Skip to main content ↑ ↓

Notice

Please note that most of the software linked on this forum is likely to be safe to use. If you are unsure, feel free to ask in the relevant topics, or send a private message to an administrator or moderator. To help curb the problems of false positives, or in the event that you do find actual malware, you can contribute through the article linked here.
Topic: Will I get better sound playing cd's on a dvd player? (Read 14548 times) previous topic - next topic
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Will I get better sound playing cd's on a dvd player?

I remember reading an article a while back stating that dvd players could decode more info than cd players. Does this mean that by playing my cd's on a dvd player I will be hearing better sound resolution than I would on a cd player? Also, if I play a cd/dvd on a dvd player with music ripped from a hd source or sacd source will I be getting some or all of the benefits of the source?

Will I get better sound playing cd's on a dvd player?

Reply #1 –
Quote from: william666 on
I remember reading an article a while back stating that dvd players could decode more info than cd players.



Thats not true.

Quote from: william666 on
Also, if I play a cd/dvd on a dvd player with music ripped from a hd source or sacd source will I be getting some or all of the benefits of the source?


Assuming you actually managed to rip one, yes.  It can be quite difficult to do that though.  The whole point of sacd was to prevent people from being able to rip disks.

Will I get better sound playing cd's on a dvd player?

Reply #2 –
Quote from: saratoga on
Quote from: william666 on
I remember reading an article a while back stating that dvd players could decode more info than cd players.



Thats not true.

Quote from: william666 on
Also, if I play a cd/dvd on a dvd player with music ripped from a hd source or sacd source will I be getting some or all of the benefits of the source?


Assuming you actually managed to rip one, yes.  It can be quite difficult to do that though.  The whole point of sacd was to prevent people from being able to rip disks.

I thought the purpose was better sound?

Will I get better sound playing cd's on a dvd player?

Reply #3 –
Quote from: william666 on
Also, if I play a cd/dvd on a dvd player with music ripped from a hd source or sacd source will I be getting some or all of the benefits of the source?
The additional resolution offered by HD or SACD audio is probably not audible to the majority of listeners, and it certainly cannot be preserved through a conversion to CD audio, regardless of what hardware the resulting CD is then played on.

Will I get better sound playing cd's on a dvd player?

Reply #4 –
Quote from: william666 on
Does this mean that by playing my cd's on a dvd player I will be hearing better sound resolution than I would on a cd player?

That's only true when talking about data: A cd and a dvd have the same physical size, but a dvd can contain much more data (4.7GB) than a cd (700MB). But for the same data, there is nothing different.
There was only the belief that DVD readers may be more accurate at reading data on a CD, since they need to (for dvds). But that's not necessarily true in practice.

Will I get better sound playing cd's on a dvd player?

Reply #5 –
Quote from: william666 on
I remember reading an article a while back stating that dvd players could decode more info than CD players.


That is true in a way, namely that DVD players will decode DVDs and CD players won't. ;-)

Quote
Does this mean that by playing my CD's on a DVD player I will be hearing better sound resolution than I would on a CD player?


NO. The limit to the sound quality that can be obtained from a CD is the CD and the means it was recorded.

The weakest links in any audio system is generally the room that the music was performed in and the microphones, together with the room the music is played in and the speakers.

Quote
Also, if I play a CD/DVD on a DVD player with music ripped from a HD source or SACD source will I be getting some or all of the benefits of the source?


Not so much. It depend on what format you put the music into and how the player handles that format.

Will I get better sound playing cd's on a dvd player?

Reply #6 –
Quote from: dv1989 on
Quote from: william666 on
Also, if I play a cd/dvd on a dvd player with music ripped from a hd source or sacd source will I be getting some or all of the benefits of the source?
The additional resolution offered by HD or SACD audio is probably not audible to the majority of listeners, and it certainly cannot be preserved through a conversion to CD audio, regardless of what hardware the resulting CD is then played on.

I personally take offense to that remark, seeing as how I was not asking in reference to the majority of listeners, I was asking for myself. I may not be technically versed in high end audio, but I can definitely tell the difference between hd and sacd compared to a regular cd. Thanks to everyone for your responses.

Will I get better sound playing cd's on a dvd player?

Reply #7 –
Quote from: william666 on
I may not be technically versed in high end audio, but I can definitely tell the difference between hd and sacd compared to a regular cd.


You may have overlooked the forum rules when you signed up, but you still need to be aware of them.

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=3974

Specifically rule #8:

Quote
8. All members that put forth a statement concerning subjective sound quality, must -- to the best of their ability -- provide objective support for their claims. Acceptable means of support are double blind listening tests (ABX or ABC/HR) demonstrating that the member can discern a difference perceptually, together with a test sample to allow others to reproduce their findings.


