2. digital
  3. 155183-122613

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
larryi
4,054 posts
 
If you have a large collection of CDs, the main reason to rip them and put them on a server is accessibility.  How do you listen to 1100 classical CDs?, someone asked:  the answer is rip them.  It is so much easier to scroll a large collection when it is on a server and you have ability to search composer, performer, composition, musical genre (choral music, chamber, 20th century, whatever classification you set up).  You can then make playlists, select tracks, etc.  I can listen to things off a dozen CDs in one listening session and I don't have a dozen CDs lying around that I have to re-shelve in the precisely correct location where they can be found again).  I am much more likely to listen to the more obscure items in my collection (around 3,200 classical CDs, and 1,800 others) now that it is on a server (I still have the hard discs).

As to sound quality, both can sound decent.  I had a Naim CD555 CD player, and I now have a Naim 555 server.  Both sound very good.  My CD collection has been ripped to WAV files, so there is no compression as a potential source of degraded sound.  
Post removed 
hombre
87 posts
 
I think modern (last ten years) CD players and dacs are essentially audibly perfect. Only problem, as always, is the sometimes very poor quality of the recording and mastering that created the CD. I have some CD's that were recorded at such a high level that the sound quality is actually destroyed. Don't know why the f**k they do this. But I've been listening a lot to Radio Paradise over internet radio (My AVR receives it over my home wi-fi) and the audio codec is 320kbs AAC and I have to admit the sound quality is very good.In fact I'm not sure I could hear a difference between it and CD. My amp is a Schiit Vidar which is driving maggie LRS speakers. My CDP is an OPPO 203. The AVR is a Yammy aventage.
brayeagle
362 posts
 
larryi,

I have my 1100 CDs shelved in special four-sided racks that spin around. I have them cataloged  by composer. It's simple to turn the racks and choose. I also keep a small 20-CD holder on top of the cabinet holding the BCD-3 BP 17 cubed and  two Magnum Dynalab tuners (Straight FM and an Internet Radio)
georgehifi's avatar
georgehifi
10,312 posts
 
It is so much easier to scroll a large collection when it is on a server and you have ability to search composer, performer, composition, musical genre (choral music, chamber, 20th century, whatever classification you set up).
It’s about the sound, not the ease, if that were the case none of us would still have vinyl, and that was far from easy.
It’s about get off your a**e and changing record or cd after 30-40 mins, handling the physical medium reading a book or booklet, and then there’s the sound, which too me is better.
I look at enough cell phones, laptops, computer, TV screens all day, I don’t need it as well burning my retina’s out when needing to listen to music as well.

Cheers George
More to discover