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"Norman Schwartz" wrote:

"Dennis Moore" wrote in message
news:9dAlb.1428$HS4.1998@attbi_s01...
Yes, sounds familiar. My first CD player was a Magnavox
based upon short auditioning with some headphones in a
store with both it and the Sony. Seemed clearly different
and better when listening to the Magnavox. Which surprised
me considering the reviews and that I at that time thought
anything with those low distortion specs, almost perfectly
flat frequency response, and great S/N would have sounded
the same. I only read Stereo Review and Audio at that time.
Both were the same price give or take $20. And considering
other stuff with the Magnavox name on it in those days
I was highly predisposed to get the Sony. Both were fed into
a Sony receiver to use into the headphones.

Yet, the Sony was unpleasant, while the Magnavox wasn't.
So I got the Magnavox. Knew nothing about dacs, how
they were done or anything. Just how they sounded to me.
A trend for how I would choose audio equipment in the future.

Dennis

"lcw999" wrote in message
news:krxlb.609962$cF.279705@rwcrnsc53...
Ref: early cd player sound issues...

Dennis..

For what its worth...I have one of the first Magnavox CD players
to have a DAC for each channel!! The early Japanese CD
players had a single DAC that was multiplexed between
channels!! In comparing an old Sony with the Magnavox
there was a general feeling that the Magnavox had an
extended frequency range and other characteristics that
I deemed a tad better than the single DAC multiplexed
setup.

I ran into certain "mindsets" that thought there was no
need for a DAC for each channel. A marketing ploy, so
they said...sound familiar?

My first player was a Magnavox model # CDB 650. To my ears it doesn't sound
different from any other player I've had since then, the latest being a
Marantz Professional, model PMD 331. I've listened to them via a variety of
headphones; 2 models of Stax, 2 of Sennheiser, AKG, and several Sonys,
loudspeakers; Magneplanar Tympani IC and IVa.

This mirrors my experience. I've used literally dozens of players. I used to
give one away to students in my economics seminars in the mid-late 80s and
early 90s as a reward for a telecommunications technolgy quiz.

I bought them at retail and never paid more than $100 for a unit (not counting
sales tax.) And I never found one that sounded substantially different from
another WHEN levels were matched. It is true that they were seldom precisely
level matched with one another or with my reference piece straight out of the
box.

I'm guessing that my experience with an Audio Alchemy outboard DAC might be
illustrative. Using that device for a level matched test I discovered that the
output of the AA was +10 dB compared to the analog output of a Marantz CD-63
player.

Inside the case there was a jumper with 0 dB and +10 dB settings. Moving the
jumper to the 0 dB position and, guess what, the output was still +4 dB. So to
an end-user the device always delivered a higher output level.

I'm guessing that this kind of level de-match accounts for practically all, if
not exactly all, of the reported cd-player sound differences.