Is there a Michael Fremer of CD transports? If no, DEAR GOD PLEASE SEND US ONE!!!!

caesar

Well-Known Member
May 30, 2010
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Amazing that when so many guys "go digital" they throw away their CD transport. And giving up the transport provides a leaner, cleaner, flatter, and more detail sound. This type of sound fits many tastes and is championed by the likes of the Computer Audiophile Geek and "Worthless to the Audio Fans" Robert Harley. When these reviewers hear a new analytical detail, they immediately call it BEST.

But many of those who care about musicality find that high end CD transports bring more emotion and palpability to the music. Despite so many brilliant minds on this board, I haven't been able to understand why... Yet here is one piece of evidence that may explain the differences...

"...The mathematical operations are most commonly performed within the DAC chip but some companies, like Chord, use an FPGA (Field-Programmable Gate Array) as this allows the DSP engineer almost unlimited flexibility in creating filters. Unless you want to keep increasing the number of filter coefficients, which Watts finds always gives a sonic improvement. The DAVE, for example, uses a Xilinx FPGA that allows a filter with 164,000 coefficients to be programmed. But even 164,000 taps was not enough for Watts, and the availability of a new Xilinx FPGA, the X7A200T, which has no fewer than 740 DSP cores, 215,360 logic cells, and 16MB of memory, allowed him to increase the number of taps to one million—actually 1,015,808!

So why is the filter in the Blu Mk.2 rather than the DAVE, I asked. "The FPGA draws up to 10A of current," Watts replied, "and DAVE's power supply just can't supply that much current without compromising the noise floor." The Blu can, he explained, so it made sense to put the filter in the Mk.2 version of the transport and feed the filtered data stream to DAVE...."

Now, despite the marketing hype, many people already prefer the Chord DAVE DAC to the well-marketed and overly hyped digtial gear, like dcs, msb, esotoric, and the super-duper analytical Berkeley REf. With the transport, the DAC goes to a much higher level...


https://www.stereophile.com/content/chords-million-tap-digital-filter

Are there any reviewers who are still fighting for the CD transport like "Fearless" Michael Fremer has been fighting for vinyl?
 

spiritofmusic

Well-Known Member
Jun 13, 2013
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Caesar, I don’t know about reviewers, but I’m never giving up my cdp.
 

Empirical Audio

Industry Expert
Oct 12, 2017
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But many of those who care about musicality find that high end CD transports bring more emotion and palpability to the music. Despite so many brilliant minds on this board, I haven't been able to understand why... Yet here is one piece of evidence that may explain the differences...

I certainly care about musicality and I don't find this to be true at all, at least using my gear.

Your explanation has mostly to do with the digital filtering in the DAC, not the transport. They are two separate and independent things.

The thing that makes a transport sound good is simply the jitter and the signal integrity of the digital signal, be it S/PDIF coax, AES/EBU or I2S. This is the ONLY thing that is important for modern transports. Maybe older transports had issues with improper offset calculation or codecs, but now they are all accurate. The same data comes out of a $200 and a $200K transport. The only difference is jitter and how well the output circuit is designed and implemented. Most do not have 75 ohms output impedance and most don't generate a .5V P-P waveform.

So, how does it make more sense to spend $15K for a transport rather than $500 plus a reclocker like the Synchro-Mesh that delivers true 75 ohms at .5V P-P with jitter of 18psec?

Jitter can be a crazy effect. Some types of jitter are actually euphonic, making the music more enjoyable, but at the same time making it less accurate. This is particularly noticeable at the high frequencies with percussion. If percussion sounds really live when you close your eyes, the jitter is probably low. If you can hear the echoes off the walls of the venue the track was recorded in, the jitter is probably low. Here are some jitter measurements on a typical transport:

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=154408.0

Take those savings and use them towards a Tesla instead. Much more fun.

You are right about the other aspect, digital filtering, but this has nothing to do with the Transport. Jitter is the #1 problem with digital playback. Digital filtering is the #2 problem.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio
 

Pb Blimp

Well-Known Member
Oct 30, 2017
518
25
140
USA
It seems hard for me to buy into the arguement that Transports in general are superior to file playback because of digital filters in the Transport since I do not believe this is a common topology. Or am I missing something? It may be true for the Blu mkii but that is an atypical design and can't be used to make a blanket statement about Transport superiority. IMO the best a well executed Transport can hope to achieve is to equal a well executed ethernet to IS2 renderer but not exceed it.
 

