Improvement in sound if i leave my CD Player on.

I totally agree with The Devil.... but I still think CD players all sound crap. I have had the chance to live with the BIG Burmeister, the full DCS CD compliment, WADIAs best and some US unit which was supposed to be the bees knees.... all compared to my VPI HRX turntable. NONE OF THEM came anywhere close. The dynamic range, detail, realism EVERYTHING sounded so much better on the VPI (vinyl). Vinyl sounds far more convincing. Terms like warmth do not come into it. It's like the difference between an Austin Allegro and Mercedes CL63 trying to overtake a 60ft lorry going up hill! the VPI is the Merc

I ended up settling for a cheap £300 Marantz player as I really could not see the point in paying money for a format, that to me does not play music properly....I bought more vinyl with the savings!!

 

Its typical of the hifi taliban too jump in with both feet, flailing left and right...... its a tactic designed to bully you into accepting there ideas based often on flawed experience.

thats not to say they can't believe what they like ...infact I'll defend there right to.......just don't cram it down others throats as if its gospel.

Now I thought it was just my posts that recieved such venom so my sympathies go out to the original poster......

Now as always if your not experiencing the effect described it doesn't mean it does not exist ...it just means you as an individual can't hear it ...[of course the converse is true] I'd like to sit truely on the fence as my several aa5's all exhibit the phenomena ........[td1541 based] but all my other cdp's don't
including a denon a sony two quads to anything like the same effect.

As to being able to remember the sound ...thats not in my opinion necessarily the case .....especially if your hearing things that wern't there before.

Back to the subject of the thread .....it may not occur to some but it can take hours to charge caps to 100% [though often 85% can be reached in fractions of seconds] also until the unit reaches a steady state [thermal, electrical and or mechanical equilibrium ] the sound has to change, it can not do anything else. Even students of GCSE physics will note that a resistor at temp a will conduct differently to temp b, even the effect 1 degree can be seen. ie they will have different resistances.......thats why close tolerance resistors are often used in mostly higher end gear. If your resistance and by its related bed fellows capacitance and inductance, will therfore change in every component within the cdp as it warms through I find it surprising there is so little change in sound .....I would have expected it to be huge. Which I suppose must show that the designers have actually done a reasonable job....even on your £25 dvd player.

oh and all my cdps sound rubbish compared to tt to ......but thats not the object of the thread !

 

Zanash, I dont think anyone is arguing that the sound may change over the first hour or so after switch on as the components warm up and stabilise.

Its the view that equipment needs weeks of warm up time that is the issue being discussed here.

 

What I would argue stabilises after the first few minutes or hours is not the equipment, but the person doing the listening: you're more relaxed, a little calmer, less stressed. Everything begins to sound a better.
Of course audiophiles are never quite sure if they should be happy with what they're listening to. Those cables need elevating.

 

anyone with a valve amp will know they need a bit of warming up. I've got no idea which bits are warming up and changing, but definately after a period it sounds better.

Probably perhaps 10 minutes or so. It could be 5. Haven't timed it

I don't think my squeezebox sounds any different after a period of time - but hey maybe it does, not going to argue on it.

 

My cdp sounds better after 30mins or so if it's been off for a while. First little while the sound is thin/harsh(?) so I leave it on most of the time.

 

HI Guys

The main thrust of the original comment that started all this is that Wadia and a few others need about a month of warm up to sound there best . I have not claimed that all Cdp need this . Some will only need a few hours to reach there peak performance but my main point that has been so angrily refuted is that all cdp need some degree of warm up . Not that its hours or weeks or minutes but that the idea of such a thing is a "load of dealer bollocks! " Now i will admit that not every one for whatever reason can hear this,they should be able to and i don't know why but through out the years i have heard all cdp benefit from warm up. I will give an example i have been playing with an Audiomecca Mephisto 11 ,it uses an Angram Dac and after a few minutes of switch on it sounded quite good but nothing remarkable ,after an hour or so it was better and last night after 24 hours vastly better and this was from the first few notes of the same cd i played the night before . Was i more relaxed than the night before No, sorry Joel.

Robbo it was in relation to Wadias not every type/make of cd player . I am sure i listed the units/makes which are the most extreme examples of this. We could also talk about other gear phono stages ,pre-amps etc but we wont as thats of thread.

You can also argue that leaving a unit on will cause less wear on it and per-haps extend its life ,my Marantz cd94 mk 2 has been on for all its 15 years and still works well (last time i checked it)

Do i wish this wasn't a real thing ,hell yes, think of the money on electricity bills i would have saved and the nice music or kit i could have bought with the money i saved .

