Crystal Disc US$1600 was played with Genesis Speaker

[Bruce B]

O'kay Andy... I'll make this proposition to you. I'll purchase a Crystal Disc and you send me the DSD source files and we can finally put an end to this debate.
I'll run tests on both and play both formats at my local Audiophile Society. I'll also play both files at RMAF on my Pyramix/Horus/Playback Designs MPS-5 for everyone to hear. I can have both formats playing at the same time and switch back and forth blindly for everyone! I'll even write the review of the set-up and outcome in Steremojo!
What better advertizing can you have than that?

 

[Steve Williams]

O'kay Andy... I'll make this proposition to you. I'll purchase a Crystal Disc and you send me the DSD source files and we can finally put an end to this debate.
I'll run tests on both and play both formats at my local Audiophile Society. I'll also play both files at RMAF on my Pyramix/Horus/Playback Designs MPS-5 for everyone to hear. I can have both formats playing at the same time and switch back and forth blindly for everyone!
What better advertizing can you have than that?

That's an offer difficult to pass up.

 

[audioarcher]

Interesting discussion. It does not surprise me that using better materials and processes improves the performance of a CD. Less error can only be a good thing. It's too bad that doing something well costs so much but that is the nature of the world.

I have not heard one but would like to. I will reserve judgement until I have done so. I find it funny that people think they know what the result will be without first hand experience.

All that said I would have to really like the music on the disc to pay that much for one even if it is vastly superior. I happen to have River of Sorrow on LP. I don't play it much but it would be interesting to compare all 3 versions.

I'm guessing that SACD or DVD-A could be pressed with the same process? If not why is that?

 

[audioarcher]

O'kay Andy... I'll make this proposition to you. I'll purchase a Crystal Disc and you send me the DSD source files and we can finally put an end to this debate.
I'll run tests on both and play both formats at my local Audiophile Society. I'll also play both files at RMAF on my Pyramix/Horus/Playback Designs MPS-5 for everyone to hear. I can have both formats playing at the same time and switch back and forth blindly for everyone!
What better advertizing can you have than that?

That would be interesting for sure! Not sure how the disc could be better than the source files but if it sounds as good that would be a success in my book.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

My problem is that there are some on WBF who hold themselves to be the arbiter of integrity when it does not meet their personal standards. How different is a $1,600 CD compared to a $16 CD vs a $15,000 CD player compared to a $150 CD player? I don't see anyone calling out a $15,000 CD player to be hurting the credibility of the hobby. "Rain on someone's parade" means to spoil something that someone else enjoys.

Andy did not make the claim, but I have heard someone who is very dear to us that has claimed that the crystal CD sounded better than the glass master - and this boils down to the materials and process used. I have my CD re-burning process freely available, and yet there are over 1,500 subscribers to a $300 commercial version of the burned CD using my process. Do I think that the $300 CD is worth the money? Do you know the laborious process through which the $300 CD has gone through? What is labor worth if it takes 3 hours to make one? And small runs need special licensing and royalties paid.

I don't think the analogy holds up, but edorr already answered that one very well. But the real problem I have with it is that the claim is not that a better quality of reproduction comes from a better disc-making process (that in itself is a stretch, but not really the point0. The line was crossed the claim was made that this $16k redbook disk was better than anything, digital an analogue. OK, but it's going to need more tha pictures of manufacturing equipment and guys in dust suits. That is one large claim, attached to an absurd price.

And personally, yes, I think the $15,000 CD player is equally absurd.

Tim

 

[Steve Williams]

I am not disputing that the Crystal Disk could sound better than Redbook CD however at $1600/disk I will graciously pass and buy the music on tape, DSD or hirez etc

 

[andymodern]

O'kay Andy... I'll make this proposition to you. I'll purchase a Crystal Disc and you send me the DSD source files and we can finally put an end to this debate.
I'll run tests on both and play both formats at my local Audiophile Society. I'll also play both files at RMAF on my Pyramix/Horus/Playback Designs MPS-5 for everyone to hear. I can have both formats playing at the same time and switch back and forth blindly for everyone! I'll even write the review of the set-up and outcome in Steremojo!
What better advertizing can you have than that?

Now it is almost 2:00 am in Hong Kong. I was trying to sleep just now........!

Well... Anyway, Thanks Bruce for your kind offer!

The only one i have DSD files with me is "Sorrow of the River" by Guo Ya-zhi. This is a Chinese music in content recorded in a church. The first track is featuring a large Chinese drum with a Chinese oboe (that is shrill, powerful and very loud). You have to be very careful to play this track. My advice is to test the volumn first before the actual audition! I also have it on normal CD and AQCD (a CD which is pressed using purple-dyed poly-carbonate and silver-alloy as the reflective layer) . I will send them to you too for comparison!

