Playing CDs on DVD or Blue Ray players
Discussion
IforB said:
Yes they will.
To answer your question with another question. Why buy a Porsche 911 if a Nissan Micra will get you to your destination just as easily?
I would be able to tell the difference between driving the 911 and the Micra.To answer your question with another question. Why buy a Porsche 911 if a Nissan Micra will get you to your destination just as easily?
Would I be able to tell the difference between audio from a dedicated CD player and audio from a £75 Blueray player?
My amp is a Denon AVRX1000, and the speakers are MS10i with separate REL Quake sub. So it's an entry level system.
Generally cheap BD players usually just have a HDMI digital link. Hence they act like a Transport. HiFI BD players such as the Pioneer BDP-150 have Audio and Digital outs as well and have a transport that reads CD better than a BD alone. Hence you can connect them to a Hifi Amplifier. A HiFI CD player has a CD Transport that is optimised to read CD minimising "jitter". The DAC chip is usually of a higher spec and is shielded away from RF interference. They also usually have a better Power supply.
I would say that a BD player connected to your amp would not sound too bad especially if it is one from a good maker. I would not expect a "Tecknika" to be be in that category but a Sony for example should be. If you go for a CD player with decent connection leads I would expect it to be better though.
I would say that a BD player connected to your amp would not sound too bad especially if it is one from a good maker. I would not expect a "Tecknika" to be be in that category but a Sony for example should be. If you go for a CD player with decent connection leads I would expect it to be better though.
Paul Drawmer said:
Thanks for the replies...
I suspect we're heading for a streamed world really. So I don't expect it to matter that much. I'll re-rip all my existing CDs using a higher bit rate, and stuff it all on a NAS drive.
I don't imagine I'll be buying many more physical music tracks.
DO NOT USE MP3. Disk capacity is cheap these days. Use FLAC or even just copy the complete WAV file so the quality does not drop. Personally I find playing files too much aggro. I suspect we're heading for a streamed world really. So I don't expect it to matter that much. I'll re-rip all my existing CDs using a higher bit rate, and stuff it all on a NAS drive.
I don't imagine I'll be buying many more physical music tracks.
mp3manager said:
Paul Drawmer said:
Will a cheap Blueray or DVD player play CDs properly?
The soon to be released PS4 won't play CDs at all! 
It doesn't sound as good as my Marantz CD player (a bir 'muddier') but it's really not bad and if the Marantz went pop tomorrow I'd seriously consider not replacing it and just use the PS3 instead.
telecat said:
Paul Drawmer said:
Thanks for the replies...
I suspect we're heading for a streamed world really. So I don't expect it to matter that much. I'll re-rip all my existing CDs using a higher bit rate, and stuff it all on a NAS drive.
I don't imagine I'll be buying many more physical music tracks.
DO NOT USE MP3. Disk capacity is cheap these days. Use FLAC or even just copy the complete WAV file so the quality does not drop. Personally I find playing files too much aggro. I suspect we're heading for a streamed world really. So I don't expect it to matter that much. I'll re-rip all my existing CDs using a higher bit rate, and stuff it all on a NAS drive.
I don't imagine I'll be buying many more physical music tracks.
As for the original question...it depends. Hook a cheap blu-ray player up to an amp with a digital connection (HDMI/sp-dif etc) and it should sound the same because the amp is doing the difficult work. Use analogue connections (red&white RCA plugs) and it's worth getting something decent. I have never understood why an expensive CD transport should sound better then a cheap one though, the £50 drive on my computer can read a CD perfectly at 20x+ speed so it's not a difficult job.
varsas said:
...As for the original question...it depends. Hook a cheap blu-ray player up to an amp with a digital connection (HDMI/sp-dif etc) and it should sound the same because the amp is doing the difficult work...
I admit, this is the answer I was hoping for. I've bought a cheap player now, so if it's no good I've wasted £25!My thinking was that if I connect via HDMI, then it's the Denon doing the decoding. I read somewhere about a DVD player making the CD audio sound 'harsh'.
I've got a pretty decent Arcam CD player and also an Oppo BluRay player. Lately I've simplified my set up and removed the Arcam player, I've been using the Oppo (via HDMI) to listen to CDs. Although I've not done a back to back comparison I can't really say that I can hear any difference and I don't really feel like I miss the Arcam. It's not that the Oppo is using it's own sound decoding either, just the HDMI which my amp is decoding.
Maybe I'm not discerning enough, but having recently spent a bomb on MK speakers, it isn't the rest of the equipment hiding the differences.
Maybe I'm not discerning enough, but having recently spent a bomb on MK speakers, it isn't the rest of the equipment hiding the differences.
I've got an Oppo 95 and it's as good a CD player as ever I've heard. Better than my old Denon CD player certainly.
However, I did listen to an Arcam blu Ray player and to be homest, even though it was a fairly pricey piece of kit, it sounded pretty rubbish with CD's and my old Denon sounded much better.
It was wierd and I can't say I fully get how a Blu Ray player reads a CD differently, but it did. All were connected using phonos rather than a mix of phono and HDMI.
