Learned something new today and it isn't good.


I have been in this crazy hobby for over five decades and thought I knew most of the basic information regarding audio quality.

That was before this morning.

Today I learned about the practise of applying "pre-emphasis" to CDs that was around during the late '70's and early '80's. Apparently this practise was developed as a way of reducing the signal to noise in digital audio. The problem is this was a two-part process and required the CD player to have a "de-emphasis" capability to allow the disk to play properly. Without the application of de-emphasis, cd's would sound "bright".

My question would be, "Does everyone else know about this?"

If you do, "How do you deal with it?"

I still listen to CDs and this is not something I need in my life.

128x128tony1954

The practice was stopped a long term ago.  Use an internet search engine to learn more.

@maxwave 

My Lumin D1 has it as well, but it is not an automated function. If you have a CD that requires "de-emphasization" you need to turn the function on in the software.

@onhwy61 

I know it has stopped. My concern is that many of the best quality CDs from that era are pre-emphasized. Specifically many Japanese versions. 

@tony1954 does your CD player have the de-emphasis circuitry?  If it doesn't, then those CDs will sound a little bit bright.

@onhwy61 

I have been trying to find out, but so far no luck.

I have the Cambridge Audio CXC transport.

 

Apparently this practise was developed as a way of reducing the signal to noise in digital audio.

 

Well, it was to INCREASE the signal to noise.  As I recall it had something to do with the early anti-aliasing filters not being great.  AFAIK, any CD player should automatically detect and enable/disable the matching de-emphasis as should most  audio playback systems.  However it's imperfect.  According to this, it's not on a lot of CD's so maybe you don't care??

https://studio-nibble.com/cd/index.php?title=Pre-emphasis_%28release_list%29