Intelligent CD player?

[easily confused]

I was looking at standalone CD players to add to my home studio setup, and thought I'd have a look at posh ones just to see what I was missing out on. I was intrigued to find this in the blurb about one of them:

"This system intelligently interpolates 16-bit/44.1kHz CD data to 24-bit/384kHz data, through the use of a 32-bit Analog Devices Black Fin DSP (digital signal processor)."

I don't understand what it's on about, but it looks like it's saying that the CD player in some way adds missing information taking it back from 16-bit to 24?

How does this work? Wouldn't it need to know what dithering algorithm had been used when initially converting from 16 to 24-bit? I'm totally non-technical, so don't really understand what any of these terms actually mean - maybe I could get a job selling HiFis!

[Ariosto]

I would be very careful about spending a lot on a fancy CD player. I've had my fingers burnt over this. Is it an English one made in a certain university city, costing over £400?

I had one of these that did all the up-sampling and all that stuff and just after two years when the guarantee had run out it failed. (Laser) I was told it would cost £150 to fix.

I now use my cheap Japanee DVD player (£60) to play CD's and I realise it sounds just as good, maybe even better.

These things could be a big rip off.

[IvanSC]

Hi Fi smoke and mirrors.
I suspect this is some sort of dopey proprietary system that claims to `put back all the missing info` lost whilst dithering down to 16 bit.

Since the term `ntelligent` is Hifi speak for `a wild ass guess` I think you can afely assume that what you`ll hear is basically still 44.1 at 16 bit.

[easily confused]

thanks for the warning!
Fear not, there's no way I'd be spending that sort of dosh on a CD player - I'm only getting entry level monitors for a start, so if I had any more cash available that's where it'd be spent. I was just curious to see what was offered on these expensive models - I'd have thought that you'd get posher knobs and displays and perhaps better A to D conversion, but was surprised to see them claiming that the player would be adding something to the recording "intelligently".
I've played with plenty of musicians who are unable to do that!

[Ariosto]

I'm replying to my own post because I think people should be aware of the rip offs that are out there.

My cheap DVD player is a Panasonic and the sound from CD's is very, very good. Much better than the Arcam rubbish that cost so much, was totally unreliable, and made claims to being state of the art sound. Absolute rubbish, it was an unrelliable piece of English junk with a totally naff sound to go with it.

[ken long]

I now use my cheap Japanee DVD player (£60)...

That's not cheap! Try Asda/Walmart's brand which is only £7 for a multi region player!

As for OP, interpolating means if it detects the error, it will do the maths to correct for it. Some error correction systems are better than others and that's what you pay for.

ken

[Ariosto]

I now use my cheap Japanee DVD player (£60)...

That's not cheap! Try Asda/Walmart's brand which is only £7 for a multi region player!

ken

But mine was cheap when I bought it about 5 years ago! But the prices now are unbelievable.

[sonics]

Well, I have to say that I own a fancy CD player with a university name, and it's the best player I've ever had, sounding significantly better than the others I've owned. I think it was worth the money (and it's not even the top-of-range model), and it gives me more enjoyment from my music collection. A bit of investment in better quality decoding electronics simply does make a difference.

Having said that, it is amazing that you can buy a sub-£20 DVD player that will play CDs and MP3 discs too.
It may even sound quite decent if fed through an external DAC.

Sure, there's plenty of hype in the Hi-Fi business, but £7 won't give you the best sound from your CDs. Why not go and listen to some players? If you can't hear the difference or don't care, buy the £7 one.

[IvanSC]

Interestingly enough, I too tried playing CDs through my cheapo DVD player and was amazed at just how good they are on cd music for the money.
Maybe it is something to do with having to use a better than cd capability transport to cover the DVD side of things & the result is an inadvertant technology knock-on effect? Who knows....

[Chris Charles]

Hi,

I think that truth is that expensive audio gear is neither as fantastic as some makers might claim nor as big a rip-off as the detractors might claim either. More expensive gear is often aimed at a market of audiophiles who seem to be exceptionally picky about what they buy. If an item does nothing differently then they seem to be fairly quick to spot that.

