My most natural sounding DAC is inside a 1989 Radioshack / Memorex CD player.

[JasonM]

Many many years ago back in 1989 (I was 16) I purchased a CD player from Tandy, it was £200 reduced from £270, I remember handing the sales person the cash and he could hardly believe someone my age could afford it.

The player is a Memorex CD-6000, also called Radioshack CD-6000 in US, and I've kept this player all these years. I always thought the player was quite good as I also owned quite a good separates tape deck, back in the day I use to copy CD's for people to tape (this is before CD writers) and people always commented how good the recording were.

Anyway i'll cut to the chase. In my house I own some DAC/Amps also various other CD players including Pioneer and Technics, also Asus Essence ST and Creative Titanium HD sound cards. None of these digital sources sound as natural as the Memorex purchased all those years ago.

How to describe the sound, it's like it's unprocessed with no hard edges, yet all the sound is there and it's very relaxing to listen to, the sound is not colored it's just as you expect it left the studio.

I would love to find a DAC that produced a similar sound to how this old Memorex CD player does. Has anyone here have experience of natural sounding DAC's?

Also has anyone had any experience in changing the Op-Amps on an Asus Essence ST, as apparently this can produce a similar effect.

Edit. Just read this post back to myself and realise it was a slightly random thing to post, I was really trying to open a discussion on soft sounding DAC's

 

[9designs2]

Yes there are more natural sound dac/players/streamers. Typically they cost more and are of UK/European origin. So people will tell you all digital is the same and not worth spending a small fortune on. I'd guess the problems is here " including Pioneer and Technics, also Asus Essence ST and Creative Titanium HD sound cards" maybe these are all low cost all on one chip solutions that are all much the same.

I have my 25 year old original Linn Karik CD player, in a box under the bed!.. sounds natural and nice, it cost a lot back then but sounded great, to my then vinyl ears..... it's now easily beaten by newer and even more natural sounding kit. Good sound quality is very affordable these days, great or excellent is still very expensive, everyone has to pick the level they are happy with.

 

[hornetstinger]

How about Rega CDP?

 

[JasonM]

Yes there are more natural sound dac/players/streamers. Typically they cost more and are of UK/European origin. So people will tell you all digital is the same and not worth spending a small fortune on. I'd guess the problems is here " including Pioneer and Technics, also Asus Essence ST and Creative Titanium HD sound cards" maybe these are all low cost all on one chip solutions that are all much the same.

The DAC inside the Essence ST is apparently used in some quite high end CD players, the issue is more I find most digital sources a little hard edged.

Apparently in the early days of CD players there were some that produced soft / natural sound, apparently some of the early Sony's do this. If I look at the board inside my Memorex CD 6000 it's not even surface mount but maybe this is helping more the natural sound.

I keep looking at external DAC's but it's a question of what to buy, if you look at reviews even some of the expensive DAC's there is no guarantee of having the sound you want. I think a new business idea is a company should lend someone 10 DAC's for the week, then you buy the one you like best.

The best source I ever heard in my house was a Pioneer PL 570 turntable produced in 1979, I borrowed this for a week. I was playing some Beatles records that were pressed in the 1960's and the sound was amazing from it, totally organic sound. Unfortunately those vintage PL 570's go for around £700 on eBay.

 

[9designs2]

Comparing chips is largely pointless, it’s how they are implemented and the surrounding circuits. Then the very important analogue stages immediately after the chip. It’s here that the designers make the difference and the sound of each “DAC” or Steamer/CDP. That’s what you end up paying for, not the chip’s list price.

That means it’s best to go to a dealer and listen rather than try and compare online.

 

[tom_nieto]

Could you find out what the DAC is inside the Memorex CD player and look for another solution which integrates that chipset? I appreciate that they're not always directly comparable as there are a lot of other components inside, but it's a start.

 

[JasonM]

Could you find out what the DAC is inside the Memorex CD player and look for another solution which integrates that chipset? I appreciate that they're not always directly comparable as there are a lot of other components inside, but it's a start.

Someone did take some pictures of the inside of theres. The DAC inside the Memorex is a single Burr Brown PCM54HP.

https://www.audiovintage.fr/leforum/viewtopic.php?t=57673

Just had a quick search on the PCM54HP and came across this thread where someone picked up a Audio Dynamics CD-1000E for $15 that also uses the the same DAC and he's also writing how surprised he is about sound quality.

http://www.tapeheads.net/archive/index.php/t-17639.html

Someone also here discussing Burr Brown DAC's, and he's sounding similar to what I was thinking.

https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/why-do-i-always-like-a-source-with-burr-brown-dac

That means it’s best to go to a dealer and listen rather than try and compare online.

