Will buying a CD player even make sense for my setup?

[rikhav]

Currently i have plugged the Marantz to the wall outlet and using it to power them. I am not sure, if this should go to my isolation transformer. This unit already has an SMPS power supply and am uncertain about how much an isolation transformer would be helpful here. Any suggestions?

The player can operate between 100v to 240V 50Hz/60Hz as per the label on the back near the power input. Looking at the schematic of the SMPS, it does not look very basic and has some very sophisticated circuit implementation imo.

IME, any source component (Transport, DAC, dedicated CDP) has always reacted the most with any power cord or power source change
Like I dedicated a phase for my music setup and changed power cable of my DAC

So I would suggest you surely try powering the marantz by the isolation transformer

 

[Hari Iyer]

until its a Oppo or Cambridge audio Universal Disc player.
.

I have not heard both the opportunity or CA so won't be able to say for certain. Any particular reason why you feel the Marantz cannot be used as a dedicated CD player. Educate me.
Thanks,

 

[Naturelover]

Hi, the dedicated cd player is a better choice rather than buying a blue ray player or dvd player until its a Oppo or Cambridge audio Universal Disc player. for your cd u can always keep them in a digital format in HDD and play that through the HTPC.

The Marantz UD7007 is a universal disc player, not just a blu ray player. UD stands for Universal Disc.
https://www.us.marantz.com/us/products/pages/ProductDetails.aspx?CatId=BluRayDVD&ProductId=UD7007

 

[COOLDUDE7808]

i have been using this for more than 3 yrs now ..its a great player and will play all the cd's ...even those which are badly scratched ...only negative is that u will need to plug it to a TV screen to play MP3 and other formats

 

[sunand777]

Its a superb player with great detail and scale. also very good analogue stage too,

 

[spirovious]

Yes I think so. But the opamp used in the analogue stage are basic though OP 295 of analogue device in differential stage and a JRS opamp in LPF stage. Transistors used are KEC. None are audio grade. Coupling capacitors are Electrolytic too as per their service manual. All these can benefit by appropriate audio grade components upgrade.

All can be tried after warranty .
Regarding bass,it need some hours to settle down.
It will be interesting to know how can you compare UD7007 with earlier marantz dedicated cdp you had.

 

[blackscorpio]

how does it compare to a oppo 103, anyone?

 

[Hari Iyer]

i have been using this for more than 3 yrs now ..its a great player and will play all the cd's ...even those which are badly scratched ...only negative is that u will need to plug it to a TV screen to play MP3 and other formats

Yesterday I played some MP3 using the usb. I did not have any subfolder but copied some 20 odd mix songs on the root. If you do that then you can skip the TV and play it like a normal CD.

 

[Hari Iyer]

All can be tried after warranty .
Regarding bass,it need some hours to settle down.
It will be interesting to know how can you compare UD7007 with earlier marantz dedicated cdp you had.

The bass issue now is resolved. I bypassed my preamp which is used to switch source like TT, tape deck and cd player. After this the bass resolution is spot-on and tight. It's very interesting to note that more simpler the setup more you tend to gain.

This player has a dedicated discrete opamp buffer in the output stage using some 20 odd transistors and passive components. Marantz call it HDAM- - Hyper Density Amplifier Module. My version is SA-2. They claim having a discrete opamp buffer helps it to increase dynamic range, open soundstage, reduced distortion. It uses a current feedback ( not voltage) and this opens up the nuisance in the music and makes it close to original recording. They have used carbon film resistors instead of metal film. They have mentioned in their site that they have arrived at the choice of components for this circuit after countless listening to real music timber and tone at their research center at NL & Japan and have mentioned not to do any modifications of these ckt ( this is said especially for people like me). I shall respect their wisdom and leave them as it is.

 

[Hari Iyer]

how does it compare to a oppo 103, anyone?

I can atleast say that price wise they don't compare. The oppo cost twice than the Marantz currently.

 

[rsponline]

I am still not agreeing on thing that if you have SPDIF DAC then quality of CD player SPDIF output matters.

As all of us know that audio signals sampled , digitised and stored in CD (compressed to get stored in MP3 like formats).

When CD players transports it to SPDIF format it is digital to digital conversion in well defined protocol. If there is problem with this conversion then it will completely mess up the digital data and we might see significant hiss in output. Sound signature should not change.

Please let me know if i miss some basic information here.

 

[amit11]

I am still not agreeing on thing that if you have SPDIF DAC then quality of CD player SPDIF output matters.

As all of us know that audio signals sampled , digitised and stored in CD (compressed to get stored in MP3 like formats).

When CD players transports it to SPDIF format it is digital to digital conversion in well defined protocol. If there is problem with this conversion then it will completely mess up the digital data and we might see significant hiss in output. Sound signature should not change.

Please let me know if i miss some basic information here.

