Conference cookie::notes$archive:cd_v1

This flame does not represent my viewpoint.  It seems to ignore several
things, like CD players have no wow and flutter, CDs don't wear out
like records do, etc.  The comparison made seemed to be between $20K
pro systems and $500 CD players.  CDs improve the performance of the
low end audio to a point close to high end systems at a fraction of
the price, and that alone is worth while.

I do agree that there is too much hype, but this is not a new feature.
Diamond needles used to be called "permanent" needles.
						B.J.

$500 is not low-end audio!!!!  Spend $200 on a turntable, and $200 on
a cartridge, pocket $100, and save $10 for each recording!!!!

If you have flashy (inaccurate) speakers and a receiver, then the flashy
sound of a CD would appeal.  It's got great dynamics.

To get good dynamics, imaging, and texture out of a disk, you need a
good pre-amp, amp, and speakers. (think they put a good pre-amp in a
CD^player

The input device is only the beginning of the chain.  You don't get
hifi as easy as reconstituting orange-juce.

I have a Dual CS 628, which costs a little over $200 (including a throw-away
cartridge by Shure) and AKG P25MD cartridge. I would never even dream of
calling it high-end, to me it's mid-fi (but I cannot afford much more).
 Sorry, that should read 728 (see above).

I'm not saying that the CD is perferct (or digital recording as such).
However, it DOES have advantages and one should not reject a new technology
just because of poor implementation.

I don't imagine that the CD manufacturers do all this just because of
non-egoistic reasons; they are supposed to make profits (like we).
However, I don't think that things like FM radio and LP records were invented
as a result of consumer demand but as a result of the industry's marketing/
developement efforts.

Yes, the implementations do not approach the limits of the technology,
which also has limits.  The manufacturers are calling the technology
perfect and letting the consumer assume the implementation is too.

Would you buy a solar car?  The ad reads:  "Drive for free!  Our car
gets its energy from the sun, not from the arabs!"  They go on to tell
you about this new technology and how patriotic you are for not buying
imported goods (oil), and how clever their engineers are and that they
are still at work bringing you the full benefits of this growing technology.
What they don't tell you is that the car won't go too well on cloudy days,
and that you have to limit your night-time driving, and its better if
you park it outside to collect energy, except in a few years sun and snow
will take their toll on the body and paint.

Reading Road and Truck magazine, you learn that all the auto companys are
converting to this new technology, and gas stations will become recharging
centers (for those cloudy days).  A few gas stations will remain for those
zelots clinging to obsolete internal combustion engines.

Personally, I'd wait until the implementation is better than what already
exists.  My judging criteria are: Musicallity and realism.  They are not:
THD and S/N.

For $500 or $600, CD players offer convenience and damn good sound. Better
sound, in my opinion, than any equivalently priced turntable/cartridge
combination. In that price range with turntables, you still have to contend
with audible wow and flutter (spend a thousand or so and you can probably solve
that problem -- and $1000 is far from the top end of turntables: I have
actually encountered a $4000 turntable with a $1500 cartridge).

While turntable prices are not likely to drop in the forseeable future, we all
know that the list price of all CD players is heading down, down, down. A $100
player in a few years is not unlikely. And it is the price that is really
getting manufacturers excited about the profits to be made. For very good
reason: most of the bucks to be made in the "hi-fi" market is in the low to mid
price range, which is exactly where CD's are headed. Even as prices drop the
sound quality is not likely to change much, though, neither for the worse or
for the better -- the PCM standard locks them in in that area. Better D to A
comversion is about all that is left in the players themselves (I think there
is a lot more that can be done in the mastering process, but that's another
story).

(Did you see where AR just came out with a new turntable for $500? Times
change. I paid something like $60 for my original AR turntable, and thought
that it was a lot of money.)

The turntable is only part of the problem with the analog medium. Consider the
cartridge and the preamplifier. Even the fanciest cartridge still puts out
microamps -- and works its little heart out just to do that -- so you need a
preamplifier. Now of course we all know that in this age of transitors,
amplifiers are pretty simple stuff. But the preamplifier, that's another story.
It has to raise a micro current several orders of magnitude (much more than the
rest of the amplifier does) while introducing minimal distortion. That's quite
a job -- and one that's not done very well by most low to mid price range
amplifiers. (So you buy a good cartridge and a good preamp to add to your
system -- how much does that "inexpensive" mid-range system cost now?)

