New CDP ?

Sorry James 96% sound quality, my point being how can you justify this, after say 'Its not as alive as some players', mags luv em huh?

 

Agreed. It seems totally weird to give something so nebulous as 'sound quality' a precise percentage score.

 

Most CDs nowadays seem to be pushed if not into clipping then close (audiophile releases no doubt excepted - but you wouldn't want to be listening to that). The RVG Blue Note "remasters" are a case in point or the Sony Miles Davies SACD releases (notorious for the compression employed on the "remaster"), or last year's Led Zep release which goes easily into clipping and is heavily compressed. These are hardly albums aimed at teen or tweenagers.
Agreed, the mags are compost.

 

Tony, thanks for the links, however I can't work out what the upgrades are likely to cost - fitted.
Donut

 

I think the Trichord (clock 4 only) is £185 +vat?
I would consider a seperate poer supply for it as well, it really does takes the clocks up a notch.
Changes the op-amps and regs? maybe £80 for the opamps, the regs purely depends on which ones you are going to use, and weather the board is a so in so to remove for them, ring ither A/C or T/C and ask

 

joel,
surely any new vinyl releases are going to be similarly afflicted seeing as most new music is recorded and stored digitally. i would be very surprised if there was one mix for vinyl and one for cd. also don;t vinyl lathes use various bits of adc / dac knobbery too?
just asking.
cheers

julian

 

Interesting stuff, Joel. Any idea if there's a handy directory somewhere listing which CDs have digital clipping and how bad it is..? Or perhaps just a site/forum that discusses such things? That would be handy.

Dunc

 

Yes, It's a bit harder for me to check new vinyl in the PC right now (impossible in fact), but I'd say the same thing very much goes there. Lots of people say new vinyl sounds better than CD (for instance the last Kraftwerk album), but my experience where I own both (for instance some RVG Blue Note remasters on vinyl and CD) is that the sound is very similar - in fact pretty much indistinguishable.
The last Alicia Keys album is IMO killed stone dead by the compression - and that's on my vinyl version.
There are well recorded modern albums that are not audiophile mediocre, but the vast majority of what we listen to is seriously compromised IMHO.
Vinyl certianly does require EQ and compression at the cutting stage. That's one reason why different vinyl pressings will sound different - sometimes radically so.
Duncan:
Not really. You could try some of the "pro" audio forums for a different perspective... but from what I've seen there is little or no discussion about this anywhere outside of a couple of Japanese audio magazines that provide graphs and analysis.

 

thanks joel. unfortunately this is the lowest common denominator world we now live in.
cheers

julian

 

I actually just found the exact sort of page I was looking for (thanks to another recent thread, the one regarding DVD-A vs. SACD - check it out if you haven't already).

http://www.loudnessrace.net/victims/list.htm

A handy list, though still rather small as it's just the one guy. Such a depressing list too - so much good stuff that's been so badly compromised.

The site itself is very good - check out the samples in the Victims section that show you just how audible compression/digital clipping can be (the Depeche Mode ones are the worst!)

Dunc