I kind of agree, however I think you need to listen in the home connected to your own equipment to really know if you like something. Also sometimes you can be tricked to thinking something is better and you have to sleep, then listen the next day to confirm you like it.

 

[tom_nieto]

Someone did take some pictures of the inside of theres. The DAC inside the Memorex is a single Burr Brown PCM54HP.

https://www.audiovintage.fr/leforum/viewtopic.php?t=57673

Just had a quick search on the PCM54HP and came across this thread where someone picked up a Audio Dynamics CD-1000E for $15 that also uses the the same DAC and he's also writing how surprised he is about sound quality.

http://www.tapeheads.net/archive/index.php/t-17639.html

Someone also here discussing Burr Brown DAC's, and he's sounding similar to what I was thinking.

https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/why-do-i-always-like-a-source-with-burr-brown-dac

They're a famous DAC manufacturer with plenty of kit containing them. You might be able to find something on the cheap from ebay or a second hand hi-fi forum to try out.

 

[9designs2]

Like I said compare spec and types of chips is pointless exercise, if you can't tell be using your ears because you might be tricked, what the heck does looking at spec sheets tell you? Your making this much harder than it really is.
Read some reviews of well regarded kit that suggests it has the type of sounds you like. If you looking at older kit, I'd suggest Marantz, Arcam, Rega, Quad, and Linn, these all looked to make music in a smoother way than the run of the mill Jap stuff.
In my view Delta Sigma was always a smoother sounding than multi bit Burr brown. Again depends on the implementation and surrounding circuits and analogue output stage, but that's just because my Linn Karik sounded better than everything else back in the day.

A modern Ifi DAC sounds nice and the Nano is a bargain.

Look for well reviewed kit, not the chips inside, your wasting your time otherwise.

 

[nightrider1470]

I thought all DAC's sounded the same? And it was all the same as cheap hdmi cables vs expensive

 

[nightrider1470]

@lucid ^

 

[9designs2]

I see nothing has changed or moved on while I been away playing with cars

 

[Dr.EM]

You're hearing something quite different to a modern DAC in your old CD player. Your CD player contains a non-oversampling DAC (NOS DAC) running at a native 16-bit depth, in fact the DAC chip itself is so un-integrated that it accepts parallel data input having first been read as PCM from the CD itself and converted by external components. A modern DAC, and this really is ANY modern DAC, uses a delta-sigma process of typically greater than 1-bit (3-5 bit is common) and a huge oversampling rate, plus the front end of the highly integrated DAC chip includes an interpolating filter, a form of up-sampling creating additional sample points between the real ones which makes the task of filtering out-of-band frequencies in the analogue domain easy. These chips only ever accept a serialised data input, although this is pretty inconsequential, it's simply much easier for the chip designers to work this way and manufacturers implementations of them can be made reliably well performing by following simple guidance from the datasheet.

On your DAC, you require external circuitry to produce the parallel data input, the timing of which must be very accurate since a skew between any of the 16 inputs results in some error/distortion. The output then needs a steep analogue filter, likely an active 8th order elliptic topology, compared with most modern DACs which thanks to their oversampling techniques only need 2nd order, sometimes less, cutting out a very expensive piece of circuitry since a steep filter requires accurate/matched components. So you're maybe getting the impression that your old DAC is in fact more of a high-end part and the modern converters technology choices are mostly cost driven, yours certainly cost a great deal more than most modern converters. In reality, it's probably a bit of both, you'd certainly never squeeze out any practical 24-bit converters in the fashion of yours whereas modern ones almost always are (not that analogue performance is so high as this suggests) and due to this they produce SNR numbers well in excess of 96dB and with the oversampling the analogue filters need produce very little phase shifts, but most your sources are likely 16-bit and absolute phase isn't particularly audible, so I can't draw you any conclusions, this bit of old kit may well sound excellent.

DACs certainly do not sound the same, there are massively more variables than with a digital cable, this is a converter and mixed domain processes are the most difficult to do well! Anyhow, enjoy your DAC, there is also something to be said about playing a format at its native rate, a lot of PC based playback may up-sample from 44.1kHz to 48kHz and this process can be carried out with quite variable levels of elegance, sometimes grossly audible, try Foobar hosting SoX resampler and outputting using WASAPI.