Stereo vs 5.1 sound, AVR vs 2 Chn Amp, CDP vd DVDP

[Blue Floyd]

yessar, you are broadly correct. Some exceptions though are:

a) tubes, people like the colour that the tubes add, it adds even order harmonic distortion which is euphonic (ie sounds good), and makes voices sound more full bodied and textured, at the expense (sometimes) of treble detail and bass definition/slam.

b) other amp makers that tailor their sound in a particular way. Like the NADs are known to be very polite, there is a high frequency rolloff, which means that many harsher sounds are more muted, so you can listen to a a lot of crap recordings without listening fatigue.

Thanks psychotropic.
so in theory its right but practically it will never happen

 

[psychotropic]

hey venkat, Tripath amps are also Class D amplifiers.

And just to seek clarity, would you agree that it would be inaccurate to say that Digital (or Class D) amplifiers don't sound good?

BTW, Tripath amps are in different category called Chip Amps.

 

[venkatcr]

And just to seek clarity, would you agree that it would be inaccurate to say that Digital (or Class D) amplifiers don't sound good?

I have already corrected myself Psychotropic. These amps, if constructed well, can sound good.

Cheers

 

[ravin]

Very informative, but why stress ourselves when our goal is simply to listen to music and enjoy it.........HAPPY LISTENING!

 

[mcl123147]

Do we get audio recorded in 5.1?

 

[Santy]

Very informative thread.

BTW am I the only one in this forum who has a surround audio receiver (nothing to do with video) with Class D digital amplifier? The model is Philips LX600 purchased 4-5 years before. I was waiting to ask this query in a relevant thread, because after spending considerable time in this forum, I see members either own AVR or Stereo amp but not a digital Audio (only) receiver with 5.1 capabilities.

Anyway some useful info is given in the product brochure, pasted below: Warning: Its a promo by the manufacturer- may not be true and technologically it may be outdated!

6x Class D Digital Amplifier
When it comes to perfect audio there is no room for distortion. Digital amplifiers generate far less heat than standard analog amplifiers, allowing for smaller set enclosures. Philips Class D Amplifiers provide dramatically enhanced sound quality over digital amplifiers used by competitors as they are designed to control and reduce EMI (Electro Magnetic Interference). In addition, the Class D Amplifiers use a closed loop design which suppresses distortion and loss of audio quality. The overall result is enhanced audio performance from a much smaller package.

 

[Discibell]

This is one great thread that truely explain the purpose of stereo and av receiver.
Just to make it more colourful, i will like to add a little out of topic question.
Is there any big different of output signal between:
a) Using a media player like I-pad or Western digital as a source to play a lossless file like flac or wave file and transmit the signal using hdmi cable to a external DAC( that has hdmi input ).
b) CD player with build in DAC playing a CD.
This is more about modern vs old school style of playing music. Modern media players give us the convenience of source arrangement and management but whether the output quality can compete with the ever conservative CD player is up to the pros to explain.

 

[venkatcr]

Is there any big different of output signal between:
a) Using a media player like I-pad or Western digital as a source to play a lossless file like flac or wave file and transmit the signal using hdmi cable to a external DAC( that has hdmi input ).
b) CD player with build in DAC playing a CD.

I cannot think of an external independent DAC that has HDMI input. If you are talking about the DAC inside a receiver - well that depends upon the brand and model. If you take an AVR such as Denon 2311/Onkyo 667 etc, they have very good DACs and will sound better if they are made to decode and play. The higher the receiver the better the decoding and DAC capabilities. For example if you use a receiver from NAD, Anthem, Arcam etc, they will be very good for clean and good decoding and presenting the sound to you perfectly.

A CD player is a two channel device. In most cases you use it with a two channel integrated amp that does not have an amp. If you connect a CDP to an AVR, is general, you use the analogue output and set the AVR to stereo or pure direct mode. The point is here that you generally believe that the DAC of a decent CD player is good and take analogue out. If you are looking for a CDP with digital out, they are expensive.

Cheers

 

[audiowhat]

Very useful thread. Thanks.

 

[ambush]

But is there any info about the amount of error that low-end CD player picks up, compared to a high-end cd player. Wouldn't it be a very simple thing to measure?

 

[venkatcr]

But is there any info about the amount of error that low-end CD player picks up, compared to a high-end cd player. Wouldn't it be a very simple thing to measure?

It is not as much of 'picking up' an error as much as picking up the data correctly and sending it for amplification that make the difference. Low cost CD players have low cost components from the drive to internal electronics, to the DAC. A low quality drive can skip tracks. Low quality electronics could add noise to the data. A low quality DAC could do improper conversion.

