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My DVD player sounds better Than CD Player

Bigkahuna

Bigkahuna

Well-Known Member
I have been dealing with some issues with my new system sounding harsh in the high end (Sansui 9090 Marantz HD88 combo). I was swapping equipment around and no doubt about it my Philips DVD player sounds way better than the Kenwood DPR 3070 player I have.

I lost music for a good many years so before just a few months ago I probably didn't own more than ten CDs. I guess I just missed the whole era of cds. I have been doing some reading here and it is getting really complicated.

First just wondering:scratch2: this Kenwood is a 1 bit dual D/A converter player (whatever that means) can I just clean the lens on the optical? Is this a good place to start? It was a $10 GW find so not a big loss if I mess something up.

Second if I were to replace it what should I look for if buying used and if buying new?
My parameters would be inexpensive multi disc player. I read about the Yamaha eveyone likes that is like 35 bucks but it is a single disc and I really like to mix it up. I do see multi disc players at the local thrifts all the time just not sure what I am looking for or are the DVD players really the way to go?

Of course recomendations are appreciated.
 
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A music server with flac files is the way to go if you ask me. It will play everything you have, in any order you want, and it will sound better than your CD player or DVD player.
 
Panotaker said:
A music server with flac files is the way to go if you ask me. It will play everything you have, in any order you want, and it will sound better than your CD player or DVD player.
Click to expand...

Thank you for the help but these do not seem to be inexpensive at least the first ones I googled. Believe me when I say I am looking for good sound but have just started so I do not consider myself to be an audiophile. In fact. before I found the HD88 sitting across the street from my house I was listening to a $30 MP3 player on $10 yard sale computer speakers with a subwoofer that has a driver the size of my mid ranges in the HD88s.

I will be interested to look into this further at some point in the future but for now it has to be inexpensive. Just not making a lot of money right now.
 
You can start off like I did with running a wire from your line out on your computer sound card, to the line in on your preamp and using Winamp or a similar free program to play your music. You might already have the cable. It sounds really good that way and like anything else, the more you spend, the better the sound. There are plenty of people using just the cable and a laptop or computer. The next upgrade would be to get a USB DAC and use that instead of the built in soundcard. USB DAC's start at less than $100 and will sound fantastic.
 
Panotaker said:
You can start off like I did with running a wire from your line out on your computer sound card, to the line in on your preamp and using Winamp or a similar free program to play your music. You might already have the cable. It sounds really good that way and like anything else, the more you spend, the better the sound. There are plenty of people using just the cable and a laptop or computer. The next upgrade would be to get a USB DAC and use that instead of the built in soundcard. USB DAC's start at less than $100 and will sound fantastic.
Click to expand...

Yes, I have been doing that and have about 40 gigs of digital music mostly mp3 and wma files. I have just recently learned about lossless formats and havent really looked into it all. I did burn a slew of CDs over a three day period last summer into wma files. Now thinking I should have done some kind of lossless :sigh: it all just takes time. My brother in law has about 120 gig mostly aac. Hmmm, :scratch2: USB DAC I am going to have to look into this more. Funny I think you are telling I should just skip right over the CD era like I have already done!

Is there a fix for this kenwood cd player that doesn't sound too good right now? Should I just get one of those CD cleaning discs with the brushes?
 
Your DVD player no doubt has a better internal DAC than your CD player. And since high quality DACs keep getting cheaper all the time, they get put in all the newer stuff. So if your CD player is older than your DVD player by any amount time, there is your answer :)

There is should be a great sounding multi-disc changer for CD\SACD available still at Best Buy. I believe it was a Sony, but reviews were quite good. I almost bought one before getting the single deck Yamaha.
 
mcmurma said:
Your DVD player no doubt has a better internal DAC than your CD player.
Click to expand...

Reality is complex and these types of general statements are never true always, unless you mean that this one is taken making some sort of average, to be defined. Many threads have counterexamples to that statement, e.g.

http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=271725
http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=266831


As I expressed in those threads, in mys system, my Denon DCD-1650G (japanese internal market) from 1991 produces a sound that is comparable to that of my best player, the Cambridge Audio 640 C v2. All other DVDP that I've tried sound worst (e.g, string instruments or voices are far from resembling a real musician performing, at least for classical music which is the scope of my music tastes). Some people even claim a 90 $ universal DVDP outperforms a much better quality contemporary (not vintage!) dedicated CDP that sells for, say 600 $. The explanation for this would be manipulation through marketing inducing people to follow some irrational tendency to spend more, even if they don't hear a difference. Please, don't count me among this group!

Therefore, in my humble opinion, the only reasonable type of statement to be made is that player A sounds better than player B, like the OP did (and again many other conditions should be specified, like if the older unit has been serviced for replacing old caps, the system used, the type of music material used for the test, etc).

All the best
 
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Geez guys, this isn't one of thse taboo subject like speaker wires is it?

