I’m still rocking the “BEAST “ Denon 3520 cd 💿 player ..3 decades of great sound ..it’s outlived 2 external DACs 😋

I even don't like CDs but yesterday I had to test a sony cdp x5000 before putting it up for sale, and I must say it blew me away. Two days before I had the same with a Sansui AU20000. That amp is 50 years old and it is ridiculous how good it sounded back in the day.

Thank You, great explanation!

I have a Yamaha and a Sony (two houses) CD/DVD spindle that are SACD compliant. Both hold 5 CDs. To my ears they sound great - perhaps a more discerning or young pair of ears would disagree. But the convenience of loading CDs 5 a time (sometimes operas on MP3 so figure 8CDs) as opposed to reloading every one is worth a lot to me. The spindles are feeding good Onkyo receivers and the speakers are good.

Excellent video Paul love your sense of humor

Good question and good answer, I was wondering why this was

Some DACs have their own clock, so take the CD-transport clock out of the equation. Example HoloAudio May DAC, Berkeley DAC. What may be left is error correction with scratched CDs, but otherwise, any transport with digital out will do, and we can safely ignore jitter concerns. Or burn CD to computer and play from hard drive.

Paul, I have a Cambridge AXC35 [transport]. My mid-fi system is so "musical", life is good. Speaker are Sound Artist LS35A's Best, D.

i have a Cary 303/300 and it absolutely has its own sound. Better? I don't know, guess it depends on the music genre. Cary put a tubed output into this CD player and tubes def roll off the top end and compress the bottom like tubes do. What I find interesting is rolling tubes gives no change in the sound that I can hear but going from the Burr Brown dac in the Cary to the tube output is always immediately audible. The Cary, in solid state mode, does have more lower mids and bass compared to our bluray player or other old CD players I've had. The Cary is the only CD player that doesn't sound like every other CD player I've had, it has its own sound for sure and everything else sounds the same. Also the Cary has a built in volume control for only its balanced outputs, so I can go direct from the Cary to my Classe or my big power amps and that also has its own sound, unlike other players as well. Have fun everyone!

omg this is how loudness war started😂😂😂

Is the buffer in the CD player or in the DAC? I hope to one day get a PS Audio DAC but I couldn't afford the accompanying CD transport so I'm going to use the optical out on my current CD player (Denon CDP500ae).

Given all the audiophile attention on good standalone DACs, seems Stoopid to lock yourself into the DAC in a disc player. Better way to go is use a Sony Blu-ray player with sacd playback and HDMI dsd ouput and pair with your external DAC of choice. Used, thrift Sony Blu-ray sacd players are less than 10 dollars at thrift, yard sales. Huge number of models to choose from, just check for sacd logo on the outside of f the unit and plug in and play available discs at the store to test. Good DACs buffer and reclock the data, so as long as a good shielded HDMi, coax cable or optical cable is used, bits is bits as a transport. Many Sony blu-ray sacd models have all the outputs, HDMI, coax, toslink, analog and some add 5.1 channel analog with all the others for multichannel sacds, Blu-ray. You have 99.9% of all digital optical audio discs ever made with such a setup, everything but dvd-a mlp tracks though non mlp tracks play (pcm, Dolby digital, dts), the current Sony 4k Blu-ray players handle mlp too

Paul….I think I prefer digital playback. Good vid.

Love the short videos, often extremely helpful. Was wondering if anybody could advise me on which output would be best to use on a PSAudioCDT. My Mola Mola Tambaqui DAC has a full range of inputs and someone told me that paul McGowan has advised on one of the videos using the I2S.

If you have a transport where you can physically access the CD while it's playing you can stop the disc or in some cases literally pick it up, hold it for a second and put it back with no interruption in the audio. Kinda freaks people out sometimes.😋

I saw a test over at the knuckleheads of Audio Science Review that showed an optical signal from a cheapo HDMI audio extractor showed less jitter goning into a quality DAC than it had going into a cheap integrated DAC. So the receiving end also seems to have an influence. Maybe some DAC's try to re-clock an incoming TOSlink signal.

“Snak’ Oil” Paul 😂

We got our PS Audio Junior today.

All CD players *color* the sound regardless of purchase price! The DAC chips from ESS, BB, TI, etc. all sound a bit different (no pun intended).