Despite a comment in 8.2, CD's don't have any preamplifiers (I suppose that
they do amplify the signal put out by the photosensor, but the signal is
digitally encoded at that point, so no distortion is introduced). Of course,
they do have 16 bit D to A converters, which are supposed to put out a nice
strong, clean signal exactly reproducing the digital input. As far as I am
concerned a D to A converter is essentially simpler and less likely to be the
source of problems than a preamplifier. Nevertheless, one of the big cost
differences between the less expensive and more expensive CD players is in how
much they spent on D to A converters. You gets what you pays for.

Comparing the CD player signal to signal produced under ideal conditions by the
turntable/cartridge and preamplifier, pretty much misses the point that the
real weak link is the record itself (sorry about that Mister Sax). No matter
how much care you take of your records you still have to contend with clicks
and pops caused by small defects in the vinyl or micro-scratches, plus "echos"
caused too tight grove spacing. Using records means a never ending battle with
dust and static electricity, and in the end you lose out and the recordings
deteriorate because of record wear. Sure, Sheffield Labs does a fine job of
producing direct to disk recordings which sell (when you can find them) for the
same price as a CD disk in the US. Reading elsewhere in this notes file, I see
that disks are selling in Europe (where they are manufactured) for pretty much
the same as records. Once we have volume manufacturing of disks in the US, I do
not see why disks should cost more. (I have read that given current
manufacturing technology disks cost about $2 each to produce, which is a lot
more than a record, but I don't see any reason why this cost wouldn't drop as
volume increases. Both media are, after all, made in roughly the same way.)

Much ado about nothing, says I, because after all it does come down to your
sense of hearing. My hearing tells me that the sound of a well-engineered CD is
a lot more realistic and a lot more exciting than the sound I can get off a
record. If your ears tell you different, then by all means avoid the CD. If
your ears like digital sound, but the state of your pocketbook tells you that
CD's are still out of your price range, then by all means wait -- prices will
continue to drop for the forseeable future. For the rest of us, we can enjoy
the difference today.

			Regards,
			   George

Long time ago, I read a psychoacoustic study made sometime in the 50s I think.
They let people hear music from a tape, with various bandwidths. Most of
the people found the reproduction to be best when the high end was limited to
something like 7-8 kHz (I don't remember exact figures anymore).

The explanation is simple: they were all used to a very limited frequency range
at that time (even music lovers going to concert seemed to think that canned
music has to sound like that). When reproduced with a range of up to 15 kHz,
most people found the sound too shrill and harsh.

First 8.6.

Electronics, and speaker design has become more refined since the 50s, so
I'm not surprised that anybody would find the high end harsh and the sound
"canned."  Furthermore, few places doing research have the money to use
the best equipment in studies.  As with CDs, some recordings are harsh and
some arn't.  If you filter out the high frequencies, then they are less
irritating.

Now 8.5

1.  Audible wow and flutter isn't much of a problem anymore, except with
	bad pressings that are off-center.  You don't get that on records
	that cost as much as CDs.

2.  Absurd prices can be paid for any equipment, even studio CD players.
	Turntables do generally follow the rule: "you get what you pay for."
	Low/Mid-fi makers have gotten turntable prices down to dirt cheap.
	I have a hard time convincing myself that their $300 table sounds
	better than their $75 table despite all the gizmos.  That's the only
	difference in CD players.  Gizmos.  I doubt that they will come out
	with a real first-class device.  Its easier to add gizmos.  The same
	goes for computer programs with lots of "features."

3.  You need a good pre-amp to not lose the detail of a good cartridge.
	CD players need linear D/A converters and especially good filters
	to remove harmonic distortion with MINIMAL phase distortion.
	Moving coil cartridge owners put up with the noise and alteration
	of step-up devices for the detail and naturalness.  I suspect there
	is a line amplifier in CD players.  The D/A converters don't drive
	the headphones and output lines directly.

