Michael Prescott, Jr. I have a blu spec cd of Anri’s 1982 album Heaven Beach, I got it from amazon. Do you happen to have any blu-spec cds of Japan city pop albums?
I can't tell you how many college courses I had with guys like this as either my professors or lab instructor. Highly knowledgeable guys in their specific field of expertise. Always interesting to soak up info from these guys. Chemistry, Biochemistry, Genetics, and Biology instructors come to mind. Never took any electronics courses, but in general.
Japan has done quite a bit of experimentation with CD's over the years, trying to improve upon the medium, or find some way to get better sound from them. There was SACD, of course. I also remember CD's made with a glass substrate, instead of plastic. This let the laser read the information on the disc much more accurately, and was claimed to improve sound quality considerably. Unfortunately, the glass substrate discs were priced at $200.00 each. I also remember seeing a review for a very obscure little device which was simply a little black box that you put the disc in, closed the door, pushed a button, and viola! Better sound from your CD. The way this worked was that the box had an ultra bright xenon bulb inside, which flashed a 'brighter than the Sun' light onto the information side of the disc. This was supposed to "burn off" any leftover residue of the mold release agent used in the manufacturing process of the disc, some of which might obscure some of the pits and lands on the metallic surface inside. This, once again, was designed to let the laser have an easier time of reading what was on the disc, and was claimed to improve sound quality. Now, we have the Blue (Blu?) Spec CD, which once again is an attempt to give the laser an easier time of it. Hmmm. I seem to detect a theme emerging... Perhaps if we combined all of these techniques, we could produce the 'Ultimate Compact Disc'. This would be a Blue Spec. disc with a gold information layer, a glass substrate, and would be pre-treated to remove any mold-release residue from the information layer. It would be encoded as an SACD with DSD encoding, and would retail for "only" $999.99 per disc, with a sound quality to die for!
Hare deLune iirc some of the glass cds were sold around 1k-2k USD back then. Multiple claimed that they were the best sounding CD of all time. I seriously doubt that to be true.
There were also "special reflecting" decals you could apply to the top part of any CD that supposedly enhanced the reflection rate of the mirror component of the CD. And there were the "weight rings" youy HAD to apply to every CD to increase the rotational mass of the CD and therefore stabilize the rpm (what happened if you didn't precisely center those rings only makes you (and the disc) shiver). Bottom line of all these aftermarket "magic" products: the designers and engineers at Philips and Sony where total idiots who somehow stumbled into approximately the minimum requirements to make it work and aftermarket companies had certified geniuses who "corrected" these blatant mistakes the designers and engineers obviously made. Can a medium like CD's, DVD's and lasers be upgraded? With the modern material technologies I'd say yes they could. Would it make much of a difference? Possibly, but only if all components were to be upgraded, so better materials for the CD/DVD, better lasers, better processors and better DAC's. Would it be worth the cost? Probably not, but then you are on the thin ice that is the upper range of high end audio, where improvements are more like tiny (think in the % or even 0.x % range) differences some people like and others dislike.
@@HareDeLune No, their prices kept increasing over the years. Chinese collectors you know, you could hardly find any Japanese buying records from Japanese auction sites. All Chinese bidders.
I haven't tried Blu-Spec CD yet, but I have tried SHM-CD and SHM-SACD, not to mention XRCD, and various gold CDs. I will say that all of those tend to sound better because they tend to use better remastering and they go to great lengths to acquire original master tapes to work from. They put a lot of care and precision into their products. Now SHM discs often just use the best available digital remasters that may have already been released elsewhere. I have an SHM-SACD of the Police's album Synchronicity. I also bought the original SACD release of Synchronicity from 2002, I think , done by Bob Ludwig. (Sorry, I'm not at home to verify this, I'm just going by memory.) Now both of those discs use the same DSD transfer, but I always thought the vocals were a bit low in volume on the original SACD, yet the SHM-SACD has restored them to their glory. I have no idea whether or not they did anything to boost the levels, but the SHM-SACD does sound considerably better to me. I have no idea if there is something technically superior about the plastic they use to manufacture the discs, which is something they claim, but the discs I have bought, probably 50 or so, do sound impressively good. Have you tried SHM-SACD or SHM-CD yet, Paul?
I happened to be wiping the dust off the top of my computer when that happened and I had to replay that part of the video to be sure it wasn't my system having a problem. Kinda freaked me out for a second!
Almost the same, but one was developed by Sony, and another by JVC. Same principles on yhe polycarbonate layer that allows the lasers to read discs better.
When they say 8X oversampling isn't that were the read error correction takes place so if it needs much less error correction wouldn't that mean its more accurately read?
Hi Paul, love the laid back stye of these videos, regarding the blu spec cds just to confuse the issue there are 2 versions of them, blu spec and blu spec 2, the 2 being better by my ears, would in the future would like you to revisit this with a clutch of them and the give use you take on them, some to listen to are mainstream artists such as Bob Dylan, Michael Jackson, Sade, Simon and garfunkel and Paul Simon, but not Graceland, say safe Paul.
There’s actually an issue with the ones I have, the blu spec cd I have of Anri’s Heaven beach sounds compressed with too much clipping, and the channels are reversed, while the older one isn’t really compressed with better dynamic range and it’s quiet.
Blu-ray discs support up to 32 different bitstreams for primary and 32 bitstreams for secondary audio, 16 MB for tertiary audio clips used in menu and button sounds. Bitstreams support any number of channels (mono, stereo, 5.1, 7.1 and more) using PCM, Dolby and DTS formats. There is support for 96 and 192kHz audio sample rates. (There is no support for 44.1 or 88.2). Not confined to the red book standard. Learn something everyday! Love your work.
Hi Paul! First let me thank you again for accommodating my very early in the morning visit to PS Audio last September... The tour and listening experience was truly amazing! Now today's subject. One of the reasons I first started listening to your videos years ago was to get your assessment of the Blu-Spec, K2-HD and SHM-CD "enhanced" compact discs. I have purchased several of each type of enhanced discs over the past few years. This is what I have found: First, when comparing to standard CDs the differences vary depending on the actual music and the particular method of enhancement. Generally, I would say that the K2-HD are the most noticeably improved, closely followed by SHM-CD and not so closely, the Blu-Spec. Having said that, one of the most incredible recordings I have is The Paul Simon Songbook on a Sony Blu-Spec CD. I have probably two dozen SHM-CD CDs. Of those some sound essentially the same as the standard CD. The SHM-CD CDs that really stand out to me are Mussorgsky's/Ravel's "Pictures At An Exhibition" performed by L'Ochestre de la Suisse Romande, The Platter's "Best Selection", Led Zeppelin's fourth album (particularly Battle of Evermore) and Emerson, Lake and Palmer's first album (particularly Take A Pebble). )BTW, "Take A Pebble" was one of the tracks I listened to on your IRS V's. Listening to that track on your speakers was a very emotional event for me!) To sum it up, these "enhanced" CDs can sound much better than the standard version -- but they can also sound hardly any different. I really can't say why there should be a difference. My research shows that these enhanced discs using a higher quality polycarbonate disc with a more reflective substrate and of course the higher frequency laser. I suspect though, that the greatest reason for the difference is that in all three enhanced methods the music is remastered. For reference I compared enhanced to standard CDs using a pair of Magnapan1.6i's, driven by a Denon PMA-100, 100th Anniversary, stereo integrated amp being fed by a Marantz KI-SA cd player. Thank you Paul. I am happy to be part of the PS Audio family at-large.
You're (correctly) describing the engineering definition of 'jitter' whereas most of lay public think this word refers to the ticking noise you hear on damaged CDs. Bear that in mind when you get asked about jitter. I have no idea what these blu spec CDs are, but one thing that might aid in actual jitter reduction is an easier time of correcting spindle speed. CDs read data at a constant linear velocity, 44.1k*16bit, and to do that they have to have a variable angular velocity - the disc must constantly change speeds as it reads the data, starting at the inner hub and working towards the outside. When reading the inner hub, the disc must spin much faster in order to have the same linear velocity under the laser. As it works its way towards the edge of the disc, the motor must gradually slow down - and gradually is the key. As you correctly point out, the clock in the unit is what's doing all the timing, and there is a small data buffer to smooth out the somewhat fluctuating data read rate from the disc, caused by the subtly changing motor speed, so that the DAC is fed a steady stream of uninterrupted data. Because of this balancing act between the transport's spindle motor, various feedback or PLL circuits designed to regulate motor speed, etc., it's not implausible to surmise that making the data stream easier to read for the laser could help things out. Thing is, that's going to be an incredibly design-dependent benefit if there's any at all. It'll have to be a certain type of CD player with a certain chipset or design that will see some sort of improvement, if one exists. Then there's this fact - just rip your CD to a full .WAV file and play it back through a high quality media player, and you've circumvented the whole need to improve the disc playback in realtime and with the spindle speed issues it presents. When you rip your disc you can be very certain you've read every bit off the disc correctly if you want to - and a streaming player doesn't have to deal with synchronizing a motor during playback.
