with a good precessor, does a $1000 DVD player make much difference than a $100 one?

[minye]

I have been wondering this question for a long time. If I use a good processor or decoder/ DAC, is there any big difference between a $1000 DVD/CD player and a $100 one?

[orgasmdonor]

I just bought a Denon dvd 1920 new for 350 shipped from crutchfield. Has dual burr brown dac's. Made a huge difference in my audio and vidoe quality compared to my 90 dollar pioneer I had as my "good" dvd player. You get the Denon and you wil not have any worries...it's an awesome machine. And has the capabilities of future growth.

[topspeed]

Absolutely, without a doubt, unequivocally...

maybe.

The transport will almost certainly be far sturdier and less prone to vibration in the more expensive player. There's also a good chance that everything leading up to the dac's will be of higher grade as well, and while I can't scientifically tell you why they make a difference, all I can say is that my personal experience is that they do. The video side will of course have much better scalers and vid processing on the more expensive player (at least I would hope it would!), as well as faster load times, better buffering, more storage, etc.

[minye]

what I mean is that I already I have good processor (like my Lexicon) which does a perfect work of decording and D/A convert. The DVD playerls job is only read the optical disc and transfer the 0,1 streams to the processor through digital output. I always think that even a $20 CD ROM drive of a desktop computer can read CDs and install softwares without a single bit error. And there must be some buffer in the processor before decording or DAC in order to cover the error retry while there is reading errors. And there should be same error correction mechanism in the cheap DVD players. So I don't quite understand where is the Big difference.

[Feanor]

what I mean is that I already I have good processor (like my Lexicon) which does a perfect work of decording and D/A convert. The DVD playerls job is only read the optical disc and transfer the 0,1 streams to the processor through digital output. I always think that even a $20 CD ROM drive of a desktop computer can read CDs and install softwares without a single bit error. And there must be some buffer in the processor before decording or DAC in order to cover the error retry while there is reading errors. And there should be same error correction mechanism in the cheap DVD players. So I don't quite understand where is the Big difference.

Apparently this is an old debate: how much difference does the transport make. (I assume we're talking purely music, not video). The only transport function is to pass error-free S/PDIF to the DAC. So what are the possibilities that the transport will screw up I'll admit I don't understand what's involved very well

First the transport must read and pass on the bits as recorded: what are the possibilites here? As you say, the $20 computer CD ROM seems to do this fine so why do we need an expensive audio player. But note that the downstream computer software can have error correction routines that somehow correct the errors, perhaps by re-reading the source recording.

Secondly I think the transport has to get the timing right, that is, not cause "jitter". I note that timing is somehow encoded in the S/PDIF signal output, but I don't understand how this works. Downstream DACs can correct timing errors introduced by the transport and/or digital connection, but again, I don't understand how this works.

For my part I don't know whether a better transport might help, but my pure guess is that the most difficult work is done by the DAC.

[minye]

You guys understand me, right? I am wondering the advantage of the digital tech. is to store and transfer the information easy and acurate. It can kill the interfering and keep the original looks....

[N. Abstentia]

Will there be a difference? Yes. Will there be a $900 difference? No.

Having a lighter wallet is the main difference..other than that.....a $1000 player will have a better power supply. If you're bypassing all the internal DAC's there goes most of the cost right there.

I've seen plenty of $1000 Denons that quit working just like $100 players. The difference there is it's certainly easier to replace a $100 player, and both players will just as obsolete in a couple of years. No difference there.

In the end...get the player you can afford.

[minye]

Haha!

N. Abstentia. How are you doing with your HT room?

[N. Abstentia]

Haha!

N. Abstentia. How are you doing with your HT room?

It's DONE! Other than blackout curtains for the door..but other than that it's done

[EdwardGein]

The sound of the $30 DVD player connected to the $1,000 receiver is going to be like a $1,000 suit worn with $30 shoes. You can't make chicken salad out of chicken you know.

[musicman1999]

minye

are you not concerned about video quality on your dvd player.That is the big difference in dvd players between cheap and expensive.Audio differences would be subtle at best,depending on your associated gear.
thanks
bill

[minye]

I believe there should be error correction routines in the CD\DVD players. Another example is the portable CD players. Nowadays, most new portable CD players have so called "electrical anti-shock" function. The player reads and save the bitstream in the playing buffer. If any moment, there is a shock or interuptiong of reading, it does a retry while it doesn't interupt the playing side, because it is sending/playing the data saved in the buffer at any moment.

I think picking up the 0,1 data and passing it to output at 1X speed is not a difficult job since a $20 CD ROM can do it well at 40+X speed.

So can I draw the conclusion below?

