Who listens primarily to Redbook CD?

I build my own components so I use a Direct Heated Triode DAC.  Power supply is 35lbs alone.  Use an older Audiomeca CDP as a transport (same as the CEC).  Have you compared your CEC to anything else?  I wanted the 3 series but its not made anymore.  I have heard my DAC with the top CEC and it was amazing.


I also have a HDMI connection with the DAC and build a converter and a server, its very close but I have not perfected it yet.  Working on it.

For a Digital cable I have come back to using a Moray James.  For some reason it just has a tone that I really like.  I also have a Shunyata Cobra but that seems to make everything sound smoothed out, and seems to hold back some dynamics in direct comparison.  It seems to mask the digital glare that some system may require, but that is not my system with my dac.

Happy Listening.

To add to what Georgehifi said: About 15 years ago R2R DACs were indeed better sounding than early Delta Sigma DACs. However early Delta Sigma issues (glare) have been resolved and their performance currently far exceeds R2R.

The most lauded and celebrated and lusted after dacs in current cutting edge technology.... are all R2R discrete dacs.

going back in time and buying a 20-24 bit R2R dac unit and upgrading it, and using it for redbook 16/44 playback, will far exceed what any delta-sigma dac can achieve.

The manufactures of the units that use delta-sigma dacs (99.9% of all audio dacs available these days) would gladly use R2R dacs in their units, but those R2R dacs are simply not available at any price.

They are simply too expensive to make via the wafer process for IC manufacturing, in modern times.

You can’t put a $100 chip (when bought in thousand lots) in a $200 or even $800 dac unit. It has to be a $3-8 delta-sigma single-bit dac chip. Which they all are.

In the world of digital....It is a elephantine, 800 pound gorilla in the room, "bull in a china shop" "emperor’s clothes" issue in audio, where we all had to take a DOWNGRADE in musical quality when the industry was forced to call it an UPGRADE (measures well, looks great on paper!), as no alternative existed to go forward and upward with.

The whole thing went Orwellian doublespeak and pear-shaped, due to the introduction of more than 16 bits of resolution. When we went to 20 bits, we could make a $10 (thousand lots) chip, and when we went to 24/96, we could do a $50 (thousand lots) DAC chip, but when we went beyond that..to 24/192 and then 32 bit..we could no longer produce a R2R dac on a chip.

If even possible, they might be some astronomical cost per individual item. Suffice it to say... it is not really possible to do a 32 bit R2R DAC wafer based IC chip... it is a theoretical projection. It simply cannot be done. Price is: infinity. Simply not gonna ever happen.

So we were stuck trying to jerry-rig a delta sigma bit chip to being good. That mess is still being fixed, but the industry cannot wait, so it used and uses..... inferior sounding chips to get to these high sample rates. According to the principle on how a delta-sigma dac works, the problem will never be fixed.

the entire digital audio world took one in the butt and was forced to cover it up in order to stay in business and move onward. Very little was spoken about this when it went down and now that the moment is in the past, the more finalized shape of it ...is saying exactly what I’m saying here.

Obviously, no one wants to say much about it. these things happen. Just like digital originally was a step backward from the best in analog..and it slowly evolved, even digital in it’s own market and design issues, etc...suffered the same fate at a point in it’s evolution. One that is still affecting it today.

The alternative... is a 24 to 32 bit discrete ladder/R2R dac, coming in at about $15k US for a stereo unit as the baseline cost in the market for one of them. Then the price goes up from there.

They (dac chip companies) are coming up with different schemes to improve the delta-sigma base design parameters at the design and execution level (wafer design compatible), and have issued such, but we are still not back to the quality level available from the $50 chips, the 24/96 ladder/R2R dacs that were available in the early-mid 2000's.

The problem for the high end audiophile market is that price drives development as the prime motivator and market force.

Audiophile sound quality aspects are 2nd, 3rd, or 4th down on the list.The next limitation point is the one mentioned, the wafer design/build limits. That's the part that is really getting in the way. Costs vs quality vs technology available. Same questions as ever.

A couple of quick questions: I read in another thread some folks saying their ripped (CD) contents sounded better than original CD. Is that technically possible or its just the differences between the components in the audio path, e.g., CDP vs. NAS, etc., that are contributing to the difference? Also, those of you who listen to CDs as well as stream music from Tidal, how would you compare the SQ? This is if you could actually make a fair comparison given the different components in the chain. I personally find the Tidal MQA content sound better than my CDs using a common DAC.

"I read in another thread some folks saying their ripped (CD) contents sounded better than original CD. Is that technically possible or its just the differences between the components in the audio path, e.g., CDP vs. NAS, etc., that are contributing to the difference?"

Great question. It’s also been reported that Copying the CD Copy also improves upon that Copied CD, ad infinitum. Is this a big can of worms or what? What in the wide wide world of sports is going on here?

Look for something on this subject from George Rankin (wavelength), is where I would start.

I expect we are looking at a re-clocking issue of some sort.

The vast majority of older CDP's, IIRC, get some of their important aspects of clocking cues from directly off the disc read. I has to do with the original design spec. Ie that the disc read itself is intrusive into the jitter spectrum question. Part of why Sam Tellig of Stereophile thought that some of the first buffering portable CD players sounded quite good. The buffer means the disc read jitter spectrum issue is not directly connected to the emergent waveform of the music signal. That sort of hardware does a re-clocking of a sort.

When we rip, the clocking happens elsewhere and if done well, it can be a better reconstruction of the waveform, jitter spectrum wise.

The given individual case sensitive final clocking set up and reconstruction of the waveform is where it is all at. Which is pretty well what Gordon Rankin is on about.

Note to Geoff: the Popper reference elsewhere made me look him up. Thanks for that. I (and many others, obviously) have similar or parallel conclusions in many ways, but not so explicitly perfected and outlined. I've not spent a lifetime refining it as he had. It's nice to be confirmed in one's ideals/conclusions.(Standford website, I'm still reading...)

And the more I say the more I become a target, which takes you 'round to his thoughts on theories......