Am I deaf?


Hello all,
Just got a Chord Qutest to use as an outboard dac with my Oppo BD 105. Connected the Chord to the Oppo coax out with an Audioquest Carbon coax cable. $2100 for the Qutest including the cable! I'm not hearing it. I think the Oppo dac may sound a bit better than the Chord. Tried all the filters. Am I nuts?
Ben
honashagen

Showing 1 response by mooglie

I just went through what might be a similar issue to what you may be hearing with Redbook CD.

 I had been using an Oppo-93 SPDIF out to my Yggdrasil Analog 2 with a Jorma Digital cable (RCA at Oppo, BNC at the Yggdrasil). I was never quite satisfied with the sound. It seemed to be somewhat mechanical, bleached, or lacking tonal densities, with the mid-bass sucked out, and an emphasis on the treble. From memory, I seemed to recall getting better overall quality sound when I was using a CAL Delta transport with a lesser DAC (CIA VDA-2) and cabling.

I had read the Oppo 93 had high jitter and knew that was a problem. I also speculated that something might be occurring with the PCM conversion as the clocks in the Oppo are a different frequency than a dedicated CD transport, and error correction methods (Reed-Solomon or something else) could differ.

On a whim, I tried another Blu-Ray player and heard a difference. That was enough to convince me to get a dedicated CD transport. I recently purchased an Atoll DR-200 Signature, and the sound is significantly better. Now, CDs sound more analog and fluid , tonal densities have improved, the mid-bass is back. The system “boogies” again!

I’d suggest you try another transport. Even as a simple experiment, another Blu-Ray or DVD player. Even better, would be trying a CD player or transport that uses a  dedicated 44.1 kHz clock.

Perhaps the problem is not with the Oppo as a transport, but eliminating it as a variable should yield some useful information.