cliveb;146937 Wrote: > Unfortunately, the article by Steve Nugent that you cite is utter > hogwash. His thesis regarding the superiority of computer based > playback over CD is founded on the completely erroneous axiom that the > master clock in a CD player is in the transport. It isn't. > > Incidentally, just in case anyone here thinks I'm advocating that CD is > just as good as hard disk playback, that's not the case. I think that > the Squeezebox approach is superior in a some respects (I did sell my > CD player, after all). But I can't watch so much misinformation get > spread around without comment. If it does go unchallenged, then after a > while it becomes "internet truth" - just like that shoddy article by > Nugent, which I've seen cited on a number of occasions in various > places.
With due respect to Clive (and Sean) - I am not sure I agree that this article is hogwash. It requires lot of engineering in a CD player to isolate it from the jitter or the time variance in arrival of the bits from the optical disk. Sean might say, isolation of a player will not affect the sound. I am sure him or Clive will also not accept that cleaning the CD surface affects the sound (in certain mid-price CD players). But all these tweaks do affect many CD players. This is one of the reason I bought the Squeezebox. The jitter of the Squeezebox is consistent/same for every album (not varying based on the CD surface, pressing quality). Maybe varies a little bit but not as much as a CD player. This is perceived by many as 'analog' or LP like sound. I am of the same opinion as pvadbx about the quality of sound from even iPods. I think this has to do with the nature of the consistent jitter/jitter spectrum. BTW, One of the engineering details I remember on how the laser servo affects jitter is thru the common power supply, more servo activity, more power supply variations, more jitter in the master clock. These are the kind of issues addressed in high-end players, but something that the Squeezebox does not have to deal with. I disagree with Steve's approach of using the USB-to-SPDIF conversion. The SB approach is much better. -- SoftwireEngineer ------------------------------------------------------------------------ SoftwireEngineer's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=7000 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=28621 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