CD players have small buffer in Servo/CD decoder unit(chip) . Without it there is no error correction. More modern CD players that used CD-rom/DVD-rom have even bigger data buffers. There are other companies that uses data buffers to store information and send data stream with precision clock timing, so I think PS audio is not only one. Do you send master clock from your DAC unit to transport unit, and use it as slave device in terms of clock base?
Even if you don't hear a difference, maybe it's worth buying it as a replacement to a scratched CD. Since it is made of better materials, it will resist disc rot much longer. Maybe not to replace them outright because it's better, but to replace them because they are damaged.
I can't find any material claiming lower jitter. But when they speak of errors in the burning process, it seems unlikely to me that that would mean mistaking a 1 for a 0 (and that would have nothing to do with wavelength); more plausible is that the positioning of the lands/pits on the disc is more accurate. Spin it, and I think that would translate precisely into reduced jitter. Now, whether the effect would be sizable compared to other sources of jitter, I have no idea - I think you'd have to be a CD engineer to know. My suspicion is no. Sony's engineers are no joke, so my impulse is to give them benefit of the doubt. But given that they also made SACD and that SACD has a much wider following than BSCD (lol what an abbreviation!), it would seem that it didn't convince listeners...
On the error of cds Quote "Error Correction A typical error rate of a CD system is 10^5, which means that a data error occurs 20 times per second. About 200 erros/s can be corrected. Sources of errors: dust scratches fingerprints pit asymmetry bubbles or defeacts in substrate coating defects dropouts Objectives for error correction powerful error correction capability for random and burst errors reliable error detection in case of an uncorrectable error low redundancy => CIRC satisfies these criteria " Source www.cs.tut.fi/~ypsilon/80545/CD.html You can read on the different error correction types and how they work in difference scenarios.
If the source material for releases on blue spec cd's is put through a higher quality base mastering process to begin with that might also be a big part of there perceived higher fidelity listening experience,, ,, are there any changes in the materials themselves used in the optical storage media itself ? basically a higher quality optical media mastering technique that reduces the the need of error correction..
You pay for Bluray player to play video, i.e hardware and licensing. If you buy a CD player, all the money goes in to playing CDs, which is what you want. I would never buy a DVD player for the same money as a CD player to play CDs. Also, the disc drive is just one component.
@@Baerchenization depends on how much you paid for your Bluray player, mine cost me £700 so I'm quite happy to use it to play Cd's, Dvd's as well as plus its the only way I can play the multi-channel layer on a SACD in 5.1 surround.
Easy to test. Take your Blue Spec CD. And make a CD-R copy. When blue laser were used to make the stamper for your Blue Spec CD in the CD production plant. You have the data (music). Make a CD-R copy of that data. Now your CD-R copy has NOTHING to do with the use of Blue laser in the manufacturing process! 👍 What you have is a exact copy of the Blue Spec CD. That means that it is the same mastering, mix and the same loudness as your Blue Spec CD. (You can do a bit compare on your PC between the discs.) Those mentioned things can and will have a greater sonic impact and will fool someone to think that a CD pressing of the same album sounds not as good as a blue spec CD of that album. When it is actually the difference in mix, mastering and or loudness that is perceived. So compare the sonic of your 2 discs now and you will not be able to hear a difference. 🥰
I've always found that playing a CD in a BluRay or DVD player sounds better than on a regular CD player. Often a CD that has skipping flaws will also play on a BluRay or a DVD player where it fails miserably on a standard CD player. I can only assume that this is because a BluRay and DVD player both have a higher sampling rate capability than a standard CD player. Saying this I have some hi-end CD players that sound fantastic but they still have trouble playing a damaged disk.
velocity = frewquency X wavelength. velocity is the speed og lifhgtrs, 186m000 milpes per hours, and constans. frewuence has to go up as wavelengths getsm smallers. Shrterr wavelegntsh i slike Gammg or cosmics rayes, they are deep penatratings , IONIzeings, and causes cancers. Dr. Scholls assistand hands fell apart from the X-ray he was playign arounds withs. THKES YOU ANDS THUBBMS UPS!
WRONG we have "jitter" on a CD! I have worked and developed CD test equipment for 10 years. That supplies test equipment to CD producing plants and CD drive manufacturers so they could meet the red book standards and their limits (orange book also for that matter). We measure the length variations of each type of length, of the pits and lands on the CD. That variation of length we in the industry of manufacturing CDs call "Jitter" and is a measuring parameter of its own. That is for example presented in a histogram. So when Paul talk about jitter and CD manufacturers talking about Jitter, then they refer to TWO completely different things! (Yes, we have timing on the CD when the information is scanned in a constant speed (scanning velocity) from the start to the end then the length of the pits and lands will go by the laser in that speed and we can determine the length of that pit/land. By measuring how long time it took for it to pass the laser. That is critical measurements when a to long length of a pit/land can and will be miss read as a longer type and vice versa for a to short one.) Keep up with the good videos. 🥰🎵🎶
Rip the audio in a CD-ROM (or DVD-ROM or Blu-Ray) drive. In order to function, they have to be able to read the data with zero errors by the time it makes it to the CPU. Store it in a lossless format. Play it back on a studio quality DAC with a solid clock. Problem solved.
str1xt - yeah, of course it’s different. The errors that were present in the conventional CD player’s output are absent from the CD-ROM drive’s output. Personally, I prefer to listen to what’s in the original data stream, rather than the error-compensated version spat out by the standard CD playback architecture; but, well, your ears, your choice...
Great example of snake oil marketing. The jitter of any modern digital system is a non-issue as a DAC clock is what matters for jitter and getting that precise is trivial with today’s components. If you worry about data errors in your music, Blu-spec CD is not the answer surely. A smaller scratch can cause more data damage on a Blu-spec CD. Much better for that issue is to stream your music from the internet or using a NAS drive.
Blu-ray pure audio is an exact copy of the original masters, so way better than DSD which is not lossless. DSD is reduced from PCM which is just small enough to fit on a SACD,, where as a blu-ray can hold 35GB so it can hold the fill master tracks at 24bit 192hz.
blu spec cds sound pretty good to me.if a new cd format comes out,i will buy one or 2 to see how they sound.i havent heard a silver disc audio format i didnt like.
It depends, if the master they used and remastering they have for the release are crap then even SHM-SACD are going to sound like crap. In my case I bought Earth, Wind & Fire Japanese singles collection and sonically, it's all over the place from loud and hot mess to wide sounding detailed and even have some warmth to it. Weirdly I quite liked this particular BSCD2 release. Have all the band's vinyl singles releases in 2 CDs is very convenient and cost effective and frankly amazing idea, they even threw in a bonus DVD with music videos and new concert footage never released on home media before. There's no denying try to search and buy all the 45s can get very expensive and then you have to digitize it yourself with varying degrees of success and quality.
I have a couple shm sacd’s and also have the same sacd’s on analogue productions. The shm discs do sound better but could just be because of better mastering.
