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In the 80's I had a Hafler DH-220 amp, one of the first to use discrete MOSFET devices at a reasonable price -- IIRC $700, or $600 if you built it yourself. Wi

by chiph 12y ago

In the 80's I had a Hafler DH-220 amp, one of the first to use discrete MOSFET devices at a reasonable price -- IIRC $700, or $600 if you built it yourself. With a quiet preamp and the then brand-new Sony CDP-101 CD player ($650-ish) you had some amazing sound. Hit pause on the CD and listen to the dead silence, even at high volume levels. Amazing. These days - spend your money on anything of reasonable price and you'll get excellent sound. They're marketed more on features (i-device integration, network audio, etc) than audio quality, because decent sound quality has become a given.

mark-r 12y ago
That Sony CD player may have been quiet, but that was its only grace. When I first heard it I wondered why they had selected such a harsh system for the demo. It wasn't until later that I figured out it was the CDs and player itself that was generating the harshness. Thankfully digital has progressed greatly since those early days.
- chiph 12y ago
  Before I threw it away a few years ago, I hooked it back up and listened to it. Yeah, it was bad. But good for the time. I figure a $40 Walmart player from today would sound better than it did. Wikipedia says it's because Sony only put one DAC in there to save cost, and routed the left/right channel through it alternately. So one channel was always slightly lagging behind the other. I still have some of the CDs from the mid-80s. Pink Floyd The Wall sounds like they just dumped the album tracks on it, RIAA curve and all. Dire Straits Brothers in Arms still sounds pretty good - there's a reason it won two Grammys. Bought the MoFi remaster last year of it.
  - JonnieCache 12y ago
    >Sony only put one DAC in there to save cost, and routed the left/right channel through it alternately. Wow. I guess you could just put one speaker slightly further away from the listening position or something...

by chiph 12y ago

mark-r 12y ago

That Sony CD player may have been quiet, but that was its only grace. When I first heard it I wondered why they had selected such a harsh system for the demo. It wasn't until later that I figured out it was the CDs and player itself that was generating the harshness. Thankfully digital has progressed greatly since those early days.

chiph 12y ago
Before I threw it away a few years ago, I hooked it back up and listened to it. Yeah, it was bad. But good for the time. I figure a $40 Walmart player from today would sound better than it did. Wikipedia says it's because Sony only put one DAC in there to save cost, and routed the left/right channel through it alternately. So one channel was always slightly lagging behind the other. I still have some of the CDs from the mid-80s. Pink Floyd The Wall sounds like they just dumped the album tracks on it, RIAA curve and all. Dire Straits Brothers in Arms still sounds pretty good - there's a reason it won two Grammys. Bought the MoFi remaster last year of it.
- JonnieCache 12y ago
  >Sony only put one DAC in there to save cost, and routed the left/right channel through it alternately. Wow. I guess you could just put one speaker slightly further away from the listening position or something...