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Post by MikeMusic on Dec 17, 2015 14:26:43 GMT
Be interested to hear what you hear
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Post by accudazed on Dec 20, 2015 13:43:08 GMT
Hi I suppose I should lay my cards on the table here so you can see where I am coming from. I've blown stupid amounts of credit card companies money over the years on hifi in pursuit of hearing exactly what has been recorded/mixed/mastered. I've no interest in hifi adding its own 'flavour' to my CDs - neutrality is everything. I'm inclined to agree with 'Jandl'' when he/she said this: "I don't think it's possible, or even sensible, to draw conclusions about the use of valves in CD playback - it all depends on the implementation imo."A few years ago at a hifi show I heard my first ever valve CD player (although I did not know it at the time). I was blown away. The sound was dynamic, crystal clear and possessing real presence and, er, power. A real surprise to me at the time as I had very little experience of valves and had a naive belief that they were invariably responsible for a warm, cosy, syrupy 'analogue' sound. Prior to that I would have never considered a valve based CD player. A quick look around the internet - a mass purveyor of convenient tropes and accepted 'wisdom' - reveals plenty of the kind of highly subjective imprecise language relating to warm sounding valves that previously had me well and truly taken in. I now have an Ayon CD-3S CD player which is stuffed full of valves: www.ayonaudio.com/products/digital/cd-player/cd-3s.html. There is nothing about the sound of this machine to suggest that it relies on valves. NOTHING. Great dynamic range, vast soundstage, super detailed and accurate, great tonality, etc, etc. More than anything though, I would have to say that the CD-3s is just a very neutral sounding machine. Nothing added or taken away (which, arguably, can be a problem with poor recordings. Recording studio producers/mastering engineers of the world, please take note...). If there are better front ends around - and there must be - I have yet to hear one. The review of the CD-3S in the September 2013 edition of Hifi+ summed things up pretty well: "Curiously though, the knee-jerk (valves = warm sounding) trope doesn’t apply here. What does seem to apply is their application of valve amp concepts to the analogue side of the digital domain works, and works well."Having just had a look around 'evilbay' there seems to be rather more valve CD players available than I expected - not that I'm an expert in these things: Audio Note Astin Trew Shanling Icon Audio Yaqin TRI Musical Fidelity Unison Research California Audio Labs Audio Research Ayon Madison It must be the case then - isn't it(?) - that poor design, engineering compromises, cost constraints, design brief, marketing strategy, brand, in-house expertise/experience, etc. all play their part in how a CD player will sound. From my admittedly limited experience, these factors seem more likely to outweigh any issues arising from the use of valves or solid state gubbins (that's a technical term by the way ) in a CD player. Having just looked at the Audio Engineering Society's published journal article in May 1973 titled "Tubes versus Transistors: Is There An Audible Difference" that focuses primarily on the distortion aspects of tubes versus transistors I am even more convinced that it's the implementation which is the key. This article and others seem to indicate that there really isn't much in the way of sonic difference between the two. So, I suppose with valve CD players it's the same as with other hifi equipment; try it, like it, buy it. If it sounds good and you like it, whether there are valves or transistors inside is largely irrelevant. Happy Christmas everyone! I'm off for yet another mince pie. Steve
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Post by MartinT on Dec 20, 2015 14:19:20 GMT
I've certainly found that really good valve and really good trasnsistor implementations approach each other in sound quality, so circuit implementation is king.
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Post by jandl100 on Dec 21, 2015 7:55:30 GMT
I'm inclined to agree with 'Jandl'' when he/she said this: Give me a kiss, Steve, and you'll find out about my gender. I'll thump you one. It's Jerry, actually. I'm a he, definitely a he. I'll change my profile to give myself a visible name. Ooo, hang on, you can tell I'm a bloke by that arrow/circle thingy in my profile, to the left of where you are now looking.
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Post by jandl100 on Dec 21, 2015 8:03:15 GMT
I now have an Ayon CD-3S CD player which is stuffed full of valves: www.ayonaudio.com/products/digital/cd-player/cd-3s.html. There is nothing about the sound of this machine to suggest that it relies on valves. NOTHING. Great dynamic range, vast soundstage, super detailed and accurate, great tonality, etc, etc. It's me again! Well, that quoted description sounds to me to be exactly what well-implemented valves bring to the party. I think my 1st valve CD player was a Musical Fidelity FCD. I'd been looking for literally months for a CDP in the several £k bracket, heard a dozen probably two, none of which lighted my fire. Then I had a demo of the FCD - and bought it on the spot. It did everything you say above, plus the magic ingredient that I call pizzaz. Not that I'm against solid state amps / output stages - I've owned them and loved them. But valves can work really well, too, and can bring that little bit of extra magic. Hmm - maybe valves in a CDP or DAC are a sneaky way to make them sound a lot like much more expensive solid state components!
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Post by MartinT on Dec 21, 2015 8:36:16 GMT
Hmm - maybe valves in a CDP or DAC are a sneaky way to make them sound a lot like much more expensive solid state components! I guess that's my problem, although it could just be semantics. I don't like valves being applied to circuits to make them sound anything other than more accurate. I don't like their use to sound 'more like' anything else!