If you're going to make fairly bold claims like that, you need to support them with evidence.

Will I get better sound playing cd's on a dvd player?

Reply #9 –
Quote from: dv1989 on
The additional resolution offered by HD or SACD audio is probably not audible to the majority of listeners, and it certainly cannot be preserved through a conversion to CD audio, regardless of what hardware the resulting CD is then played on.

Sorry, but that response even baffles me. ... SACD... "not audible to the majority of listeners" Who in here can state that?
Is troll-adiposity coming from feederism?
With 24bit music you can listen to silence much louder!

Will I get better sound playing cd's on a dvd player?

Reply #10 –
IIRC the DVD-V format allows for LPCM 96/24. Could that be where the confusion lies? But that's not directly to the point of the original question.

Will I get better sound playing cd's on a dvd player?

Reply #11 –
Quote from: Wombat on
Quote from: dv1989 on
The additional resolution offered by HD or SACD audio is probably not audible to the majority of listeners, and it certainly cannot be preserved through a conversion to CD audio, regardless of what hardware the resulting CD is then played on.
Sorry, but that response even baffles me. ... SACD... "not audible to the majority of listeners" Who in here can state that?
I did say “probably”, but perhaps that doesn’t make my statement inconclusive enough!  Since it is commonly asserted here that CD quality is adequate (or more than adequate) for the majority of listeners, I tend to extrapolate that to the conclusion that any higher resolution does not provide audible benefits to the same majority. Do correct me if I’m wrong (which is entirely likely).

Will I get better sound playing cd's on a dvd player?

Reply #12 –
Quote from: william666 on
Quote from: dv1989 on
Quote from: william666 on
Also, if I play a CD/DVD on a DVD player with music ripped from a HD source or SACD source will I be getting some or all of the benefits of the source?
The additional resolution offered by HD or SACD audio is probably not audible to the majority of listeners, and it certainly cannot be preserved through a conversion to CD audio, regardless of what hardware the resulting CD is then played on.

I personally take offense to that remark, seeing as how I was not asking in reference to the majority of listeners, I was asking for myself.


You appear to say something completely different in the following sentence:

Quote
I may not be technically versed in high end audio, but I can definitely tell the difference between HD and SACD compared to a regular CD. Thanks to everyone for your responses.


I interpret that as meaning that you think you can hear the difference between HD and SACD and CD. Well, under some circumstances so can I. ;-)

This is not necessarily an infraction of TOS 8 because there are good reasons why you may hear the differences that you say you hear:

(1) If the CD and the HD recordings are different recordings, the of course you'll hear a difference, That seems trivial, but the judgement of  triviality ignores how people's minds can work. If I hear something that is new technology played back that seems to remove the 7 veils that have obscured every other recording I've ever heard, then of course I'm going to prefer that new technology to older technology, even if the recording in question is not one that I've ever heard before.

(2) If the CD and HD recordings are the same performance, but different mastering jobs, then of course you'll hear a difference.  Its been documented and even often advertised that many HD recordings are just older recordings that have been remastered. In some cases the alleged HD recording has the non-removable evidence of having been originally made with 44/48 KHz sampling so their actual HD-mess is in question. Any sonic advantage that is heard is due to being remastered. And there's nothing wrong with remastering. Why hinder a new technology with old mastering jobs that may not have been good when they were new, and are definitely out of style now.

When it comes to TOS 8, IMO it is only invocable when the recordings being compared differ only by things like bit depth and sample rate  and only then when the lesser recordin's  bit depth is already truly 16 and its sample rate is already truly 44.1 KHz.  This actually describes only a minority of all comparisons that people who are primarily music listeners are ever likely to do.

Bottom line, don't take the banter here too personally. ;-) The people here know what they mean when they say what they say, but you may not be interpreting it exactly as they intended. Not really your fault, we are just writing casual notes, not papers for professional journals.

Will I get better sound playing cd's on a dvd player?

Reply #13 –
Quote
In some cases the alleged HD recording has the non-removable evidence of having been originally made with 44/48 KHz sampling so their actual HD-mess is in question.


Pun intentional?

Will I get better sound playing cd's on a dvd player?

Reply #14 –
Quote from: william666 on
I remember reading an article a while back stating that dvd players could decode more info than cd players. Does this mean that by playing my cd's on a dvd player I will be hearing better sound resolution than I would on a cd player? Also, if I play a cd/dvd on a dvd player with music ripped from a hd source or sacd source will I be getting some or all of the benefits of the source?



I remember articles that told me DVD players would sound worse than CD players, because of all the video circuitry, and all the corners cut to get all those functions in one box.


That's just COMON SENSE, right? 

Will I get better sound playing cd's on a dvd player?

