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The CD player is dead.......

I am still waiting for someone to explain why a cd player is superior to storing music on a hard drive and going to a dac. Probably because you all know it's not.

Every cd player has a dac. I'll repeat that. Every cd player has a dac. So if you can store the ones and zeros on a hard drive and use error correction JUST ONCE and then go to a high end dac, isn't that better than relying on a cd player's "on the fly" jitter correction every time you play a song? Not to mention the convenience of having hundreds of albums at your fingertips via an itouch remote.

If cd player sales drop, then will cd sales drop as well, making less music available to rip to a hard drive?
Maybe, but there's the internet to give us all the selection we've been missing. Has anyone been in a Barnes and Noble or Borders lately? The music section has shown shrinkage worse than George Costanza! This is an obvious sign of things to come.....

People still embracing cd players are the "comb over" equivalent of bald men. They're trying to hold on to something that isn't there and they know will ultimately vanish one day.

I say sell your cd players and embrace the future of things to come. Don't do the digital "comb over".
devilboy

Showing 2 responses by clio09

clio09
3,341 posts
 
This past CES I had a chance to audition the Sonic Weld USB interface in my system. It was my first direct experience with computer audio. I didn't do anything special to configure my MacBook, just ripped a few CDs (AIFF, error correction) to iTunes and played them back. The computer fed the Sonic Weld via USB and the Sonic Weld fed my DAC via SPDIF. I have to admit the sound was exceptional and compared very favorably to my transport/DAC. However, I never pulled the trigger. It just boiled down to two things:

1. I'm not ready for computer audio. Having followed the PC Audio forum on Audio Asylum the discussions over there can be pretty intimidating, even for someone like myself who is in the computer software industry. Also, those inmates can be just as bad as some vinyl/analog addicts I know ;).

2. The last sentence above leads me to acknowledge that my primary media is vinyl and recently analog reel tape. I greatly enjoy spinning records and my new found interest in analog reel tape conjures up memories of earlier times when tape (cassette) was my only source. Not to mention back then I did a lot of recording, including live shows, and now I have found equal fun recording music on reel tape.

As jaybo said, all media is good if it plays music. Pick your format(s) and most importantly have fun with it.

Oh, and go see live performances as much as possible. There still no real substitute for live music IMO.
clio09
3,341 posts
 
One way you can design a DAC to be immune to jitter is to ensure it can have the transport slaved to it. This is easier said than done from a design perspective. One company that does this is Lessloss. The have designed their DAC so that the CEC TL-51X transport can be slaved to it. The TL-51X has a clock input which is connected to the DAC's clock output. The digital cable is then removed from the jitter equation as it only has to perform the task of carrying the bits and not the additional task of synchronizing the clocks (where the transport clock is master and DAC clock is slave). This is where a good portion of jitter is introduced.

I own this combination and oddly enough I've decided to compare it in my system to a Resolution Audio Opus 21 player. As mentioned previously, a CDP should be able to offer a master clock arrangement due to having all the digital circuitry in one box. However, this is not always the case, there are some poorly designed CDPs out there.

If the Opus 21 gives me a sense that I can live with it. Then I would consider moving up to the Resolution Audio Cantata. This would give me a well designed CDP, with volume control, balanced operation, and the ability to take advantage of USB or Ethernet computer audio connectivity. For me that would provide the best of both worlds.
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