4.  Clicks and Pops VS. ECC
	Thank God records don't have as many errors as CDs!  One error in
	a thousand at 44.2K/sec is the standard for acceptability?  One
	second can have 44 errors?  Every half-hour has a non-correctable
	error?  Is that the spec for the player of a perfect CD?  What
	happens when the CD is less than perfect?

	You can buy a click and pop box for your turntable and it does
	the same thing for you as the ECC/guestimation circuitry.

	Hiss and the occational click and pop don't bother me as much as
	overall harsh character.

5.  Features.
	I would like to play a whole album without getting up, but since
	I don't review records, I don't need to hear the same selections
	over again.  It might be good for a top-40 station though:  they
	could have one or two CDs contain all the songs that they play in
	a week.  They program the player to mix up the order a bit.  Alas,
	they still need some jerk to ramble between cuts.

6.  Innovation
	Alot of audiophiles still use tube equipment.  They recognize the
	merits of solid-state as well as the demerits.  They are still waiting
	for the problems to be solved in solid-state designs while they
	put-up with heat, frequency roll-off, hiss, and replacing tubes.
	CDs have good points too. I am afraid that all the market pressure
	is for lower price and there is none for high quality (not lots of
	features!  VCR market similar.).

	I agree that at the same lower-bound price level, a CD will probably
	sound more impressive (maybie even better) on a mid-fi system than
	vinyl reproduction.  The problem is that you can spend more to get
	better sound off vinyl, but not with CDs.  Note the difference
	between impressive and better.  Natural sound seems boring at first
	but grows on you.  Flashy sound wears thin after a while.

I suggest that people read the letter from Denon in The Abso!ute Sound
(Vol 8, #29, March 1983) that stresses the potentials and problems of CDs.

I wouldn't be surprised if a Sheffield disk, played with a $300 cartridge,
sounds better than a CD.  Once.  Maybe a few times.

But I don't buy records like rare wine, to be kept in a vault and
brought out only on special occasions.  I like to LISTEN to them.
I have 4 complete sets of Brandenburg Concertos, and not just because
I like the different performances.  The oldest set is over 10 years
old, and getting pretty scratchy.

If I want to hear the best the recording engineers and the performers can
do, each time, I would have to replace the record so often I would quickly
pay for a CD machine.  Especially at Sheffield's prices.  And how big
is THEIR catalog?

The lack of surface noise and the non-wear are good enough reasons for
me.  The music sounds fine.  I am not about to pay $900 though.  I am
not so gung-ho that I can't wait for the next generation machines that
are supposed to reach the USA in 1985, for under $500.

I haven't seen any figures on the correctable error rate of CDs. However, if
you have one uncorrectable error in 30 minutes, even that should not be
too bad. How many uncorrectable errors has an analog record in 30 minutes?
I doubt that any of these pop and click boxes can correct those errors
very well. Using ECC codes allows for perfect correction (computers don't
make mistakes with numbers!!!)

The gizmos have nothing to do with the medium. There are lots and lots of
analog turntables with lots and lots of useless features and still you don't
discredit the medium because of that. Maybe there will be a wind-up CD player
some day to satisfy nostalgic natures.

Maybe good analog records have no wow and flutter (even though I disagree),
but they do have rumble, which is also very irritating.

Yes, hifi and wine have something in common. There are people who think old 
wine is always better than young wine. There are people who buy $20 wine just
because they think it must be better than a $10 wine. I personally have a 
couple of favorite wines which are not very expensive but have CONSTANTLY good
quality. I know there are better ones, usually very expensive, which can be
really fine if handled with care. To me it just isn't worth the money.

I believe that someone made the comment abotu never having to replace the
stylus on a CD.  Maybe so, but what is the lifetime of the laser?  I
expect it is quite large, but what do you do when the laser goes? Buy
another CD player?

Rich

I have seen some estimates of 5000 hours for the lifetime of the
laser, and a cost of somewhere between $100-200 to change it (including
labor).

You should not forget that you cannot change the stylus of most of
the moving coil cartridges yourself; you have to send it to the
manufacturer and this costs often almost as much as a new cartridge.

