I prefer having a simpler system and figured I’d listen less if I choose the transport just due to convenience.
@badbeef sums it up well. The title of this topic is misleading in that JD can’t come to a conclusion that CD’s are still the best playback format based on the comparisons contained in that video. If in fact that is what he’s asserting, and I don’t think he is. But if that is the assertion, I agree with it.
I now find myself listening to CD from beginning to end, rarely touching the remote control. With that listening style it is not inconvenient to load a CD, carry out one more action, and then have uninterrupted listening enjoyment for an hour or so (or whatever).
I had a reason for not using mine. I’m curious to know why he didn’t use his. Perhaps he gets so much stuff to try, that once tried, it’s time to try something else. I wonder if he brought his device softwares up to date after being idle for 2 years?
I think he has said before that most of the music he listens to is streamed or played from his servers due to convenience so I think that is likely why.
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One of the other bits that is often operational in these situations is the “I Can’t Imagine That X could be Better Than What I Have” (or simply Better than Y) Thing - which often seems to be based on just that - Imagination, measurement, a set of technical intellectual assumptions, the perceived elegance of a given approach, etc…vs. firsthand subjective experience of the things in question. Which needn’t always be prohibitively expensive.
This would often seem to be a part of the Great Wire Debate. “How can wires that Measure the Same Sound Different?!” - listen to them. “How Can Speaker Wires Matter, when the wire in the speaker itself and in the amp are bog-standard?!?” - again, listen to them.
Not coincidentally, comparing speaker wires at the moment. My current answer to this is that a Speaker Wire is handling an unusually reactive load that responds well to certain geometries, materials, dielectrics and so on, particularly over various lengths. Pretty much anyone would acknowledge that shorter is better for speaker cables. That tells you that there is something going on that could be made “less bad”. Indeed, “better” wires tend to “let more music through” or mangle the music less. They are not “better” in direct proportion to their cost, sadly ; )
I do this all the time, prefer to listen the whole CD / LP without skipping through out; There are some magic that musicians deliberately / selectively put on track 1, 2, and following in many cases;
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My interest in the “Fight” is to encourage the recording companies not to abandon producing the music I want to listen to in the formats that are compatible with my audio gear (physical discs, and lossless files I can convert into physical discs). Anything, such as Darko’s video, that might have the effect of raising listeners’ demand for music in the format I’m committed to is a positive thing from my perspective.
Agreed. And a fan of Darko : )
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In general I would agree with you, and I do not have any unnecessary length on cables, but there is a ‘but’. Many amps include small capacitances and inductances on their outputs to help with amp stability under difficult loads. If these are not present then it might happen that a difficult speaker sounded better with a long cable than a short one, because of the added inductance / capacitance. The world of audio is wonderful, isn’t it?
My experience has seen that in the last three years if a non-classical recording is released on CD they compress all the life out of it. If you want triple the dynamic range you have to buy the vinyl version. That is why I have the Nuwave Phono converter so I can record my vinyl and stop buying crushed CD recordings.
Its so dumb because theoretically the CD can handle so much more dynamic range than the lowly LP.
“The world of audio is wonderful, isn’t it?”
Technically Speaking…yeah ; )
BTW - have you Actually Heard this before, or is this one of the above-mentioned, on-paper Theoretical Imaginings? ; )
Given the assortment of “inexpensive” gear that I see Darko displaying in most of his videos, I consider his opinions highly suspect. He seems top think that his desktop system is the pinacle of hi-fi.
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Hopefully it is just a Theoretical Scenario, but I have a vague memory that there was once a manufacturer who specified a minimum length of speaker cable, presumably for that reason, so I am not just creating spectres to haunt you. I think all the modern amp designs I have seen include the Zobel and Thiele networks that I alluded to, which would stabilise the amp whatever sort of cable you had.
I’m having a hard time understanding this. I thought the average dynamic range of a redbook cd is a good 20dBs greater than vinyl?
This is an old discussion. Many modern recordings squash dynamics! Usually LPs are mastered with a little more DR. Look up the loudness wars. Like everything in audio, it depends.
“Spectres”…I can just Imagine an Audiophile Christmas Carol. Marley (Bob, in dreads) festooned with giant Audiophile Speaker cables, dragging Pass Amps, etc.
The Ghost of Cables Past…“tonight, you will be Visited by Three Cables”. “NO! Please Spirit!”
“Oh, but Ebeneezer, if you had not Spent So Much Money on Cables in Life, instead of on your Fellow Man…” ; )
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I like Darko also just don’t think his conclusion made a lot of sense as presented in his video.The CD format has an expiration date at this point whether we like it or not – just a matter of time. LP’s on the other hand will probably still be around 20 years from now – how ironic is that.
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His conclusion is merely that on his gear, in his listening room with the recordings he likes to listen to, his CD’s sounded better than the same recordings streamed over his streaming devices or played on his turntable.
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In the old days when CD drives and their DA converters were working hand in hand there was one clock that both controlled the speed of the drive and the heartbeat of the DAC at the same time synchronously. The result is an absence of jitter, hence the better quality. In modern times where everybody uses Chinese drives (that also go into PC’s and game consoles) and separate DAC’s, also called asynchronously, jitter is much more present. Once I was working on a similar device where both the CPU and the DAC were running on the same base clock. Maybe I should pick that up again…