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In Reply to: Re: My impression of 2109 as a transport versus JVC1050 posted by mtrycrafts on May 16, 1999 at 16:42:44:
I don't dismiss the idea of blind testing and I may go out and buy duplicate copies of one or two of my favorite CDs so I can perform a blind test.However, my recent purchase of a Toshiba DVD player was intented to be my last digital purchase until the new music formats are established. My purchase decision was based on glowing reviews of how well modestly priced DVD players served as transports. I didn't want a separate CD player and DVD transport and I would say I was heavily biased toward wanting the DVD player to sound great. After purchasing the Toshiba 2109 I became immediately awhare of a characteristic sound of this transport (I'm using a canare digital interconnect). As I said before, music seemed to become more constricted and skeletal, soundstaging seemed a bit flatter, and music was bright to my ears. By the way, I had never considered anything I had previously played on my system to sound "bright", but the Toshiba sounded just that. I listened for quite awhile with the DVD player, but in the end I gave up and ended up listening to the Onkyo carosel instead. The toshiba was my first experience with a fully digital transport and playback and I was disappointed. I wasn't enjoying my music and thats whats important to us all in audiophiledom.
When comparing the DVD player to CD player, even my wife immediately noticed a difference and believe me, she is not a big supporter of my spending habits in audio. Music was more pleasurable for her to listen to on the JVC1050 transport. Initially, she did comment that she thought that the 2109 had more "detail", but I felt that the JVC had as much detail without the harshness. I felt that the detail she was hearing was acutally treble emphasis or digital harshness (from poor error correction?). My crude example is that some feel that bose speakers are very detailed, but I chalk that up to treble emphasis in the speaker design and not improved resolution of detail.
Anyway, I am fully supportive that transports do make a difference above budget DVD players. Can't say what would happen if I had a Denon DVD-5000 or Sony 7700. Either way, I'm happy about my purchases. I'm thrilled with the 2109 on movies and the 1050 on music. In my eyes, that money well spent. By the way, I will try to perform an AB test with players and digital interconnects to see if I hear a difference. I will try to post later.
Todd
Here is a simple initial test before you go get duplicates. A test disc is needed though, with either pink noise or a few frequency bands like 1khz, 100hz and perhaps a 10khz tone, if no pink noise is available. You also need an spl meter,RS has an analog meter, although this is not accurate enough to check the level of the two player to match, it will give you an indication of gross level differences. A tripod would also help to hold the meter stady and ina constant place. Play the test disk with bot players and check the level at the listening place. In a real test, one would use a volt meter to check at the speakers to 1% of voltage with both player. That gives the desired .1db level match but that is beyond the call of duty for your curiosity.
The other problem you will have with multiple discs is how will you synchronize the two so you cannot get a clue which disc is which by one being a bit ahead/behind the other, if you switch rapidly.
With this initial test of level, if they match, do a ten trial yesy on your wife, randomly played in the two players, without her knowledge which is which, and let her write down which player she thinks is playing. Correct the answer sheet after the ten trials, not after each trial. You need 9 correct answers.
Actually, statistically speaking, isn't anything more than 7/10 statistically significant? At 7/10 your confidence interval is > 90%, right?Or has it just been too long since I took statistics?
In the wast majority of stat testing, most use the 95% confidence level, not the 90%. So, the 9 of 10 is correct for the 95% level. Check out this link for a better explanation of the binomial stuff with some tables:
http://mars.acs.oakland.edu/~djcarlst/abx_p9.htm
I hope this will get you to the link. It does on myt hyperlink.
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