Just as high-res flac files are supposed to sound better than Redbook (CD quality) flac files, and almost without exception the high-res flac files sound no better... well, the Blu Spec will have that same issue. Why? The main problem for why so much digital content sounds lacking, is due to piss-poor mixing and mastering at the record companies. You can take that song and increase its sampling rate to the moon, and have NASA design a Star Trek, Borg enhanced laser, and all you will end up with is a very, very accurate reproduction of bad sound. If you take a photo, and it is blurry, you can display it on a $50 monitor or a $50,000 monitor, and it will still be blurry. The record companies give us "blurry" music (compressed and over-processed). So that photo of the song "is" what it "is", and no player can make it what it should have been if properly produced at the record company. So in the case of the Blu Spec having better sound quality... well, it has the potential to sound better, just as a higher sampling rate has the potential to sound better. But if the record company provides a so-so sounding digital file that is used to create that Blu Spec CD, then you will simply have a more accurate copy of that so-so sounding song. In the rare case where the record company actually made an amazing sounding digital song, then the Blu Spec version should sound better. But why go down that road? Why get into trying to get a better way to play the CD medium? If you purchase the same song in a flac format, and you save that purchased, downloaded song to a solid-state disk (SSD), then you can choose which transport you would want to use to read that flac file and send it to your DAC. And since the song is stored in a file on a SSD, the accuracy of reading that file will be perfect, without exceptions. Also, you can make copies of your flac files, just as you would do for any important computer files. And you will never "misplace" your flac files. Admit it, you lose your CDs (is it in the livingroom, or the car, or did I lend it to whomever?). Did I scratch the CD? None of this is a problem with flac files, and you can manage all of your music with a good application, and not have to constantly get up to change disks and be limited to what is on the disk. Lastly, with flac files, you can get the one that sounds the best. Trying to do that with a CD is not really doable. Two examples: 1) This version (track #1) of Aqualung is not good: us.7digital.com/artist/jethro-tull/release/aqualung-steven-wilson-mix-4444694 Whereas, this version (track #2), released 8 years earlier than the above, albeit not perfect, is noticeably better: us.7digital.com/artist/jethro-tull/release/the-very-best-of-jethro-tull-72133 2) This version (track #8) of Annie's song is not good: us.7digital.com/artist/john-denver/release/definitive-all-time-greatest-hits-570727 Whereas, this version (track #38), albeit not perfect,, is noticeably better: us.7digital.com/artist/various-artists/release/free-fire-original-motion-picture-soundtrack-explicit-6503488 (and the above demos are streaming mp3 files -- the purchased flac versions, that run locally on your hardware, sound better) So if your Blu Spec CD was sourced from the worse sounding files, then they will simply not sound good. Folks, if you have a good stereo, and you want it to sound better, then aside from spending a suitcase of $$ upgrading your stereo, if you work at finding better sources for your musical content, it will make your current stereo sound 3x the price. Also, a better stereo will result in revealing more of how bad of a job the record companies do with their mixing and mastering. Find better sounding releases of your favorite songs. It takes some effort, and there is not always a better version available. But when you land better sounding versions, it is wonderful. Cheers!
@Jingle Nuts "it works"? Please define "it". Yes, you can upsample to the moon, and you will have a higher res file. If that was your goal, then it works. Yes, you can save it in any format. If your goal was to change formats, then it works. If your goal is to make it sound better than what a properly mixed and mastered recording would have sounded like, then it does not work. Yes, upsampled digital content can sound more pleasing. It adds a somewhat euphoric glow to the presentation. And although that does, in many cases, sound pleasing, it does not sound natural. It might seem like it sounds natural, but that is only because you do not have an actual natural, properly produced high res file for an A/B comparison. Nothing beats getting it right from inception to completion. Performing upsampling "fixes" is not a realistic way of producing quality content, and does nothing to fix compression, double-voicing, auto-tune, improper stem gain, bad and unnecessary equalization, etc. Upsampling will not put back the dynamics that were drained by the record company. Upsampling will not widen the soundstage that the record company either removed or never recorded. Upsampling will not help you hear the drums that the mixing engineer decided should be faint and buried in the mix. If you like to upsample, then by all means do so. It is not my intention to convince anyone not to do so. I have upsampled songs and like how some of them sound. But if the record companies did their core function properly, then upsampling would not even need to be a consideration. You can win the lottery, and have a dream stereo in a dream home with a room designed for the ultimate sonic experience. And all of it is at the mercy of the crappy mastered songs that are available to us. There is a reason that high-end shows never play hit songs. There is a reason that high-end shows always play Tinkerbell music that no one is familiar with. It is because they find obscure songs that were recorded and mastered properly, and choose them over hit songs that people love, because those hit songs, almost without exception, are all poorly mastered. Imagine how great it would be to have those hit songs also have sound quality to match.
@Jingle Nuts I am not familiar with wavelab. It is my understanding that once a music is compressed, you cannot return it to its uncompressed state. Yes, there are dynamic range expanders, and they will add dynamics to the sound. But those dynamics will be artificial; they will not be the same as having a good original that was never compressed. A long time ago, I had a DBX model 3BX 3. It added punch on-the-fly. For that singular purpose, it did its job. But it ruined the music (long list of reasons). However, I understand that it is not the same as using wavelab to modify the file. If I were to hear a wavelab demo before and after it is applied to a song, and I liked it, then I would use it. But short of that, I am tired of experimenting with fixes. I stick to finding the best sounding source material.
@Fat Rat Some (not all -- some) measuring devices can measure better than our ears. But only for that which they are designed to measure. The problem with some folks is that they believe and are convinced that the measuring equipment measures everything that our ears measure. Another problem is that many measurers do not use the most important measuring equipment: A quality and professionally set-up stereo. So they never hear what their measuring scopes tell them is not there (but it is there, if they only listened on a quality and professionally set-up stereo). It does not even occur to them that the actual stereo and their ears are measuring tools, too. So their measuring gear gives them a readout that does not jive with what their ears would hear on a good stereo. But they never hear that good stereo, and therefore never understand that there is something wrong or missing with their measurements. If more measurers would also listen on a quality stereo, then they would know that something is missing from their measuring tests, and they would devote their time to identifying why their ears do not agree with their measurements and they would hopefully take a deep dive into what is missing from their measuring tests. And let's not forget about the trolls. Some people who cannot afford a good stereo make themselves feel better by knocking quality stereo equipment. They think that by getting the public to believe that people with good stereos wasted their money, then that translates into them (the trolls) being smarter than the people with the good stereos, and that the people with the good stereos do not really have good stereos (because it is snake oil). It helps the trolls reduce their own envy, by way of labeling good stereo equipment as snake oil equipment. Since the good stereo is not really a good stereo, then the trolls are not really at a disadvantage. If the trolls were to win the lottery, I am confident that their position would change 180 °. Without delay, they would go out and buy a super system, and would flash it all over social media, and sing its praises. No longer would it be snake oil. Yes, there is snake oil out there, and it is a cancer on this hobby (fraud exists everywhere). And when trolls learn of a scam, they run with it and associate everything as a scam (because it is out of their reach). So they tell us that expensive (fill in the black) is snake oil, based on measurements, while never measuring with their ears.
So do blu ray players as transports have better lasers in them? I have a dac that has a i2s hdmi input. Its a denafrips pontus. I know the ps audio dacs use i2s inputs as well. Can anyone confirm if using a sony x700.. X800 sony 4k ultra players work as a transport. It has 2 hdmi outputs. 1 for video and 1 for audio. These players also do sacd.have ldac codecs for Bluetooth. Blu ray & dvd audio. If these players can decode sacd and cd over hdmi out and the dacs i2s inputs can read them. Im bout to pull a trigger on one. So any help would be awesome guys Thanks
They are not i2s from hdmi unfortunately but I use my 2 sony bluray as transport I've put a linear psu on my UBP-X700 which improved sound n picture. sacd and got a dolby atmos hans zimmer disc goin though my pioneer av amp sound amazing.but my sabre es9038q2m dac with home built speaker blows the pioneer away for sound quality
@@markclancy5371 i guess i dont know exactly how it all works. I know the denafrips dac has like 8 settings to see if it picks it up from the i2s since theres not a standard in that. I guess i could still buy one and use digital out but dont think it will send sacd over digitals outs. Thats why i was wondering if the hdmi sound out output could be picked up by a i2s dac. Like ps audio or denafrips that has that input.
@@markclancy5371 so your telling me the hdmi out on these players thats the hdmi 2 out thats for high end music can't be picked up by a i2s dac? Youd save me time and money confirming that. It still is great transport though. And the dac in the sony is prolly damn good. I know it has dsee engine and all that installed. So its a very capable machine for music and movies
I don't fully understand i2s will have to read up.but by all accounts there a Chinese board you can get to plug in the sonys or oppo hdmi output to convert it but looks abit of work involved will see if I can send you a link it's interesting.
I bought Kind Of Blue Japåanse Blue Spec - 2 and compared with a Japanese regular 20 bit CD. and Blue Spec-2 cd sounds better. in my Audio Phile equipment. The Blue SDpec 2 cd is not more expensive in Japan.
Is there any CDs you can reprogram your CD player changing its clock timing say and altering the jitter rate overclocking the processor has anybody made such a thing? Should be quite simple I would have thought. There must be a hack CD out there
I do not really follow. But there is higher end CD players that you can connect a external clock to. That has better "presision". But again that were maybe not the issue? 🤔🥰🎵🎺
@@AmazonasBiotop reprogramming the chips the data clocks the microprocessor its internal software changing their characteristics, just the same as you can do on your TV
@@johnsweda2999 ok now I understand better what you mean. No I think that is very difficult. Because where all that is happening is in the drive mechanism. And almost all the CD player manufacturers do not make the drive. They buy it and then just use the data out from the drive. And do not go into the drive firmware that is outside of their expertise and it also needs licencing and information from the drive manufacturer on what the API and the commands are to do those operations. And a CD player manufacturer will not be able to optimise better than the drive manufacturer that are the experts in the area.