Hello. I have done a careful test between a laptop with usb to DAC. and a better denon cd plays through the same DAC. An original CD disc and a PCM wav copy. Me and my friend can't hear the difference in an A B test. Yes, if you use KZfaq or spotify, you will hear the difference. Whether you have a computer or an expensive transporter and run through the same DAC. then it is difficult to hear differences!

The amount of memory for the buffer of a DSD playing transport must be *Huge* !

Would that be the same as over sampling?

I am a full time electronics technician since 93. It is hard to believe that thus cheap CD player has a crappie sound. But that's the truth & I can't argue with that.

My eikos cd player from the 90's sounds wonderfully like vinyl

Just wait 'til you try John Williams Live in Vienna on a UHQCD MQA encoded CD on a Technics SL-G700M2. Now that's an experience!

GEKOLONISEERD 🇳🇱 The Netherlands Philips invented the CD player.

I own a Luxman D-10x CD, SACD, DSD player and I think with many high-end CD players and DACS, the manufacturers are trying to bring the music as close as it was recorded by not just using high quality components, but better circuit design, and yes definitely mitigating jitter and noise. The latter is not easy. Same goes for my former BlueSound node vs my Aurender A30 which is excellent at mitigating jitter and noise- going through my D10-X's DAC makes a HUGE difference. The Aurender wins 20 times over. With an N20 it goes up to 25 times better because it eliminates more noise and has a better clock.

Where is the page to do an “Ask Paul” question?

The PS Audio "Spinal Tap" range...

They only color the sound with a green marker

I have not seen the jitter problem in, uff, more than 25 years... The CD player first reads in 120s or so of the CD and then start feeding the data from the buffer to further stages. You can shake the CD player and it will still play "in time". Unless, you shake it for a minute or more...

It's one thing for people with money to showcase themselves in front of their associates with a glass of wine, cashmere sweater and hi-end gear, it's another to make listening to great music at home out of reach for true music lovers by bloating the cost of that gear beyond a lifetime of savings. I have a deep emotional attachment to, for eg,. a Mahler symphony... BUT I CAN'T HEAR THE VIOLA PART. So ya, that aggravates me.

What do you call the mechanism that's output speed varies far far worse than the very cheapest CD player - a turntable

Based on this explanation, couldn’t the entire jitter problem then be solved by having the DAC do its own buffering?

Genesis Digital Lens - Still makes a difference in my system. If memory serves, this is the "original" digital buffer 20 some odd years ago. A review stated you could burn a copy and it would sound better than the original, for at this point all jitter was removed from the signal. All these years later in still makes a difference, granted my transport is of the same vintage along with the DAC. To cut to the crust of it, good engineering does make a difference.

I guess I'm an audio nerd too! 🤓

0:04 Unnamed as in Untitled ... ??? No they play CDs in Black and White!!! 🤣🤣🤣

Here we go again.. It's all down to how good the persons Ears are.. expence does'nt have to come into it to be fare.. Money speaks .. but not to everyone who loves music ..

I use a samsung bluray player .its better than any cd player and it has blutooth . ill never go back ..

Welllllll........ Phono cartridges colour sound a Lot more than DACs do.

So your amps used to go up to 11? 🤣

Paul, the unnamed individual inquired about high-end CD players / transports. He did not ask about "expensive" CD players / transports, as the title of this video conveys. Although quality components will typically cost more than mass produced components, it does not mean that expensive is synonymous with quality. The audio market is awash with expensive components that do not cut the mustard. Decades ago, Radio Shack was selling a CD player that was all the rage, and applauded by reputable reviewers (I do not remember the model). I do recall that it sounded as good or better than CD players that were multiples of its price. By using "expensive" in your title, you have inadvertently given the audio trolls fodder for their snake oil obsessive mantra. Expensive does not determine build quality nor sound quality. It offers better odds at the aforementioned -- but you have to judge each piece of gear on its own merits, regardless of price. Vandersteen's entry level speakers compete with much more expensive speakers. The Aesthetix Calypso pre-amp, that you have praised and use in one of your music rooms is another example. The unknown person that wrote in did not ask about the price. He did not use the word "expensive". He asked about the sound quality of high-end gear.

The aim of high end digital now is to sound more like analog. So much for “perfection”. It is the enemy of good after all.

Some 0110011101 are better than other 0110011101

What’s a CD..??? LOL