Suddenly this is really beginning to feel like a saloon…duck.

I dunno…I've found that listeners can often hear stuff, but may not know how to articulate subtleties or whatever. It can be like listening to a band running through the same song with two different drummers, bassists or whatever. Even if both musicians are perfectly competent, one or the other may move you more. Of course, the one that moves the band more will most likely get the gig. Just a thought…

Why ducking, tru blu, it's ideas flying, not bullets.
That's the fun part, had we all agreed on everything life would be boring.
Nothing beats having a gentlemen's disagreement with one of this saloon's most respected members, Altec.

It's not up to me to organize a test for you. That ball is in your court.

I would assume that as a software engineer yourself, you would test your programming before you ship it - correct? It's called a reality check, to test the validity of your ideas.

In the same vein, If you want to make claims about some alleged difference in audio equipment, I would assume that the engineer in you would want to do a reality check to verify that what you are hearing is reality or an illusion - correct?

Audio is no different from any other science - and yes, in many fundamental ways it is a science. If assumptions are made, they should be verified so that we're not talking garbage, but verified facts. Electrons behave exactly the same way, whether they are flowing through the space shuttle, a computer, or an audio amplifier. The action of these electrons has been very well known for over 100 years.

People sometimes have the mistaken idea that somehow electricity behaves differently in audio circuits than in all other circuits. That's so far from the truth to be laughable, and unbelievable.

Altec, yes, it's all about electrons flow. But, the main idea is that music is a continuously variable flow, where every ripple counts.
If we take the cable/water flow analogy, I'll say that it makes a world of difference if we run water through a rough canal instead of a smooth one if we are to care about the ripples riding the water.
Yes, ultimately the same amount of water runs through both canals and if we don't care about the ripples, there is no difference. But, in or case, the ripples are what counts.
Claiming that a $200 CD player sounds indistinguishable from a $2000 CD player is, in my view, inaccurate, even if both claim similar or close measurements. This is simply because things are way more complex in the way they combine than the very terse measurements, which tend to cover one aspect at a time.
I truly believe that the true measurement is in listening, as there is no FICO score for sound quality, no single number of group of measurements to tell all the story.
I know that the audiophile community abounds with ridiculous claims, but this doesn't mean that all claims are wrong or don't have a strong scientific foundation.
Both extremes are, well, extremes, and if we are to talk Gauss bell, then they should be discarded.

I never said that a $200 CD player will sound exactly like a $2000 one, but rather that if somebody makes the claim that it does, the buyer owes it to himself to verify that claim by a blind test. To spend money blindly, or worse yet, letting somebody else convince one to spend money blindly is just plain stupid, stupid, stupid.

There are differences between components which I've heard which have stood the reality check of a blind test, and some which have not.

Hey, I'm a composer and pianist myself, and even I wouldn't be so arrogant to say that somehow the electrons which represent my music are so special that they behave any differently than electrons carrying radar data or whatever.

Musical creation doesn't follow any scientific rules (rules of convention sure, but not scientific ones), but the electrons which represent that music through wires and semiconductors certainly do.

There's entirely too much voodoo circulating in the audio world. If you think two components sound different, and that can be verified by a blind test, then fine, they sound genuinely different. If they cannot be statistically told apart in a blind test, then the differences are all in your mind.

There are some of us who are more impressed by the $$$ spent on our systems than on the sounds that come out of them. My ears are 54 years young and there is no way I can make a distinction fine enough to tell anyone what wires are used or which CD player sounds best. What it ultimately comes down to (for most of us) is the usability of the system and how it sounds. If the system isn't flexible enough to marry all of the various formats that are out there it won't stay long. Just as two pianos or harps sound different, so do systems. Just because someone thinks a system, they have never heard, appears to be the end all/do all doesn't make it so. Many of us just enjoy trying to get the most out of our current systems and have to fight like hell the upgrade bug.

Gentlemen, I bow before you and retreat.
"To each his own".

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all.

Going back to gooomz, original question, my experience is between disk players around $200 and ones costing $1000. The really noticeable differences in performance were less in sound and video quality (I'm including players that also do video disks, too) and more in other aspects like speed and error correction. Errors due to disk degradation or recording errors that were not even noticed on the $1000 player stopped the $200 one dead in its tracks. Whether this was hardware or software related, I can't say for sure, but the factory engineers did fix most of the issues in the cheaper player with a firmware upgrade. Most digital products depend to a very large extent on the software programmed into them as well as the quality of the hardware. I'm definitely a believer in increasing price adding value, but only to a point. At some point, there's going to be nothing more meaningful to add, and I'm a firm believer that this point is significantly lower than most audiophiles have been led to believe by marketing designed to appeal to them. What also has to be considered is whether the improvements are going to be noticeable or worthwhile to the user. Quality that would make the unit perform flawlessly for 10 or more years might mean little to someone that trades up every couple of years to get the latest, cutting-edge features. Designs that shield against some environmental conditions (EMI, RFI, vibration, temperature variation) might be of little value in an atmosphere where these conditions are virtually non-existent. I have little experience with disk players costing more than $2000, so I can't make any definitive statement about them. However, from a technology standpoint, over $2000 seems to be entering a region of diminishing returns. Between $1000 and $2000, there are design features that indicate improved performance, but without spending hours using the higher priced players, I don't know how much difference one would actually notice. To be honest, I couldn't justify the difference in price. Quite frankly, design, hardware, and manufacturing differences in some products don't add up to the difference in price.

I hope everyone's 2009 got off to a great start!

Regards,
Bill

What to spend is always the toughest question. For most of us, we are willing to and want to have better sound by upgrading but don't want to spend any more than we have to for an improvement that will make us go WOW.

Will a $1000 CD/SACD player make an improvement in your sound? If it does will you feel there was enough improvement?

Unfortunately the only way to find out is to borrow a player or purchase one and try it.

The thought process for me is what am I trying to change in the sound of my system?

If my source is clearly the weak link in the system then that is the place to start. How a new source or any equipment will sound is the synergy of complete system. Each time you upgrade a piece should show improvement in your sound but probably not as much as it will when you improve the next weakest link in the chain.

Yea, it's a never ending circle. You have to decide what you are happy with, but that is part of what makes this hobby fun and annoying at the same time.

As to gooomz's questions. A well designed $3000 player will probably sound better than a well designed $500 player assuming that the other pieces in your system can reveal what the $3000 player has to add. The same is true with speaker cables or any equipment you have. The more you improve each piece of equipment the more chance you have of hearing improvements with each upgrade.

There does come a point of diminishing returns and only you can decide that. Does some one spend an extra few hundred or few thousand dollars for a few % improvement?

Only you, your ears, wallet and of course our significant other can determine that.

^Ironically, my wallet wasn't worth a damn until I found myself my keeper significant other!