Transport options feeding DAC and old TV

AlecF said:
How MF can get away with charging 1 grand and using these in their amps and CDPs is truly shocking. Basically, the parts cost of their analogue sections is about £10. :eek: Don't tell me the rest of the gear comes anywhere near to £990..

No, but the cost of all those full page ads and boozy lunches with audio journalists aren't cheap!

There could be 101 reasons why Tosh chose those components. Maybe their golden ears couldn't tell the difference between the two. Maybe Toshiba Corp owns the IC manufacturer! Maybe the former has better reliability? Maybe they had lots of them stored away in a warehouse and were ordered to use them by the "component director" :rotfl:

Who knows?

If they can be replaced with "superior" components, great. If they genuuinely do sound better, and can be changed/upgraded at reasonable cost, then maybe CJ should consider doing so, if it bothers him (rightly so, it clearly doesn't).

DT

I am going down this route with one of my budget universals (Pio 565) as I feel its performance could be improved in certain areas with the addition of superior components. Most importantly, I feel the upgrades offer value for money (£150).
 
AlecF said:
Think I should add my comments were strictly based on the redbook quality - I've not got any hi-rez material. Regardless, I would definitely recommend turning the upsampling on in this unit.

Hey Alec Ive got a fair collection of hi-res CDs in HDCD format, also a couple of gold sheffield labs CDs (Kodo Drummers), I also specialise in high quality stereo DVD-V recordings, ie check out Dave Gilmours Meltdwon DVD – 24 Bit 48Khz stereo, got a couple DAD 24/96 stereo DVD-V discs (Chesky), and a few 24 Bit 96 & 192 Khz DVD audio stereo mixes (Paul Simon, George Benson * Fleet MAC. Redbook wise I have a few standard CDs (AAD/ADDs and a ) that equal the best HDCDs I own. I take recording quality quite seriously.

I also think using the upsample circuit gives this CD player a real lift in its higher frequencies (more decay of notes & shimmer on cymbals), one thing to note though that the upsmapler circuit really only works to my ears with redbook 16/44.1 CD, As 20 Bit HDCD & 24 Bit DVD-V/A based stuff is not that different with the circuit on/off during playback (make of that what you will).

AlecF said:
Myself, I'm just starting out in tweaking but basically I'm highly skeptical of most commercial hi-fi gear now I know a bit more about electronics and component selection.

Sceptical, your talking to the right man dude. I do feel though that this player gives many £1000+ CDPs a run for their money, and in some cases would outperform them. But its only a DVD-V player so its hards to convince people to even try them.

PS I recommend getting Fleetwood Macs DVD-A or Rumours, it lets you see what this player is capable of in stereo. I also hear that with a few of my CDs it should be said.

Regards

PS ever heard how much it cost in parts for Audio Notes £18,500 DAC 5 ?

DT : I see your enjoying your NSV-900, pretty nice eh ?
 
But the AN DAC is that price because of what they leave out, rather than what they put in ;)
 
Cheers, I'll go to the library to try and pick up some SACDs and DVD-As.

Please don't misunderstand me, it's the sound that counts above all things. Fact is every piece of MF gear I've heard sounds like pants. It's just harder to stomach when you then factor in the mark-up it feels like a rip-off, to say the least! Bending over a barrel and having a branding iron stuck....

These damned NE5532s are chosen solely because they're cheap to buy and cheap to implement. The problem is they're chosen by engineers following datasheets rather than evaluating the sound quality.

Re: Audio Note, no argument here; the prices are obscene, the prices are insane. One thing I don't like about AN (UK) is they ripped off the original design/name from AN (Japan, now Kondo).
 
Perhaps slightly off topic (now) but I use a Benchmark DAC1 into a fairly serious 2-channel system (EAR864 preamp, ATC SCM50ASL active speakers) and have compared several DVD and CD players as transports into it. There is no difference between the best-engineered transport I own (a Meridian 206B) and the worst (an old Pioneer 535 DVD player with a tray that is so bent that you need to physically ease it out with a finger in order to eject a disk!).

Also, the any transport + Benchmark DAC1 combination replaced my £7k Naim CDS2 CD player, and was not a downgrade, which is frankly amazing for the money.

Andrew
 
DAC-1's a nice DAC, though I found it a touch lean in my system. It's got serious anti-jitter emphasis in the design; the manufacturers claim it's totally insensitive to transport. But I still make the same point, not all digital outputs are the same, and not all DACs have the DAC-1's reclocking solution.
 
Do this same test 5 or 10 years ago with the same transports but different DAC and you will have a different result. Moden chips (input chips) have come on leaps and bounds in this respect as has the knowledge of designers to make transport less of an issue it once was.
 

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