Equipment

SOUND ADVICE

Many of the people who argue, sometimes with good reason, that vinyl is THE ideal format for music listening are often motivated by a long standing hatred of CDs formed in the early days of digital (ca. 1987-1997) due to the poor quality of the low-end options available at that time. Mastering for the CD was then poorly understood and affordable high quality digital-to-analog converters (DACs) only became readily available with the improvements in DVD players for home theater systems. Once volume and space standards were established, the products available to all listeners sounded far better than MP3s played through a 1/8” cable or a vinyl turntable bought in a clothing store, as we see today.

If you already own an amp with a pair of speakers, possibly even a turntable, and want to take advantage of your sound system to create a musically immersive experience, CDs are the way to go. You have a range of affordable choices at your disposal, but you need to take the time to research and choose what will work best for you.

The key element in the chain is the DAC, where the 1s and 0s are transformed into electrical pulses, much like the wiggling of the needle in the groove creates an electrical signal in the magnet of the cartridge, or like the shifting pattern of iron particles on a cassette tape induces electrical impulses as it passes over the playback head of the tape recorder. All of these systems will amplify the initial signal thousands or even millions of times for listeners, which is why the fidelity of the original conversion from the start produces a much better sound at the other end. A poorly taken picture can’t be magnified to the maximum without losing quality and accuracy. Here is a profile of the DAC through a series of consumer choices.

INTEGRATED DAC OPTION:

On a day-to-day basis, any major brand DVD player made in this century is going to sound as good as most turntables sold on the market today, especially if we factor in the poor quality of many vinyl reissues. While not the best, Pioneer’s products set a rich standard for the market, just as Technics had done for turntables and Sony did for the portable tape player. You can expect professional sound from their DVD players and their DJ equipment doesn’t miss a single detail, even if the final product has little finesse.

INTEGRATED DAC TIP:

DVD players on the market do not need a remote control to play CDs. If you find one through a friend or family, on the street or cheap at a garage sale, you now have an easy to use, quality tool.

EXTERNAL DAC OPTION:

When a sound is digitized, there is a component that is responsible for taking in the wave-like electrical signal on one side and outputting a series of 1’s and 0’s on the other side. Afterwards, this series of “yes” or “no” choices is captured in short phrases, and translated back into an electrical signal. Paying a little extra to guarantee the quality of the result at this extremely important moment is often not a luxury but a necessity. When you listen to CDs without compromise, you are immersed in the sound and have no choice but to listen to more and more.

When you play a CD in a DVD player, the DAC is the component found in the player that outputs the signal through the rear RCA jacks normally used to connect the device to your amplifier. But often DVD players designed for home theater systems offer other output choices, such as optical or coaxial. With the purchase of an external DAC, we can connect these unfamiliar cables on one side and output the music in electronic signal on the other. And if your computer or lap top comes with a DVD player, you can also connect to an external DAC with a USB cable, or you can buy a new external DVD player at a low price. In all these cases, the physical drive only does the reading and transfer of the digital data, so the quality of the DVD player has much less impact on the final results.

The sound of an external DAC is much softer on the ear than the blaring sound of the DACs built into low-end DVD players. This effect extends the listening pleasure and the additional hours are embellished by a presence, by silence, by the richness in detail. In addition to having the chance to add a computer to enhance our digital streaming experiences as much as possible, we can also add a screen to make a home theater. A true Swiss Army knife of sound!

EXTERNAL DAC TIP:

The resale market for digital devices is exploding, and you can find great values at clearance prices right now, mostly because people of a certain age now want to downsize. They’re buying small, good quality Bluetooth music streaming systems these days to replace their older fancier systems that they paid good money for in the 2000s and 2010s. The classifieds sites are flooded with these older devices: external DAC players still compatible with compact discs, and CD players of reputable brands (e.g. NAD), all offered for the price of a regular meal in a restaurant.