What’s your Hi-Fi set up? spec and pictures please

[wolfracesonic]

Are CDs making some sort of underground comeback? I’ve been looking for a new or second hand player/transport to go with my Chord Qutest dac and couldn’t believe some of the prices top end Sony, TEAC and Pioneer players from the nineties are going for. A few years ago I stupidly sold my Meridian 602 transport (I bought it new for £1500.00 in the nineties) for a song, so I had a look on eBay for a replacement; saw one with the bidding starting at £500.00 and thought it wouldn’t go for much more than that, it ended up fetching £862.00, not to me sadly. I’d check your lofts for stuff you thought ‘this is worthless now’

[TonyRPH]

wolfracesonic said:

Are CDs making some sort of underground comeback?

Yes, I don't think they ever really went away....

wolfracesonic said:

I’ve been looking for a new or second hand player/transport to go with my Chord Qutest dac and couldn’t believe some of the prices top end Sony, TEAC and Pioneer players from the nineties are going for. A few years ago I stupidly sold my Meridian 602 transport (I bought it new for £1500.00 in the nineties) for a song, so I had a look on eBay for a replacement; saw one with the bidding starting at £500.00 and thought it wouldn’t go for much more than that, it ended up fetching £862.00, not to me sadly. I’d check your lofts for stuff you thought ‘this is worthless now’

An 'esoteric' CD transport is not required with modern DACs. Any old DVD / CD player will do just fine.

I have kept a 'stock' of CD players (I have about 6) just in case...

[Mars]

stevoknevo said:

Sorry, missed your reply - aye, I don't envy you having to temper them in a terrace as the GB1 are no slouch in the bass department and the FB's are bigger/go deeper.
Still no further forward with my planned change of amplification, my Anthem AV receiver is faulty on the right front channel but liveable with for now with a 10db offset on the left channel - I was planning on maybe getting a power amp to retain room correction from the AVR but now need to ascertain whether it's an amplification/pre amp/DSP chip issue by dragging my old AVR out and testing the pre-outs on the Anthem, PITA...

On the other hand, I picked up a mint Mk2 Linn Karik for £300.

The concern I have with the older stuff these days is the electrolytic capacitors. Many will need replacing now. Some of the specialist forums detail how and which ones are most likely to need this. In the case of Linn components as old as mine, that is easy enough especially for the amplifiers but the Karik has a LOT of components inside and the PCB is quite densely populated - easy to make a mistake.

[wolfracesonic]

TonyRPH said:

An 'esoteric' CD transport is not required with modern DACs. Any old DVD / CD player will do just fine.

I have kept a 'stock' of CD players (I have about 6) just in case...

I realise there is probably not a lot to be gained from a battleship build player, 1s and 0s are 1s and 0s right? I’m currently using my Panasonic blu ray player as a transport but it really is a plasticky piece of crap to use, I really fancied returning to something nicer to use, with more of a sense of theatre, if you see what I mean.

[TonyRPH]

wolfracesonic said:

I realise there is probably not a lot to be gained from a battleship build player, 1s and 0s are 1s and 0s right? I’m currently using my Panasonic blu ray player as a transport but it really is a plasticky piece of crap to use, I really fancied returning to something nicer to use, with more of a sense of theatre, if you see what I mean.

Yes I know what you mean about the feel of gear.

Try some Cambridge Audio stuff from the 90's / mid 2000's - CD players such as the D100/D200/D500 (if you can find a working one!!) or the later Azur range, 340C/540C/640C - they are reasonably well built (certainly better than a plastic DVD player!).

Also older Sony players - and Sony DVD players which make good transports too (but DVD players can be a little slow to read the discs).

[Castrol for a knave]

Spleen said:

LP12 with various upgrades.
Naim NDX2.
Supernait 3.
Naim Fraim.
Hi-Line x 1, Power-Lines x 2.
NAC A5 feeding Focal Kanta 2s.
Focal Elears.
2 x Mu-so Qb and 2 x Naim Mu-so throughout the house.

Absolutely no desire to spend anymore money!

Very similar to me

LP12
Naim Supernait


My LP12 is pre Valhalla, so a bit of a museum piece. I did have an Ittok with Troika but flogged that when a student to pay for my postgrad. Now running Akito with K18.

and then an old Rotel analogue tuner which has a nice warm 80's sound, NAD 538 CD player and Rotel tape deck (currently sitting in the loft next to my old Arcam A60).

I stream high def these days, via Qobuz using an Arcam rPlay.

Linn K20 cables out to Spendor LS3/5a.

All that, and I tend to listen to a £30 Roberts DAB in the kitchen more than anything

[wolfracesonic]

This, quite old site, is quite interesting regarding older gear, he give a very detailed breakdown of what’s good and bad inside older cd players; the late nineties seems to be the high watermark as far as build quality goes. Lampizator, warning, site is flagged as not secure on my iPad, so make your own mind up wether to click on the link.

[thebraketester]

wolfracesonic said:

Are CDs making some sort of underground comeback? I’ve been looking for a new or second hand player/transport to go with my Chord Qutest dac and couldn’t believe some of the prices top end Sony, TEAC and Pioneer players from the nineties are going for. A few years ago I stupidly sold my Meridian 602 transport (I bought it new for £1500.00 in the nineties) for a song, so I had a look on eBay for a replacement; saw one with the bidding starting at £500.00 and thought it wouldn’t go for much more than that, it ended up fetching £862.00, not to me sadly. I’d check your lofts for stuff you thought ‘this is worthless now’

And thanks to this post I am now looking unnecessarily for a CD player to match my 1980s technics stuff. I have not even used a CD in 10 years :-)

[miniman]

wolfracesonic said:

This, quite old site, is quite interesting regarding older gear, he give a very detailed breakdown of what’s good and bad inside older cd players; the late nineties seems to be the high watermark as far as build quality goes. Lampizator, warning, site is flagged as not secure on my iPad, so make your own mind up wether to click on the link.

