ps3 cd playback.

CDs sound Ok through a PS3...but there are better sounding CDPs out there...maybe your AVR has great DACs and wavesmoothing algorithms...it might be your AVR that's more in play...how do you have the PS3 hooked up and how did you hook up the Denon...with the Denon you want to try both analog and digital hookup because it's very possible the Denon will sound 'better' in analog depending on your AVR....

When you hook up everything coax or optical then the sound is 'mostly' determined by the DACs in the Avr?

cnh

cnh wrote: »

CDs sound Ok through a PS3...but there are better sounding CDPs out there...maybe your AVR has great DACs and wavesmoothing algorithms...it might be your AVR that's more in play...how do you have the PS3 hooked up and how did you hook up the Denon...with the Denon you want to try both analog and digital hookup because it's very possible the Denon will sound 'better' in analog depending on your AVR....

When you hook up everything coax or optical then the sound is 'mostly' determined by the DACs in the Avr?

cnh

I m not sure if I totally by into DACs are the end all be all, sure they do a lot towards sound but coming from the PC world i have heard many different sound cards (all other things being equal) which for the most part had the same or similar generic DACs but sounded worlds different.

If you ask me (which no one did) I think the other stuff is just as important as the DACS. And peeps shouldn't get so caught up in what DACs they have so much as the total quality of the product.

MANSKITO wrote: »

Playing them off the PS3s hard drive is bad because the PS3 generally rips them in lossy formats (MP3 AAC etc...) not lossless which is what you want, but as to CD play back it fine and dandy sweet as cotton candy.

I did not know that - I'll do some testing with my CD's tonight..

cnh wrote: »

I don't disagree and that's not all I am saying...note above..Denon's have, conceivably a better CD transport and jitter control...most also have algorithms for smoothing out quantization errors in digital signals that make them sound more like analog (many good AVRS also have such features!) Construction and circuitry are also important as well as the better DACs in the Denon?....it's 'not' simply DACs though. A lot of people here will swear that adding a 500-1000 dollar DAC to a good CD transport will improve your sound.

I don't understand your point. It is common procedure to test your CDP with digital hook up against analog...in almost all cases you will hear a difference. And the difference is not consistent....some sound better on digital others through analog because of the very factors you mention and DACs.

Finally, when you hook up most CDPs to an AVR digitally the AVR takes charge of ALL of the decoding and processing to convert it into analog sound....therefore the AVR most definitely is the most important link in that chain. The only factor the CDP contributes is how good its transport and reading functions are--those are important...but in most cases you won't hear differences there in low end players


cnh

I didn't have much of a point other then I think people give too much credit to DACs then there worth. Not saying they don't do it for some people or for that matter any one person with the cash.


I really should of posted and not quoted you wasn't really responding to you, you generally know more then me lol.

any ways I think as far as a source gos if it plays games The sega CD or the SONY PS1 are the best options and the only options that will get you the same sound as say a $100-300 (or more in some cases) CD player. The PS3 while newer has CD play back as like a just a check mark in list of features, but the PS1 actually has a nice CD player built into it and will make a difference regardless of your AVR or DAC.

The ps1 is a better CD player is my point lol.

That or a PS3 with lossless playback is the only thing i would use in my home.

Keep in mind the PS1 they're talking about is the one with the integrated RCA outputs soldered to the back of the unit, not the multi-av only units that were predominate after the first generation.

allstock wrote: »

The ps3 is hooked up via hdmi. The denon is hooked up vie toslink and analog out jacks. Being that back in the day this was a $1000.00+ dvd player I think (hope) it has a good transport, the thing weighs about 20 pounds. I'm damn impressed with that ps3. It upconverts cd's and has user-adjustable bitmapping. I will give it another test with the supplied analog cord it came with, which I've never used.
Oh, and I'll look and see if I still have my ps1...

SONY allows you to upconvert a CD? I don't remember seeing that on the PS3--which model do you have...also what kind of AVR are you running and do you notice the 'difference' between running the Denon digital and analog in 2 channel...?

cnh

As far as I know the PS3 only upconverts DVD's.

-Jeff

MANSKITO wrote: »

I didn't have much of a point other then I think people give too much credit to DACs then there worth. Not saying they don't do it for some people or for that matter any one person with the cash.


I really should of posted and not quoted you wasn't really responding to you, you generally know more then me lol.

any ways I think as far as a source gos if it plays games The sega CD or the SONY PS1 are the best options and the only options that will get you the same sound as say a $100-300 (or more in some cases) CD player. The PS3 while newer has CD play back as like a just a check mark in list of features, but the PS1 actually has a nice CD player built into it and will make a difference regardless of your AVR or DAC.