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

This is simply the point. digital data is bits, voltage and no voltage, on and off. The beauty of digital is once the AD converts to a number, that number stays the same no matter how many times it is reproduced. While timing becomes another issue, if a CD is meeting spec, then the player will read back that same number. The cd does not wear out with playing, each play of the cd is really not a "new" and "slightly degraded" song like it is with LP or tape, etc. Store the bits on a ROM chip, whatever, plate the ROM chip in gold, whatever, the number will be the same. It bears repeating and so there it is.

This. The difference being there are many here who will argue with this. There are very few who will agree that any redbook cd can be better than a hi-res file, SACD, or analog source. Had Andy been reasonable, he'd have lots of defenders here. Hard to justify that price for just a bit better bits, though.

Tim

 

[garylkoh]

Bad analogy. A CD player is a piece of hardware. A CD is a medium to store encoded digital information. That digital information is bit for bit the same information whether stored on a flashdrive, $2 CD, or $1,600 CD or some $1 mln dollar gimmick. Now you can make the case that some storage medium, given the available technologies to read the digital information on that medium results in lower error rates in reading that information. However this is most likely to produce audible differences in a piece of junk transport with poor error correction and no buffering of data.

I beg to differ. Some audiophiles will upgrade from a $5000 CD player to a $45,000 CD player to try to extract more out of their CDs, there are some who will try to improve the CDs. This has been the argument against my CD re-burning process for over 10 years already, and the ones who maintain that the process can not make a difference with their expensive transports are the ones who have not tried it without taking short cuts.

A $45,000 transport that is at all sensitive to the "quality" of the disc you play in it is a shitty design, because the more expensive the transport, the more immune to quality of the disc it should be (this may be a bit counterintuitive to some, especially those that view sources through a turntable paradigm).

Are you then saying that Jack has a shitty transport if he says:

I was a non-believer of Gary's ripping regimen until a friend (local Harbeth, Vitus, Accuphase, YG dealer) compared my 1x rips and his "No Short Cuts" Gary rips. Mine sounded like crap.

 

[garylkoh]

Gary

Point well taken however IMO you are comparing apples and oranges. Same can be said for speakers and components but seriously is this disk truly better than an R2R tape of the same music and only costs $300 but should sound better or am I mistaken.

I don't think that Andy is saying that it is better than a R2R tape or a LP. He is saying that this is the best of the CD formats. If you have other formats, or you are able to play back high-rez through a good server, you'd probably get better sound. This is for Redbook and Redbook only.

 

[NorthStar]

I read it all. I took my time this morning to read everything else attentively and newly added since yesterday, and even going back to some of what was said before.

Many times I could have make comments (in particular on stuff Andy was saying) but you guys took good care of that already.
I was happy to read Mike, Gary, and Bruce. ...And Tim too, and everyone else.

* BTW Andy, I understand very well your language and it's no problem at all. You are very polite and it comes back to you that way too.

I like Bruce's offer to Andy best! ...I'll wait for further developments...
And meanwhile I know that I can hire a pretty good live acoustic band at my place for $1,600 and they would play for the full evening.
And that is the real deal in my book.

Me too, I would love to have only one Crystal Disc in my music collection. :b

 

[Mike Lavigne]

I don't think that Andy is saying that it is better than a R2R tape or a LP. He is saying that this is the best of the CD formats. If you have other formats, or you are able to play back high-rez through a good server, you'd probably get better sound. This is for Redbook and Redbook only.

i think the reaction here was partly that there was an inference that Andy was saying that the Crystal Disc was superior to other formats. OTOH when directly asked about what his meaning was, he did back away from those inferences.....which i appreciated.

i know many very serious audiophiles have very sophisiticated and expensive systems built around CD as their only source, or maybe also 16/44 from a server too. so i respect that a better sounding delivery system for this format has value to many. so this product deserves attention if it can deliver on these claims. respectful skpeticism regarding how Crystal Disc compares to other formats should not diminish what it can do for CD.

 

[andymodern]

This. The difference being there are many here who will argue with this. There are very few who will agree that any redbook cd can be better than a hi-res file, SACD, or analog source. Had Andy been reasonable, he'd have lots of defenders here. Hard to justify that price for just a bit better bits, though.

Tim

People out there will pay a high premium to upgrade their gear for a non-proportion improvement! So what is the point to argue "hard to justify that price for just a bit better bits"!