Since this is my first ever entry into this notes file, I'll do it here -
close to the beginning. It was just over a year ago that this note was written
and it's almost funny reading it now. I'm just about to purchase the Magnavox
2040 from Consumers Distributing for a $178.86 sale price. It's 20 track
programmable has the usual cheapie type bells and whistles. No big thing,
but what sold me was its sound. It ain't the Technics SLP7 (?) that Consumers
Reports says is the "Best Buy", and it ain't the NAD or B&O model. It'll
be hooked into an old (14 years) Sansui QR4500 (remember matrixed 4-channel?)
with only 32W cont RMS in two channel mode, driving 4 14 year old Sansui
Cherrywood encased 100/120 watt speakers. I've had 3 different CD players
on this system in the past month - a $135.00 Sanyo, a $300 Fisher (returned
because it wasn't programmable) and the Magnavox. The sound pleases me. I
was a charter subscriber to DIGITAL AUDIO mag and have held out for what
I could afford (re: earlier comments about 100-200 dollar players and cheaper
discs - they're $11.99 - up in California). Rock and roll is rock and roll
and the difference isn't noticeable to me from record to disc - except the
pops, but I have a copy of TELARC label's STAR TRACKS on record ($10.99)
and its sister volume - TIME WARP on CD ($14.99). Simply AWESOME !! The guy
from Sheffield has to be eating lots of crow now !! For those that haven't
read this note in awhile - back up and see how fast the technology and ideas
have grown and changed in just 1 year. CD's - the future is here and the
poor schmuck on the street can afford it. 

				Al in Santa Clara

 

Re .12

	I've often wondered if the real reason the 'golden ears' hate
the compact disc is that it pisses them off that now Joe-anybody can
just schlepp on over to Lechmere and buy a player that outperforms
the exotic turntables/arms/cartridges/preamps etc that one  had to
put up with before, and at a discount even.

	Technology does have a habit of roaring on by...

- Jim

   The newest StereoPhile came home the other day.  It was really neat. 
   Inside was an article about the 'acceptance' of CD.  I will type it in
   in the morning.  It's a really neat aricle about CD AND the audio elite.
   
   				.dave.

   one other thing.  Stereophile is for people that like stereo's (and music)
   sorta.  The really neat thing is that lots of people that write in own
   a Magnavox CD player - maybee I'll break down and get one at q-audio..

Re .12:

If you think that there is not much difference between rock & roll on
vinyl and on disc, then possibly you're not listening to the right
rock & roll.  Try  Dire Strait's "Brothers in Arms", Frankie Goes
to Hollywood's "Welcome to the Pleasure Dome" or the Yes 90125 disc.

I'm not knocking re-releases of older rock, or any particular kind of
rock -- it's just that the recording technology has advanced substantially,
but not everyone feels the need to use this in their sound.

Pat Hardy

re: -1

   I'm almost glad I opened this notecan or worms - I just got back from
lunch after hooking up my Magnavox 2040/1. I bought Tina's Private Dancer
- yoww!!!!!! I love it. I owe an apology for generalizing about rock. I suppose
that was a bad example. I bought the Starships album and was not real impressed
with a seeming lack of difference between the record and CD. I have the 3
records you mention and love the way they sounded on vinyl - but the quiet
passages or passages of single electronic instruments are more prevalent
with those, then with a group depending strictly on metal like the Starship.
I guess it's stuff like that specifically that I find very little difference
going from one media to the other. 

  I also subscribe to Stereophile and will look up the article mentioned
in -2. I wasted good money there, 'cause I'm more a record/music collector
than stereo buff - attested to by my 14 year old receiver and speakers -
so much of what is in the mag is way above my head, but it's fun to see the
letters ragging on various companys' equipment.

  I'd really like to see an interview today - a year later with they guy
who wrote the letter in .0. Will he still pontificate ??  I'm so happy with
my player I can't wait to get home today and mess with it. Talk about second
childhood - ain't been this happy since "See you later alligator" became
available on a 45 rpm record - the 78 was the first record I ever bought.
Whew !!!   We've come a long way, baby !!!

				WR2FOR::ECTORAL

Al Ector - Santa Clara