. Whenever anyone wishes to praise a player they often say it is more analogue like, but vinyl was processed, filtered limited, compressed too.
Finally, gasp, have you ever thought about the fact that we hear using the hair cells in the ear. These are not one continuous ( analogue) ribbon but individual cells that respond to a certain frequency. Hey guys we are digital samplers, not 0 and 1, but not an analogue wave either. How smooth is smooth?
I must admit to being sceptical, they are testing in a car and mainly comparing to MP3s. I can already see the need to once again rebuy all the albums we have bought over and over.
yes vinyl had to perform to a certain curve ( I have forgotten the letters of the acronym ). My one arguement against vinyl being better sounding than cd due to being a continuous wave pattern not steps, is that there is a limit to how well the stylus can track the grooves. I remember Frank Zappa wanting more information and faster on vinyl, but the format wouldn't support it. I also remember the album Satanic Majesties Request that had some really heavy bass and it used to make the arm jump. Also the noise floor of vinyl is never as good as cd and if the cds were mastered correctly then their dynamic range was far greater than vinyl. Add to this warped records, worn records, heavyweight vinyl, lightweight vinyl, virgin vinyl, coloured vinyl. Whenever anyone wishes to praise a player they often say it is more analogue like, but vinyl was processed, filtered limited, compressed too.
Finally, gasp, have you ever thought about the fact that we hear using the hair cells in the ear. These are not one continuous ( analogue) ribbon but individual cells that respond to a certain frequency. Hey guys we are digital samplers, not 0 and 1, but not an analogue wave either. How smooth is smooth?
digital audio suffers from 'aliasing' where the steps between the bits are audible, however a higher bit-rate and oversampling overcomes these limitations.
There's no reason why, given the horsepower of modern music devices that instead of using the old MPEG3 format for audio they couldn't use MPEG4 or better, these utilise much higher data compression which require a faster CPU to read, however this is no problem nowadays. The end result is that you could have .mp4 music files with high definition 24bit audio without really increasing the size of the files. If you've ever played an SACD or DVDA album with their 24-bit @ 96KHz audio on the difference in quality is astonishing, even on a modest system the difference is striking.
There's no reason why, given the horsepower of modern music devices that instead of using the old MPEG3 format for audio they couldn't use MPEG4 or better, these utilise much higher data compression which require a faster CPU to read, however this is no problem nowadays. The end result is that you could have .mp4 music files with high definition 24bit audio without really increasing the size of the files. If you've ever played an SACD or DVDA album with their 24-bit @ 96KHz audio on the difference in quality is astonishing, even on a modest system the difference is striking.
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