Okay......best single box reference CD player

Mapman, it doesn't sound to me like you're going to buy a $20,000 player no matter how good it sounds.

Still, parts are only part of the equation. Most of the top players today basically use off-the-shelf parts and a designer develops the boards, chassis and software to combine it all together. Seldom, lately, is there a proprietery part that only one make has. Often a billet aircraft aluminum chassis is the single most expensive part in a player and that only adds hundreds to the cost.

Anyway, you'll either hear a difference or not. If you hear a difference then you'll ask yourself, "Is it worth it to me or is there a better option for me for less money?" Buying audio equipment based on the parts is folly, when one poorly selected part can negate all the "best" components.

Dave

Dcstep,

My question is not about what specific parts do, that really doesn't matter, its what does the product as a whole do to justify the cost?

Is there any specification or measurement or measurements available that can be used to quantitatively identify when a CD is performing above and beyond? For example, what does a billet aircraft aluminum chasis do to improve the sound? How can the improvement be measured? Or is it just a matter of throwing the kitchen sink into the build at all costs and charging accordingly?

I have no doubts that a phono system cannot be overengineered for example because a phono pickup is sensitive to vibrations and subject to certain laws of physics in order to perform optimally.

A CD players job is to capture all the bits of a disc and convert it to an analog waveform and then deliver the analog output to the next device downstream, usually a pre-amp. THe bits are either detected or not. You either get them all or some % of what is there. Does it take a $20000 CD player to get them all? Does the $20000 CD player do a better job of producing the resulting waveform more accurately or does it provide some flavor or coloration that makes it sound unique, if not better? If so ,why?

I generally will make an investment if needed to produce better results in my system. I probably just need to spend more time auditioning some of the better players ideally in my system to see if it can make a difference the way I know for example that a phono setup can.

My gut feel is that there is an absolute limit to the sound quality possible with CD format and that after 20 years of commercial application the cost of achieving it should not be so high.

I suspect that spending too much here is overkill, but I am anxious to be convinced otherwise.

I hope you don't if I don't respond point by point, but I will respond to two or three.

A billet aluminum chassis is one of the very best shields of RFI and EMI radiation. In digital components or analog components placed near digital components RFI and EMI can degrade performance seriously. A great billet chassis cost the maker several hundred dollars each, excluding development time.

In optical readers, just like in analog, damping and stability of the transport is important. The fact is optical readers do NOT capture all the bits. Because of that, error correction is needed and the quality of the error correction can vary greatly. (Thus, hard drive based musical servers actually sound better than many optical systems). I won't go into jitter and clocking errors, but those are critcal to the ultimate sound. Anyway, just focusing on the transport, a generic piece as you'd find in an Oppo is under $50, while the very best is several hundred dollars. Just like in analog, the op amps, transformers and circuitboard quality all have a clear impact on sound.

Thoughout digital, each part has a generic, functional part that's $10 to $50 and a high end part that does the same thing, better, for several hundred dollars. It's easy to do a cost comparison and get up to a few thousand dollars.

Getting to $10,000 or $20,000 is all about the designer's implementation of all the pieces in such a way that it's better than the competition, as judged by sound. It's kind of like a Linn turntable. You can't justify the price by it's relatively inexpensive parts that have only slightly changed over the last 30-years. I'm sure you can think of a $10 piece that Linn improved their TT with and charged $500 for it, at least so long as it took for someone to come out with an alternative part for less.

There are at least a half dozen approaches to TT design. You can see the differences and they're relatively obvious. With a digital device there are just as many options to solving the problem of good sound, but they're way less obvious to us non-designers; therefore, we listen and make our decisions based on sound.

I don't think there is an absolute limit of sound quality possible with CD, but we're fast approaching the level of where it matches analog in the qualities that we analog lovers hold dear. We're just now reaching that limit with the expensive machines. I predict that Moore's law will make sub-$5000 machines available within 2-years that match and/or surpass today's $10,000 and over machines.

I didn't want to wait two years, so I went ahead and spent the bucks.

Dave

In my opinion, Wadia, DCS, and Esoteric are building cost-no-object multi-component machines that are on an entirely different level than anything even at $20k. Since superlatives are thrown about with such regularity in audiophilia, there are simply no words left to convey how special these are.

Does the sound justify the cost? Yes. The law of diminishing returns does not apply here.

What does this sound like? Remember the first time you ever heard a real audiophile system? It's just like that. Magic.

Of course, there are many satisfying CD players to be had at a far lower cost. I personally feel that the source is absolutely critical for proper playback. Alas, there are slim pickings for CD playback in the sub-$5k range.

Dcstep, thanks for the info.

My ears tell me that no two cd players sound the same. I have it in my plans to give some higher end players a listen over time and see what I hear and go from there. I think the CD is probably the place where I might find a good upgrade/improvement if I look hard.

Are you running a new CD player in your system other than the Pioneer listed in your published system here on Agon??