Reply #15 –
Quote from: Wombat on
Quote from: dv1989 on
The additional resolution offered by HD or SACD audio is probably not audible to the majority of listeners, and it certainly cannot be preserved through a conversion to CD audio, regardless of what hardware the resulting CD is then played on.

Sorry, but that response even baffles me. ... SACD... "not audible to the majority of listeners" Who in here can state that?


once could cite the sample of Meyer and Moran  (2007)

http://hlloyge.hl.funpic.de/wp-content/upl...op-inserted.pdf

which of course has been discussed here before.

Will I get better sound playing cd's on a dvd player?

Reply #16 –
Quote from: StephenPG on
Quote
In some cases the alleged HD recording has the non-removable evidence of having been originally made with 44/48 KHz sampling so their actual HD-mess is in question.


Pun intentional?


No, it was a simple unintentional  typo, but why not laugh at it when the consonants fall as they will?

But the puns stands - there's this mess with so-called HD recordings where people who have analyzed a lot of them find that in many cases the media is HD, but not the actual recording. They are remasters masquerading as HD when they never were HD,  and therefore never can be.

Will I get better sound playing cd's on a dvd player?

Reply #17 –
Quote from: krabapple on
Quote from: william666 on
I remember reading an article a while back stating that dvd players could decode more info than cd players. Does this mean that by playing my cd's on a dvd player I will be hearing better sound resolution than I would on a cd player? Also, if I play a cd/dvd on a dvd player with music ripped from a hd source or sacd source will I be getting some or all of the benefits of the source?


I remember articles that told me DVD players would sound worse than CD players, because of all the video circuitry, and all the corners cut to get all those functions in one box.

That's just COMON SENSE, right? 


I remember back a few years when John Atkinson was making a big fuss about this in Stereophile, and I challenged him over it on RAO. To support my view, I posted some technical tests of a $39.95 DVD player that happened to have 24/192 converters inside the box, and played audio CDs at or very, very close to the theoretical limits of low noise distortion and excellent frequency response.

If you look at signal flow inside a DVD player, CD audio is never mixed with video.  While I was nosing around inside this $39.95 DVD player, I found that it had something like 7 different power supplies so that separate circuit functions were *really* separate.

Will I get better sound playing cd's on a dvd player?

Reply #18 –
Quote from: krabapple on
Quote from: Wombat on
Quote from: dv1989 on
The additional resolution offered by HD or SACD audio is probably not audible to the majority of listeners, and it certainly cannot be preserved through a conversion to CD audio, regardless of what hardware the resulting CD is then played on.

Sorry, but that response even baffles me. ... SACD... "not audible to the majority of listeners" Who in here can state that?


once could cite the sample of Meyer and Moran  (2007)

http://hlloyge.hl.funpic.de/wp-content/upl...op-inserted.pdf

which of course has been discussed here before.


Making the point  again that when a HA regular thinks about a SACD or DVD-A sounding different than a CD his mind probably presumes that we're talking about the identical same recording being presented with different sample rates and bit depths.  Same mastering, same performance, same everything but sample rate and bit depth.

To the general audiophile, a SACD is simply any recording that comes in a box marked SACD, and a DVD-A is a recording that comes marked DVD-A and a CD comes in a box market CD. He probably thinks very little about whether they all came from the identically same mastered recording.  If the mastering is different the recording is going to sound different, since that is the reason to remaster the recording - make it sound different. We're talking intentionally audible changes to equalization and/or the use or non-use of dynamics processing. 

HA regulars generally know that there are many cases where the SACD or DVD-A of the same performances were mastered differently than the corresponding CD. This can be true even when the CD is just a separate layer on the same DVD as the SACD. I seem to recall that John Atkinson has documented this in Stereophile.

Will I get better sound playing cd's on a dvd player?

Reply #19 –
Quote from: andy o on
IIRC the DVD-V format allows for LPCM 96/24. Could that be where the confusion lies? But that's not directly to the point of the original question.


I understand that the number of  DVDs that were made that way was vanishingly small. FWIW I bought a Pioneer DV-525 partially  because it handled that format.

I currently own a sequel Pioneer *Universal* player and have a number of SACDs and DVD-As.

Will I get better sound playing cd's on a dvd player?

Reply #20 –
I have seen DVD players which have an option to enable 4x oversampling especially for CDA playback in the menu. I guess this is some kind of software oversampling before the signal is actually fed to the DAC (so it utilizes some of the abundant processing power of a DVD player). I wonder if there could be any circumstance where this would result in better quality output (e.g. non oversampling or bad quality DACs, but do such even exist today?)

Will I get better sound playing cd's on a dvd player?

