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Why Does CD Sound So Good?

Over the years, I’ve tried countless variations of system components in order to find the best sound. CD players, CD transports, DACs, streaming DACs, iPods, iPads, phones, computers, amps, tube preamps, you name it. System types include home audio, car audio and headphone audio. There has been a consistent recurring trend: After I’ve played around for a long time and mixed and matched components, I always find a CD player to deliver the best sound.

Sure my laptop computer and DAC sounds really good in my 2-channel rig, but my much lower priced CD player sounds more musical and more listenable, which is really what matters to me. 

In the car, I’ve got radio, XM Radio, streaming through my phone, playing files off my phone, etc. and yet the CD sounds best.

In my headphone rig, I’ve tried fancy DACs and headphone amps, tube buffers and preamps, better power cables and power supplies, etc. and yet a portable CD player has gone the furthest in making my headphones sound the best.

The CD consistently outperforms any streaming player I’ve tried. Don’t get me wrong, there are non-CD based solutions that sound fabulous, but I find myself always going back to the CD in the end. I find a properly setup CD-based system to have non-fatiguing highs and tight, accurate bass; the former being an absolute requirement for me. I don’t care how good the system measures or how expensive the gear is if the sound is fatiguing in any way. That’s a hard line I draw in the sand and one I refuse to negotiate on. It can’t be fatiguing and it has to be musical.

Where I’m lost for an explanation is the “why” behind all of this. In theory, a CD player shouldn’t be so good. We’re spinning a (usually wobbling) disc at many RPMs and trying to track it with a laser and then error correcting what we can’t read. A solid state hard drive or even a normal hard drive should have a walk in the park acquiring the data and should sound better because of it. My phone should sound excellent having solid state memory, being battery powered and having very short signal paths between the memory, DAC and output stage, and yet a cheap $25 portable CD player blows it out of the water.

So why does CD sound so good?
128x128mkgus
mkgus's avatar
mkgus OP
324 posts
 
Granny, I agree we can’t make blanket statements. Any format can outperform any other format if set up with the care and precision required. Okay, maybe wax cylinders will not outperform CDs, but you get my point.

I’ve said before that I believe computer-based playback has the greatest potential to deliver the best sound of all the formats. Things are different in practice, though. Computers are noisy environments and they also need lots of care to get it right. Things like upgraded power supplies on all components, noise isolation products, reclocking products, and more are necessary to get the best sound out of them. And those things are definitely required if you’re going to compete with CD playback.

Where CD shines is that you can get great sound with less investment. A good used CD player with a nice power cable and coax cable will perform as good or better than most other formats at comparable price ranges and most other formats at reasonably more expensive price ranges, in my opinion.

Long story short: Yes a computer can outperform a CD player but you’re going to have to spend a lot more time and money to do it. And what would happen if you used that same time and money to improve your CD playback system? Dollar for dollar, I think you’d be hard pressed to beat CD with computer. Where computer may be the ultimate victor is at the very top where cost is no object.
grannyring's avatar
grannyring
6,537 posts
 
Great points! Agree 100%.  
gregm
3,409 posts
 
Yes a computer can outperform a CD player but you’re going to have to spend a lot more time and money to do it.
This makes absolute sense in a budget system However, in my system, which is nothing extraordinary, the sonic comparison isn’t even close. I’m not challenging you, of course, just reporting my (quite recent) experience.Playing a friend’s Metronome cdp (a one-box model, top-notch construction), as a source, the sound was soft, less detailed and somewhat mushy - less extended in the hi-frequencies and less dynamic than the same track(s) played thru the computer set-up.
(Let me be clear: in & on its own, the Metronome plays marvellous music; I’m pointing out differences, not great deficiencies here.)
When we played the Metronome as a transport, connecting the SPDIF output to the dac, the sound actually picked up dynamics and "crispiness" -- i.e. the hi frequencies became more present. Even there though, the computer source sounded better. One advantage the USB source has is a reclocker -- which may help things... Of course, I am referring to a cd & a rip of the said cd (Pink Floyd pulse, BB King & Friends, Mahler 1st Symphony, B Walter / Columbia, Bellini-Norma, Callas, Votto, Orch of Theatro Scala)
Cost: computer (minix) + s/ware + optimisation: ~700, reclocker 350, DAC 3500, total ~4.6k The Metronome alone costs 6k. So, very close.
Anyway, just a different experience!
brayeagle
362 posts
 

To the Expert HiFi Audio folk, I must be considered an antedeluvian.

My CD spinner is a Bryston BCD-3 It has a superb transport mechanism, and the internal DAC has the same chips and input-output circuitry as their DAC-3. One super-accurate clock provides timing for the transport and DAC, without the necessity to have separate clocks if an external DAC is used. 

The DAC output goes to a Bryston BP17 cubed preamplifier, then onto a 4B cubed amplifier.   Simple, but highly effective signal path. 

IMO, yes, CDs do and can sound better without all the hue and fuss necessary to rip CDs into a digital player, and if streaming is a selected source, to spend the time  and effort to assemble playlists and identify the programs for listening.    For Redbook CDs, an excellent CD spinner and preamp, "Simple" wins out. 
yakbob
481 posts
 
I read through each post thinking this is surely going to turn into the typical " I'm right, and there is only one true path ogre pi$$ing contests". And while there differences in opinion, the discussion remains civil and with respect to each others points of view.

I wish every thread on audiogon was like this. Kudos to you all.


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