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Author Topic: CD and Non-disc Transports, What's the Effin' deal?  (Read 13136 times)

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DaveBSC

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Re: CD and Non-disc Transports, What's the Effin' deal?
« Reply #40 on: January 29, 2013, 11:53:30 AM »
Quote from: lmswjm on January 29, 2013, 10:11:12 AM
Speaking of Empirical, here's what Steve says on his website regarding CD transports vs. his USB implementation:
 
Overdrive® SE USB DAC/Pre
USB digital to analog converter, Pre and Head amp
The Overdrive DAC enables you to play music from your computer delivering unparalleled sound quality to your preamp or better yet directly to your amp. All you need is the Overdrive and a PC or Mac. The Overdrive will also improve the playback from your CD transport. Once you start using the computer, however you will never go back to spinning CDs. Playback using the computer will be superior to the best CD transport you have heard, even playing low-res CD rips.

The Overdrive is quite a big step up from the NAD (as good as it may be). From everything I've heard from owners and seen in comparisons, it's at least among if not the best DAC in its class. I'd definitely like to see a comparison with the new MSB DAC which is also in that range. The Overdrive's USB input is also no compromise, it's essentially the same as the Off-Ramp.
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Anaxilus.

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Re: CD and Non-disc Transports, What's the Effin' deal?
« Reply #41 on: January 29, 2013, 08:20:03 PM »
PC > USB better than any CD transport ever in the history of the world past, present or future certainly raises an eyebrow.
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Tari

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Re: CD and Non-disc Transports, What's the Effin' deal?
« Reply #42 on: January 29, 2013, 08:38:17 PM »
It's only true until Steve comes out with a CDP.
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DaveBSC

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Re: CD and Non-disc Transports, What's the Effin' deal?
« Reply #43 on: January 30, 2013, 12:45:12 AM »
Quote from: Analixus on January 29, 2013, 08:20:03 PM
PC > USB better than any CD transport ever in the history of the world past, present or future certainly raises an eyebrow.

Robert Harley from TAS described the Sooloos as outperforming a TOTL Esoteric transport. Take that for what you will. There are a lot of inherent inefficiencies in reading data from a CD and streaming that data in real time. That was the whole point behind the Perfect Wave Transport. PS didn't bother spending a ton of money on a VRDS-Neo mechanism, they used an off the shelf computer drive, and took the read out of real time.

A memory transport and JRiver with RAM playback are basically doing the same thing.
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DaveBSC

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Re: CD and Non-disc Transports, What's the Effin' deal?
« Reply #44 on: January 30, 2013, 12:47:51 AM »
Quote from: Tari on January 29, 2013, 08:38:17 PM
It's only true until Steve comes out with a CDP.

Seems very unlikely. The last time I talked to him, Steve was cooking up something I think that will function like the Sonore Rendu. Some companies are still building new high-end transports, but I have no idea why. It seems to me that's like trying to make a new high-end horse cart after the car has been invented. 
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Anaxilus.

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Re: CD and Non-disc Transports, What's the Effin' deal?
« Reply #45 on: January 30, 2013, 01:00:19 AM »
Well that's Robert Harley so I'll leave that be.  The problem I have with the CD disc argument is that it's the same disc mechanism (or likely worse in a PC) that created the file being played via USB.  So if we remove any egregious shortcomings, the same disc mechanism that made the USB file is equal to or worse than those in higher end transports.  So the somewhere else in the stream is a bigger concern though I do not discount the potential impact of a crappy CD spinner.  I guess I'd also be curious to hear/learn how USB can be equal to or exceed I2S in performance. 
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DaveBSC

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Re: CD and Non-disc Transports, What's the Effin' deal?
« Reply #46 on: January 30, 2013, 01:47:09 AM »
Quote from: Analixus on January 30, 2013, 01:00:19 AM
Well that's Robert Harley so I'll leave that be.  The problem I have with the CD disc argument is that it's the same disc mechanism (or likely worse in a PC) that created the file being played via USB.  So if we remove any egregious shortcomings, the same disc mechanism that made the USB file is equal to or worse than those in higher end transports.  So the somewhere else in the stream is a bigger concern though I do not discount the potential impact of a crappy CD spinner.  I guess I'd also be curious to hear/learn how USB can be equal to or exceed I2S in performance.

If there are errors during CD playback, EC has to step in to try and fix them. If the EC gets overwhelmed, you hear a skip or the CD player will just give up. CD ripping doesn't really work like that. EAC will drop down to the minimum drive speed and if necessary, due multiple re-reads to get the data extraction as close to perfect as is possible. A CD player can't do any of that.

Then there's the fact that digital files don't necessarily have to come from a pressed disc. If you buy a 24/192 file from HDTracks for example and play it on your computer or music server, there's no disc ripping involved there.
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Anaxilus.

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Re: CD and Non-disc Transports, What's the Effin' deal?
« Reply #47 on: January 30, 2013, 02:56:21 AM »
You're talking about interpolation, yeah not a fan.  CD imperfections and defects are certainly in the category of egregious in my book.  I'm really focused on more subtle aspects in the domain that could prove to be cause for perceived differences beyond the spinning disc.  As for HDTracks, that's a whole other can of worms that I'll pass on for tonight.  Guess I'll wait for HDMI/I2S to sort itself out. 

Anyway, back to my digital A/B session.  Just borrowed a friend's Denon DCD-2700.  This was double the price of the Oppo 103 14 years ago.  Seems like the 'Alpha Processor' is just 20/24bit upsampling depending on the revision.  The thing weighs like 25lbs.
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DaveBSC

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Re: CD and Non-disc Transports, What's the Effin' deal?
« Reply #48 on: January 30, 2013, 03:10:45 AM »
Many of HDTracks catalog is just pulled from SACDs or DVD-As, I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the releases created specifically for HDTracks, or if you prefer, something like Reference Recordings HRx which are just wave files on a data DVD. Those would be copied to your computer without error.
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Anaxilus.

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Re: CD and Non-disc Transports, What's the Effin' deal?
« Reply #49 on: January 30, 2013, 03:55:20 AM »
I was also talking about the mastering which would better be left to LFF to talk about.  That's one of the worms in the can for another thread.
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