watchnerd
Grand Contributor
Come on, you might as well tell the truth. Samsung/Harman. They are behind several products you list.
Sure, no problem.
Come on, you might as well tell the truth. Samsung/Harman. They are behind several products you list.
and Cog rot
Phillips is a name rarely name checked by audio enthusiasts yet their role in developing the CD with Sony gives them a real place in audio history as that was one of the most significant developments in audio. I think the achievement of Sony and Phillips engineers in developing the CD standard is one of the most under appreciated in audio in some ways, many audiophiles still hate the CD standard and everything that went with it but all those years ago the red book established a standard for sample rate and bit depth which has stood the test of time probably better than even its creators expected. They also created the compact cassette I think, that is a format that was always derided by audiophiles yet in the 70's and 80's it was hugely popular and opened up a world of possibilities, the fact that it was rendered obsolete by recordable digital media shouldn't lessen the fact that in its day it offered a very usable and convenient recordable format which was hugely popular (and Nakamichi did lift the format up to serious performance levels).
...I think the achievement of Sony and Phillips engineers in developing the CD standard is one of the most under appreciated in audio in some ways...
from that interview:Here's some more on Heitaro. A wonderful interview.
https://ethw.org/Oral-History:Heitaro_Nakajima
I like this part. He was able to toil away just far enough away from his boss that he didn't visit often:
"Forty researchers worked under me, and most of them were trying to keep up with our competition in the analog field. Therefore I decided to assign two researchers only to digital research. We started off with them putting together the same sort of large, cumbersome digital recorder that we had done in NHK. We ran up against the problem that there would be other people seeing it, that it was too big, too cumbersome, and too expensive. At that time, Mr. Ibuka was one of those who were very strongly saying, "Give it up! Just leave it, just put it aside." The point was, however, that Mr. Ibuka was in Gotanda and I was here. Because of the Yamanote train line, which runs around here, it's a very inconvenient place to get to. For my purposes, that was very good, producing just enough time for the soup to get cold. "
This perfectly illustrates why the word brand has no real value to the customer, all too often as soon as they are seen as a quality brand they exploit it. And why independent testing is required.I think for a time, and maybe that time has passed a little bit, McIntosh was selling rep and pretty cases and poor quality. This article about extremely high jitter digital sources nails it. From 10 years ago. I think they are back onto to good quality mostly now.
https://www.stereophile.com/content/case-jitters-less-cd-quality
A $6000 McIntosh media server had the honor for highest jitter they'd tested. It was very outclassed by the next worst unit. An early Sony Playstation 1. A $25 second hand item. So if that Mac is built heavy duty like most Mac gear you'll get to have that performance level for a long, long time.
On the other hand surprised no one has mentioned Rega, quality products usually at sensible prices, what the market needs more of.
It was my quad 67 CDP actually, I think they were Philips but can’t swear to it.Marantz early bitstream player huh?
I think the link to the Nakajima interview and book reference made this thread worthwhile in themselves.