However, I did listen to an Arcam blu Ray player and to be homest, even though it was a fairly pricey piece of kit, it sounded pretty rubbish with CD's and my old Denon sounded much better.
It was wierd and I can't say I fully get how a Blu Ray player reads a CD differently, but it did. All were connected using phonos rather than a mix of phono and HDMI.
The '95 had better DACs than the '93 though I'm using mine via HDMI anyway. Though I have run it via analogue outputs when I was using my old Arcam AV9 procossor, but I couldn't tell the difference between the Arcan CD player or the Oppo '93 even in the case of using analogue cables.
Changing the speakers however made a significant difference to the sound (PMC to MK) so the small/un noticable (to my ears) differences between players pales into insignificance for me anyway.
At least any ignorance on my part saves me money (for once).
Changing the speakers however made a significant difference to the sound (PMC to MK) so the small/un noticable (to my ears) differences between players pales into insignificance for me anyway.
At least any ignorance on my part saves me money (for once).
IforB said:
It was wierd and I can't say I fully get how a Blu Ray player reads a CD differently, but it did. All were connected using phonos rather than a mix of phono and HDMI.
In your case, they weren't just reading the CD. They were also doing Digital->Analogue Conversion (DAC). As soon as you get analogue signals involved (and they will be at some point) it's where there can be a difference. That difference could be deliberately dialed in or just the result of poor components.varsas said:
I have come to believe (rightly or wrongly) that the very act of putting the sound file through a lossy encoder changes the sound.
It definately seems to affect different music in different ways. All my digital music is FLAC ripped from the CD using dbpoweramp and ran with a checksum against the accurate-rip database. I run Monkey Media to do an on the fly conversion when I want to build a playlist for the car (MP3 only) and copy it to an SD card.Some tracks sound great, other sound really thin a weedy lacking bottom and some tracks lacking top. All have been converted and writted to SD at the same time by the same computer.
I can't see why this might be. I'd understand if it was consistent but it varies track by track. I assume it must be the way the mp3 compression algorithm works with different tracks as everything else is the same.
Bullett said:
varsas said:
I have come to believe (rightly or wrongly) that the very act of putting the sound file through a lossy encoder changes the sound.
It definately seems to affect different music in different ways. All my digital music is FLAC ripped from the CD using dbpoweramp and ran with a checksum against the accurate-rip database. I run Monkey Media to do an on the fly conversion when I want to build a playlist for the car (MP3 only) and copy it to an SD card.Some tracks sound great, other sound really thin a weedy lacking bottom and some tracks lacking top. All have been converted and writted to SD at the same time by the same computer.
I can't see why this might be. I'd understand if it was consistent but it varies track by track. I assume it must be the way the mp3 compression algorithm works with different tracks as everything else is the same.
If you are connecting via an HDMI to an AVR which is using it's own DAC to convert, then it shouldn't matter what player you use as a transport - if it can read the disc and send the digital data to the AVR then it should sound the same as any other.
Where expensive players will sound better is when they use their own, superior onboard DAC and send the analogue signal to an amplipher. If you are just using a stereo amp then it's worth investing in a better player. However, you could of course just get a cheap transport and then spend on a separate DAC to do the conversion....
Where expensive players will sound better is when they use their own, superior onboard DAC and send the analogue signal to an amplipher. If you are just using a stereo amp then it's worth investing in a better player. However, you could of course just get a cheap transport and then spend on a separate DAC to do the conversion....
varsas said:
I have come to believe (rightly or wrongly) that the very act of putting the sound file through a lossy encoder changes the sound, so even if it was a 1,400k .mp3 file it'd still sound different. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't but I just can't be bothered anymore. I keep two copies of my music, a direct-WAV rip from the CD and a 320k .mp3 for car/phone/.mp3 player.
It's perceptual encoding. Go look it up, there's lots of nice explanations around the web. Obviously the data is less but that's the idea. Whether or not you can hear a difference between a particular lossy encoded file and the original is down to you. There's always a tipping point, for me I'm happy with most of my music ripped with -V 2 using LAME, 320kbps is overkill.Why don't you use FLAC? WAV is needlessly taking up space and although some programs support tagging many do not as it's not standard. FLAC is widely supported across multiple platforms and hardware and has proper tagging
Makes life easier.probedb said:
varsas said:
I have come to believe (rightly or wrongly) that the very act of putting the sound file through a lossy encoder changes the sound, so even if it was a 1,400k .mp3 file it'd still sound different. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't but I just can't be bothered anymore. I keep two copies of my music, a direct-WAV rip from the CD and a 320k .mp3 for car/phone/.mp3 player.
It's perceptual encoding. Go look it up, there's lots of nice explanations around the web. Obviously the data is less but that's the idea. Whether or not you can hear a difference between a particular lossy encoded file and the original is down to you. There's always a tipping point, for me I'm happy with most of my music ripped with -V 2 using LAME, 320kbps is overkill.Why don't you use FLAC? WAV is needlessly taking up space and although some programs support tagging many do not as it's not standard. FLAC is widely supported across multiple platforms and hardware and has proper tagging
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