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Re: Theory vs. Practice

My observations about modding a CDP are based on actual listening: comparing the relative strengths of RBCD, SACD, and vinyl media in my system after each improvement. Call this subjective if you like, but I believe that practiced listening is the only really meaningful yardstick audiophiles and designers have to judge components. Given time & experience, one should be able to assign rough percentages to each modification. I'll take a listening test over measured THD or jitter any day as the criterion for judging a design change-- particularly as the equipment approaches state-of-the-art. If you're a modder, you have opportunity to compare many small, incremental changes in a closed system with finer control over variables than is available when swapping whole components or visiting audio salons. This experience sharpens your ear. The good news for the objectivist is that replacing built-to-cost components and circuits with better (and usually more expensive) aftermarket parts logically should, and usually does, make a positive improvement. As an audio dealer once said to me, to play in this hobby, all it takes is money. Money and a good ear.

I agree that dealing with problems upstream in the digital domain is important. Replacing the stock clock circuit is probably critical. I am also impressed with how much improvement can be made in the digital domain of the transport section by upgrading stock caps and resistors in the digital signal path, and by improving power delivery to the stock transport DSPs (including PLL chips). On a good transport like the SCD-1, one does not need to significantly redesign these circuits beyond adding discrete regulation circuits and eliminating layers of down-regulation by SMT pin regulators. Whether jitter is improved I cannot say, but I can report that with these changes there is a marked improvement in resolution, transparency, treble sweetness, bass definition and musicality. And battery power rules. This is what I mean by theory vs. practice, tho I'm no luddite w/r to innovation.

Dave

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