BlueFox

Member Sponsor
Nov 8, 2013
1,709
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405
Why do you care. Do you need someone else to insult in your petty questions?

Amazing that when so many guys "go digital" they throw away their CD transport. And giving up the transport provides a leaner, cleaner, flatter, and more detail sound. This type of sound fits many tastes and is championed by the likes of the Computer Audiophile Geek and "Worthless to the Audio Fans" Robert Harley. When these reviewers hear a new analytical detail, they immediately call it BEST.

But many of those who care about musicality find that high end CD transports bring more emotion and palpability to the music. Despite so many brilliant minds on this board, I haven't been able to understand why... Yet here is one piece of evidence that may explain the differences...

"...The mathematical operations are most commonly performed within the DAC chip but some companies, like Chord, use an FPGA (Field-Programmable Gate Array) as this allows the DSP engineer almost unlimited flexibility in creating filters. Unless you want to keep increasing the number of filter coefficients, which Watts finds always gives a sonic improvement. The DAVE, for example, uses a Xilinx FPGA that allows a filter with 164,000 coefficients to be programmed. But even 164,000 taps was not enough for Watts, and the availability of a new Xilinx FPGA, the X7A200T, which has no fewer than 740 DSP cores, 215,360 logic cells, and 16MB of memory, allowed him to increase the number of taps to one million—actually 1,015,808!

So why is the filter in the Blu Mk.2 rather than the DAVE, I asked. "The FPGA draws up to 10A of current," Watts replied, "and DAVE's power supply just can't supply that much current without compromising the noise floor." The Blu can, he explained, so it made sense to put the filter in the Mk.2 version of the transport and feed the filtered data stream to DAVE...."

Now, despite the marketing hype, many people already prefer the Chord DAVE DAC to the well-marketed and overly hyped digtial gear, like dcs, msb, esotoric, and the super-duper analytical Berkeley REf. With the transport, the DAC goes to a much higher level...


https://www.stereophile.com/content/chords-million-tap-digital-filter

Are there any reviewers who are still fighting for the CD transport like "Fearless" Michael Fremer has been fighting for vinyl?
 

spiritofmusic

Well-Known Member
Jun 13, 2013
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That’s unnecessarily terse of you, Bud.
 

Pb Blimp

Well-Known Member
Oct 30, 2017
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140
USA
yeah I suspect buddy's having a bad hair day ...........


Well in defense of Bud, some of us have a very high regard for Mikey. Oh and he never has a bad hair day. :)


Fremer.jpg
 

LenWhite

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Feb 11, 2011
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I certainly respect the right of individuals to choose how they listen to music. I prefer physical media over digital files because I like the artwork and descriptive information. I also think there are more knowledgeable music producers making great sounding physical media, both LP's, SACD's, and CD's. I know there are some great sounding digital files as I listen at times to those as well. i'm willing to pay for the best quality sound, and I'm dubious of musicians who may because of lower costs use the power of accessible computer software to produce their own music files.
 

spiritofmusic

Well-Known Member
Jun 13, 2013
14,598
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Len, there are many reasons to stick w physical media, even the apparently loathed 5” silver disc.
For me, it’s an almost psychological need to handle something, and feel like music is playing from the disc. I just have no empathy with that IPad.
 

Empirical Audio

Industry Expert
Oct 12, 2017
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www.empiricalaudio.com
I certainly respect the right of individuals to choose how they listen to music. I prefer physical media over digital files because I like the artwork and descriptive information. I also think there are more knowledgeable music producers making great sounding physical media, both LP's, SACD's, and CD's. I know there are some great sounding digital files as I listen at times to those as well. i'm willing to pay for the best quality sound, and I'm dubious of musicians who may because of lower costs use the power of accessible computer software to produce their own music files.

