Why CD players will never be dead

Ghosthouse:

I'm taking a stab at this so bear with me until someone more knowledgable chimes in. I think it is a combination and quality of things that bear on the playback.

I've heard my DACmini out of a top of the line Ayon CDP and it was a bit better than the Ayon by itself.

I tried it out of my TEAC PD-H600 and it, too was better than the TEAC by itself, by a wider margin.

The DACmini out of my iMac with Bitperfect (CAN'T forget the add ons) sounded similar, but better, than with the Ayon and much, much better than with the TEAC.

This all leads me to believe that the transport is the culprit. Every time that CDP spins and reads, its never the same. It can't be replicated equally, every time. But with an iMac (or PC based) hard drive or SSD, its the same read every time. All of that without the spinning platter and laser read of the disk.

I remember reading a review over at 6moons.com about how the reading of a disk and transfer to the DAC, in a CDP, is still an analog (mechanical) function or something to that effect. Its not really digital until the conversion. With a computer, or computer based server, its digital (not mechanical) through and through. I hope I've remembered it correctly and I hope this helps until someone with better skills and background can explain.

All the best,
Nonoise

Nonoise- Thanks for the helpful reply. I have a bit more of a clue about this now.

"I remember reading a review over at 6moons.com about how the reading of a disk and transfer to the DAC, in a CDP, is still an analog (mechanical) function or something to that effect. Its not really digital until the conversion.”

It can’t be called analog because the disc being read is digitally encoded. What would make sense to me is if 6moons compared the inherent irregularities of the mechanical function of a CDP to those of an analog playback system.

Now that I've had some time to think about it the article at 6moons went on to state that the pits in the CD are read by the laser similar to a needle tracking a groove on a record. Its still not a 'digital' read as the laser never really reads the same pits in the same manner, or something like that. There is still some guess work done before it goes onto the DAC. I'll try to find the article and post it here.

All the best,
Nonoise

Nonoise, regardless of the details in the article, you’re right about the ripping process being bit-perfect while the transport read is not and is reliant on error correction.