1. Don't buy expensive DVD players because you always use Pre-pros or Receivers to decord and D/A convert to get 5.1 or 7.1 channels. So spend the money more on Pre-pro or receivers. ( I would like to try the $30 DVD player, like last Christmas in Futureship, which can play lots of computer file formats....)

2. If you want to achieve HIFI stereo result,

a. buy expensive CD player that builds in HiFi DAC which is good enough beat your Pre-pro, and use its analogue output and a 2 channel pre-amp and a power amp.

b. or buy HiFi DAC and use it with cheap CD players

[minye]

Yes, the video is the difference.

I just can't figure out the audio differnce scientifically based on their working principle.

[musicman1999]

topspeed has it right.

bill

[EdwardGein]

I think alot of you people believe in the Easter Bunny I'm spotting a lot of mass induced hysteria here of feeling the need to agree on things so as not to be ostracised. There will be a huge noticeable difference in audio between a $30 DVD & a $250 DVD player etc. Here's some proof there is no Santa Claus: If there was no difference between audio on cheap DVD players & more expensive ones, this would have been written about in plain print in some national magazines or media. I'm daring anyone to come up with something that was. It hasn't been written because this simply doesn't exist Just like there is no proof of intelligent life on other planets here. Wishful thinking does not make things true. You're not back in Kansas anymore.

[musicman1999]

ed

read your last post,so i thought i would conduct an experiment.I have the Stargate collectors edition dvd,that has 2 discs with different versions of the film but both with 6.1dts.I put one in my Cambridge Audio 540d dvd player(about $500.00 cdn)and the other in my playstation2.The dvd player was connected by Ixos digital interconnect($90.00cdn)and the playstation by a nowname optical($30.00cdn)both to my Cambridge audio 540r reciever.I watched the opening credits/main theme on the playstation first,then the Cambridge.The resultsn audio the cambridge had a slighty better midrange,highs were extended somewhat and the bass was a little tighter. Bear in mind that was running through $5,000.00cdn of Jm Labs speakers and wires and i have a good ear.On an average system,the average person would probably not notice the difference.On video,thats another story,the Cambridge killed the playstation2 totally.
Better dvd players are better,but for video or analog audio,not so much for digital audio.
thanks
bill

[Feanor]

I think alot of you people believe in the Easter Bunny I'm spotting a lot of mass induced hysteria here of feeling the need to agree on things so as not to be ostracised. There will be a huge noticeable difference in audio between a $30 DVD & a $250 DVD player etc. ...more.

Let's be plain: in this context we are not (1) talking about video quality, nor (2) the unit's build in DAC -- an external, downstream DAC will be used.

So maybe you're right: maybe, used only as transport, a more expensive unit is better. Please explain the principles involved. Allusions to Santa and the Easter Bunny don't cut it in this critical company

[kexodusc]

I think alot of you people believe in the Easter Bunny I'm spotting a lot of mass induced hysteria here of feeling the need to agree on things so as not to be ostracised. There will be a huge noticeable difference in audio between a $30 DVD & a $250 DVD player etc. Here's some proof there is no Santa Claus: If there was no difference between audio on cheap DVD players & more expensive ones, this would have been written about in plain print in some national magazines or media. I'm daring anyone to come up with something that was. It hasn't been written because this simply doesn't exist Just like there is no proof of intelligent life on other planets here. Wishful thinking does not make things true. You're not back in Kansas anymore.

This comment baffles me...Ed, forget that there's no magazines revealing the DVD player myth (if there is one) - consider that there are no scientifically valid studies that prove that a difference in cables, or even higher-end amplifiers will contribute to improving sound quality, yet you seem to readily accept those concepts as fact.

So you assume because a magazine or newspaper doesn't write that it's false, it means that it's true? That's a big leap of faith. In the case of optical cables, digital signals, amps etc, we have hundreds, if not thousands of test results vs the absence of print in media. What's more valid?

One would think the companies that sell these products should be able to provide some evidence to support their claims that could stand up to reasonable scientific scrutiny.. The fact that they haven't been able to do so despite being asked for this evidence for decades now certainly isn't encouraging.

Now, I have my own beliefs (owning several amplifiers of different pricepoints and a bunch of cables of various grades), but, I'll be the first to admit that the media not revealing a fact in print doesn't mean that fact is any less true or false. I hope that's not all you base your decisions on.

[EdwardGein]

First off I was referring to the fact that I have never seen one magazine or newspaper article where someone has said the audio sound of a $40 DVD player will sound as good as a $1,000 DVD player attached to a good receiver with good speakers because all that is being produced is identical 0's and 1's, Nada.