A DAC attempts to create a sinusoidal wave from a series of stepped digital data. The more the data read, the more accurate will be the resultant sinusoidal wave. Cheap DACs compromise on this as well as the speed with which they do the conversion. More than measuring, you can actually hear the jitter with your ears as change in the speed of music, skipped words or blurred words, and sometimes the loss of a few milliseconds of music.

Cheers

 

[nandac]

>An AVR also has multiple tasks to perform. It has to decode the video, scale >the video, decode the audio, and send it to 6 or 8 channels. It has just one >power supply. So the power unit has to be ready to supply power to all the >6 or 8 channels of audio as well as the video circuitry. Even if an AVR uses >a good DAC, the whole circuitry is optimised for movies and not for music.

but my AVR has a two channel playback facility - which i think is specially intended for music playback. i dont think it will be that hard to program the receiver not to do video functions which the AVR is in the two channel mode or when it perceives that the input is CD instead of DVD.

also AVRs have multiple amps within them - which give you capabilities like bi-amping / dual amping etc - which a standard two channel amp doesn't offer.

 

[dillihifi]

The point is here that you generally believe that the DAC of a decent CD player is good and take analogue out. If you are looking for a CDP with digital out, they are expensive.

Cheers

Not quite. Almost all the CDPs be it the entry level Marantz, CA, etc have digital o/p. Further, the digital audio out is also present in all the mass market DVDps also where it is possible to feed the digital audio to the receiver for decoding.

 

[Joseph Verghese]

Hello,
I have a Nakamichi AV10 receiver,and its display is not working. Please some one can tell me where in India it can be repaired.

 

[beep]

Re: Why Stereo Speakers are better than 5.1 for Music ?

At the outset, I was comparing the laser drive of a CD player with that of a DVD Player. A DVD has a much larger number of pits that the laser has to read. Essentially, the laser of a CD Player has an easier task, and that is what I meant when I said it is optimised for music. I can give you detailed technical diagrams and information on the differences between the two if you are interested. The width of the laser beam, the motors used for moving the head, the track/sector information are all different.

In addition, though you may be able to make a CD Player by buying a ready made drive from Philips, Teac or other companies, many companies have started making their own drives to improve the quality. Companies such as Emotiva and Cyrus have designed from scratch their own drives, and believe me, these are far better than your run of the mill drives. Laser drives are NOT the same even for CD players. Though the technology could be the same, the way they are designed and built make a huge difference.



Have you heard of Class A amps? Have you heard of feedback mechanism? Have you heard of SNR? Have you heard of THD? Have you heard of decoupling? Have you heard of Op-amps? Have you heard of tube amps?

You are welcome to think that AVRs and technically the same as a stereo amps, but they are not. At the same price level, for music, a good stereo amp will beat the pants off any AVR. Just one simple statement. An AVR is not designed for music. It is designed for movies. Yes, since it is an amplifier, it can also amplify music source. But it is not meant to do that. Stereo mode and Direct mode just cut off the power to the video and other circuitry in addition to gimmicks such as shutting of the display, but the internal amplification design and implementation remain the same.

Power ratings (RMS or otherwise) mean nothing. The amount of power needed or used is a factor of the speaker specifications more than the amp. Most designers of stereo amps work hard to control the kind of sound that flows and with what power over the speakers.



Again this is a factor of the cost. In terms of channel isolation alone, you would get channel isolation is a stereo amp costing say 30 to 50K. To get channel isolation in an AVR you have to go beyond 1 or 1.5 lakhs.



Most stereo amps work ONLY in the analogue domain. They expect analogue inputs and their only job is amplification. ALL AVRs accept both analogue and digital signals. So they do have DAC circuits. Yes, the final amplification is analogue. But, it is an accepted fact that the more processing you do in a near-field, the more the chances of noise.



If it were so simple, why would Oppo spends millions of dollars designing a separate audio circuitry in their DVD Players? Just take the digital out from a Pioneer DVD Player, and compare it with the output of say a Marantz CD Player. You WILL hear audible differences in sound signature. I do this every day.

Cheers

Hi Venkatcr / folks,

Sorry i just noticed this thread.
So what exactly is chanel separation?
I thought that in an AVR, as in a Stereo amp, the analogue input signal to the one channel's amplifier is distinct from another channel's input signal.
Is that right? I hope it is.
Ok, so does channel separation have to do with some kind of multiplexing of the digital signals of the 2 (or more) channels prior to analogue conversion or sharing of the actual amplifier between 2 (or multiple channels), or is it plain interference from one channel to the other(digital or analogue signal or both)?
I would appreciate a precise answer. to help share this knowledge.


