It wasn't too technical... I LOVED IT!!! You explained it so clearly, now I actually understand it! Thanks so much.

Thank you very much for this explanation Paul! I have wondered about exactly this for a long time, but never really found an explanation that made me really understand. I get it now :)

HD 990 from Harman Kardon was a cd player with an HRS link to connect to the HK990 amplifier through it's external clock. For Jitter free playback, of course. That was in 2010, HK doesn't make anything up to snuff these days.

Would you guys recommended digital coax cable over digital optical cable. Thank you for your advice and great video.

Paul, One of your chickens here, but hate to burst your bubble. CD players from day one uses a FIFO buffer. Buffer fill size is what drives the disc spindle motor to keep the buffer about 1/2 full so data is clocked out with a separate jitter free clock. This is not unique to PS Audio. It is the industry standard. For those following along, look up dual port static RAM. The disk read clock is produced from the varying rate off the disk and feeds the buffer. The DAQ after error correction is fed from data clocked out jitter free. It's in the service manuals for almost every CD player produced.

I love it when you get technical. Who better to explain the intricacies of audio equipment?

AES/EBU outputs are used on very high end digital equipment such as mastering converters

Hi Paul. Loving the daily q&a session. I’m still learning at the age of 68. Never too old to pick up new tricks. It’s a shame I live in the UK 🇬🇧 as a tour of your building would be high on my bucket list. Now, in this video I can see a variac and a transformer, but what is that curious looking huge coil thing with the switches on top. I’ll bet it’s something obvious my old brain can’t comprehend. Apologies if that’s been answered already but scrolling through loads of previous posts makes my head spin. Cheers and keep on keeping on buddy.

@graxjpg

4 жыл бұрын

Robert Hall I believe that is called a toroidal transformer.

@marianneoelund2940

4 жыл бұрын

@@graxjpg Yes, it's probably at least a 2KVA toroidal transformer, and is most likely an isolation transformer so the tech can work on equipment more safely.

@chaeyoungshi

2 жыл бұрын

You're never too old to learn :)

its why optical has long been considered a poorer connection method, in that it requires a whole bunch of extra stages of conversion, as well as potential connection issues if you can't establish a perfect mate. However, if you are working with super long distances, or an environment where galvanic isolation is preferable then optical comes into its own.

Those chickens out there are just people that are deliberately trying to ruffle your feathers. We call them trolls in the KZread world. Keep up the good work Paul loving my AC line regenerator P600 power plant.

What I'm observing is the more sophisticated digital technology gets the more important analog signal handling techniques become.

I have mucho respect for yor patience Paul, forget all the haters. They hate because they don't act :)

It's also a dumb question because: 1. the laser light isn't in some path that would be reflected from the disc right down a tube, and 2. the amp. on the other end shouldn't have to process the raw optical data from the disc; that's the player's job, and 3. those optical connections are for more than bridging CD players to external amps; they bridge a lot of audio components to those.

Loved it!

This video motivated me to take my trusty "glass" optical cable out from its box and give it a go at it again... Then I remembered something when I saw green tape of one end which I had marked it with. I do not know how many already know this. Optical cable is directional. Try it both ways to see which sounds the better for you. I discovered this one day, and then Mapleshade audio did a blurb on it confirming that I was not imagining things.

The output from the laser reader also contains quite a few parity bits for error processing as well as the musical information. The bit stream is also not time sequential so quite a lot of processing is necessary to convert it to an audio signal. This is the main reason that digital audio is so free of random noise.

@oscargr_

5 жыл бұрын

machintelligence. The fact that it is not time sequential is in my opinion the best argument to show the signal at the optical output *can not* come directly from the pick-up head. If it was, the amplifier (or wherever the optical output was going) would need to have "decoding"

@machintelligence

5 жыл бұрын

Exactly.

