using a dvd player as cd player?

stateofflux

hi, i have a decent old sony amp and speakers...but my cd player broke... would there be much difference in quality and db output using a sony dvd player to play cds?

any advice appreciated:)

Slaphead07

stateofflux wrote: »

hi, i have a decent old sony amp and speakers...but my cd player broke... would there be much difference in quality and db output using a sony dvd player to play cds?

any advice appreciated:)

No issues there at all, the DVD player might well be better. Any difference will be in the DAC and broadly speaking the DAC in a DVD player would be better than one in a CD player.

Ricky-Ricardo

stateofflux wrote: »

hi, i have a decent old sony amp and speakers...but my cd player broke... would there be much difference in quality and db output using a sony dvd player to play cds?

any advice appreciated:)

Apologies for the conflicting advice but I personally think dedicated CD players sound better than DVD players. Unless your CD player is a budget and/or particularly old model and your DVD player is a reasonably high-end model then the CD player probably wins out. However, this might only be an issue if your system is fairly revealing of differences so give the DVD a try before making a decision.

Slaphead07

There's no huge conflict there, as you say... try it and see. It certainly won't do any harm.
I was going on the basis of "old sony amp and speakers" indicating an old CD player. With that in mind a newer DVD payer would probably outperform an old CD player.
I recently had some voodoo done on my main CD player and while it was gone used an otherwise idle Arcam DV88 as a CD player. It was fine.

There is a school of thought out there which encourages buying cheap blu-ray players and using a good DAC to reach high-end levels of CD playback. It's not an approach that interests me personally but it does go to show that some believe a transport is a transport and a DAC a DAC.

I've heard a DIY CD transport which uses a JVC 'beat box' lens mechanism and it sounds amazing... mainly because it's going into a genuinely high-end (Shigaclone) DAC.

Ricky-Ricardo

Some of the old Sony amps from the 70s (especially higher-end ones) can be surprisingly good so I wasn’t sure what was the quality of the system Stateofflux has. Model numbers are always useful here!

Since CD players are dedicated sound sources that process a fixed 16 bit resolution digital signal they have inherent advantages over DVD players which have to balance other requirements and digital signals of many different resolutions. Besides the DAC chip (rather than separate DAC units that Slaphead also refers to), DVD processing boards wouldn’t compare which is why some very high-end DVD players have an entirely separate processing board for CD replay. Of course DVD players made by hi-fi manufacturers such as Arcam can still sound excellent but sadly they aren’t really the norm.

This may be off-topic: Its true that DACs are probably more critical for overall sound quality but many still much prefer the older heavyweight transports such as the Teac VRDS mechanisms to the light computer mechanisms popular today. My own CD player uses an old pro Philips transport designed for commercial jukeboxes. Such units can be thrown about repeatedly and still play without any glitches.

Slaphead07

again I'd broadly agree.
But in answer to "would there be much difference in quality and db output using a sony dvd player to play cds?" I'd be inclinded to answer "no... not much".


pS: The Arcam DV88 I used for a week does have a discrete board for CD playback but it was still just ok, not great really.

cnocbui

I have done careful listening tests between a well regarded CD player and a cheap DVD player. Neither I nor two other listeners could discern a difference between them.

Give it a try.

Slaphead07

cnocbui wrote: »

I have done careful listening tests between a well regarded CD player and a cheap DVD player. Neither I nor two other listeners could discern a difference between them.

So the rest of the world is wrong?

Ricky-Ricardo

I also recommend giving the DVD player a try but if a cheap DVD player is as good as a good quality dedicated and presumably more expensive CD player then it stands to reason that the sales of good quality CD player separates since the Millenium would simply disappear or at least very drastically reduce as very many serious listeners would find this fact out and advocate simply buying an all in one DVD player. Like a lot of other people I have heard quite a few budget DVD players in various types of systems. Some of the cheap ones are worse than others but a few are so bad for CD replay it is as if they simply cut out the music signal if it goes below a certain level threshold! I suggest trying it out on your system - the sound balance might even suit it better than your CD player but in terms of quality my money would be on the CD player with a few provisos as in one of my posts above.

cnocbui

Slaphead07 wrote: »

So the rest of the world is wrong?

That's funny, I could have sworn that in post #2 you said:

Slaphead07 wrote: »

No issues there at all, the DVD player might well be better. Any difference will be in the DAC and broadly speaking the DAC in a DVD player would be better than one in a CD player.

I thought we were basically agreeing that the OP would not be doing themselves a disfavour if they were to use a DVD player.

In your attempt to bait me, you seem to have forgotten your earlier position.

Ricky-Ricardo

Judging by later posts I think Slaphead felt the Sony system Stateofflux has wouldn’t reveal the differences between a DVD player and dedicated CD player.

stateofflux

thanks for all the advice