CD Players and Changers |
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| Compact disc technology has come a long way. Touted in its early-'80s
infancy as offering "perfect sound forever," the format drew fire from casual
listeners and audiophiles alike for its "cold" or "lifeless" sound. By
the mid-'90s, however, improvements in digital mastering (such as perceptual coding) and
CD playback technologies (better digital-to-analog converters, or DACs, higher
over-sampling, reduced "jitter") had raised the standards for CD quality so that
CDs could reproduce most of the information found on high-resolution analog and digital
masters. The late '90s witnessed a surge in the popularity of HDCD (High-Definition
Compatible Digital), a mastering format that encodes 20 bits of information on standard
16-bit discs. HDCD discs sound great on any CD player and even better--at once more
natural and more dynamic--when decoded using an HDCD-equipped CD or DVD player. Sound
quality aside, the convenience of CD over other formats is undeniable. CDs are much more
portable than the 12-inch LP record and offer far easier track-search capability than the
cassette tape. Modern technological improvements include features such as CD-Text, which
tells CD-Text-enabled CD players the artist and track information for a given disc, and
anti-skip technology for portable players that let you take your music jogging and driving
without unwanted interruptions in the music. CD Player and Changer ReviewsJVC Single-Disc CD
Player Harman Kardon 5-CD Changer Pioneer 25 CD Changer Also... |
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