The ps1 is a better CD player is my point lol.

That or a PS3 with lossless playback is the only thing i would use in my home.

I somewhat agree and disagree with your statement over the role of DACs.

Sure there can be some over analysis of the specific DACs being used in any piece of gear, but folks don't seem to fully realize that the analog 'output' stage of a piece of gear is not just the DAC - there are other components in the signal path from the DAC to the actual connector on the back. And the WHOLE output stage design, circuit board layout, choice of correspsonding components, their values - ALL of these play into the final resultant signal 'quality'.

Even if two pieces of gear use the identical DAC, there still could be sonic differences to users based on how the rest of the analog output stage is engineered and assembled between the two pieces of gear.

cnh wrote: »

I couldn't say but if it does YOU would have to choose such an option in the audio menu...my unit is in the U.S. so I can't check it...in any case...

as far as I understand it CD upconversion is as follows 44.1 to 88.2 to 176.4 etc...in other words multiples of upsampling 2, 4 and so on..

My Yamaha Universal Player does that as well and my Denon AVR 2807 upsamples 4x.

48khz is not really a relevant upconversion...aren't we really just talking about DVD sound there?

cnh

The ps3 allows you to choose higher sampling rates like you suggested above. It's one of the settings from the xmedia bar and offers several options. There are a lot of user definable settings from the set-up menu for audio/video tweaking. The ps3 gives you a lot of control over many different forms of media playback, not just DVD or Blu-ray. Definitely worth going through all the menus for the perfectionists out there.

Really the truth of the matter is stuff is best left alone in its NATIVE ress. When you upcovert you are in effect guessing where the new bits of data(that where created during the upcoverison process) should be placed, no matter how good the math is (it can be damn good) you still won't have as good of sound if you have left well enough alone.

Upconversion is only really good for instances where the native ress of the screen (monitor tv etc..) is much higher then the native signal, in these instances the image would look worse blown up then it would being upconverted . In those instances you really are choosing between the lesser of 2 evils.
What you want is Native ress of the source to match exactly pixel for pixel to the Native ress of the display.

But when it comes to music or any other form of audio there is no reason to upconvert because speakers do not have a native ress that you have to match the incoming signal too. If you can disable that feature do so you will get better sound.

allstock wrote: »

Well put. However...
In my rig it sounds better upconverted to 176.4. I used to be a "straight wire with gain" type of guy, but then along comes Audessey etc. I'm not sure exactly how the "bitmapping" thing works but it does make a difference.

Ah well I'm sure you are hearing a difference I wouldn't for a second dought that. But to weather that "difference" is positive is another question entirely.

Bitmaps work thus, a computer assigns a value to a piece of information and generates something along the lines of a quadrant plane or map if you will, and uses said map to, A, place the pixels in there proper place on your screen or B, based on the first map that was generated assgins those bit(s) of data new value(s) or generates new/more value(s) that can be used in the map when you up scale/down scale/compress the image so as to be able to recreate said image on screen in its new form. (this is whats done in many popular image formats such as JPEG )

But no matter what you do to the image (upscale, down scale, compress etc..) the important thing to note is that the image either contains less/more/different information then the first signal the computer received no matter what the level of detail was used in creating the original bit map.

The same holds true for audio information, no matter how "awesome" the original bit map was you are still guessing at least to a small extent to where the new information should go or in some cases which bits of information to throw out.

You will end up with an image that could very well look sharper (or in this case hear more detail) but please note that any new detail is for all instances and purposes artificial.

on a side note if one wanted to create a file formate that could be upscaled or downscaled freely with minimal information loss/generation. They would use something akin to Vector graphics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vector_graphics

On i m on the same level as you m8, the sound produced would appear to be better on any ones system with any reference material

Just the differences would be artificial is my point. Its in the same vein as EQing you can produce a sound that is more appealing to the ears, its just if your after accurate reproduction of sound (meaning that you want to as close as possible the master recording) then upscaling is a no no. But to each his own, in fact i some times enjoy a sound that has been doctored up.


maybe i did get heavy handed with the ""s lol. sorry if I sounded condescending its very hard to get all your message to some one when your are limited to text only.

And ya i believe with all my heart that the PS1 is the bees knees, i have heard the thing AND what most people don't know is the Sega CD is damn close to as good. if you haven't given either the PS1 or the sega CD a try its well worth it if you are tight on cash.

Ps 3 junk because got yellow death light came on get a pansonic dvd or yamaha or nad