I recently upgraded my home music equipment and didn't expect to have to replace the old Yamaha CD player, which was very good in its day and still seemed to work just fine. So I was quite surprised to find that the difference in quality could be as big as it turned out to be. (And like others above, my first hint of that came when I played a CD through a modern DVD player and noticed a jump in clarity).

When I did replace the CD player I shopped around, and did some testing and reading, and then spent much more than I had originally thought I'd need to just on a CD player. But the difference was very obvious - much greater than I had imagined - and well worth the money. It wasn't that it sounded bad on the old setup - it seemed fine, until I heard how much better it could be. With a good player I could hear things on the CD that I never even knew were there before, and the whole listening experience was considerably improved.

If you can't hear a difference, then you're probably wasting your money, but if you can then it boils down to how much you want to spend. It's like buying a car - if your only requirement is to get to the shops and back then a cheapie will do the job just fine. But if you get a buzz out of driving a really decent car, and can afford the price, then I say stuff the cheapie.... buy the one with 6 gears, leather seats and the breathtaking looks... It might cost twice as much, and it won't do the job twice as efficiently, but if you do value the difference it will be worth it.....

Chris

[sonics]

Why not take your cheapy player along to a Hi-Fi demo room, and A/B with a good quality player using some music you know well? If you can't tell the difference (or even prefer your player) then you can walk out laughing. Otherwise you'll just have to upgrade
If you'd prefer not to know how much better your CDs could sound then don't book the demo!
Oh, and avoid DVD-Audio and SACD which can sound even better, if you can get the discs!

[Ian Stewart]

And be careful, hi-fi shops play the equipment they want to sell slightly louder so it sounds better to most people.

[Hugh Robjohns]

I don't understand what it's on about, but it looks like it's saying that the CD player in some way adds missing information taking it back from 16-bit to 24?

Any upsampling will involve a digital filter, and the output of that digital filter can have any word length you like...

It is not putting information back -- that's impossible. It can only work with the information provided on the disc in the first place which is 16/44.1. Upsampling makes the analogue reconstruction filtering stage much easier, and that's the only reason for doing it.

The 'interpolation' being referred to here is an attempt to 'estimate' the additional information that would have been captured had the original material been sampled at 384kHz. But that additional information can only be in the frequency range above 22.05kHz, so it's all largely pointless. The interpolation relies on the fact that audio is largely predictable.... but it isn't as any data reduction codec designer will tell you...

Most modern CD players upsample 128 or 256 times (5.6MHz) using delta-sigma converters. Part of the advantage of this is not only to simplify the analogue filtering, but also to reduce the wordlength to just a few bits (sometimes only one), which simplifies the signal reconstruction too. Wordlength and sample rate are inter-related and it is relatively simple to increase one and reduce the other without losing information. It's done to simplfy the analogue reconstruction process.

Essentially, the manufacturer has come up with a quirky unique selling point that may seem appealing to hifi nerds with little understanding of digital audio. But that's not to say the player won't sound lovely... (although my experience of high cost nerdy British hifi has been largely disappointing).

Hugh

[James Perrett]

"This system intelligently interpolates 16-bit/44.1kHz CD data to 24-bit/384kHz data, through the use of a 32-bit Analog Devices Black Fin DSP (digital signal processor)."

I don't understand what it's on about, but it looks like it's saying that the CD player in some way adds missing information taking it back from 16-bit to 24?

It can't reclaim any missing information - all it can do is play the 16bit 44.1kHz data as accurately as possible. Most CD players do something similar by upsampling the signal. This allows the important reconstruction filter to be implemented in the digital domain where it is much easier to build a good brickwall filter. The final analogue filter can be a much simpler and gentler filter which won't affect the sound as much as an analogue brickwall filter would.

I would also add that most CD players upsample to a few MHz rather than just 384kHz although the bit depth is lower on a standard CD player.

