No, that’s not correct. There are other audible differences between transports than timing ones. Some transports produce a more realistic image size, sound more solid, have better dynamics, deeper bass etc.
And I mean that most sincerely folks.
So you would class computers as analogue. I think that puts you in an extreme minority.
How exactly can a transport have (deliver, produce?) deeper bass, Pete? Seriously interested so this isn’t a facetious question.
It is worst than that, a S/PDIF signal with an embedded clock is actually nothing more than an analogue signal carrying digital information. This is in a continuous stream without a checksum recovery in the transmission process to ensure correct transmission of the data, without the ability for the receiver to request retransmission.
And in analogue circuits getting a square wave right, without any ringing or slew during the transition between the voltage level representing 1 and that representing 0 is hard. If there is slew on the transition then when a 0 becomes a 1 and vice versa can vary the timing on the recovered signal. And in this application timing counts.
Now if the CLK used to embed the digital could be provided alongside then the recovery of the transmission would be more accurate. But then you need a transport and DAC with a propertiary connection, as there is no standard. Sony & Philips, the S and the P in S/PDIF only wanted one cable, so compromised for this standard when it was developed circa ‘82
Who remembers the Cambridge Audio CD1 with a “Error” display?
Or the TAG McLaren DVD32R with external CLK sync connection to the AV32R processor?
So there is an analogue stage in a CD transport, it is trying to produce a square wave output.
Any improvement possible to the power supply generating this, will have an effect.
But, try it and listen. Plus make the change, but let the cable break in, and the electronics stablize, listen then after a while go back, sometimes the improvements in detail, reduced noise floor, transient response, control & space, are only realised & heard when you go back and they are then not there.
2 Likes
Absolutely… as said many times on this forum and obviously elsewhere.
Digital data is indeed expressed in two states. True or false or 1 or 0 .. When we use this data to convert into a continuous analogue form, we need to add time.
In audio data time is added to the sample data. Therefore there are three values for each discrete element of data stream being converted to a continuous stream… 1,0,t .
Therefore for accurate analogue reconstruction the time, t is as relevant as the 1 or 0. The t is added to the data to become the data stream.
In hifi audio the t is usually created in a streamer, CDT, DAB or DAT transport and or DAC .. and the accuracy and quality (phase distortion ) will vary from device to device, with lesser devices having increased phase distortion and increased noise floor between the discrete sample values in the bot stream.
Therefore we now have 1,0,t+noise.
This noise is in the time domain (not frequency domain) so we don’t hear it as analogue hiss or harmonic distortion, it’s in a format we don’t usually recognise as obvious analogue type noise, however it manifests itself is making the audio analogue reconstruction less accurate.. we hear this in the conveyed sounds sounding less natural or convincing.
Now you might say well my DAC has its super accurate clock and therefore is not dependent on input data stream timing. This indeed can be partly the case however in system engineering with connected systems noise from one system is added to the input to another… and because you have fed end system, say the DAC has been fed by by data represented by 1,0,time+noise , not all the noise can removed and so persists.. even though the noise between t instances can be significantly reduced.
Now if the audio data was kept in an inert file, or network data stream, where there is no time element, but just a sequence of data of 1 and 0.. so the t element is absent.. then the data can be stored, transmitted, encrypted etc with no loss with no corruption. It’s only when t is added to become a discrete digital audio stream do variables come into play (t+noise).. and this is around the area of analogue reconstruction in a CDT, streamer transport and DAC.
USB audio, SPDIF, AES and UDP (in some audio network applications) use discrete digital audio with t
FLAC, WAV, AIFF, USB file format and TCP (in most audio network application) use data with no t element stored, but implied.
Hopefully that has shed some light for those curious on why it’s not just 1s and 0s. and hasn’t confused further. 
4 Likes
Even Sony, right back at the beginning knew this. Their reference CDP-R10/DAS-R10 combination (there was some engineering…) has a dedicated sync from the DAC into the transport.
However, I do think we forget sometimes that as technology has progressed, the accuracy increases with it. I can’t remember the last time I ever saw or heard a sync issue over SPDIF, and that tends to manifest itself quite noticeably as there is zero error recovery once the data has been read from the disc.
We’re going to have to differ on the whole it’s all analogue, therefore the analogue rules apply. I think it’s far more likely that other more subtle interactions with dare I call it electrical noise are at the heart of larger differences along with the ability to recover the clock properly from the datastream. If you are just playing CD’s from your transport, then the transfer of electrical noise via a connecting cable can be reduced using optical if available, as optical has more than enough bandwidth for CD. If you have a good transport and DAC combination where this stuff is more sorted, then a powerline may have less impact, but part of a powerline’s construction is mechanical, so what impact could that have on a transport if the drive mechanism is quite sensitive?
1 Like
Yes, I was only commenting on the question on the digital output, but then you have to consider the mechanical process of the laser reading the disc. The laser is looking for the edges to determine when the signal becomes a 1 from a 0 and vice versa, any vibration or speed variation in this process can have a blurring effect,
I have adopted the same approach to all digital processing, as with analogue.
Good cables & signal paths, equipment and cable isolation, clean mains, etc.
But again, try it and listen for a while, then go back.
1 Like
To be clear, you’re saying that I class computers as analogue. I didn’t say how I would class them so unless you have some sort of clairvoyant abilities then I don’t know how you could possibly know. But I’ll tell you anyway. I class computers as digital devices. Why? Because they primarily use digital technology to function.
You’ve used my “of course it’s all analogue” quote out of context.
I went on to say:
It’s curious that you accuse me of being pedantic and then post something like this. I think you’ve been hoisted by your own petard.
