I currently have a mid-high end Marantz 5-disc audio CD player paired with a somewhat vintage Mission amp. Sounds great. But, I have no DVD player. Also, I have very limited space for new componentry.
One of the things I am considering is to buy a 5-disc DVD player (e.g. Panasonic F85; also a sony whose number I forget) and sell the Marantz unit. However, I am wondering about the quality of the audio stage in a DVD player…I find it curious that I can’t buy a component CD player for under C$300 but can get DVD players with audio CD capability for under C$100.
The argument can be made (and has been, by big-box drones I have spoken to) that digital is digital and a laser is a laser, so what’s the problem? However, I know that there are differences between CD players hooked up to an identical amp and speakers, so there must be something in the electronics of the audio processor (or similar) which affects the ultimate fidelity of the output. Lower end players can sound too “bright”, tinny, muffled etc. I have observed this effect in the testing room of a gourmet stereo shop as well as my own home.
So, what am I sacrificing (if anything) using a middling-range DVD player for CD audio? Fire away.
I think I largely believe the “digital is digital and a laser is a laser” spiel. In another thread asking about speakers I suggested high end headphones. What I didn’t mention in that thread was that nowadays very cheap gear will provide great sounds. Early on in CD days when oversampling rates varied I thought that there were huge differences in sound standard. Nowadays I find a $200 discman with $300 headphones is not very different to the same headphones on an expensive setup. Mind you my ears may be getting old and worn.
Somewhere recently on the Dope I saw a thread where someone talked about PCTV. His/her setup uses the PC, a sound card, tv capture card, DVD drive, with a projector and surround sound. Seemed like genius to me. PC componenets cost nothing and perform better than their equivalents elsewhere - PC video is better standard than broadcast digital. I think if was going to do any form of media upgrade I would investigate the PC option.
In Australia HDTVs cost an absolute fortune. For that amount of money I could get great PC, sound and projection gear and have a great all round system.
Huh? It may not be high-end, but there’s a 5-disc CD changer for $70 on Best Buy’s site. I expect you’d find even better deals if you shopped around.
Also, I’m not really sure about this, but I think that the difference in quality between different players lies not in the laser itself, but rather the D/A circuitry used to convert the signal received by the laser. Someone more knowledgeable please correct me if I’m wrong.
That said, I listen to CDs all the time on my home stereo system with a cheap DVD player. I can’t really tell any difference between it and my old Pioneer CD player, but I’m not much of an audiophile, so your results may vary.
I would think that the primary difference in audio would be affected by the quality of the naalog stages. Signal-to-noise, cross-talk, etc. would still apply. You should be able to check the specs for these numbers.
Two years ago my Marantz single-CD higher-end player died. Then, as now, it was challenging to find a single-CD player under $500 retail. I noticed that the price of DVD/CD players was starting to come down significantly and read that Pioneer made a particularly musical player with 192/24 bit converter etc.
So I took my favorite tester CD, along with a home burned copy (Ann Sophie Mutter) down to a good higher-end store. The salesman accomodated my requirements kindly: I did a direct comparison between the Pioneer DVD/CD vs. a pricey multi-disc CD player on the same amp and speakers–both of which were a bit better than my home setup.
The purely subjective finding: the Pioneer player was wonderful and I took that home for $140 and have it as a CD-only component. By the way, I couldn’t tell the difference between the commercial CD and my own copy.
I finally got a nice cheap Panasonic DVD player for the TV a few months ago. Haven’t tested that with CDs–it is in another room.
My advice to you, keep your nice CD player and buy a decent $90 DVD player for movies if you have the space (they are thin)
Well, as it happens I was downtown today in my fave indie audio-video store, and tested out the sound of my CD player (which they had) on my speakers (which they had) and compared it to every DVD player they had for under C$500, of which there were three. The audio stage of each for CD playback was clearly directly correlated in terms of price/quality, and the audio quality of the $450 one was still not as good as the CD player I already own.
So, I bought the $150 panasonic S35 and am leaving it at that for now. (Discussions of how video quality scales with cost are largely irrelevant since my TV is a 15 year old POS.)
one big difference is that the dvd player likely will not provide you with 5.1 output for a regular cd.
The problem with this is that your woofer will not get the bass that it should and does while playing a 5.1 dvd.
I wouldn’t think that would make a difference. What ever the receiving device, if it has a built in crossover, should be able to route the correct frequencys to the correct speakers.
I have a dvd player with a built in fm tuner and while 5.1 sounds awesome, the tuner and playing regular cd’s sound tinny and much less full.
I can route the ouptut to my stereo, but only using the regular 2 or 4 channels (my stereo is both 4 speaker surround or 5.1 compatible).
I can use the 5.1 connections but again with the tuner and regular cds i get nothing to the woofer.