@@AmazonasBiotop well the manufacture maybe not but I would have thought somebody would have hacked them by now and released the data of the firmware. why don't you think the driver manufacture won't release the firmware. its standard Ic's there's nothing proprietary about them the datasheet should be available for these ic's?
It would be interesting to compare ripped CD’s and Blue spec CD’s to see what differences there are in a music file. The fact that a ripped disc is read enough times to get the precise data should make that all irrelevant. As pointer out here, it would have to be the same master though. And don’t even go down the rabbit hole about listening to CD’s vs. CD rips. LOL
I can't watch this video and not express my opinion. While I think the concept of the BluSpec CD is good (I don't know if it is great, though) one of the main problem is that Sony then fills these discs with their awful, loud, dynamically ultra-compressed masterings (not to mention releasing the same titles over and over on them) and then wonders why nobody gives a damn, declares the CD a dead medium and moves back to vinyl (after a 35 year war trying to kill it). Whatever happened to perfect sound forever? [/sarc] Their message is clear ...... well, actually, their message is distorted and full of clipping! No new format is going to sound good, no matter how technically great it may look on paper, if what is being put on it is rubbish in the first place. P.S. Remember, that is my OPINION on this "format" and (especially) Sony.
Most mid to high end dj cd players like Denon and Pioneer play from buffers for ages. You can literally take out the cd while playing because its playing from buffer. Most car cd players from the past have used buffer play for anti-skip for ages. So not exactly all that exclusive to Psaudio. Just saying.
Don’t fix something if it’s not broken Sony, You’ll get burned again. Some years ago Sony announced a special super duper DVD Disc and included one in the box of one of their headline DVD Players. Somebody forgot to test it. About half of those new Sony DVD players couldn’t play it and many/most of competitive players couldn’t play it either. Sony took a beating on that one.
A 1 is a 1 and a 0 is a 0, period. There isn't any doubt or question. They aren't variably 0.8 - 1.0s and 0.0 - 0.2s! A player either reads the disc correctly or it doesn't. Engineering a cleaner transition from one value to another is academic, not useful, in this case. It Makes No Difference.
I just remembered another one. in 2005 Sony BMG put a pice of malware into their CD's that installed a rootkit into the boot secotor of Windows computers. It was a horrible scandle and in the end Sony paid millions and millions of dollars in fines: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal
I was gonna call this completely snake oil unit I saw it's Sony behind this, now I don't know what to think. - Off to Google at some point I suppose, but seriously wtf.
okay; you can laugh me out of the comments section. I'm a vintage audiophile fan. I have an old Onkyo grand integra M08 with the P308 preamp. My CD player is an Onkyo Integra DX-7500. This player got very high reviews in 1988. A quick search can find the articles. I think it sounds and looks great - how outdated is this player? Is it still a high quality player by today's standards? www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1989-02-03-8903020623-story.html www.hifi-classic.net/review/onkyo-dx-7500-430.html
Technology hasn’t changed much, except for class d and some other things in sounds for years. We are limited to what our ears and brains can process the best sound equipment is for machines not people, it’s funny when you think about it.
Im not laughing. I ahve head horro stories about integrated circuits stuff instead of dioscreet transistors and capacities and such. Class D for me is total garbage and really sensative to short circuiting.
@PS Audio 2:05, Blu Ray is shorter wavelength compared to CD, not higher, at 405nm, CD is 780nm, and DVDs are 650nm I would expect the smaller the laser, and more information density, the more opportunities for errors, and in fact CDs are probably the best here, this is just a Sony marketing wank
Because many of us enjoy physical formats ... Even Paul. I enjoy CD's but I also enjoy creating audiophile recordings in my own high quality personal studio and working with some very talented musicians. I've experimented with uploads of 5.6Mhz DSD and PCM at 192kHz sample rates to good music servers to see/hear if there is any difference to the original masters. In short, there is. I'm not sure exactly why at this stage. Yet a down sampled file to standard 16bit 44.1 sounded closer to the original high resolution recording than the streamed version. Why, I'm still not sure. Also ... The old BURR BROWN dual 16bit oversampling chips of the early 90's sound very musical and natural. I've actually bought old tech just to extract/isolate those DACs ... I'm I crazy - probably 😜
Hi Travis ,I too stream on qobuz and I'm like a child in sweet shop with all the choice and quality available 24 bit 192khz. However when I find something I truly like I buy it on CD or vinyl! I owe it to artists. Many barely scratch a living on the revenue from streaming services. Additionally streaming services regularly remove recordings and artists leaving you High and Dry.
@@karltodd2518 yeah, I don't stream music but I do stream movies and I have noticed that some movies are available at one point and not available later. I guess licensing is the problem there. I suppose the same applies to music. I couldn't imagine not being able to play the song I want to hear when I want to hear it. That's why I want to own a physical copy of my music.
"Actually I don't know what it's about or what I am talking about yet I am going to speculate anyways. Just in a seemingly informed manner." Jeeeez.... *roll eyes*
Again, it was a commercial trick. Digital is digital!!! Also we all know what is the "audio range" capability, that human ear can accept! Same was with the SACD! Although - who's going to buy a physical media these days! I switched to digital releases about 15 years ago (all in lossless format). 😃👍
It's digital audio. As long as the digital data is readable then it's going to sound the same, Blu spec or no. Perhaps some Blu spec CDs use different masters which may sound better. That would be the only difference.
The ultimate media for listening to music is and always will be the CD. The reason why Sony is trying so hard to create all the new snake oil is that CD has no copyright protection. So if they can convince the world to buy the high res blu balls bullshit , then the music industry would be happy to prevent the genie from escaping again. CD is superior to everything. Don’t be fooled. My 1984 Sony CD player CDP-111 sounds just like my Yamaha S2000. The market was over saturated with CD players that they had to invent the high res fad.
I have a few Blu-Spec CD's & they R superb.
Mike:
Where did you buy them?
@@charlescalkins4732 A site called CD Japan.
Michael Prescott, Jr. I have a blu spec cd of Anri’s 1982 album Heaven Beach, I got it from amazon.
Do you happen to have any blu-spec cds of Japan city pop albums?
I can't tell you how many college courses I had with guys like this as either my professors or lab instructor. Highly knowledgeable guys in their specific field of expertise. Always interesting to soak up info from these guys. Chemistry, Biochemistry, Genetics, and Biology instructors come to mind. Never took any electronics courses, but in general.
The Sony DiscMan had anti-skip which was achieved by buffering the bits coming off of the CD.
Japan has done quite a bit of experimentation with CD's over the years, trying to improve upon the medium, or find some way to get better sound from them.
There was SACD, of course.
I also remember CD's made with a glass substrate, instead of plastic.
This let the laser read the information on the disc much more accurately, and was claimed to improve sound quality considerably. Unfortunately, the glass substrate discs were priced at $200.00 each.
I also remember seeing a review for a very obscure little device which was simply a little black box that you put the disc in, closed the door, pushed a button, and viola! Better sound from your CD.
The way this worked was that the box had an ultra bright xenon bulb inside, which flashed a 'brighter than the Sun' light onto the information side of the disc.
This was supposed to "burn off" any leftover residue of the mold release agent used in the manufacturing process of the disc, some of which might obscure some of the pits and lands on the metallic surface inside.
This, once again, was designed to let the laser have an easier time of reading what was on the disc, and was claimed to improve sound quality.
Now, we have the Blue (Blu?) Spec CD, which once again is an attempt to give the laser an easier time of it.
Hmmm. I seem to detect a theme emerging...
Perhaps if we combined all of these techniques, we could produce the 'Ultimate Compact Disc'.
This would be a Blue Spec. disc with a gold information layer, a glass substrate, and would be pre-treated to remove any mold-release residue from the information layer.
It would be encoded as an SACD with DSD encoding, and would retail for "only" $999.99 per disc, with a sound quality to die for!
Hare deLune iirc some of the glass cds were sold around 1k-2k USD back then. Multiple claimed that they were the best sounding CD of all time. I seriously doubt that to be true.
@@GlaciaDay
I must have seen them later, when prices dropped. XD
There were also "special reflecting" decals you could apply to the top part of any CD that supposedly enhanced the reflection rate of the mirror component of the CD. And there were the "weight rings" youy HAD to apply to every CD to increase the rotational mass of the CD and therefore stabilize the rpm (what happened if you didn't precisely center those rings only makes you (and the disc) shiver).