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Post by jandl100 on Dec 21, 2015 8:46:15 GMT
Yes, it's semantics, I think. And a bit of techno-purist thinking. You are a competent and qualified electrical engineer after all!
As far as I am concerned, the one and only arbiter of circuit topology is the sound it produces. I care not how it got there. If a valve output stage or buffer can make a £1.5k player sound quite a lot like a £5k-ish solid state design (which is what my ears told me the MF FCD did at the time - 20 years or more ago) then that is just hunky dory by me!
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Post by MartinT on Dec 21, 2015 9:41:20 GMT
You are a competent and qualified electrical engineer after all! Electronics Engineer, to be precise. Mind, it's a while ago that I was last a practicing one.
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Post by MikeMusic on Dec 21, 2015 13:29:32 GMT
Only practicing then
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Post by jandl100 on Dec 21, 2015 16:12:16 GMT
yep, maybe he'll get it right one day
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Post by Deleted on Dec 21, 2015 16:21:20 GMT
Currently there are three CD player / Dac's which are out in the big wide world which have been put together by your truly for other companies and are manufactured here in the UK and in Europe, the original concept (idea if you like) has been drawn up by a third party and I have put the pieces together strictly with the original concept in firmly in mind. These all have valves in Valves can be dynamic, open articulate and musical and have no grain, no argument for me on that one and none of the designs I am associated are that way inclined at all. The key is in the implementation, however I still firmly believe a well designed fully discrete I/V section is simply more real. IMHO Steve, just be aware that Ayon are not known for their reliability just make sure your warranty is up to date.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 23, 2015 13:33:37 GMT
Mainly a marketing gimmick to appeal to those who have been brainwashed into believing valves are always better.... A "valve cd player" is a solid state cd player in which the last 2% of the circuitry has been made with valves after all! If valves are being used as a "tone control" then that is beyond the pale to me. When implemented optimally solid state and valve should sound similar.
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Post by MartinT on Dec 23, 2015 13:40:27 GMT
With regard to valves being used as a tone control, I agree completely. Since most of these 'valve CD players' are using the valves in the final stage as a unity gain buffer, quite why you couldn't implement a competent one in solid state is beyond me. I therefore conclude that they are mostly a gimmick.
So we're in agreement (probably for the first time ever)!
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Post by gazjam on Dec 23, 2015 21:31:56 GMT
Well.... All about the output stage, my Transporter i run into a Dac, so the analogue output stage is irrelevant to me, but apparently the Modright modded Transporter (with valve analogue output stage) was a wee bit special.
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Post by dsjr on Dec 24, 2015 9:07:02 GMT
I've been deeply shocked how good a well implemented ic buffer can be. The power supply in many cases needing to be much larger and/or better regulated than what would usually be used - and I don't think it's hype. My first experience of this was the earlier AVI Cd players, which were an ergonomic disaster, but using eleven regulated supplies, right next to the parts they were regulating (the Naim approach of remote regulation with lengthy umbilicals is more costly and inferior I'm told), the sound was always first rate I remember.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 24, 2015 9:48:14 GMT
Mainly a marketing gimmick to appeal to those who have been brainwashed into believing valves are always better.... A "valve cd player" is a solid state cd player in which the last 2% of the circuitry has been made with valves after all! If valves are being used as a "tone control" then that is beyond the pale to me. When implemented optimally solid state and valve should sound similar. Jez You sound verbatim like my good friend Jon the BBC engineer
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Post by Deleted on Dec 24, 2015 11:24:50 GMT
Mainly a marketing gimmick to appeal to those who have been brainwashed into believing valves are always better.... A "valve cd player" is a solid state cd player in which the last 2% of the circuitry has been made with valves after all! If valves are being used as a "tone control" then that is beyond the pale to me. When implemented optimally solid state and valve should sound similar. Jez You sound verbatim like my good friend Jon the BBC engineer That can only be a good thing!
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Post by Deleted on Dec 24, 2015 11:29:04 GMT
I've been deeply shocked how good a well implemented ic buffer can be. The power supply in many cases needing to be much larger and/or better regulated than what would usually be used - and I don't think it's hype. My first experience of this was the earlier AVI Cd players, which were an ergonomic disaster, but using eleven regulated supplies, right next to the parts they were regulating (the Naim approach of remote regulation with lengthy umbilicals is more costly and inferior I'm told), the sound was always first rate I remember. If by "IC buffer" you mean one using an op amp (I can't think what else) then they require far far less power supply regulation than most other options! So quite the opposite.... The Naim approach is indeed wrong on as many levels as farting in a lift!
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Post by Deleted on Dec 24, 2015 11:30:16 GMT
With regard to valves being used as a tone control, I agree completely. Since most of these 'valve CD players' are using the valves in the final stage as a unity gain buffer, quite why you couldn't implement a competent one in solid state is beyond me. I therefore conclude that they are mostly a gimmick. So we're in agreement (probably for the first time ever)! Only until you mention hi-foo fuses
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Post by MartinT on Dec 24, 2015 11:36:19 GMT
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