J-Log

Are there any current DVD players that are known to be especially good at playing CD audio? I am trying to avoid the crackling distortion many DVD and CD players produce on certain guitar-heavy songs on my CDs. Four DVD players (including the supposedly good-for-audio Sony DVPNS55P) and one component CD player have produced this problem so far.

I do have a portable CD player and a car CD player that do not produce the distortion. I also found one component CD player (which belongs to someone else) that does not produce it. So I know they are out there.

Ideally the price would be less than $100, but please let me know if this is going to be an impossible limitation. So far most of the DVD players I have tried have been very low-end, and they usually produce decent video, but I am willing to spend more to get good CD audio as well.

Thanks for any help you can give me.

SINGLE104

DVD and CD Players have nothing to do with the sound output, they only read the laser on the disc. The problem your expericing, may be coming from a bad internal circuitry in the A/V receiver, an incorrect audio connection set-up, or your speakers could be distorted. Inspect these other three alternatives, which your problem may apply to and be resolved. Most certainly, it's not any DVD Player (s) for sure.

Bateman

Depends on how you are connecting the player to your reciever. If you are using a digital optical or coax your player will just be acting as a transport with your receiver decoding the information.

If you are connecting using standard coposite cables then the CD/DVD player will be doing the decoding. If this is the case then a cheap player may be noticable but I would still be suprised if it caused distortion. Without knowing more about your system its hard to say but I would gess its something other than the players you have been using.

J-Log

You are right. I was convinced that it was the DVD player(s) since I had no reason to expect my receiver had gone bad (it happened slowly over time), and since a portable CD player sounded fine when connected to it. But I found out through testing that my receiver is the bad link.

By the way, I was connected via standard analog stereo RCA cables, which I should have mentioned in the first place.

Thanks for the help.

Spiky

Hmm. Well, if you are connected with analog, then the player is decoding. The receiver's amp is still being used, but not the DAC. And if everything else sounds ok, it may be the player that is not good at CD. Perhaps you should try connecting it via a digital cable, see if it is better. Either optical or coax, whichever is available.

I would say very few DVD players under $100 are any good at CD playback, even if they are good at DVD playback. (just talking about audio)

Another thought: How loud do you play these riffs?

J-Log

I know the DVD player quality, including its DAC, is a factor in the CD sound over analog cables. Some DVD players seem to sound worse than others on my receiver, even though they all sound bad. But I am pretty sure the player quality has turned out not to be the overriding factor in this case. I know this because I finally took the trouble to hook up a different receiver in the house to my original speakers and component CD player (which seemed to be causing the same type of distortion as the DVD players), and there was no distortion to be heard.

I am almost embarrassed to say that my CD player and receiver are both low-end TEAC models from several years ago (I bought them as a teenager). My receiver is a stereo receiver, not an A/V receiver, and it doesn't have digital inputs.

I have ordered a new Sherwood stereo receiver to replace the TEAC, so that should be the end of this saga. For audio from DVDs I have a separate home-theater-in-a-box.

As for music volume, I do play it fairly loud at times, and although I'm sure my speakers can handle it, I don't know about the cheap receiver. That may be why it went bad. Currently the distortion occurs even at moderate volumes, not just when I play it loud.

AGuyNamedMike

The electrolytic capacitors in the receiver have probably just started to degrade from age and heat stress (the wet electrolyte in them is just drying out, and the capacitive qualities are reducing drastically). If you're on a tight budget and handy with a soldering iron, you could probably just replace them to restore your old receiver's performance and sound.

They probably resemble this picture (ignore the writing on the example image), and also probably appear to be bulging on the top or leaking out the bottom (which is a bad thing).