Bottom line of all these aftermarket "magic" products: the designers and engineers at Philips and Sony where total idiots who somehow stumbled into approximately the minimum requirements to make it work and aftermarket companies had certified geniuses who "corrected" these blatant mistakes the designers and engineers obviously made.
Can a medium like CD's, DVD's and lasers be upgraded? With the modern material technologies I'd say yes they could. Would it make much of a difference? Possibly, but only if all components were to be upgraded, so better materials for the CD/DVD, better lasers, better processors and better DAC's.
Would it be worth the cost? Probably not, but then you are on the thin ice that is the upper range of high end audio, where improvements are more like tiny (think in the % or even 0.x % range) differences some people like and others dislike.
@@HareDeLune No, their prices kept increasing over the years. Chinese collectors you know, you could hardly find any Japanese buying records from Japanese auction sites. All Chinese bidders.
And don't forget to true up the edges of the disc and color them with green markers!
I haven't tried Blu-Spec CD yet, but I have tried SHM-CD and SHM-SACD, not to mention XRCD, and various gold CDs. I will say that all of those tend to sound better because they tend to use better remastering and they go to great lengths to acquire original master tapes to work from. They put a lot of care and precision into their products. Now SHM discs often just use the best available digital remasters that may have already been released elsewhere. I have an SHM-SACD of the Police's album Synchronicity. I also bought the original SACD release of Synchronicity from 2002, I think , done by Bob Ludwig. (Sorry, I'm not at home to verify this, I'm just going by memory.) Now both of those discs use the same DSD transfer, but I always thought the vocals were a bit low in volume on the original SACD, yet the SHM-SACD has restored them to their glory. I have no idea whether or not they did anything to boost the levels, but the SHM-SACD does sound considerably better to me. I have no idea if there is something technically superior about the plastic they use to manufacture the discs, which is something they claim, but the discs I have bought, probably 50 or so, do sound impressively good. Have you tried SHM-SACD or SHM-CD yet, Paul?
I am listening to a brand new David Gilmour Blu spec2 cd and it sounds amazing for 44khz. SHMcd's are great too and to me the sound similarly good.
How about abbey road re-mastered cds?
What was that terrifying electric sound at 1:31? Ah yes wireless lav Mike with almost dead battery near opened-up power amplifiers :-D
I happened to be wiping the dust off the top of my computer when that happened and I had to replay that part of the video to be sure it wasn't my system having a problem. Kinda freaked me out for a second!
Is blue spec the same thing as SHM CD or are they 2 different things?
Almost the same, but one was developed by Sony, and another by JVC. Same principles on yhe polycarbonate layer that allows the lasers to read discs better.
When they say 8X oversampling isn't that were the read error correction takes place so if it needs much less error correction wouldn't that mean its more accurately read?
Hi Paul, love the laid back stye of these videos, regarding the blu spec cds just to confuse the issue there are 2 versions of them, blu spec and blu spec 2, the 2 being better by my ears, would in the future would like you to revisit this with a clutch of them and the give use you take on them, some to listen to are mainstream artists such as Bob Dylan, Michael Jackson, Sade, Simon and garfunkel and Paul Simon, but not Graceland, say safe Paul.
There’s actually an issue with the ones I have, the blu spec cd I have of Anri’s Heaven beach sounds compressed with too much clipping, and the channels are reversed, while the older one isn’t really compressed with better dynamic range and it’s quiet.
Blu-ray discs support up to 32 different bitstreams for primary and 32 bitstreams for secondary audio, 16 MB for tertiary audio clips used in menu and button sounds. Bitstreams support any number of channels (mono, stereo, 5.1, 7.1 and more) using PCM, Dolby and DTS formats. There is support for 96 and 192kHz audio sample rates. (There is no support for 44.1 or 88.2). Not confined to the red book standard. Learn something everyday! Love your work.
bluspec cd is diferent than bluray is just an uprated 16 bit CD
Hi Paul! First let me thank you again for accommodating my very early in the morning visit to PS Audio last September... The tour and listening experience was truly amazing! Now today's subject. One of the reasons I first started listening to your videos years ago was to get your assessment of the Blu-Spec, K2-HD and SHM-CD "enhanced" compact discs. I have purchased several of each type of enhanced discs over the past few years. This is what I have found: First, when comparing to standard CDs the differences vary depending on the actual music and the particular method of enhancement. Generally, I would say that the K2-HD are the most noticeably improved, closely followed by SHM-CD and not so closely, the Blu-Spec. Having said that, one of the most incredible recordings I have is The Paul Simon Songbook on a Sony Blu-Spec CD. I have probably two dozen SHM-CD CDs. Of those some sound essentially the same as the standard CD. The SHM-CD CDs that really stand out to me are Mussorgsky's/Ravel's "Pictures At An Exhibition" performed by L'Ochestre de la Suisse Romande, The Platter's "Best Selection", Led Zeppelin's fourth album (particularly Battle of Evermore) and Emerson, Lake and Palmer's first album (particularly Take A Pebble). )BTW, "Take A Pebble" was one of the tracks I listened to on your IRS V's. Listening to that track on your speakers was a very emotional event for me!) To sum it up, these "enhanced" CDs can sound much better than the standard version -- but they can also sound hardly any different. I really can't say why there should be a difference. My research shows that these enhanced discs using a higher quality polycarbonate disc with a more reflective substrate and of course the higher frequency laser. I suspect though, that the greatest reason for the difference is that in all three enhanced methods the music is remastered. For reference I compared enhanced to standard CDs using a pair of Magnapan1.6i's, driven by a Denon PMA-100, 100th Anniversary, stereo integrated amp being fed by a Marantz KI-SA cd player. Thank you Paul. I am happy to be part of the PS Audio family at-large.
This Paul guy isn’t worth you time, he takes forever to give out a final answer
Blu-spec2's sound really good and wayyyyy better than regular cd.
I don't understand, how can mechanically rotating discs be possibly more precise than solid state network players?
You're (correctly) describing the engineering definition of 'jitter' whereas most of lay public think this word refers to the ticking noise you hear on damaged CDs. Bear that in mind when you get asked about jitter. I have no idea what these blu spec CDs are, but one thing that might aid in actual jitter reduction is an easier time of correcting spindle speed. CDs read data at a constant linear velocity, 44.1k*16bit, and to do that they have to have a variable angular velocity - the disc must constantly change speeds as it reads the data, starting at the inner hub and working towards the outside. When reading the inner hub, the disc must spin much faster in order to have the same linear velocity under the laser. As it works its way towards the edge of the disc, the motor must gradually slow down - and gradually is the key. As you correctly point out, the clock in the unit is what's doing all the timing, and there is a small data buffer to smooth out the somewhat fluctuating data read rate from the disc, caused by the subtly changing motor speed, so that the DAC is fed a steady stream of uninterrupted data. Because of this balancing act between the transport's spindle motor, various feedback or PLL circuits designed to regulate motor speed, etc., it's not implausible to surmise that making the data stream easier to read for the laser could help things out. Thing is, that's going to be an incredibly design-dependent benefit if there's any at all. It'll have to be a certain type of CD player with a certain chipset or design that will see some sort of improvement, if one exists. Then there's this fact - just rip your CD to a full .WAV file and play it back through a high quality media player, and you've circumvented the whole need to improve the disc playback in realtime and with the spindle speed issues it presents. When you rip your disc you can be very certain you've read every bit off the disc correctly if you want to - and a streaming player doesn't have to deal with synchronizing a motor during playback.
CD players have small buffer in Servo/CD decoder unit(chip) . Without it there is no error correction. More modern CD players that used CD-rom/DVD-rom have even bigger data buffers. There are other companies that uses data buffers to store information and send data stream with precision clock timing, so I think PS audio is not only one.
Do you send master clock from your DAC unit to transport unit, and use it as slave device in terms of clock base?
Even if you don't hear a difference, maybe it's worth buying it as a replacement to a scratched CD. Since it is made of better materials, it will resist disc rot much longer. Maybe not to replace them outright because it's better, but to replace them because they are damaged.
ua-cam.com/video/ljXTZYm3S8A/v-deo.html
I can't find any material claiming lower jitter. But when they speak of errors in the burning process, it seems unlikely to me that that would mean mistaking a 1 for a 0 (and that would have nothing to do with wavelength); more plausible is that the positioning of the lands/pits on the disc is more accurate. Spin it, and I think that would translate precisely into reduced jitter.
Now, whether the effect would be sizable compared to other sources of jitter, I have no idea - I think you'd have to be a CD engineer to know. My suspicion is no.
Sony's engineers are no joke, so my impulse is to give them benefit of the doubt.