This is the first and general impression bcos we are already used to usb data, network lan cable data and even wifi data. So spdif thing sounds absurd.

So i did some reading. But surprise came during actual experiment. And then the understanding came after deeper reading, about spdif protocol and especially how it is transmitted.

If we compare sending audio via network and sending audio via spdif, the difference lies in how it is transmitted. Forget hiss and missing bits. Those are not the issues.

Taking example of a song with 44.1 khz vs 48 khz vs 96 khz.

In network cable or usb or wifi, the network protocol sends data very very fast. All will arrive at the destination nearly same time and they will get buffered and the actual player software will pick data from the buffer at the required speed and play. This is how network protocol works. It sends only data.

However in case of spdif, since the resolution of song is different, the data bits and bytes will be sent at different speed matching with the khz.

So if the transmitter speed is not accurate or is drifting in between, the receiver dac gets impacted. Note, we are talking about speeds at the nano and pico second level. That's why slight differences are usually found between various equipments. Also note the data arrives intact, however if it arrives slightly early or slightly late, the sound gets changed. Bcos if we visualuze the sine curve, it gets bloated if data arrives late and it gets shrinked if data arrives early. A bloated sine curve vs a shrinked sine curve will have change in sound signature. Imagine so many curves getting twisted in various ways and at various timings hence sound signature is different.

 

[rsponline]

This is the first and general impression bcos we are already used to usb data, network lan cable data and even wifi data. So spdif thing sounds absurd.

So i did some reading. But surprise came during actual experiment. And then the understanding came after deeper reading, about spdif protocol and especially how it is transmitted.

If we compare sending audio via network and sending audio via spdif, the difference lies in how it is transmitted. Forget hiss and missing bits. Those are not the issues.

Taking example of a song with 44.1 khz vs 48 khz vs 96 khz.

In network cable or usb or wifi, the network protocol sends data very very fast. All will arrive at the destination nearly same time and they will get buffered and the actual player software will pick data from the buffer at the required speed and play. This is how network protocol works. It sends only data.

However in case of spdif, since the resolution of song is different, the data bits and bytes will be sent at different speed matching with the khz.

So if the transmitter speed is not accurate or is drifting in between, the receiver dac gets impacted. Note, we are talking about speeds at the nano and pico second level. That's why slight differences are usually found between various equipments. Also note the data arrives intact, however if it arrives slightly early or slightly late, the sound gets changed. Bcos if we visualuze the sine curve, it gets bloated if data arrives late and it gets shrinked if data arrives early. A bloated sine curve vs a shrinked sine curve will have change in sound signature. Imagine so many curves getting twisted in various ways and at various timings hence sound signature is different.

Thanks for explanation Amit. I did not realised that there no "buffering" mechanism over here as it is not file data . All processing is online and delay matters here.

I think i need to do real experiments with different CD players to see practical impact of this.

 

[arj]

a CD storage cannot be equated to an MP3 of simple 0/1 ( thats the difference between a Yellow Book and a Redbook standard).

A CD is not based on bits but on Bytes ie a series of 0/1 and there is redundancy built in. The cd player reads all the words and puts it in a buffer and then uses an algorithm call Reed Solomon error correction- RS ECC, to make a PCM format. This PCM format is an interpreted 0/1 file along with Timing information (hence the importance of a clock- the MP3 is just the data file where the timing is also encoded as data). BTW the RS ECC format creates its own data when there are inconsistencies hence the quality of the sequential read by the CD lens is crucial.

This data is sent along in the SPDIf format along with a clock signal. Any misread of data or any loss of synchronicity with the clock and you have jitter creeping.

 

[rsponline]

it means products like this makes sense

https://ifi-audio.com/products/spdif-ipurifier/

 

[rikhav]

If the spidif interface on CD transport as well as DAC is well implemented then no need of such devices

Agreed they work in most cases , but while improving few things it also compromises few aspects as well

 

[arj]

There could be benefits but there is also a tradeoff as you always lose something proportionate to the complexity of the chain. you are better off spending that amount to upgrade your equipment,

 

[vinyl]

Currently i have plugged the Marantz to the wall outlet and using it to power them. I am not sure, if this should go to my isolation transformer. This unit already has an SMPS power supply and am uncertain about how much an isolation transformer would be helpful here. Any suggestions?

The player can operate between 100v to 240V 50Hz/60Hz as per the label on the back near the power input. Looking at the schematic of the SMPS, it does not look very basic and has some very sophisticated circuit implementation imo.

I will suggest to try powering by an isolation transformer. Isolation transformers help a lot in providing a cleaner power supply, which in turn helps the connected equipment to function in the way it should and isolation also enhances the longevity of the connected equipment. But RF and EM filters should be avoided, as they interfere with the audio quality. Isolation should take care of RFI and EMI.