The best sounding standalone CD player I use is really a Pioneer DVD player which cost just under 100 quid a few years ago. It can also play SACD and DVD-A but I've never actually used either format.

Cheers

James.

PS - Hugh's reply wasn't there when I started writing mine but as usual he puts things much better than I can.

[sonics]

Out of interest, have you compared your Pioneer DVD to anything else, and if so what? I'm not doubting that these devices sound good, but they can be bettered IME.

I have a similar DVD player from another manufacturer, and the dedicated CD player (costing twice as much) sounds considerably better, which is why I bought it!

[The Bunk]

Oh, and avoid DVD-Audio and SACD which can sound even better, if you can get the discs!

I happened to buy one of these by mistake (DVD audio disc); thinking it was a "visual" thing, I bought a Dave Edmunds live DVD only to feel like a complete berk when I tried to...er...watch it. Sure, it sounds OK but I can't play it in a CD player. What the heck's the point of that?

[sonics]

The clue is in the name of course. DVD-Audio, remembering that the V does not stand for video!

The point is better quality, multi-channel capability, and huge compatibility since almost everyone owns a DVD player that can play them.

I wish CD's were a thing of the past and EVERY release was on DVD-Audio or SACD.

[John Willett]

Sorry, I'm still laughing at £400 being expensive.

My own CD player was about £1,400 - and the unit we used to demo the new HD 800 headphones was £10,000!



Hugh is right, by the way.

[James Perrett]

Out of interest, have you compared your Pioneer DVD to anything else, and if so what? I'm not doubting that these devices sound good, but they can be bettered IME.

I've not tried it on the studio system but it sounds better than anything else that I've plugged into the living room system (like a Lecson DVD or Philips mid priced CD player which were both more expensive than the Pioneer when new). I've seen reports that the model I have sounded as good as a far more expensive Meridian player but I've not compared them personally.

Cheers

James.

[sonics]

Sounds like a bargain then
May I ask the model?

[Shingles]

Sorry, I'm still laughing at £400 being expensive.

My own CD player was about £1,400 - and the unit we used to demo the new HD 800 headphones was £10,000!



Hugh is right, by the way.

Now I'm laughing!

[Chris Charles]

Sorry, I'm still laughing at £400 being expensive.

+1

The unit that the original poster mentioned costs a fair chunk more than 400 pounds. A quick Google reveals that it apparently won Absolute Sound's Budget Component of the Year! Yep - that's "Budget"

It was also awarded Hi-Fi Choice's 'Best Buy' Award, 93% rating. In the world of high end hifi a grand is small change, and a pair of speakers can cost more than a car.

Alas, the very best gear is not for me.... but I did spend a fair chunk on a good CD player and I'm well pleased with what I got. As Sonics says, if you can't hear the difference, don't bother - but if you can then you probably won't want to go back to the lesser quality again.

It's the same all the way through music and audio gear. If you can afford good studio monitors, better amps, decent instruments etc then they really DO sound better to anybody with a good ear, and they're often better in quality in other ways too. But if you're satisfied with cheaper copies, and can't tell the difference, then there's no reason to spend big money just for the sake of it, and that's absolutely fine too.

If you avoid the real low end rubbish there's a lot of medium range music gear that's very good value for money. Until you get to the day when you've got that desirable high end item in one hand, and enough money to buy it in the other.... then it gets tricky again....

Cheers,

Chris

[caveman82]

record player + vinyl = no worries about 16 bit 24 bit and whatever!

it's the bombproof technology, and sounds the best! (to my ears anyway!)

[Chris Charles]

I was just curious to see what was offered on these expensive models - I'd have thought that you'd get posher knobs and displays and perhaps better A to D conversion, but was surprised to see them claiming that the player would be adding something to the recording "intelligently".

Hi,

Yes, it does sounds like a load of old bollocks.... But if you look a bit more closely it’s not quite as daft as it might seem.

