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Half the information on CDs is analogue

I would like to argue that one of the reasons that some transports sound significantly better than others is because much of the information on a given CD is actually analogue (analog) information.
An excellent transport does not just read digital information: 1s and 0s (offs and ons); it must be sensitive enough to pick up the other information that has been stored as a physical property of the CD medium. This 'physical' information, like the tiny bumps in the groove of a vinyl record, is analogue information.

Before I say more I'd like to hear what others think.
exlibris
kenyonbm
141 posts
 
Sdatch, I have found this book very useful.

Principles of Digital Audio, fifth edition by Ken C. Pohlmann. McGraw-Hill.

I got it from the library. (It is $60 at Amazon.) It covers not only CD, but DVD, DVD-A, SACD, MP3 and a lot more. There is a good amount on transports as well.

It didn't make me an audio engineer but I did learn enough to calibrate my BS meter.

shadorne's avatar
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shadorne
7,477 posts
 
Sdatch,

CD uses Solomon Reed coding to protect data integraty ....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reed-Solomon_error_correction

This means that small analog imperfections have no influence on how the CD sounds, as the data is completely corrected for errors...
exlibris OP
438 posts
 
Put your CD player on top of your speaker and listen to how wonderful error correction sounds.
Using a mathematical algorithm to fill in gaps and help plot a wave by taking 'best guesses' sounds exactly how you'd expect it sound.

http://www.iar-80.com/page54.html
eldartford
4,262 posts
 
Exlibris...Your mention of "gaps" and "best guesses" indicates that you have no idea how R-S error correction encoding works. Go study!!
metralla
945 posts
 
Nice summary, Ghostrider45.

Regards,
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