AC to AC supply

Baflar wrote: After all, it seems to work for TV.  People (like me!) who are using a CD transport and a separate DAC might benefit from a CD Upscaler between the two - or am I fundamentally misguided?!  In passing, I note that the new, and ludicrously expensive Chord Blu CD player has gone for a built-in upscaler.  Wonder if Graham thinks there might be an opportunity for new product development here...?..!

Since you asked...

I have a few CDs (shhhh ) and they sound splendid to me. They sound extremely coloured on any CD drive I've tried (but that was not an exhaustive test), but if the data is taken from them using Exact Audio Copy (ripped in otherwords) the resulting file is good enough for my ears. Quite enjoyable played back using Foobar2000 as it comes on my 'everyday' PC.

As regards all these highly technical alternative solutions, they will never interest me, but don't let me put you off spending.

Vinyl is so good yet occupies 12 to 13 bits of total dynamic range if compared. And often sounds better (to some) using a MM cartridge. Maths prove MMs peak at roughly 11.2kHz and then start to roll-off - but the highs are assisted by cantilever tuning (can't be anything else? Could be green Kryptonite I suppose) - and vinyl only ever does 25kHz (of audio that is) if you're really lucky.

CD does a total dynamic range of 16 bits, and does frequencies up to 22kHz absolutely perfectly (I used to try and argue differently to sell more phono stages, but as they say "the truth will out").

Now, if the 'new music' contains dog whistles and you want to have fun with the local dog population, then whatever turns you on...

Plus I know somebody has £2.5m of stock to turnover so has to try (I suppose by any means) and convince as many as it takes, to shell-out...

(I suppose I would too if I believed in all that tripe enough to have convinced myself to risk all. Been there, got the tee shirt, it shrank in the wash!)

Doesn't the Chord upscaler use bespoke programmed FPGAs for its processing?
Apologies if I'm wrong but I don't think that is Graham's thing.

After recommending a piece of kit it is disappointing when it doesn't deliver the improvement hoped.
Sorry it didn't work for you but at least you had the chance to try it.
I do think CD will always struggle to match well reproduced vinyl - & not only for a sweet treble quality.
Hopefully the Micromega CD player repair will help.
 

 

Hi Baflar, maybe I should have described my CD then things might have been more meaningful. In the distant days of fourfold oversampling my CD was well respected but much water has gone under the bridge since then. The improvement on mine was quite dramatic, maybe your ac is cleaner than mine as I live close to the winter hill transmitter (line of sight).