I have been tring to figure out how a quality CD player can be any better than a consumer grade player if I am using an optical feed to my 1050. Aren't the bits sent to the receiver exactly the same ?

I've been wondering the same thing. An example given is something like this:

How does this sentence look to you?
H owdo es thissen tencel ook toyou ?

I guess that the sound quality is the same, but the timing of the information sent is better in the higher quality unit.

Grrr. Not all the spaces showed up, but you get the general idea.

Does this mean that the receiver is doing more error correction with the poor quality unit as opposed to the better unit ?

If yes than is there a way to know how much error correction is happening. I have always thought an excellent add on to a receiver/pre-amp would be a digital readout of the current error correction rate. Would really help you decide to buy better stuff

I would guess that another example would be
1)How does this sentence look to you.
vs.
2)H w d es th s se tence l k to yo .

Ron

Check this site:

http://www.siam.org/siamnews/mtc/mtc193.htm

Thanks nonzero. Desperado, I think you're getting it now.

Thanks for the info on error correction however it's still not obvious how important the source is. If my receiver is doing the error correction and the poor quality cd player is good enough that error correction is filling in the gaps then it seems the better cd player doesn't really add any value. I guess it's subjective and depends on how bad the poor quality source really is.

I still think a meter on how much error correction is kicking in from a source would be a great feature.

[This message has been edited by desperado (edited November 04, 2002).]

Not much in the sense we're talking. Once you get to an digital connection I don't think there's all that much of a difference in the signal quality with the error correction present. The better unit would make it less likely that an error could slip through, but may not make much difference. Don't forget to consider that the better unit can have additional handy features and reliability generally goes up too. The better unit will have more reliable motors and mechanisms in it too.

I agree with this point of course higher end products are sometimes more reliable. Feature wise, I find consumer grade electronics are very feature rich these days. I imagine some of the higher end products have some very nice features that are not in consumer products but outlaw buyers are usually more interested in getting the best sound not the most features...right

I think the only real issue would be jitter... which would matter only on PCM sources. I don't know, in actuality, how much of a problem jitter is, but I would suspect that a source would have to put out extremely jittery signals in order for it to be audible.

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Matthew J. Hill
matt@idsi.net

I recently upgraded my DVD player from a two-year-old "cheap" Apex unit to a new (also pretty cheap) Magnavox. I did it because I have a new TV with component video inputs... my Apex didn't have component video outs or progressive scan. To my considerable surprise... the new Magnavox provides significantly better sound from both movies and 2-channel music CD's, even though I used the optical audio connections for both players.

The same with me. I changed from a pioneer to a Sony dvd player. The music is greatly improved. the Pioneer sounded brittle and sterile, while the Sony seems warm and laid back with much richer tones.

Which Sony do you have ? Is it an ES or from the consumer line ?

I am surprised that they would be so different.

I was surprized too. I'm using the same conections as before yet the Sony sounds better. It is a consumer line product not ES.
My old Pioneer never sounded right on music CD's. Maybe its optical output was bad.