But given that they also made SACD and that SACD has a much wider following than BSCD (lol what an abbreviation!), it would seem that it didn't convince listeners...
How about M-Disk for archiving music? Once the data is transferred it's the same as any other right?
it comes down to oversampling, allowing for less of a brutal filter. Lots of buffering, add interpolation and you have a great player.
So are you speaking from hearing blu-spec or are you just talking out of your arse?
B-spec2's sound great and that is all that is important genius.
On the error of cds
Quote
"Error Correction
A typical error rate of a CD system is 10^5, which means that a data error occurs 20 times per second.
About 200 erros/s can be corrected.
Sources of errors:
dust
scratches
fingerprints
pit asymmetry
bubbles or defeacts in substrate
coating defects
dropouts
Objectives for error correction
powerful error correction capability for random and burst errors
reliable error detection in case of an uncorrectable error
low redundancy
=> CIRC satisfies these criteria
"
Source www.cs.tut.fi/~ypsilon/80545/CD.html
You can read on the different error correction types and how they work in difference scenarios.
IDK, I've been pretty happy with my Sony SACD player for a lot of years. I think it even plays normal CD's better.
@Fat Rat yeah I think he knows that already, he meant that "normal" CDs sound better in an SACD player in his opinion.
If the source material for releases on blue spec cd's is put through a higher quality base mastering process to begin with that might also be a big part of there perceived higher fidelity listening experience,, ,, are there any changes in the materials themselves used in the optical storage media itself ? basically a higher quality optical media mastering technique that reduces the the need of error correction..
Would they be better then SACD's? Never heard of them...
Paul, would it be better to play Blu-Spec CD on a Blu-Ray player instead of a cd player based on what you had to say about the laser?
You pay for Bluray player to play video, i.e hardware and licensing. If you buy a CD player, all the money goes in to playing CDs, which is what you want. I would never buy a DVD player for the same money as a CD player to play CDs. Also, the disc drive is just one component.
@@Baerchenization depends on how much you paid for your Bluray player, mine cost me £700 so I'm quite happy to use it to play Cd's, Dvd's as well as plus its the only way I can play the multi-channel layer on a SACD in 5.1 surround.
Easy to test.
Take your Blue Spec CD. And make a CD-R copy.
When blue laser were used to make the stamper for your Blue Spec CD in the CD production plant.
You have the data (music). Make a CD-R copy of that data. Now your CD-R copy has NOTHING to do with the use of Blue laser in the manufacturing process! 👍
What you have is a exact copy of the Blue Spec CD. That means that it is the same mastering, mix and the same loudness as your Blue Spec CD.
(You can do a bit compare on your PC between the discs.)
Those mentioned things can and will have a greater sonic impact and will fool someone to think that a CD pressing of the same album sounds not as good as a blue spec CD of that album.
When it is actually the difference in mix, mastering and or loudness that is perceived.
So compare the sonic of your 2 discs now and you will not be able to hear a difference. 🥰
I've always found that playing a CD in a BluRay or DVD player sounds better than on a regular CD player. Often a CD that has skipping flaws will also play on a BluRay or a DVD player where it fails miserably on a standard CD player. I can only assume that this is because a BluRay and DVD player both have a higher sampling rate capability than a standard CD player. Saying this I have some hi-end CD players that sound fantastic but they still have trouble playing a damaged disk.
*shorter wavelength, not higher.
Higher fréquence means shorter wavelenght
velocity = frewquency X wavelength. velocity is the speed og lifhgtrs, 186m000 milpes per hours, and constans. frewuence has to go up as wavelengths getsm smallers. Shrterr wavelegntsh i slike Gammg or cosmics rayes, they are deep penatratings , IONIzeings, and causes cancers. Dr. Scholls assistand hands fell apart from the X-ray he was playign arounds withs. THKES YOU ANDS THUBBMS UPS!
WRONG we have "jitter" on a CD!
I have worked and developed CD test equipment for 10 years. That supplies test equipment to CD producing plants and CD drive manufacturers so they could meet the red book standards and their limits (orange book also for that matter).
We measure the length variations of each type of length, of the pits and lands on the CD.
That variation of length we in the industry of manufacturing CDs call "Jitter" and is a measuring parameter of its own. That is for example presented in a histogram.
So when Paul talk about jitter and CD manufacturers talking about Jitter, then they refer to TWO completely different things!
(Yes, we have timing on the CD when the information is scanned in a constant speed (scanning velocity) from the start to the end then the length of the pits and lands will go by the laser in that speed and we can determine the length of that pit/land. By measuring how long time it took for it to pass the laser. That is critical measurements when a to long length of a pit/land can and will be miss read as a longer type and vice versa for a to short one.)
Keep up with the good videos. 🥰🎵🎶
Rip the audio in a CD-ROM (or DVD-ROM or Blu-Ray) drive. In order to function, they have to be able to read the data with zero errors by the time it makes it to the CPU. Store it in a lossless format. Play it back on a studio quality DAC with a solid clock. Problem solved.
And you end up with a different sound.......not for the better either.
str1xt - yeah, of course it’s different. The errors that were present in the conventional CD player’s output are absent from the CD-ROM drive’s output. Personally, I prefer to listen to what’s in the original data stream, rather than the error-compensated version spat out by the standard CD playback architecture; but, well, your ears, your choice...
And yet I havea vintage CD player that perfectly reads the CDs that CD-ROMs rip with errors. Go figure.
thisisnev - it isn’t reading it perfectly; it’s applying infill algorithms to hide the damage. Some implementations work better than others....
Wonder if we hooked up a blu ray player to our main audio system and played CD's think we would hear a difference?
I don't know about Blu-Ray players, but I do know that my Pioneer DV-575 SACD-capable DVD player sounds better with CDs than their DV-2750.
Great example of snake oil marketing. The jitter of any modern digital system is a non-issue as a DAC clock is what matters for jitter and getting that precise is trivial with today’s components. If you worry about data errors in your music, Blu-spec CD is not the answer surely. A smaller scratch can cause more data damage on a Blu-spec CD. Much better for that issue is to stream your music from the internet or using a NAS drive.
If I substitute "stutter" for "jitter" I can think of one irritating thing that cd players do when they can't read a disc properly.
Yup, that's where the "error" part comes in to play.
How does Blu-ray pure Audio compare to DSD? Thx, Marc
Blu-ray pure audio is an exact copy of the original masters, so way better than DSD which is not lossless. DSD is reduced from PCM which is just small enough to fit on a SACD,, where as a blu-ray can hold 35GB so it can hold the fill master tracks at 24bit 192hz.
blu spec cds sound pretty good to me.if a new cd format comes out,i will buy one or 2 to see how they sound.i havent heard a silver disc audio format i didnt like.
It depends, if the master they used and remastering they have for the release are crap then even SHM-SACD are going to sound like crap.
In my case I bought Earth, Wind & Fire Japanese singles collection and sonically, it's all over the place from loud and hot mess to wide sounding detailed and even have some warmth to it.
Weirdly I quite liked this particular BSCD2 release.
Have all the band's vinyl singles releases in 2 CDs is very convenient and cost effective and frankly amazing idea, they even threw in a bonus DVD with music videos and new concert footage never released on home media before.
There's no denying try to search and buy all the 45s can get very expensive and then you have to digitize it yourself with varying degrees of success and quality.
Hi Paul! Thank you for the cool videos here! Please, I have to know - why always this bad ass Kenwood player when cd is the topic?
I have the SRV esencials in BSCD and a lot of standard SRV CD, they sound the same...
Blue specs and red books. Scratching my head.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_Books
I have a couple shm sacd’s and also have the same sacd’s on analogue productions. The shm discs do sound better but could just be because of better mastering.
Don't forget K2 by JVC.
Yes jvc xkcd k2 does make a difference I have 50 xrcds and a bunch k2 verve and prestige riverside CD remaster reissues
Just as high-res flac files are supposed to sound better than Redbook (CD quality) flac files, and almost without exception the high-res flac files sound no better... well,
the Blu Spec will have that same issue. Why?
The main problem for why so much digital content sounds lacking, is due to piss-poor mixing and mastering at the record companies. You can take that song and increase its sampling rate to the moon, and have NASA design a Star Trek, Borg enhanced laser, and all you will end up with is a very, very accurate reproduction of bad sound.
If you take a photo, and it is blurry, you can display it on a $50 monitor or a $50,000 monitor, and it will still be blurry.
The record companies give us "blurry" music (compressed and over-processed). So that photo of the song "is" what it "is", and no player can make it what it should have been if properly produced at the record company.
