To the OP: Take it from another EE; your friend is correct. Everything that matters as to signal quality occurrs before and after the digitization. You cannot do anything about what happens before the signal is digitized so if you want to improve quality concentrate on what happens afterwards. Moving the digital signal around is not a place to spend any effort.
Does the quality of a digital signal matter?
I recently heard a demonstration where a CD player was played with and without being supported with three Nordost Sort Kones. The difference was audible to me, but did not blow me away.
I was discussing the Sort Kones with a friend of mine that is an electrical engineer and also a musical audio guy. It was his opinion that these items could certain make an improvement in an analogue signal, but shouldn't do anything for a digital signal. He said that as long as the component receiving the digital signal can recognize a 1 or 0 then the signal is successful. It's a pass/fail situation and doesn't rely on levels of quality.
An example that he gave me was that we think nothing of using a cheap CDRW drive to duplicate a CD with no worry about the quality being reduced. If the signal isn't read in full an error is reported so we know that the entire signal has been sent.
I believe he said that it's possible to show that a more expensive digital cable is better than another, but the end product doesn't change.
There was a test done with HDMI cables that tested cables of different prices. The only difference in picture quality was noted when a cable was defective and there was an obvious problem on the display.
I realize that the most use analogue signals, but for those of us that use a receiver for our D/A, does the CD players quality matter? Any thoughts?
I was discussing the Sort Kones with a friend of mine that is an electrical engineer and also a musical audio guy. It was his opinion that these items could certain make an improvement in an analogue signal, but shouldn't do anything for a digital signal. He said that as long as the component receiving the digital signal can recognize a 1 or 0 then the signal is successful. It's a pass/fail situation and doesn't rely on levels of quality.
An example that he gave me was that we think nothing of using a cheap CDRW drive to duplicate a CD with no worry about the quality being reduced. If the signal isn't read in full an error is reported so we know that the entire signal has been sent.
I believe he said that it's possible to show that a more expensive digital cable is better than another, but the end product doesn't change.
There was a test done with HDMI cables that tested cables of different prices. The only difference in picture quality was noted when a cable was defective and there was an obvious problem on the display.
I realize that the most use analogue signals, but for those of us that use a receiver for our D/A, does the CD players quality matter? Any thoughts?