Artwork and descriptions are even more abundant with computer media. You also get Genre, sample-rate, even ratings by other listeners. Album art is always shown. CD's are going the way of 8-tracks. How many albums do you like every single track on? I prefer to have only the tracks I like in my playlists.

There is nothing like the convenience of computer media and streaming. It adds a whole new dimension to listening.

I still have lots of CD's, but they are archival only and they will eventually deteriorate too.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio
 

Hifi Boy

New Member
Sep 16, 2017
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3
0
Aside from sentimental value, there is absolutely no need for physical media anymore, at last when it comes to digital reproduction. Roon+Tidal provide you with flexibility and richness of both content and context. No need to actually go out and buy the disks when you can almost instantly find everything you need with an iPad.

Also, as the OP mentioned Dave+Blu2 give you an unbelievable sound which also probably makes vinyl obsolete as well, aside from is sentimental value of course.
 

spiritofmusic

Well-Known Member
Jun 13, 2013
14,598
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Too bad about your last comment on vinyl, I was interested in what you had to say up until that point
 

Hifi Boy

New Member
Sep 16, 2017
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0
Too bad about your last comment on vinyl, I was interested in what you had to say up until that point ??
I have been a fan of vinyl and considered it magical compared to digital ever since I first heard a proper Luxman 2-channel system and I'm a headphone listener just for the record.

But there comes a point where you grow up, so to speak, and believe me, I'm not the only person who isn't bothered with vinyl anymore after you have heard a proper digital setup. Besides, how many times are you going to get up and change the record during a single listening session? I get the initial ritual of putting the record on, but 5 to 10 times in a few hours is an overkill. Creating playlists is much simpler and it gets us much closer to where we want to be. Just sitting down and enjoying music. That's at least where I want to be.

On the other hand, here's how I would put my Chord vs vinyl opinion today. When I first heard Dave, I thought that it was the best DAC I ever heard, but ultimately, I thought that my equally priced digital system was better. As my taste in sound matured, I changed my opinion significantly. When I look back at what I spent, I could have just bought the Dave and be happy with it.

The sound it presents is real. If you want to give it a touch of warmth, add a tube amp. No need to color your source, when you can do it downstream with further additions and options later on. If you do it at the source level, well then you're stuck with what you got. :)
 

spiritofmusic

Well-Known Member
Jun 13, 2013
14,598
5,403
1,278
E. England
I’ve been immersed in a friend’s SGM2015 server w T&A Dac8 over a two year period, plus intermittent experience of Lampi GG, so no shortage of exemplary digital exposure, plus my own Eera Tentation cdp that JackD201 runs and has had to wring the changes on SOTA server/dsd dac to beat. But despite being an absolute convert to top class digital sound, I’m still not convinced to part company from vinyl.
Especially when every live unamplified concert I go to (weekly classical and jazz gigs) in terms of tone density and timbral accuracy is best replicated by my analog.
And the argument re getting up to have to change discs is about as lame as my aversion to having to deal with an IPad .
 

Empirical Audio

Industry Expert
Oct 12, 2017
1,169
207
150
Great Pacific Northwest
www.empiricalaudio.com
If you want to give it a touch of warmth, add a tube amp

I take issue with statements like this. All tube amps do not add "warmth". This depends entirely on the amp and the tubes. My SET amp is every bit as live and dynamic as my SS amps were, but more 3 dimensional. Deeper imaging, better bass. Many tube amps are poorly designed or have the wrong tubes in them, so they do sound warm. Likewise, many SS amps sound very cold and electronic. Neither has to be the case based on those technologies.

On the other had, I agree with you that the very best in Digital not only rivals Analog vinyl, it beats it. I have customers that sold their vinyl systems after they got my DAC.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio
 

Pb Blimp

Well-Known Member
Oct 30, 2017
518
25
140
USA
Aside from sentimental value, there is absolutely no need for physical media anymore, at last when it comes to digital reproduction. Roon+Tidal provide you with flexibility and richness of both content and context. No need to actually go out and buy the disks when you can almost instantly find everything you need with an iPad.

Also, as the OP mentioned Dave+Blu2 give you an unbelievable sound which also probably makes vinyl obsolete as well, aside from is sentimental value of course.

Hey buddy, thems fighten words......:mad:
 

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