I will defend this observation as i have consistently found warm up to be important . And please take note it was in relation to my experiences with Wadia ,that i know it needs to be left on all the time and the Moon Super Nova and Andromeda and the AMR Cd 77,Marantz Cd 7 and the SA7. I am not claiming the same for every cdp,however if it sounds better after a few hours of use why not just leave it on so it always sounds its best and you don't have to wait,when you want to listen.

And for those who don't like me describing what will happen when things warm up tough .

Single biggest thing not to do ,is leave any of your kit on during a thunder storm or if the utilities are digging the road up in your street . You can be almost sure they will cut the power and when its restored bang goes your kit. Also if you are going away for any length of time switch it all of .

Do i think that TT and Vinyl is better ,Yes . But this thread is not about that .

Regards D Louth

 

Originally Posted by coops Are you saying that you are not the manager of one Irelands HiFi emporia,I suggest you come clean andtell everyone else who you are.


DLouth 77 - Care to answer this?

 

I know the output is analogue, but that analogue signal has had a lot of processing and that time time delay is what caused the jitter, which is why CDs can sound harsh and 'digital'.

That said most my audio now comes from my M Audio 24/96 and I never really thought this sounds harsh or digital so it must be doing its job very well, although I do have a very expensive Emnermax power supply which may help things.

 

If all these electrical parameters are drifting over many hours, why do those claiming to hear these things always say - without exception - that the kit sounds better after many hours or days and never worse?

Do you honestly think that mainstream companies like Denon, Arcam, Sony, Marantz etc deliberately design their machines to giver peak performance after many days when they know that most users switch on when they wish to listen and then off immediately afterwards?

How do you know how long kit is left idling on the test bench at the design stage before the designer says 'that's a wrap'?

Why does equipment never sound good for the first hour and then 'go off'?
Surely this would happen in some cases so why does nobody hear it?

Extended warm up is nonsense as anyone who takes a step back and considers a few simple questions will realise.

Taliban Rob.

 

What on earth are you talking about?

 

That a piece of kit might take a short while to come on song doesn't surprise me and listening confirms it I think. Certainly the case with any valve amps I've used, though we are talking maybe half an hour to an hour (and I'm pretty sure its true of my current SS amp too).

I have to say I don't know for sure whether its true that a CDP might literally take weeks of being switched on to come on song. Mine doesn't, not so I've noticed anyway, and it strikes me as unlikely.

One thing I would say from a practical users point of view ... If there really exists any kit which takes a week switched on to come on song (and therefore for practical purposes must be switched on always), it is seriously flawed and I wouldn't buy it.

 

OK. I do normally leave my CD player (an EAR Acute, which has a valve in there somewhere) on all the time, but I've been on holiday for a fortnight and everything was switched off, so I took the opportunity to follow the test, albeit in reverse. Equally valid.

My findings? After about half an hour, the system was fully up to speed and performing as it normally does when the CD player is left on permanently. My valve power amps were also warming up at the same time, so all I can say is that 30 minutes is the maximum time that the CD player takes to come on song (i.e. it could have been less, masked by the power amps continuing to warm up).

 

Sorry to be pedantic D Louth....

Were you refering to burning in of new equipemt.......or just warming stuff up prior to a listening session?

 

op, why don't you contact wadia and ask them?

 

I use a nagra cdc which has a separate power supply that I leave permanently plugged in. There is no on/off switch for this, unlike the player itself. If the power supply is unplugged, the sound is quite thin for half a day imo, less so if the player is turned off which I will do if out of use for a week or more.
I couldn't care less if people agree with me or not - I do what suits . Dissenters can go hang.

 

Rob this isn't a personal attack on you , bad dealers have been making these kind of excuses for bad kit for too long,a month's warm-up I mean really!

 

Yes i know it's not aimed at me - just having a rant at the mo. no worries!

 

Not something that would concern me very much TBH. I always unplug my kit after use, mainly on safety grounds and with the view of making an effort to be 'greener'. I also unplug my TV installation each night.

Perhaps my CDP would sound better if it was switched on 24/7/365. My hearing is not that great anyway, I might not even notice the improvement. But a lot of hi-fi mags suggest that Naim kit takes a month to come on song, ditto with Moon kit and Wadia. Maybe so.

 

I had heard the talk of Wadia taking an age to warm up so was interested to see what I would notice upon delivery of my s/h 301. Perhaps the hype clouded my judgement? I don't think so. It sounded poor at switch on lacking the depth of bass of my previous Copland, really it sounded thin and uninvolving. 2/3 days on and it was a different ballgame and I think it improved for about a week. By this stage it took my listening at home to a different level. Subsequently its been off a couple of times, I've felt it's reached the level I'm used to hearing from about 3 days. I don't notice a huge difference after that. Its been unmolested for a good few months now and to me the system sounds wonderful so perhaps there has been a slow steady change? Certainly don't want to turn it off. I don't know why, don't really care. I keep mine on as it sounds better (to me).