1 Like
Through similar mechanisms as other pieces of kit. Microphony, type of internal cabling and the insulation used on it, the layout of it, interaction/isolation from the supporting surface, type and construction of output sockets, configuration of the power supply, susceptibility to external HF envionmental noise and noise on the mains supply etc. etc. All these things will impact in one way or another on the sound. That includes how deep you perceive the bass to be. The mistake I feel that many make is that “because it’s digital none of this stuff matters - it’s just 1’s and 0’s”. But apart from anything else (and it’s been covered already) you have to remember that a CD transport isn’t just something that contains digital components involved in reading the CD. There are other components too, a power supply for instance. If it was just the digital components then it wouldn’t work. As much as some people seem to like to believe that these things don’t affect the sound the reality is that they certainly do.
1 Like
You can watch many video’s on this, read loads on it and i am sure you will be non the wiser.
These days i am from the camp that a cheap well made transport will hold its own with a transport costing many thousands more and probably above.
Many after all use the same transports and circuit board as not that many new transports made these days to start off with.
So most of the time its just a fancy box and an over the top power supply.
I think matching the transport to the dac is far more important and can potentially make a small difference, by this i mean using an output from the transport that the dac like most, and in my set up, being able to sync the transport to my word clock.
So for me AES output and clock input that supports 44.1 / 75 ohm’s. Things like this seem to matter more in my system, rather than all the other transports i have tried.
I do recall working in a Computer Lab, working on Mainframe systems, early '90s and electrical connections between components, operating at high-speed and transmission line theory was being applied to the cabling. Impedance over the length of the cable, quality of connectors, materials used all a factor.
I did take some of the 75ohm coaxial cable and terminate it with RCA, as an early DIY S/PDIF cable between the digital output from an 80’s Sony CD player and a QED Digit DAC I had at the time. Much better than what was supplied in the box.
So Digital at high-speed becomes analogue like.
1 Like
I haven’t seen any videos on it. I have read lots of reviews where things like this have been talked about and they make perfect sense to me. But that isn’t really why I believe that transports make a difference. I beleieve it simply because I hear for myself that they do. If you hear differently then so be it. Unfortunately for me your conviction that they don’t matter doesn’t result in a cheaper transport sounding as good as our Moon 260D. I’ve tried it. So either transports do matter, at least in our system, or it’s a psychological effect and I’m imagining a difference. If that’s the case then of course you could also be suffering from something similar which makes you imagine no difference when there really is one.
This game is full of biases and some people are more susceptible to certain types than others. The only thing that really matters is that it sounds good to you and it’s not worth arguing about.
1 Like
That is all that matters to me. I do think it’s fascinating though that some don’t hear any differences and some people hear clear and obvious differences. Personally I doubt very much indeed whether it’s any kind of psychological effect. That’s just a lazy way out to try to explain something that’s physically (as opposed to psychologically) real and not understood IMO. The reasons why some people hear differences and others don’t are no doubt important and could have implications for all of us in terms of how we build our systems. So it would be nice to get to the bottom of it.
I was just pointing out that maybe its how the dac is designed more than the transport to why some might sound different.
Its certainly what i have found to be true, and given how a firmware update on a streaming board can upset the naim dac, i can certainly see how using different transports, inputs, etc, could also change things.
Plus now this is also a naim forum i guess most will be using a naim dac.
I have just found that with my dac you can chuck anything into it and it just deals with it and gives out the same.
You can easily find loads of videos on YouTube about transports, just search for it if you want
I don’t doubt you. This is what I would like to get to the bottom of, because it definitely isn’t true with our DAC. It seems counterintuitive that a DAC would sound the same with any transport, like a phono stage sounding the same with any turntable. It’s already been discussed but I believe there are perfectly logical reasons why transports do and should sound different. If they don’t with a particular DAC then something interesting is going on. Of course anyone can take the view, as some do, that all transports just sound the same. That’s something I can’t accept because it’s contrary to my own experience. I can accept though that there may be some DACS that diminish differences between transports and that is a different issue completely and an interesting one.
There is another (US based) site and forum which does have some interesting stuff on it.
However, pretty much invariably, whenever they test stuff they do so with testing tools, software etc. and, again invariably, insist there can be no difference between products X and Y (be that cables, transports, power ancillaries, even DACs, whatever) because there is no ‘measured’ difference of note. “It’s all just ‘1’s and ‘0’s…”
And yet whenever a poster dares suggest “…but when I listen, I can hear it.” the scoffing/vitriol by way of reply can be rather OTT…All seems rather tedious and unkind.
Much the same has happend here many times. Mains cables, like the Powerline, are a prime example. Those who believe that they are just a wire and so can’t possibly have an effect will often heap scorn and derision on those of us who do hear that they sound better. ‘Expectation bias’, ‘you hear a difference bcause you’re trying to justify to yourself the money you’ve spent’ and other nonsensical (and I use that word deliberately and justifiably) reasons are frequently given. Also the equally nonsensical notions of ‘it’s not scientific to hear a difference’ or ‘unless you can explain scientifically why there is a difference then you must be imagining it’. All these have been put forward in the past at one time or another and they no doubt will again.
2 Likes
Expectation bias is not nonsensical.
1 Like
Well yes and this is where it becomes tricky as personally I don’t think changing something automatically makes it ‘better’. Whatever the outlay linked expectations are.
But it can often sound different. It’s then determining if the difference works better for listener or not.
I tried a Tacima mains block a while back as I’d often read what a bargain it was for the change it brought. It definitely changed things, the system sounded sh..!
Stuck a £25 MCRU figure 8 mains cable on a 35 year old Philips CDP and it works wonders.
Put any mains cable you like on my TT, nothing changes.
A Powerline on a 102,180, 272, nait 50, easy and clear upgrade.
Atlas and Puritan power cables yes. A pricey VDH? Not really…