Is there a simple explanation of what he’s up to with what appears to be valve conversions to CD players?

[wolfracesonic]

miniman said:

Is there a simple explanation of what he’s up to with what appears to be valve conversions to CD players?

Not sure, electronic circuitry is not my forte! Here is his new site with his own range of gear, pretty spendy! Lampizator Poland

[TonyRPH]

miniman said:

Is there a simple explanation of what he’s up to with what appears to be valve conversions to CD players?

All DACs / CD players require an amplification stage.

He (and many others) believe that valves sound better than opamps (opamps are almost universally used for the amplification stage).

Additionally, he went on to produce his own valve based DAC which is $$$$

[Deranged Rover]

miniman said:

Is there a simple explanation of what he’s up to with what appears to be valve conversions to CD players?

Yes. He's a cretin who likes to ruin stuff.

Exhibit A: http://www.lampizator.eu/lampizator/references/Ban...

[PT1984]

Can anyone confirm what ‘redbook’ is in reference to streaming.

I like John Darko’s YouTube world, but I do get a little lost with some of the bitrate terminology.

I have a Sonos connect that is linked to the DAC of an Audiolab 6000a. Source is Spotify Premium.

I know the connect can only do up to 320kbps, but I don’t quite understand what that means.

[loughran]

Here's an explanation of Redbook.

https://www.travsonic.com/red-book-cd-format/

[TonyRPH]

PT1984 said:

Can anyone confirm what ‘redbook’ is in reference to streaming.

I like John Darko’s YouTube world, but I do get a little lost with some of the bitrate terminology.

I have a Sonos connect that is linked to the DAC of an Audiolab 6000a. Source is Spotify Premium.

I know the connect can only do up to 320kbps, but I don’t quite understand what that means.

RedBook is a standard set for CD reproduction, but only applies to the CD and how the digital data is stored (and read) on said CD.

Streaming is somewhat different and I shall try to explain in simple terms.

Digital music can be stored on a USB stick, hard disk etc. in a number of different formats, MP3, FLAC, ALAC and WAV being the most common formats (this is different to CD).

Each format has the digital information stored in the form of bits and sample rate.

RedBook CD is 16 bits with a sample rate of 44.1kHz (and these are fixed rates)

Streamed music can be 16bits or 24bits.

The sample rate can vary from (typically) 32k up to 320k for MP3, however lossless formats such as FLAC and ALAC will usually have a variable sample rate that can be as high as 900k or more, depending on the sample rate and bit depth of the original source (and also dynamic range etc.).

The sample rate is the number of times in a second an audio sample is taken and represents the number of instances per second that recording equipment is transforming sound into data.

Bit depth is the number of bits captured in each of the samples. A higher bit depth is better, and typically you won't see music higher than 24bits currently.

Bit depth (along with the sample rate) also determines the maximum dynamic range of the recording.

320k is the highest quality sample bit rate for the MP3 format.

WAV files do not have a specific sample rate, but they do have a bit depth which depending on quality can be 8 to 24 bits.

The same applies to the lossless codecs mentioned above (FLAC & ALAC).

The sample rate depends determines the highest frequency that can be captured, which is always half of the sample rate (known as the Nyquist frequency).

Typical sample rates are 44.1, 48, 96, 128, 256 and 384k. (higher rates are available but comparatively rare)

So 44.1kHz - the highest frequency that can be captured = 22.050Hz or 22.05kHz.

48kHz - 24kHz

96kHz - 48kHz

And so on,,,

EDIT: Added some minor corrections.

Edited by TonyRPH on Friday 13th August 16:56

[PT1984]

Thanks both, appreciated.

[Sporky]

I might venture to suggest that there is limited (at best) evidence to support the idea that 24-bit sounds any different from 16-bit at point of consumption.

Higher bit depth has definite benefits at recording/processing/mastering stages, but 16-bit done well (as it has been for many years now) offers a level of resolution that surpasses the human hearing system's dynamic range and resolution. The CD bit depth and sample rate weren't chosen because of limitations of technology, but because of limitations of hearing.

[TonyRPH]

Sporky said:

<stuff>

I agree with your 16/24 sentiments.

The Sony & Philips engineers got it right when they specified 16/44.1 IMHO.

[Spleen]

Castrol for a knave said:

All that, and I tend to listen to a £30 Roberts DAB in the kitchen more than anything

Which is exactly what my wife does despite a Mu-so Qb Gen 2 right next to it.

[Mars]

TonyRPH said:

Sporky said:

<stuff>

I agree with your 16/24 sentiments.

The Sony & Philips engineers got it right when they specified 16/44.1 IMHO.

I remember there being a noticeable improvement using digital tape which was 16/48 over CD some 35 years ago. This was when we creating a master of my own band's noise. We had recorded to a 16 track analogue tape and were mixing and mastering directly to a DAT, an ADAT and a CD recorder. We did a test to see which was better - the studio engineer had only recently installed the DAT and CD recorder, and wanted to see how they stacked up against his ADAT. Both tape formats were head & shoulders better than the CD machine.

It very much could have been because CD recorders weren't much cop perhaps, but this one was an Akai or a TEAC (can't remember which but was rack mountable, and it was a "studio" colour - that beige colour that studio machines were in the late 1980s), so it was intended as a studio machine.