I am very curious what the audiophiles have to say. To me, there is a very audible difference when I play my cd thru BD/DVD player compare to my NAD cdp. I believe a dedicated cdp does a much better job in digital to analogue section. Then again, there is a more complete Bluray player like the Oppo-86SE which has on board quality DAC to reproduce refine cd sound. The downside is very expensive.

---

Added on December 17, 2010, 9:29 am

Sori typo error, should be Oppo 83SE

Dune sucks on analog audio, so is my Oppo BDP-80.
So I send them using HDMI and let my Onkyo doing the DAC thing.
I had a CA 640C b4 and it's very good sound and a great bargain for the price. I have never heard the Oppo-83SE but it should come very close to dedicated CDP.

so, if you have very good pre-amp for the DAC, a normal BD player send the signal using HDMI will do (the sound will be more digital compared to analog) but can save lots of $$$ compared to buying a dedicated CDP (which I am doing it now)

What you just described is what I said earlier i.e., system matching (the matching of specific CD player with specific amplifier with specific wiring with specific speaker in a specific room) is the KEY to good sound. And an old or real cheapo setup can sound much better than a poorly matched brand new modern mega buck setup.

An analysis IMHO of price vs performance of audiovisual equipment:-

from RM500 change to RM2000 equipment --> the performance is very big and can differentiate very easily

RM2000 --> RM10000, still can detect but not as obvious as the 500 to 2k jump

RM10000 --> RM100k, u might get only 10-15% of improved performance for a 1000% different in price

TS, all the while, I also have the same question. All the while I wanted 5.1 surround with AVR but now, setup totally changed as I am a beginner stereophiler now - more towards music.

I am now running on Cambridge Audio Integ. Amp + PSB Alpha B1 speakers + Velodyne Impact Mini and I cant play good music unless I use CD player. I was thinking to get a Pana BD60 player until recently I did few testing with the help of my boss as he could supply me some of his equipment for testing.

I've tested the following items and do notice my remarks in bracket.

Tested with:
- Older Sony Discman (sound is not bad, acceptable)
- Older Samsung DVD player with HDMI ( unbearable quality )
- Shangling dedicated CD player with BurrBrown DAC (sounds solid and fuller)
- CA DacMagic with Popcorn hour A200 (digital music - sounds far more perfect than the Shangling dedicated CD player... can u believe that???)

Those are the tests conducted with Beginner setup, and due to this, I am cancelling my purchase of CD player because I can play lossless format like WAV, FLAC,.... better than CD player.

All tests conducted with a simple Denon Master Audiophile CD.

What really impresses me was that the DacMagic enabled me to hear the sound that cannot be produced by other items and yet, the songs are ripped to WAV and not from CD!

Can Wolfson DAC be so good? Only my ears can tell me.

What speakers were they? The most probable cause of the difference might have been the amp and the room. Speaker placement is very important for 2 channel stereo. The 663 is low powered and is probably not driving ur speakers anyway.

While I agree with what the rest have said, 2 channel stereo is sampled at 44.1kHz and is normally very centric to the kind of music that the CD is. The reproduction chain is important to get the best out of the CD. Believe it or not, a good CDP whether as a transport only and an outboard proper DAC or a CDP with good DACs make a difference. That said, a dedicated pre/power or integrated amp with a CDP will mostly always sound better than than an AVR when it comes to reproducing 2 channel stereo. The AVR is a multi functional amp that has a lot of things going on. The pre and the multiple power amp sections are all housed together in one chassis. Jitter is also something that comes into play. Anyway, this is a much debated area. In my opinion, 2 channel stereo sounds best using a properly designed amp. The Yammy 663 is an entry level AVR.

Those certified Hi Fi enthusiast would do just that, lugging equipments around to the dealer, to friend's house or even stranger who are also Hi Fi enthusiast. When you enter into their world, crazy thing happens. Stranger open their house and yours to them all in the name of Hi Fi. To discuss, to hook up different equipments just to see how they sounded because system matching is as much a science as a art. In other word, you may already know the basic sonic character of several equipment/brand but you can only know for sure when they are physically connected up.

So if you are really serious about Hi Fi, try to learn the basic sonic character of the equipment you have on hand and of those you intend to buy in future. That way, you will have a pretty good guess as to how they will sound together but I am afraid you can only know for sure when they are actually being hooked up in your house. It must be in your house because different room have different acoustic behavior so the exact same setup can sounded different in different house. So are you sure you want to go down that slippery road of sound Ethiopia or more white hair?

You already mentioned they are using dedicated CDP & NAD pre-amp. These are hifi gadgets and obviously are designed & manufactured to bring sonic performance in music listening. EVEN you pair them with any other established hifi brands be it like Audiolab, Mission, CA, Marantz etc. I bet they are going to beat your HT set up hands down as far as pure music listening is concerned.

IMO, even a blind matching between those hifi equipments can out-performed an AV set-up for music listening. Afterall, they are meant for this purpose. Thats why you can;t get anything closer to sound in the shop. Trust me, if you hook up a dedicated cdp you will certainly feel a leap in performance. The most obvious is the vocal department.

Different people likes different sound. For an extreme example, a Ah Beng car fulled with car stereo equipment with treble & bass turned to the MAX is Ethiopia to them whereas a Hi Fi enthusiast would vomit blood.

More down to earth, what sounded great for movies with bullet flying around and explosion may not sound great when playing back vocal singing. Generally speaking, those into Hi Fi sound reproduction goes for equipments that sounded as natural or as close to the original recording as possible. Nothing added and nothing deleted. As a general rule, it is very difficult to get a setup that's good for movies and vocal at the same time.

So you have to first decide what sort of sound/purpose you wanted before you can go out and develop your Hi Fi hobby. The best way is to go around listening to other people's setup or attend KL AV show (around July of every year) to first determine what you wanted.

My 2 sen.