I recently acquired a Denon Upconverting DVD player. Nice player. The best picture I've seen so far. Since I started getting DVD players with digital outs (sound outputs) I've used either coaxial or optical digital outputs for my movies. I love it, it's the greatest. DTS is one of the best things to come along since sliced good stuff to come along.
Thing is, I figured that since movies are so great using digital outs, then my cd's must sound better on these fancy new dvd players, right? I know that when I play a cd through the digital output on my dvd player, then the receiver or preamp/processor does the digital to analogue converting, but I have a pretty nice receiver, so I figured the D/A converter in it would be better than the D/A converter in my old CD player, right? Plus, the Denon has it's own D/A converter if I choose to play CDs through it's analogue outputs, then its own D/A converter is also probably better than the one in my old CD player....logical thinking, right?
Well, the thing is, the old CD player I'm talking about happens to be a Rotel. It's been under the bed of my various living abodes for probably 10 years. It's not even a good Rotel. It's the cheapest model they had back when I bought it, the RCD-930AX. About a $250 player.
I was looking for my video camera tripod so I can film my little cat nursing my face to put on youtube. Different story, so I'll get back to the audio stuff. I found the old Rotel and decided to dust it off.
I hooked it up to the CD input on my HK AVR230 receiver, which those inputs have never been used. To my surprise, real surprise, it sounded great. So smooth. The optical digital out on the Denon sounds very "matter of fact." It's accurate...digitally accurate; but it doesn't do for music what the old Rotel does. I've been listening to Norah Jones for about an hour now, and it seem so much more, musical. It's a warmer sound.
I am making this thread so that some of you may want to dust off your old cd players and give them a try. We've all proabably gone through the analogue vs. digital thing a million times. Although this isn't the same thing as comparing an LP to a CD, it is comparing Rotel's 10 year old D/A converter in it's budget player to one that's what I assumed would be better just because it's so much newer and in a still high quality piece of equipment.
Give it a try, you may be surprised!