So in the case of the Blu Spec having better sound quality... well, it has the potential to sound better, just as a higher sampling rate has the potential to sound better. But if the record company provides a so-so sounding digital file that is used to create that Blu Spec CD, then you will simply have a more accurate copy of that so-so sounding song.
In the rare case where the record company actually made an amazing sounding digital song, then the Blu Spec version should sound better.
But why go down that road?
Why get into trying to get a better way to play the CD medium?
If you purchase the same song in a flac format, and you save that purchased, downloaded song to a solid-state disk (SSD), then you can choose which transport you would want to use to read that flac file and send it to your DAC. And since the song is stored in a file on a SSD, the accuracy of reading that file will be perfect, without exceptions.
Also, you can make copies of your flac files, just as you would do for any important computer files. And you will never "misplace" your flac files. Admit it, you lose your CDs (is it in the livingroom, or the car, or did I lend it to whomever?). Did I scratch the CD? None of this is a problem with flac files, and you can manage all of your music with a good application, and not have to constantly get up to change disks and be limited to what is on the disk.
Lastly, with flac files, you can get the one that sounds the best. Trying to do that with a CD is not really doable.
Two examples:
1)
This version (track #1) of Aqualung is not good:
us.7digital.com/artist/jethro-tull/release/aqualung-steven-wilson-mix-4444694
Whereas, this version (track #2), released 8 years earlier than the above, albeit not perfect, is noticeably better:
us.7digital.com/artist/jethro-tull/release/the-very-best-of-jethro-tull-72133
2)
This version (track #8) of Annie's song is not good:
us.7digital.com/artist/john-denver/release/definitive-all-time-greatest-hits-570727
Whereas, this version (track #38), albeit not perfect,, is noticeably better:
us.7digital.com/artist/various-artists/release/free-fire-original-motion-picture-soundtrack-explicit-6503488
(and the above demos are streaming mp3 files -- the purchased flac versions, that run locally on your hardware, sound better)
So if your Blu Spec CD was sourced from the worse sounding files, then they will simply not sound good.
Folks, if you have a good stereo, and you want it to sound better, then aside from spending a suitcase of $$ upgrading your stereo, if you work at finding better sources for your musical content, it will make your current stereo sound 3x the price. Also, a better stereo will result in revealing more of how bad of a job the record companies do with their mixing and mastering.
Find better sounding releases of your favorite songs. It takes some effort, and there is not always a better version available. But when you land better sounding versions, it is wonderful.
Cheers!
@Jingle Nuts "it works"? Please define "it".
Yes, you can upsample to the moon, and you will have a higher res file. If that was your goal, then it works.
Yes, you can save it in any format. If your goal was to change formats, then it works.
If your goal is to make it sound better than what a properly mixed and mastered recording would have sounded like, then it does not work.
Yes, upsampled digital content can sound more pleasing. It adds a somewhat euphoric glow to the presentation. And although that does, in many cases, sound pleasing, it does not sound natural. It might seem like it sounds natural, but that is only because you do not have an actual natural, properly produced high res file for an A/B comparison.
Nothing beats getting it right from inception to completion. Performing upsampling "fixes" is not a realistic way of producing quality content, and does nothing to fix compression, double-voicing, auto-tune, improper stem gain, bad and unnecessary equalization, etc.
Upsampling will not put back the dynamics that were drained by the record company.
Upsampling will not widen the soundstage that the record company either removed or never recorded.
Upsampling will not help you hear the drums that the mixing engineer decided should be faint and buried in the mix.
If you like to upsample, then by all means do so. It is not my intention to convince anyone not to do so. I have upsampled songs and like how some of them sound.
But if the record companies did their core function properly, then upsampling would not even need to be a consideration.
You can win the lottery, and have a dream stereo in a dream home with a room designed for the ultimate sonic experience. And all of it is at the mercy of the crappy mastered songs that are available to us.
There is a reason that high-end shows never play hit songs.
There is a reason that high-end shows always play Tinkerbell music that no one is familiar with.
It is because they find obscure songs that were recorded and mastered properly, and choose them over hit songs that people love, because those hit songs, almost without exception, are all poorly mastered. Imagine how great it would be to have those hit songs also have sound quality to match.
@Jingle Nuts I am not familiar with wavelab.
It is my understanding that once a music is compressed, you cannot return it to its uncompressed state.
Yes, there are dynamic range expanders, and they will add dynamics to the sound. But those dynamics will be artificial; they will not be the same as having a good original that was never compressed.
A long time ago, I had a DBX model 3BX 3. It added punch on-the-fly. For that singular purpose, it did its job. But it ruined the music (long list of reasons).
However, I understand that it is not the same as using wavelab to modify the file.
If I were to hear a wavelab demo before and after it is applied to a song, and I liked it, then I would use it. But short of that, I am tired of experimenting with fixes. I stick to finding the best sounding source material.
@Fat Rat Some (not all -- some) measuring devices can measure better than our ears. But only for that which they are designed to measure.
The problem with some folks is that they believe and are convinced that the measuring equipment measures everything that our ears measure.
Another problem is that many measurers do not use the most important measuring equipment: A quality and professionally set-up stereo.
So they never hear what their measuring scopes tell them is not there (but it is there, if they only listened on a quality and professionally set-up stereo). It does not even occur to them that the actual stereo and their ears are measuring tools, too.
So their measuring gear gives them a readout that does not jive with what their ears would hear on a good stereo. But they never hear that good stereo, and therefore never understand that there is something wrong or missing with their measurements.
If more measurers would also listen on a quality stereo, then they would know that something is missing from their measuring tests, and they would devote their time to identifying why their ears do not agree with their measurements and they would hopefully take a deep dive into what is missing from their measuring tests.
And let's not forget about the trolls.
Some people who cannot afford a good stereo make themselves feel better by knocking quality stereo equipment.
They think that by getting the public to believe that people with good stereos wasted their money, then that translates into them (the trolls) being smarter than the people with the good stereos, and that the people with the good stereos do not really have good stereos (because it is snake oil). It helps the trolls reduce their own envy, by way of labeling good stereo equipment as snake oil equipment. Since the good stereo is not really a good stereo, then the trolls are not really at a disadvantage.
If the trolls were to win the lottery, I am confident that their position would change 180
°. Without delay, they would go out and buy a super system, and would flash it all over social media, and sing its praises. No longer would it be snake oil.
Yes, there is snake oil out there, and it is a cancer on this hobby (fraud exists everywhere). And when trolls learn of a scam, they run with it and associate everything as a scam (because it is out of their reach). So they tell us that expensive (fill in the black) is snake oil, based on measurements, while never measuring with their ears.
Just another way to get us to buy White Album all over again.
So do blu ray players as transports have better lasers in them? I have a dac that has a i2s hdmi input. Its a denafrips pontus. I know the ps audio dacs use i2s inputs as well. Can anyone confirm if using a sony x700.. X800 sony 4k ultra players work as a transport. It has 2 hdmi outputs. 1 for video and 1 for audio. These players also do sacd.have ldac codecs for Bluetooth. Blu ray & dvd audio. If these players can decode sacd and cd over hdmi out and the dacs i2s inputs can read them. Im bout to pull a trigger on one. So any help would be awesome guys
Thanks
They are not i2s from hdmi unfortunately but I use my 2 sony bluray as transport I've put a linear psu on my UBP-X700 which improved sound n picture. sacd and got a dolby atmos hans zimmer disc goin though my pioneer av amp sound amazing.but my sabre es9038q2m dac with home built speaker blows the pioneer away for sound quality
@@markclancy5371 i guess i dont know exactly how it all works. I know the denafrips dac has like 8 settings to see if it picks it up from the i2s since theres not a standard in that. I guess i could still buy one and use digital out but dont think it will send sacd over digitals outs. Thats why i was wondering if the hdmi sound out output could be picked up by a i2s dac. Like ps audio or denafrips that has that input.
@@markclancy5371 so your telling me the hdmi out on these players thats the hdmi 2 out thats for high end music can't be picked up by a i2s dac? Youd save me time and money confirming that. It still is great transport though. And the dac in the sony is prolly damn good. I know it has dsee engine and all that installed. So its a very capable machine for music and movies
I don't fully understand i2s will have to read up.but by all accounts there a Chinese board you can get to plug in the sonys or oppo hdmi output to convert it but looks abit of work involved will see if I can send you a link it's interesting.
forum.psaudio.com › regular...
