CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

jeffslife · Joined: 17 Apr 2010 Posts: 4190 Location: ohio usa

I was at a friends house a few weeks back, He is a major audiophile. Sweet music room. His equipment is amazing. Normally he ONLY plays vinyl, but on that day he put on a CD, What REALLY struck me as odd was he was playing it in an old playstation 1. When I asked him about it he stated that the PS1 was the best CD player he had ever heard. The trick was you had to leave it playing at least 2 weeks before you listen to it, and leave it.
It really did sound good,even to my terrible hearing, I would have sworn it was vinyl. Anybody else ever hear of this ?

Nashou66 · Joined: 12 Jan 2007 Posts: 16171 Location: West Seneca NY

I have heard or seen in signatures the Sony playstation as their Transport. Some use an external dac with it. I am not sure if it has to be moded for that or if it has a digital out already.

I think the Best CD player i heard was a sony x7xx es something oranother. I forgot the exact model. But it had a separate
weight you put on the CD. It was smooth!!!!

Athanasios

zaphod · Joined: 16 Jun 2006 Posts: 2002 Location: Cloverdale

sony transports were used in a number of high high end CD player. For instance the Ed Meitner's CD-3 which went for about 3.5K back in the early 90's used a sony transport.

currently in the upstairs system i'm using a Pioneer Laserdisc player for the CD transport. It sounds very very good, but then the Pioneer LD transports were well regarded.

Nashou66 · Joined: 12 Jan 2007 Posts: 16171 Location: West Seneca NY

ecrabb · Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2013 5:12 pm Post subject:

Sounds pretty suspect to me. The PlayStation - especially the original - wasn't exactly regarded for its build quality. I still have an original PlayStation around... All the original PlayStations were very plasticy, though I suppose in theory it could have had good a disc transport in it.

Jeff, was it the original gray/ugly PlayStation, or the PS One?

SC

HogPilot · Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2013 5:49 pm Post subject:

Discussions on jitter over various transmission mediums (HDMI, Cat5/6, TOSLINK, Coax, etc) aside, one digital transport shouldn't sound different than another, as flips in 1's and 0's would be heard as pops or clicks rather than a difference in "smoothness" or any other analog-type sound quality. Assuming he doesn't have processing other than digital room EQ turned on in his receiver, any sonic differences would be due to jitter, poorly designed DACs or amps, speakers, and/or room treatments. The latter two would be the most likely contributors to a system sounding good or bad.

CxTurbo · Joined: 13 Oct 2008 Posts: 425 Location: Ontario, Canada

Most late highly regarded transports were using Philips mechanisms. My favorite transport being the Bryston. I do not know if the Philips DCM, CDM or WAM transport mechanisms are still being produced. Bryston discontinued their player due to supply of the mechanism so I was told. I missed the bus on it therefore just use my Elite BDP-05 FD Bluray as my transport as it has the highly regarded Wolfson Dacs. It also sounds fantastic!

That being said, I think a low jitter clock and the dac's have more effect on the players "sound" then just the laser pick-up assembly on it's own. As it is just carrying the I2S or SPDIF digital bits and bytes to the DACS etc.

I do not think the PS has SPDIF out so unless it is modded to pass I2S out to a quality DAC I have huge reservations on it's merit as a true audiophile transport/player.

I have one maybe I should give her a whirl sometime.

James

jeffslife · Joined: 17 Apr 2010 Posts: 4190 Location: ohio usa

Steve, It was a PS 1

Jeremy112 · Joined: 28 Sep 2006 Posts: 2649 Location: Fond du Lac, WI

I cant help but chime in, I'm not much for CD audio tech since to me it is inferior, though I do use it quite frequently since its a good medium for using and abusing plus it keeps peoples hands off my vinyl Smile

The CD Transport I use is a Denon DVD-5910 DVD player. I don't know how good of a transport it is, but from what I have read, its pretty decent. I even have to admit it sounds far better than almost any CD player I have used. The best way to describe the sound is that it sounds un-peppered with technologies that can make CD sound digital and sharp. Since the DVD-5910 weighs in at a hefty 55 lbs I suspect that it does have some sort of quality built into the transport as well as the DAC. The player is literally packed full of electronics, which is pretty amazing for any DVD/CD player of its size.