Listening Session - Dacs/CDPs

[Adrian]

Well I would not be too worried about the Sony badge, after all Sony & Phillips developed the Compact Disc and presented it to the world back in the early 80's.

From Wikipedia..

Meanwhile, Sony first publicly demonstrated an optical digital audio disc in September 1976. In September 1978, the company demonstrated an optical digital audio disc with a 150 minute playing time, 44,056 Hz sampling rate, 16-bit linear resolution, and cross-interleaved error correction code—specifications similar to those later settled upon for the standard Compact Disc format in 1980. Technical details of Sony's digital audio disc were presented during the 62nd AES Convention, held on March 13–16, 1979, in Brussels.[8] Just before that, on March 8, 1979 Philips publicly demonstrated a prototype of an optical digital audio disc at a press conference called "Philips Introduce Compact Disc"[9] in Eindhoven, Netherlands.[10] Thirty years later, on March 6, 2009, Philips received an IEEE Milestone award with the following citation: "On 8 March 1979, N.V. Philips' Gloeilampenfabrieken demonstrated for the international press a Compact Disc Audio Player. The demonstration showed that it is possible by using digital optical recording and playback to reproduce audio signals with superb stereo quality. This research at Philips established the technical standard for digital optical recording systems."[11]

Sony executive Norio Ohga, who later became the CEO and chairman of Sony, was convinced of the format's commercial potential and pushed further development despite widespread skepticism.[12]

[Fran]

You should be pleased with how the Sony sounds - it far exceeded what I thought it would do here. You might also not be able to part with the opening/closing mechanism!




Fran

[Diapason]

So sexy!

[Gerry D]

Dave have you heard the Arcam D33 ? It's good. And of course Cloney sell it. I use an Arcam DVD player as a transport. It does Apple and for the money I think it's hard to top.
I had an Arcam CD 37 before. Super spinner IMHO and it's SACD too.
Wonder sometimes why Arcam seems to have such low cred.

[Ciaran]

I had a loan of the Sony recently, using it as a transport. It was absolutely excellent feeding the Scarlatti DAC. Unfortunately for you, I have become quite incurious about hifi, so I never listened to the analogue output.

Two practical notes:

1. Load time is frustratingly slow, the Verdi now seems fast (clue: it isn't!)
2. It weighs 27kg. The dCS Verdi in its flight case only weighs 24kg! I tried to pick it up and nothing happened!

[DaveF]

Dave have you heard the Arcam D33 ? It's good. And of course Cloney sell it. I use an Arcam DVD player as a transport. It does Apple and for the money I think it's hard to top.
I had an Arcam CD 37 before. Super spinner IMHO and it's SACD too.
Wonder sometimes why Arcam seems to have such low cred.

Never heard the D33 Gerry. I've had a few Arcam components years ago, a CD72 and the DV88. All of them were great especially the DV88. Not sure why Arcam seem to have a low cred. Perhaps the styling is a bit bland and they dont charge silly money.

[Diapason]

They're just too easy to lift. Real hifi throws your back out.

[DaveF]

They're just too easy to lift. Real hifi throws your back out.

In that case I'm well covered with the Jadis and Sony.

[tony]

They're just too easy to lift. Real hifi throws your back out.

+1 unless there is a concrete block inside not real hifi.

[Ivor]

They're just too easy to lift. Real hifi throws your back out.

+1 unless there is a concrete block inside not real hifi.

BOSE broke that rule by putting bricks in their speakers. True story.