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Regular HDMI audio into PWD (using I2S)? - Humor - PS Audio
thank paul you for the information i know some more now
I think you don't know what you talking about.there are Two different format video and audio
I bought Kind Of Blue Japåanse Blue Spec - 2 and compared with a Japanese regular 20 bit CD. and Blue Spec-2 cd sounds better. in my Audio Phile equipment. The Blue SDpec 2 cd is not more expensive in Japan.
ua-cam.com/video/ljXTZYm3S8A/v-deo.html
Is there any CDs you can reprogram your CD player changing its clock timing say and altering the jitter rate overclocking the processor has anybody made such a thing? Should be quite simple I would have thought. There must be a hack CD out there
I do not really follow. But there is higher end CD players that you can connect a external clock to. That has better "presision".
But again that were maybe not the issue? 🤔🥰🎵🎺
@@AmazonasBiotop reprogramming the chips the data clocks the microprocessor its internal software changing their characteristics, just the same as you can do on your TV
@@johnsweda2999 ok now I understand better what you mean.
No I think that is very difficult. Because where all that is happening is in the drive mechanism. And almost all the CD player manufacturers do not make the drive. They buy it and then just use the data out from the drive. And do not go into the drive firmware that is outside of their expertise and it also needs licencing and information from the drive manufacturer on what the API and the commands are to do those operations.
And a CD player manufacturer will not be able to optimise better than the drive manufacturer that are the experts in the area.
@@AmazonasBiotop well the manufacture maybe not but I would have thought somebody would have hacked them by now and released the data of the firmware. why don't you think the driver manufacture won't release the firmware. its standard Ic's there's nothing proprietary about them the datasheet should be available for these ic's?
@@AmazonasBiotop what's the matter with your channel can't leave comment
It would be interesting to compare ripped CD’s and Blue spec CD’s to see what differences there are in a music file. The fact that a ripped disc is read enough times to get the precise data should make that all irrelevant. As pointer out here, it would have to be the same master though.
And don’t even go down the rabbit hole about listening to CD’s vs. CD rips. LOL
I can't watch this video and not express my opinion. While I think the concept of the BluSpec CD is good (I don't know if it is great, though) one of the main problem is that Sony then fills these discs with their awful, loud, dynamically ultra-compressed masterings (not to mention releasing the same titles over and over on them) and then wonders why nobody gives a damn, declares the CD a dead medium and moves back to vinyl (after a 35 year war trying to kill it).
Whatever happened to perfect sound forever? [/sarc] Their message is clear ...... well, actually, their message is distorted and full of clipping! No new format is going to sound good, no matter how technically great it may look on paper, if what is being put on it is rubbish in the first place. P.S. Remember, that is my OPINION on this "format" and (especially) Sony.
It's a CD with a pair of Blue Spectacles..
Ideal for the Blues Genre...
Sound Spectacular !!!
"Nordic dynamic" ensures good sound - no digital snake oil - only common sense.
God you take so long to get to the point !
Agreed, he sometimes never gives out a final answer.
ua-cam.com/video/ljXTZYm3S8A/v-deo.html
With our advancements in today's portable storage. I don't even know why they even bother with digital spinning disk anything.
Most mid to high end dj cd players like Denon and Pioneer play from buffers for ages. You can literally take out the cd while playing because its playing from buffer. Most car cd players from the past have used buffer play for anti-skip for ages. So not exactly all that exclusive to Psaudio. Just saying.
Don’t fix something if it’s not broken Sony, You’ll get burned again. Some years ago Sony announced a special super duper DVD Disc and included one in the box of one of their headline DVD Players. Somebody forgot to test it. About half of those new Sony DVD players couldn’t play it and many/most of competitive players couldn’t play it either. Sony took a beating on that one.
I think Paul has no idea what is the difference between DVD player , BlueRay player and definitely the real 4K SONY BlueRay player .
I ynikns you thinks wrongs. THANKES YOU AN DTHUMBB SUPS!
I still have a few CD's with blue spectacles and they sound spectacular
A 1 is a 1 and a 0 is a 0, period. There isn't any doubt or question. They aren't variably 0.8 - 1.0s and 0.0 - 0.2s!
A player either reads the disc correctly or it doesn't.
Engineering a cleaner transition from one value to another is academic, not useful, in this case.
It Makes No Difference.
I highly doubt there is much of a selection of music with such an unpopular medium.
Blu-ray audio is better .
I think SHM sounds just as good as Blue spec
I just remembered another one. in 2005 Sony BMG put a pice of malware into their CD's that installed a rootkit into the boot secotor of Windows computers. It was a horrible scandle and in the end Sony paid millions and millions of dollars in fines: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal
I was gonna call this completely snake oil unit I saw it's Sony behind this, now I don't know what to think. - Off to Google at some point I suppose, but seriously wtf.
okay; you can laugh me out of the comments section. I'm a vintage audiophile fan. I have an old Onkyo grand integra M08 with the P308 preamp. My CD player is an Onkyo Integra DX-7500. This player got very high reviews in 1988. A quick search can find the articles. I think it sounds and looks great - how outdated is this player? Is it still a high quality player by today's standards?
www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1989-02-03-8903020623-story.html
www.hifi-classic.net/review/onkyo-dx-7500-430.html
Nothing wrong with vintage gear, as long as it's good vintage gear.
There's always something better out there, no matter what you've got.
Technology hasn’t changed much, except for class d and some other things in sounds for years. We are limited to what our ears and brains can process the best sound equipment is for machines not people, it’s funny when you think about it.
Im not laughing. I ahve head horro stories about integrated circuits stuff instead of dioscreet transistors and capacities and such. Class D for me is total garbage and really sensative to short circuiting.
audio interface have jitter.
Blu spec seems like it's no improvement. K2HD or xrcd is better
@PS Audio 2:05, Blu Ray is shorter wavelength compared to CD, not higher, at 405nm, CD is 780nm, and DVDs are 650nm
I would expect the smaller the laser, and more information density, the more opportunities for errors, and in fact CDs are probably the best here, this is just a Sony marketing wank
These new physical formats are hilarious. Why over-complicate the process? Just stream from any hi-res or lossless source.
It's difficult to stream when you have no internet. Besides, I'd rather own my music. Owning it allows me to buy the best version of any album/CD.
Because many of us enjoy physical formats ... Even Paul. I enjoy CD's but I also enjoy creating audiophile recordings in my own high quality personal studio and working with some very talented musicians.
I've experimented with uploads of 5.6Mhz DSD and PCM at 192kHz sample rates to good music servers to see/hear if there is any difference to the original masters.
In short, there is. I'm not sure exactly why at this stage.
Yet a down sampled file to standard 16bit 44.1 sounded closer to the original high resolution recording than the streamed version. Why, I'm still not sure.
Also ... The old BURR BROWN dual 16bit oversampling chips of the early 90's sound very musical and natural. I've actually bought old tech just to extract/isolate those DACs ... I'm I crazy - probably 😜
@@renaissanceman7145 +1
Hi Travis ,I too stream on qobuz and I'm like a child in sweet shop with all the choice and quality available 24 bit 192khz. However when I find something I truly like I buy it on CD or vinyl! I owe it to artists. Many barely scratch a living on the revenue from streaming services. Additionally streaming services regularly remove recordings and artists leaving you High and Dry.
@@karltodd2518 yeah, I don't stream music but I do stream movies and I have noticed that some movies are available at one point and not available later. I guess licensing is the problem there. I suppose the same applies to music. I couldn't imagine not being able to play the song I want to hear when I want to hear it. That's why I want to own a physical copy of my music.
"Actually I don't know what it's about or what I am talking about yet I am going to speculate anyways. Just in a seemingly informed manner."
Jeeeez.... *roll eyes*
Again, it was a commercial trick. Digital is digital!!! Also we all know what is the "audio range" capability, that human ear can accept! Same was with the SACD! Although - who's going to buy a physical media these days! I switched to digital releases about 15 years ago (all in lossless format). 😃👍
It's digital audio. As long as the digital data is readable then it's going to sound the same, Blu spec or no. Perhaps some Blu spec CDs use different masters which may sound better. That would be the only difference.
Buy a different set of speakers before you go down the blue spec road..Def Tech🤮
They are not....
Digital is digital. There aren’t better 1’s and 0’s
The ultimate media for listening to music is and always will be the CD. The reason why Sony is trying so hard to create all the new snake oil is that CD has no copyright protection. So if they can convince the world to buy the high res blu balls bullshit , then the music industry would be happy to prevent the genie from escaping again. CD is superior to everything. Don’t be fooled. My 1984 Sony CD player CDP-111 sounds just like my Yamaha S2000. The market was over saturated with CD players that they had to invent the high res fad.
No, don't waste your money on these snake oil CDs. Don't fall for this cash grabs.
44.1khz CD or SACD are all you need.