I recently went through this ‘de-code the ad-speak claptrap’ exercise twice - once for audio gear and the other for a TV. The TV companies were making similar claims about the ‘intelligence’ of their rendering engines, algorithms, or whatever. In that case, like with audio, it's not only about the build quality of a box of components. The TV needs to be able to make all sorts of decisions about how to present the data - decisions about the depth and quality of the colours, the degree of contrast (including how to convincingly fake the blacks) issues with movement, etc. Add this to the fact that the data comes in a number of different formats - i.e various different types of broadcast, inputs from a games console, a DVD player, a computer, etc and the nature of the design does make a big difference. Some makers are reputed to handle various aspects better than others, but it’s simply not possible for them to guess 100% right 100% of the time to suit 100% of the customers. It’s about who does the best job most of the time, depending on the viewer’s tastes .

Initially they all looked much the same to me, but after reading up a bit more on the subject, and spending time in front of the different screens my eye became used to picking which TV did a better or worse job, and when. They all did a roughly ‘OK’ job, but some were good at one aspect but relatively poor at another. I had to do a fair bit of work to get to the stage where I could actually see why I was making the choice, but it was worth it. It’s better to do this before you lay out the money and take it home, and then start spotting the weaknesses bit by bit over the next few weeks... I ended up buying a reasonably top end model, but by then I knew just why I wanted it and what I was getting that was worth a few dollars more.

It was similar with the audio gear. Just as the TV is faking the impression of real objects, colours, and movement, any audio gear is alway faking the sound. If I’m listening to a cello concerto on CD it’s never going to be exactly the same experience as being in the room with a real cello and an orchestra, even though it might be just as enjoyable in its own way. So I don’t much care how the equipment is making its choices, so long as I’m happy with the result that reaches my eardrum. Everybody in a long chain has added their opinions, choices, preferences and guesses to the mix - from the designers of microphones, amps and pre-amps, pickups, mixers, etc through to software programmers and audio engineers. So if the CD player engineers want to have a crack at augmenting the signal then I’ve absolutely no problem with the concept. My only concern is with whether I agree with the outcome of their decisions or not.

I Googled your quote and identified the machine, and it turns out that it’s one of the ones that I ‘auditioned’. It was from Cambridge Audio (which is not the same brand as the Arcam that Ariosto talks about, although both have a connection with the same city). I thought it did an excellent job. It was solidly built, the tray moved swiftly and smoothly, it felt good to use and to look at, and the sound was quite clearly many classes above my old CD player. For some it would definitely have been too much money to spend for the extra quality it offered, but for others it would have actually been too low end.

So, yes, there is a difference. No, the claim of some sort of enhancement isn’t complete rubbish (although somebody could certainly argue convincingly that it’s neither truly intelligent nor worth their paying for). As always, it boils down to whether you can pick any difference, whether the difference then means much to you or not, and the all important matter of whether you’re well off enough not to worry too much about the cost of your toys....

Cheers,

Chris

[Ariosto]

Sorry, I'm still laughing at £400 being expensive.

+1

It's the same all the way through music and audio gear. If you can afford good studio monitors, better amps, decent instruments etc then they really DO sound better to anybody with a good ear, and they're often better in quality in other ways too. But if you're satisfied with cheaper copies, and can't tell the difference, then there's no reason to spend big money just for the sake of it, and that's absolutely fine too.

Chris

I'm afraid all this stuff about "if you can't hear the difference" is so much subjective bollocks! It's used by salespeople all the time to try and sell more expensive gear. In blind tests it has been shown, if my memory serves me correctly, that it is virually impossible to tell between moderately priced good gear and over the top very expensive good gear.

The more expensive but unreliable Arcam rubbish I bought may have been capeable of giving me a fraction more detail from the CD (and I mean a fraction), but that was at the expense of the big open sound my cheap DVD player manages.

Sop don't talk about "ability to hear" but think more about the subjectivity.

EDIT: P.S. THE things that make the most difference are at the recording end - the hall accoustic, the correct mic placement, the mics used and the quality of the performance have a huge bearing on the end result. Exotic hi-fi junk can only make a diffrence of a fraction of one percent, at best!!