Cheers

 

[beep]

Not quite. Almost all the CDPs be it the entry level Marantz, CA, etc have digital o/p. Further, the digital audio out is also present in all the mass market DVDps also where it is possible to feed the digital audio to the receiver for decoding.

I agree, a digital out is probably the easiest thing to do....

Cheers

 

[beep]

Re: Why Stereo Speakers are better than 5.1 for Music ?

@Venkat:

I would state my position as follows:

We are not comparing a stereo amp costing 30k with an AVR costing 30k. If that would have been the case, the amp would win hands down. My point of comparison is the power rating. If two amplifiers have the same power rating, specified over the same frequency range and impedance and with same THD figures, they would sound the same. One can be a dedicated amp and the other can be an AVR. This assumes that the signal is not being modified by doing any processing etc. All this is, of course, in analog domain.

A stereo amp can still sound better even if all of the above conditions are met if it has better components. Again, that is not my point of comparison. The contention is whether AVRs are inherently inferior to dedicated amps. An AVR with same components as that of the dedicated amp will sound the same. It might be more costly than the amp but price is not the contention here.

Regarding DVD players vs CD players, my opinion is that if you are not doing any processing on the data from the moment it is read till it reaches the digital out, it should sound the same. That is the whole point of having digital data. Please note that I am talking about digital out and pristine CDs. A better DAC with excellent jitter correction will have better sound but that comes after the digital out.

Update: All this assumes that we are level matching to 0.1dB.

Well, I had asked a related question in a similar thread.
Bring in the price factor, and then, can we say that a high priced AVR (Onkyo NR-xxxx or NR-8xx) in stereo mode will sound similar(dare i say better) than a CA 650, for e.g.?

Cheers

 

[sdurani]

Re: Why Stereo Speakers are better than 5.1 for Music ?

So what exactly is chanel separation?

How little of one channel bleeds into another. Sometimes referred to as crosstalk.

I thought that in an AVR, as in a Stereo amp, the analogue input signal to the one channel's amplifier is distinct from another channel's input signal.

That should have always been the case, but sloppy designs in the past used to cause audible leakage from one channel to another. These days, crosstalk is so vanishingly low that the spec is hardly ever published for modern audio gear (except for gear associated with vinyl/LP playback, like cartridges, where channel separation is low enough to be audible).

 

[jagdish_p]

I cannot think of an external independent DAC that has HDMI input. If you are talking about the DAC inside a receiver - well that depends upon the brand and model. If you take an AVR such as Denon 2311/Onkyo 667 etc, they have very good DACs and will sound better if they are made to decode and play. The higher the receiver the better the decoding and DAC capabilities. For example if you use a receiver from NAD, Anthem, Arcam etc, they will be very good for clean and good decoding and presenting the sound to you perfectly.

A CD player is a two channel device. In most cases you use it with a two channel integrated amp that does not have an amp. If you connect a CDP to an AVR, is general, you use the analogue output and set the AVR to stereo or pure direct mode. The point is here that you generally believe that the DAC of a decent CD player is good and take analogue out. If you are looking for a CDP with digital out, they are expensive.

Cheers

Venkat: I will rephrase Discibells question.

Is there any big difference in Sound quality between:
a) Using a media player like I-pad or Western digital as a source to play a lossless file like flac or wave file and transmit the signal using Optical Cable to an external DAC?
Vs.
b) CD player with build in DAC playing a CD and connected to an Integrated Amplifier

Assume that the build quality of the external DAC is same as the CD player and the rest of the system Amp etc are common.
In short my query is: will the media player introduce any errors as I am given to understand that it does some processing of the sound signal?

Thanks

 

[captrajesh]

Re: Why Stereo Speakers are better than 5.1 for Music ?

As regards the amp, Iam thinking a good Onkyo AVR, if not for a dedicated stereo amp.

2. At a given price point, a Stereo amp would be way superior in SQ with its AVR counterpart simply because, the AVR needs to be provided with much more circuitry to do many of the things the Stereo amp doesn't do.

first point: probably Audyssey would help correct those inherent problems you just described.
Point 2: Thats why I was looking for a really good AVR, so that the stereo amplification does'nt suffer.

@beep, this is the thread that I was looking to refer. Hope you got the answer with regard to the differences with regard to Stereo Amp vs AVR. I hope this would help you in getting rid of some half baked information that was recently floating around in the forum.