@marianneoelund2940

4 жыл бұрын

SPDIF protocol and Red Book CD protocol are quite different. No SPDIF receiver can decode CD track data. *Red Book CD:* Audio Frame consists of 6 pairs of 16-bit stereo samples (192 bits) Audio Frame data is interleaved across several Physical Frames and then 64 ECC bits and 8 subchannel bits are added to complete each Physical Frame (264 bits) Each 8-bit byte of the Physical Frame is encoded into a 14-bit pattern (Eight to Fourteen Modulation or EFM) that can be written to the CD track while guaranteeing frequent On/Off transitions, and 3 "merging bits" are added to each 14-bit pattern. Then each of these track frames occupies 561 bits on the CD track. Finally, a 24-bit Time Code and 3 more merging bits are added to each track frame, making it 588 bits. At 44.1KHz sampling there are 7350 frames/sec which is 4,321,800 bits/sec. *SPDIF:* Basic data unit is a 32-bit subframe which contains one 20-bit audio sample, 4 header bits, 4 auxiliary bits and 4 status bits (validity, user data, channel status and parity). Auxiliary bits can be used to extend data resolution to 24 bits. Frames consist of at least two subframes (stereo) but can be larger for multi-channel data. Frames are organized into Blocks containing 192 Frames. There are no ECC bits added, so data integrity relies only on the Parity bit in each subframe. The protocol does not require time code to be added, but arbitrary information can be encoded into the user data bits. For stereo at 44.1KHz, the bit rate is 2,822,400 bits/sec, but other sampling rates are allowed, for example at 48KHz sampling the bit rate is 3,072,000 bits/sec. On the bus, bits are represented using Bi-phase Mark Coding.

Paul didn’t answer the question about sound difference. Short story. The integrated amp with internal DAC in my living room I bought in 1990. The CD player is only used as a transport. I was initially using a plastic Toslink so the salesman had me borrow a digital coax cable to see if I heard a difference. Once I realized what I was hearing it was easy to hear that the plastic Toslink was harsher. I always figured it was jitter introduced by converting from electrical to light and back to electrical. But I have no idea what modern Toslink sounds like.

A CD does not spin at 600 RPM but rather a variable spin from 200 to 530 with the highest RPM when reading at the center to keep bit density and bit rate constant.

@ThinkingBetter

6 жыл бұрын

60zeller Just expressing a fact. CDs spin at a variable RPM to maintain a constant bit rate. LPs spin at a constant RPM and that actually means a theoretical audio fidelity difference between tracks as music is more compressed closer to the center of a LP.

@60zeller

6 жыл бұрын

ThinkingBetter I know dude Just messing with ya

Never too Techincal Paul :)!

Well, the guy worded the question wrong; an optical connection in the audio component sense IS a digital connection. It's a digital connection in the sens of internet and telephony too.

Got the chickens cacklin'

Datastream stays constant. The disc RPM varies to accommodate this.

I run RCAs out of my cd player so I can utilize the cd player's dac which sounds sweeter than my avr's dac.

Lol Paul is really smart if we haven’t notice lol

i'm no chicken, however I want your speakers!

I got it, jitter free cluck.

Not to technical at all, Paul. ...exception for the part about the chickens. I’m still unclear on how PS Audio (de)muxes chickens. Does it involve a blender?

This may sound irrelevant, but I want to take this video as an opportunity to raise a complaint about Toslink terminals and connectors. They are so crappy to me and I don't understand why they desgined it that way, and why plastic? I'm engineer in the field of medical lasers and our F/O cables have much better build, especially when we talk about terminals and connectors. They are metallic, and in most devices the plug is screwed onto the socket, and they are pretty robust. I really don't understand why audio optical cables are designed in such an unreliable form.

Confessions of an audiophile; when is it released?

@normanbott

6 жыл бұрын

When it's finished, so says Paul. ;-) - I want a copy too.

@robhall2570

6 жыл бұрын

Me too. Can’t wait. But will it be available in the UK 🇬🇧?

Love the Chickens Paul

I have that same desk chair. Cheap Herman Miller rip off :) SPACE Seating Professional AirGrid

So , the anser is no , well it dose not bother me as my CDs are gathering dust

@scottyo64

6 жыл бұрын

shaun Send them to me i will glady take them off your hands

@brettspicer6463

6 жыл бұрын

Yeah so are mine I mainly play Flac and DSD

PUUUUCK PUCK PUCK! PUUCUUK!!!

Cluck cluck, bits are bits, cluck cluck! :D

Lol what a question

that's only absurd if you already know how the cd works. laser is optical, connection is optical, so why not? the real dumb question would be: can i clean the cd laser by blowing into the optical fiber? 🤪

Say it! Buffer! So no!

All I know is if you play a CD on a turntable it sounds like shit.

🐓🐓🐓

I came here to see chickens.

fairly smug, arntcha?

@graxjpg

4 жыл бұрын

salmonline fairly smart too, and correct fairly often.