All i am saying is that, believe it or not, the shape of digital pits stored on the CD will affect the accuracy of data being read by red-laser light. And even the digital cable connecting the transport to DAC, and the USB cable connecting the harddrive to the digital music player makes difference on the sound quality! I also mention that a CD with and without printing on its surface would sound different too! These are all my listening experience! You can believe it or not!

 

[garylkoh]

Mike, I have not done the comparison between Andy's ordinary CD and Crystal Disc but have done lots and lots up to and including Winston's UDM, and there is always an improvement. However, a well-designed server is a completely different kettle of fish. So are LP and tape.

I don't think that Andy contends that Crystal Disc is better than tape... and his comparison to a ripped version is with his office computer, not a properly configured music server. When I built a server for my Hong Kong distributor, that was the only one they had ever heard sounding better than a transport.

 

[Steve Williams]

People out there will pay a high premium to upgrade their gear for a non-proportion improvement! So what is the point to argue "hard to justify that price for just a bit better bits"!

All i am saying is that, believe it or not, the shape of digital pits stored on the CD will affect the accuracy of data being read by red-laser light. And even the digital cable connecting the transport to DAC, and the USB cable connecting the harddrive to the digital music player makes difference on the sound quality! I also mention that a CD with and without printing on its surface would sound different too! These are all my listening experience! You can believe it or not!

Andy

I and everyone probably agree with you. I would submit to you that "if" indeed the crystal disk is better than CD you should be finding ways to produce the Crystal Disk for far less than the absurd $1600 MSRP and mass produce it. IMO this would base your sales on volume and not on such high margin. As a result everyone would be buying it but to tell me that it is and always will be $1600, I say count me out

 

[JackD201]

I beg to differ. Some audiophiles will upgrade from a $5000 CD player to a $45,000 CD player to try to extract more out of their CDs, there are some who will try to improve the CDs. This has been the argument against my CD re-burning process for over 10 years already, and the ones who maintain that the process can not make a difference with their expensive transports are the ones who have not tried it without taking short cuts.



Are you then saying that Jack has a shitty transport if he says:

I argued exactly along the same lines and was wrong. Expectation bias? How could it be? I wanted so much to be right and I wasn't. There was a lack of understanding on how the discs actually work and are made. 0s don't get their own pits. The length of the lands between pits represent the number of 0s. The data is scattered around the disc 5 times. In the event that one or more might fail, another one will be taken for "re-assembly". Not only do you need the correct land length, reflectivity and correct speed is also required to collect the data correctly.

One of the arguments for server playback is that it does away with the pesky mechanical jitter from imprecise land lengths as well as reflectivity and speed. This is a realtime problem in CD playback. If glass is better than polycarbonate in that regard (easier to read AND has the correct land lengths) then if indeed manufactured right it could and should be better. That is, however, a big if. Pressing plants have improved over the decades. A good transport will not fix a problem that is on the disc itself no matter how well it reads or how robust the error correction.

Still, the price is too rich for my blood.

 

[Bruce B]

A good transport will not fix a problem that is on the disc itself no matter how well it reads or how robust the error correction.

Any transport that is working can correct C1 and C2 errors. An uncorrectable error, CU is because the disc is actually damaged.

 

[andymodern]

Andy

I and everyone probably agree with you. I would submit to you that "if" indeed the crystal disk is better than CD you should be finding ways to produce the Crystal Disk for far less than the absurd $1600 MSRP and mass produce it. IMO this would base your sales on volume and not on such high margin. As a result everyone would be buying it but to tell me that it is and always will be $1600, I say count me out

Thanks Steve! I am also out now because it is 3:00 am in Hong Kong! I got to go to bed!

Thanks all of you for such refreshing discussion!

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

People out there will pay a high premium to upgrade their gear for a non-proportion improvement! So what is the point to argue "hard to justify that price for just a bit better bits"!

All i am saying is that, believe it or not, the shape of digital pits stored on the CD will affect the accuracy of data being read by red-laser light. And even the digital cable connecting the transport to DAC, and the USB cable connecting the harddrive to the digital music player makes difference on the sound quality! I also mention that a CD with and without printing on its surface would sound different too! These are all my listening experience! You can believe it or not!

I'll have to opt for "not," Andy. Decent error correction will read the pits as on or off, unless they're damaged. Could the shape of the pits effect timing, increase jitter? Maybe. But that's a completely different discussion.

Tim

 

[Bruce B]

Just got a confirmation from Andy that the Crystal disc and all materials will ship soon!