A few months back, I posted a pretty good article from an online magazine where the guy stated unequivically that when you are connecting a DVD player by optic cable to a receiver, you will be getting better & hearing better audio sound from the better DVD player as sound is more then 0's and 1's, its the cables and players and receivers interpreting those 0's & 1's.. If I have some time, I'll try to find it on here.

[minye]

Thanks Bill for the experiment. That is the result I am expecting. I have a Pioneer Elite DV-34 DVD player (MSRP$1000) and I use Lexicon DC2 processor. I couldn't tell much difference in audio over my $100 Samsung DVD player. The picture really got greatly improved. And also the analog CD output.

Normally when we setup the surround HT system, to watch movies, we always use digital output to the receiver to get 5.1/7.1 channels instead of only get 2 channels. So I am thinking, if we don't have a good, big TV, spend more money on the receiver/processor or other components before investing in DVD players.

[EdwardGein]

You made a good point which I overlook in reading alot of these posts that Joe Schmoe off the street who isn't a fervant gung ho collector of CD's might not notice differences that serious collectors & muscians/producers et. all would notice, and I'm guilty of overlooking that. A perfect example is my brother in law who just owns a couple of CDs & has a really low end home theater system. I've tried to talk him into upgrading his stuff but he says it will all be lost on him anyway, as he really isn't that aware of audio differences & doesn't care & is such a casual listener this isn't important too him. So I'll basically ammend all my previous posts concerning digital type equipment & cables, saying that for the casual listener, yes there probably will not be a noticeable difference what their hearing if played on equpment 10X more expensive & better. Good point Musicman.

[westcott]

musicman,

I merely supplied the link because I thought it may be the one that was referred to earlier.

It does have some relevance to the audio comments made earlier in that a cd player merely is a digital device. It you pass it digitally, you do not need a dac in your cd player. Either the player reads the data or it does not. It does not change or convert anything. rpm fluctuations or any other perceived affect is mute. Either a cd player works or it does not using a digital out.

Now if want to discuss dacs and passing analog signals out from the cd player to a digital AV receiver, then that is a different topic and one that seems pretty backwards to me but we wont go there.

[Cal Blacksmith]

Excuse me, if I may, I look at this from a different angle. I have chosen to go with a HTPC as a source for my Home Theater. I take the audio out of the sound card by way of optical digital cable and feed it into my receiver for de-coding into DTS, THX, ECT. I take the video signal and feed it through a dedicated tuner/scalar card to get output for my projector. I watch the image on a 108” screen and the quality of the image is stunning, near HD quality from a standard DVD. This is all done with a “cheap” PC DVD drive.

I used to have an inexpensive DVD player and I can agree that the audio (taken from the player with a optical digital cable) when played back through the same receiver and speaker setup was quite good. The video on the other hand was markedly worse. The player was not up to the task of reading the disk fast enough and producing a quality output to keep up with a HD projector. There were video dropouts, especially in fast action scenes and overall the quality of the video was fair at best, not to mention that my high quality VHS player is totally un-watchable on the projector. It does a very good job on the 32” TV but when enlarged, I would rather have sand ground into my eyes than watch it.

I do believe that the difference in stand-alone players comes down to the quality of the transport and quality of the decoders that are built in. It has been my experience that with better players comes better quality video. The audio did not change much if at all.

[westcott]

It has been my experience that with better players comes better quality video. The audio did not change much if at all.

On the video side, you will notice from the link I provided the names of the video processors inside the different DVD players. As pointed out earlier, a lot of vendors use the same hardware but improve or modify what was origially manufacutered or programmed by someone else. Faroudja\Sage\Genesis\Silicon Optics all come to mind.

This is where video processors differentiate themselves from one another. How well they implement the standards set out for flag reading, scaling, cadence, and other video challenges of conversion. Some mfgs go to great lengths to make the video better, and others do not. The strange thing is is that price is not an issue. It is just the willingness of the brander to go that one extra step further to provide a quality product.

P.S. video software for HTPC's have a long way to go to match the performance of dedicated DVD players. They are listed at the the very bottom of the shootout!

[musicman1999]

I think we all would be better off if we stopped using the term better than or worse than.Audio and video quality varies from person to person.We all hear and see differently.Many people reach the point of "it's good enough for me"and have no interest in improvement,although they probably don't visit here.We live in a world of mp3's and htib's,those people are interested in quantity,not quality.Slap a digital tag on it and people will buy it,if it's better or not.Me i'm old school,my cd player,like most good cd players,is connected by analog not digital.It has a far better dac than my reciever.There are only 2 reasons to hook a cd player by digital,if the processor has a better dac or you have an outboard dac and then you connect it by analog.
sorry for running on.
bill