Reply #21 –
Quote from: krabapple on
Quote from: Wombat on
Quote from: dv1989 on
The additional resolution offered by HD or SACD audio is probably not audible to the majority of listeners, and it certainly cannot be preserved through a conversion to CD audio, regardless of what hardware the resulting CD is then played on.

Sorry, but that response even baffles me. ... SACD... "not audible to the majority of listeners" Who in here can state that?


once could cite the sample of Meyer and Moran  (2007)

http://hlloyge.hl.funpic.de/wp-content/upl...op-inserted.pdf

which of course has been discussed here before.

Still, as not native english speaking person this sentense reads to me like some people, not the majority, can hear "better" and therefore find SACD sounding better.
Is troll-adiposity coming from feederism?
With 24bit music you can listen to silence much louder!

Will I get better sound playing cd's on a dvd player?

Reply #22 –
Quote from: Northpack on
I have seen DVD players which have an option to enable 4x oversampling especially for CDA playback in the menu. I guess this is some kind of software oversampling before the signal is actually fed to the DAC (so it utilizes some of the abundant processing power of a DVD player). I wonder if there could be any circumstance where this would result in better quality output (e.g. non oversampling or bad quality DACs, but do such even exist today?)


All DACs are oversampling now (64-1024x is typical), so theres no way you'd be able to compare this to anything, except maybe finding a 1980s DAC.  Of course, you'd probably find that the modern DAC works better, but thats no surprise

Will I get better sound playing cd's on a dvd player?

Reply #23 –
Quote from: Wombat on
Quote from: krabapple on
Quote from: Wombat on
Quote from: dv1989 on
The additional resolution offered by HD or SACD audio is probably not audible to the majority of listeners, and it certainly cannot be preserved through a conversion to CD audio, regardless of what hardware the resulting CD is then played on.

Sorry, but that response even baffles me. ... SACD... "not audible to the majority of listeners" Who in here can state that?
once could cite the sample of Meyer and Moran  (2007)

http://hlloyge.hl.funpic.de/wp-content/upl...op-inserted.pdf

which of course has been discussed here before.
Still, as not native english speaking person this sentense reads to me like some people, not the majority, can hear "better" and therefore find SACD sounding better.
And do you agree or disagree?
I wouldn’t presume to make a definitive statement either way. Terms such as “probably” and “the majority” provide one with a useful get-out clause.

Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on
Making the point  again that when a HA regular thinks about a SACD or DVD-A sounding different than a CD his mind probably presumes that we're talking about the identical same recording being presented with different sample rates and bit depths.  Same mastering, same performance, same everything but sample rate and bit depth.

To the general audiophile, a SACD is simply any recording that comes in a box marked SACD…He probably thinks very little about whether they all came from the identically same mastered recording.  If the mastering is different the recording is going to sound different…
Right on; I should have thought to include that caveat. Using alternative masters seems disingenuous to me, but it’s marketing after all!

Will I get better sound playing cd's on a dvd player?

Reply #24 –
Quote from: krabapple on
...one could cite the sample of Meyer and Moran  (2007)

http://hlloyge.hl.funpic.de/wp-content/upl...op-inserted.pdf


Which says:

"Now, it is very difficult to use negative results to prove the inaudibility of any given phenomenon or process.
There is always the remote possibility that a different system or more finely attuned pair of ears would reveal a
difference. But we have gathered enough data, using sufficiently varied and capable systems and listeners, to state
that the burden of proof has now shifted. Further claims that careful 16/44.1 encoding audibly degrades high resolution
signals must be supported by properly controlled double-blind tests."

Quote
Still, as not native English speaking person this sentence reads to me like some people, not the majority, can hear "better" and therefore find SACD sounding better.


I think that the quote above is a lot less ambiguous than that.

Note also that the paper above is based on comparing so-called hi-rez recordings to a *degraded* 16 bit channel:

"...the 16-bit noise floor of our A/D/A loop—which has no noise shaping and was therefore less than optimal in this regard..."

So here's the actual argument:

Lots of experimenters, not just a few have tried to find an audible advantage for so-called hi-rez recordings.

They've given the challenge a heck of a try.

They've all failed to find the hoped-for benefit.

Everybody knows that absence of proof is not proof of an absence.  But how much absence do we find before we begin to suspect that proof is going to be elusive for a long time if not forever?

To further quote from the JAES article:

"We have analyzed all of the test data by type of music and specific program; type of high-resolution technology;
age of recording; and listener age, gender, experience, and hearing bandwidth. None of these variables have shown
any correlation with the results, or any difference between the answers and coin-flip results."

and the historical perspective:

"The previous work cited, some of it at the very beginning
of the CD era and some more recent, pointed toward our result."

The findings of the independent study of psychoacoustics also predict the observed results.