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HT Stuff: A digital connection B/T CD player and receiver makes a HUGE diff!

MichaelD

MichaelD

Lifer
Wow. I got a new CD player (Sony CDX-335 a few weeks ago) it took me 4 days to load my 263 CD's in there and title them all. Since then, I've not had much time to give it a critical listening session.

I connected it w/a Monster Cable Toslink. Wow! What a diff! My old Kenwood 5-disc changer was connected with RCA's. Granted, they were Monster Cable as well, but still RCAs.

The diff is very noticeable. How do I explain this...the high-end isn't higher, but it's CLEARER. Cymbals crash, sizzle and gradually die out in the background, instead of crashing and then vanishing. Hope that makes sense.

One thing I really do miss is having the signal go thru my 31-band EQ before getting amplified...I really liked that, but unfortunately, when using any digital connections, the preamp loop (tape loop, actually) is taken out of the process.

What a diff, though. This has been my warm-fuzzy contribution of the night. 🙂
 
Not sure if you can contribute the change solely to the optical link...i mean, it IS a new CD player compared to your "old" kenwood.

I like my toslink connection between my dvd player and receiver...but i'm a little annoyed that i can hear a slight crackle when turning up the volume control.
 
I noticed only a very slight difference between my AR RCA cables and either of my digital connections...I *think* the digital connections had a slightly better higher end response, but that's about it. I think you're hearing the difference in the CD player more than the cables themselves.
 
I can almost guarantee you that your 31-band equalizer was responsible for the most signal degradation. Unless it cost > $1000, it probably wasn't of very high quality. The S/N ratio and flatness of response (even with all dials set to center) on non-professional, sub-$1000 equalizers suck a fat one.

RCA is NOT the limiting factor, especially if they're gold plated high quality cables. I have a decent $1500 Rotel amplifier connected to its Rotel pre-amp via RCA (it's all ultimately piped to a pair of Paradigm Reference Studio/100 speakers, perhaps the best sub-$5000 speakers money can buy) and it sounds super-sweet.

You'll notice I'm using price to gauge quality...in most cases, when dealing with audio, you get what you pay for.
 
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