[net.audio] carver and nak questions

jay@npois.UUCP (Anton Winteroak) (03/19/85)

	Sometime soon I am going to by a CD player. I've been looking in audio 
shops, and reading occaissional trade journals. Generally the conclusion
that I find is that there is no clear consensus about which is best.
	Advice seems to center on five brands being near the best. They
are Revox, Sony, Phillips(Magnavox), Nakamichi, and Carver. Note that
the last two are new entrants into the field, and their advocates seem
to be basing recomendations on reputation.
	I have heard the Nakamichi (OMS-7) and it sounds pretty good,
and is fairly resistant to mistracking when struck or bounced. It would
mistrack if I picked it up and shook it gently, but horizontal taps had
no effect unless I hit it pretty hard.
	The salesman was equally willing to sell me the Nak as the Carver
and willing to feed me info about Carver's time lens, and Nak's special
new method of digital filtering.
	If any of you have something real to say on the subject, please
do. If not, I will asume that I cannot make a wrong choice amoung these
five (and probably pick the Nakamichi).

	Another side light. The Carver salesman claims that the M1.5T
amplifier has been redisigned, and that the new one doesn't change the
state of your circuit breakers at low levels. Someone else was trying
to sell me a more traditional power amp (Perreaux 5130 ?) from New
Zealand as being cleaner sounding than the Carver. "If all you want
to listen to is Rock and Roll, the Carver will be just fine, but for
Classical, I think you'll find this is cleaner sounding."
	Is this bologna? Carver's specs make his look pretty good. Perhaps
his whole problem was in the pre-amp. He had his 1.5T hooked up to
a new smaller version of the holographic unit, and the NZ unit hooked
up to it's native pre-amp.

	I have a question about pre-amps, but I'll post that seperately.

			...!npois!jay     Anton Winteroak

bhs@siemens.UUCP (03/21/85)

Nak is not introducing some new digital filtering scheme.
They are merely  implementing the same filtering scheme which Phillips (aka
Magnavox) uses on all of their players. Quadruple oversampling is inherently
superior to analog filtering. Also, the Phillips players are known to have one
of the better drive mechanisms on the market, being quite tolerant of surface
imperfections, as well as vibrations. So, for example, Revox seems to have
incorporated the Phillips mechanism into their players.
Bu the way, Magnavox players are built in Belgium on the same line as Phillips
players are.

Bernard H. Schwab
Siemens RTL, Princeton, NJ