Did Redbook get it right?


I've always felt a tension between the narrative that a) the Redbook spec murdered music, probably in cahoots with greedy plastic vendors, and b) the great respect I've had for engineers I have worked with. I would think they knew what they were doing, considering the stakes and the state of their art at the time.

I leaned towards the murder/greed scenario, especially as my original Sony 520-ES CD player presented a fleshless corpse of Joni's Blue album, and the few high-end players of the time I tried, like the Enlightened Audio, seemed to fail at resurrection.

I've reconsidered. If I rip my CD's to FLAC, feed a Benchmark DAC over USB, and into my tube amplification, I am stunned by how good and satisfying many CD's sound. I have no desire to fire the Linn Sondek back up. I have no sense of things missing. Sure, there are many crap CD's, but is any of that stink coming from Redbook spec? Some newer CD's simply stun. I not into country, but something like the Mavericks' In Time CD is acoustically complete and fully fleshed.

I've been over to HDTracks and Acoustic Sounds to download hi-rez versions, and I can feel the pull to feed my rig the best I can buy. It's such a good story, easily embraced by the audiophile mind, but I'm increasingly wondering if it is all marketing razzle-dazzle...more, denser, higher...and in the end, Redbook got it right, and the new DACs finally do it justice.

Always with an open mind, and there's much better gear than mine, but I'm newly impressed by the original Spec.
electroslacker

Showing 5 responses by jon2020

I agree now with my current set-up that Redbook got it right from the outset. That said, it took me about 20 years to get the hardware right! How did I realise this? - let's consider some nirvana points.

1. When the glass ceiling that seems to stop musical notes from soaring to as high as they should simply disappears
2. A magic coupling of a holographic soundstage plus airy/sparkling highs, with solid instrumental body/colour/tone - before nirvana, you can't seem to have too much of one without too little of the other
3. A very natural organic cut-from-the-same-cloth continuousness to the music
4. Utterly musical - you 'get' the artistry and message of the musician by being able to feel the ebb and flow of the music that constitutes the core of "musicalness"; your head bobs or sways, your feet tap reflexively, uncontrollably - the PRAT thing.

When all the above 4 elements conjoin - it's nirvana! And you will know it when that happens simply because you have been in this hobby long enough to tell. The good news is you do not need hi-res to achieve this.

Yes, the best of Redbook can indeed equal the best of hi-res.
Cheers! J.
Milpai,
That last statement was made in the context of my current set-up which is a pairing of a high end transport with a "low end" hi-res dac. I can only imagine what a high end hi-res dac will do for hi-res material.
The point is that redbook hardware technology has improved so much today that one can truly enjoy redbook without replacing it all with hi-res.
Meanwhile, I shall patiently wait for that dream high end hi-res dac that comes with a spdif input for my high end transport and a usb A-port for a portable solid state drive, with no need for any of the computer/streaming paraphernalia.
Cheers! J.
Yes, George, the Marantz NA8005 uses the multibit delta-sigma CS4398 chip :-

http://www.marantz.co.uk/uk/products/pages/productdetails.aspx?catid=networkproducts&subcatid=networkaudioplayer&productid=na8005

http://www.cirrus.com/en/products/cs4398.html

Cheers! J.
Yes, Lowrider, the retrieval of data by the transport has been said more than a few times by those in the industry, to be more important than the processing of data by the dac(garbage in, garbage out, I guess).
And yes, you are certainly welcome to my humble home for a listen. The only problem is that I live on the other side of the globe but if you happen to drop by, it would be my immense pleasure....
Cheers! J.
Electroslacker,

Agree with you about not buying another CD spinner. For me, I will use the K-01 as transport until it croaks and that's it. Replacing parts would most certainly be a costly affair. When that happens, I will probably go for the Antipodes DX server which comes with a slot for ripping. The server connects to any usb DAC. So, it looks like I will be furiously ripping in the near future. :)

Here is a great review of the Antipodes DX :-

http://www.digitalaudioreview.net/2015/05/antipodes-audio-dx-music-server-review/

Cheers!J.