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#55343 - 07/18/05 08:22 PM Potential problem/glitch w/990 (or maybe my 755)
Ritz Offline
Desperado

Registered: 07/03/05
Posts: 547
Loc: NJ/Beijing
Today I was playing Paula Cole's "This Fire." The first track on the disc reliably causes my 990+755 combination to produce extremely distorted output, even at very low levels. This track is extremely heavy with bass, but I have other CDs that are equially full of bass that don't exhibit this behaviour. I've tried it with 2 different copies of the disc so I think I can eliminate a bad disc. The problem disappears on other tracks on this disc.

I also noticed a similar problem with the new Maroon5 disc. Apparently it's using some nasty BMG "copy protection" scheme. It sounds absolutely horrid. I mean, it sounds like a $20 RadioShack amp trying to drive Apogees. If I feed the analog out from the transport rather than the digital toslink/coax, the problem vanishes so I'm assuming this is an issue with the D/A conversion process interacting with the idiotic copy protection. Just for fun, I ripped the CD into 160k mp3's and then converted those back to WAV files onto a CD. The ugliness survives the process intact.

Any suggestions with either problem would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers,
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#55344 - 07/18/05 08:39 PM Re: Potential problem/glitch w/990 (or maybe my 755)
Prefect Offline
Gunslinger

Registered: 03/14/02
Posts: 189
Loc: Boston, MA, USA
Unfortunately I don't have an answer for you, but I felt the need to publically fume about futile copy protection schemes that interfere with obviously legal usage.

When will they learn?

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#55345 - 07/19/05 06:26 AM Re: Potential problem/glitch w/990 (or maybe my 755)
Ritz Offline
Desperado

Registered: 07/03/05
Posts: 547
Loc: NJ/Beijing
Yeah, the tube heads and the record companies have one thing in common....they'd like us all to go back to 1950's technology. 8-(

Fortunately, I found my receipt so I'm going to try to return the Maroon5 disc.

By the way, the song on the Paula Cole disc that confuses the 990/755 combo is called "Tiger".

Cheers,
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#55346 - 07/19/05 02:54 PM Re: Potential problem/glitch w/990 (or maybe my 755)
Scott Offline
Desperado

Registered: 01/07/10
Posts: 673
Does this distortion occur in both standard stereo and upsample?

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#55347 - 07/19/05 09:34 PM Re: Potential problem/glitch w/990 (or maybe my 755)
Ritz Offline
Desperado

Registered: 07/03/05
Posts: 547
Loc: NJ/Beijing
It occurs with stereo and upsample. It also occurs on digital coax, TOSlink, and analog connections from that source. So I'm wondering if it might be a transport issue? Also, I note that this is an HDCD disc. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
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#55348 - 07/20/05 09:22 PM Re: Potential problem/glitch w/990 (or maybe my 755)
Ritz Offline
Desperado

Registered: 07/03/05
Posts: 547
Loc: NJ/Beijing
Problem solved. It seems to be a transport issue. I tried another DVD player and the problems disappeared.

However, I do notice a distinct difference in sound quality between digital coax and TOSlink. TOSlink signals are quieter (I need to raise the volume 6-8db to get equivalent sound pressure). I also feel like the quality of the signal is better with coax rather than TOSlink (TOSlink signal seems quite "shrill" or "bright"). I'm using a custom coax cable (canare cable with canare connectors crimped on with Canare crimper). The TOSlink cable is from Outlaw.

Cheers,
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