First just wondering, this Kenwood, is a 1 bit dual D/A converter player (whatever that means) can I just clean the lens on the optical? Is this a good place to start? It was a $10 GW find so not a big loss if I mess something up.

Second if I were to replace it what should I look for if buying used and if buying new?
My parameters would be inexpensive multi disc player. I read about the Yamaha eveyone likes that is like 35 bucks but it is a single disc and I really like to mix it up. I do see multi disc players at the local thrifts all the time just not sure what I am looking for or are the DVD players really the way to go?
 
Since we've brought up music servers, you might also think about a Squeezebox instead of a DAC. The Squeezebox can work wired or wireless over your network and can also give you internet radio. Plays flac format in native mode.

BTW, a DVD player may have a better DAC than an older CD player. Manufacturing prices have gone down so cost is not necessarily a comparison.

Right now one can find new Yamaha S1800's for $99 - 150. These have 4 Burr-Brown DACs and are very respectable sounding.

I'm one of the ones that bought the $35 closeout Yamaha DVD and was surprised that it was much richer sounding than my Cambridge 540 or Rotel RCD-855.
 
guiller said:
... The explanation for this would be manipulation through marketing inducing people to follow some irrational tendency to spend more, even if they don't hear a difference. Please, don't count me among this group!
Click to expand...

Some people buy rocks...
 
I got one of the $35 Yamahas, too. It replaced a Toshiba DVD player that was all the rage a few years back. I did have an old Philips single CD player in the mix for a while, but it couldn't compete.
 
whoaru99 said:
The specifics of such a comparison wasn't my point.
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I'm sorry I didn't get your point then. Could you please explain what it was instead?

PS: Here is my reasoning : "Some people buy rocks" meant to me that "some people pay for something that doesn't have the value requested for it"
 
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I think the point for me would be, just slathering costs into a CD or DVD player build doesn't necessarily equate to better audio performance. I'd go one further and say there's a lot of potential for a cheaper player to perform better than a more expensive one.
 
The critical ear and what sounds good........

I think I am developing a much more critical ear to what sounds good. As I sit here with some ear buds shoved in my ears listening to WAM files on my laptop I am thinking this sounds like CR*P! I used to think it sounded great not too long ago. Last night went to play pool on my pool team and some guy plays some tunes in the juke box (digtal with four small bose speakers) and it sounded so bad I actually said something to the bartender. She said she thought it sounded great.....:dunno:

My buddy brought over a Reggae CD he wanted me to listen to (not my kinda thing but what the heck). All the highs and lows were so exagerated that I had to make adjustments just to calm things down a bit.

Here is what I am wondering.....
It seems CDs play louder than other sources I am using. Is this to make seem like it sounds better?

The highs and lows being exagerated this again seems like an attempt to change the reproduction of the music when it is recorded or mastered. Is this a style thing? Maybe Rap, Hip Hop and Reggae listeners want exagerated highs and lows. Certainly booming bass seems to be attractive to many.

Or, is it that they are listening to these CDs on lousy systems that just do not do a good job of reproducing music? So maybe the CD is designed to play on low grade equipment? Then on my system those highs and lows really are exagerated because my setup really does play those well?:scratch2::scratch2::scratch2:

Am I getting anywhere? Seems like this critical ear could be kind of expensive. Maybe I should call it an expensive ear! Having fun though just trying to understand it being kind of new to it all here.
 
guiller said:
I don't know if what you describe is a loudness effect, mentioned by many people, present mostly in non-classical music releases. Here there is a thread on this topic, just in case it is:

http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=219058
Click to expand...

OK, so I just read that thread and this helps a bit. I have found that my system has some harshness especially in the higher frequncies. At times I think maybe close mic an "S" alsomost gets extended and almost get to a whistle. I found this reply that although I do not understand the whole thing (kind of technical I think) this may be what could be making my system sound harsh in the high frequencies. This reply is from stchedro:

Don't forget that more modern remasters, particularly SACD, are made with high bandwidth 100kHz in mind. If the system doesn't do high bandwidth, which most don't, it will sound awful. Of course you can't hear 100kHz, nobody can. But as Apogee do point out, in the White Paper on their website and the should know, if you are doing close miked recordings you an get some very high frequency input and if you do spacially miked (ie pure crossed par) the very high frequencies combine along the path length. In most recordings it is a balance between close and distant and changing this balance can change the character of the recording. Btw a recording that sounds amazingly improved on a high bandwidth system can sound really really awful on a limited bandwidth 20kHz system. The high bandwidth recordings rely on the high frequencies combining in the speaker ear pathlength (as they do in a real venue) which is why a good big room helps as well.
 
guiller said:
PS: Here is my reasoning : "Some people buy rocks" meant to me that "some people pay for something that doesn't have the value requested for it"
Click to expand...

Something like that. The point was mostly in regard to the power of marketing to get people to do things that don't always make sense.
 
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