Jim wrote:
I get my best laughs from all the specs for high-end CD players.
Goodness, you can pay up to $10K or so, and for this you get a heavy
unit
with all kinds of ultimate suspensions for the drive, non-resonate
metals,
etc., etc.

The problem with all this is that "everyone" seems to think that
a CD
drive has the same "problems" as a turntable that plays vinyl.
Nothing
could be further from the truth. The difference is BUFFERING and/or
CACHE a
concept that has come down from the earliest days of computer
hardware/software technology. Let me explain.

Good info. I can buy a $20 CD-ROM and slap it in my computer, and use
it to install an OS off CD, and it'll do it in a few minutes, without
missing a single byte Now, it's true that the ISO9660 filesystem for
CD-ROMs does include a CRC checksum, but I can also get a perfect
bitwise copy of an audio cd using the same drive by ripping a CD to
..wav file. I can also do this at up to around 32x speed in my currect
drive.

So, if a $20 no-name CD-ROM can get a PERFECT digital copy of the audio
info stored on a CD at 32 times the speed that a $10k stereo CD player
has to read it, then what exactly is the $10k CD player doing for the
other $9,980?

Now, I do think some of the hi-fi CD-ROMs look pretty, and if I had a
near infinite supply of disposable income, I'd probably get one just
for the aesthetic value. Unfortunately, every hi-end device represents
many days of work for me, so I just run a cable from my computer to my
preamp for CD playing. Sounds exactly the same to me.