extreme CD player (absurd)
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2013 21:47:57 +0000
Linux-powered CD player attempts audio perfection
Mar 22, 2013
Parasound, a purveyor of fanatically high-end consumer audio equipment, has introduced a CD player that's controlled by an internal Mini-ITX computer running embedded Linux. Using a CD-ROM drive for playing CDs, the "Halo CD 1" sucks in the CD's contents at 4x normal speed, giving its CPU time to detect and eliminate disc errors before outputting near-perfect audio.
By reading data from the disc at four times the speed of a conventional CD player, the device's embedded Linux computer can read each section of the disc multiple times, checking for discrepancies between the reads. When differences are detected, the sections are read again "as many times as needed to significantly reduce errors and, accordingly, [to eliminate] the negative effects of error concealment."
The result, according to Parasound, is a "nearly bit-perfect data stream."
....
The Parasound Halo CD 1 CD-player comes in silver and black, and is priced at $4,500.
Comments from other readers:Blade says:
March 23, 2013 at 5:35 pm
...so it's a $100 computer, with a $10 CD-ROM drive, and a really high end sound card. So, like $400 of parts, and possibly some custom software, although I think that it's standard for most CD software these days to be able to read ahead and error correct.
Sounds like a potential open-source project - if anyone thought it were worth doing.Integration Guy says:
March 24, 2013 at 7:35 am
The company I work for does high end installs for people with so much money they really seem to be unsure how to spend it. Celebrities, Movie Stars, Rock Stars, Fortune 500 Execs, Politicians and just very, very wealthy people. Our jobs typically include a home automation system ... distributed audio through out the home, in wall touch screens like something out of Star Trek and an equipment room with multiple eight foot racks housing the brains for all this stuff.
... we have not installed a new CD player in well over a year for any of these jobs. Most continue to use their old unit and, when it dies, they don't replace it with a CD player. .... Instead [of] CDs they use a media server that access all of their music stored on hard drives or from their iTunes account or they just use AirPlay with their iPhones.
The audio CD is all but dead technology, at any price. At this price? Wow.
So it's not worth doing. It's an expensive product for a dieing market. Then again, there's still people buying vinyl, and listening with tube amps.
[This entry was originally posted as http://syntonic-comma.dreamwidth.org/589634.html on Dreamwidth (where there are
comments).]
Linux-powered CD player attempts audio perfection
Mar 22, 2013
Parasound, a purveyor of fanatically high-end consumer audio equipment, has introduced a CD player that's controlled by an internal Mini-ITX computer running embedded Linux. Using a CD-ROM drive for playing CDs, the "Halo CD 1" sucks in the CD's contents at 4x normal speed, giving its CPU time to detect and eliminate disc errors before outputting near-perfect audio.
By reading data from the disc at four times the speed of a conventional CD player, the device's embedded Linux computer can read each section of the disc multiple times, checking for discrepancies between the reads. When differences are detected, the sections are read again "as many times as needed to significantly reduce errors and, accordingly, [to eliminate] the negative effects of error concealment."
The result, according to Parasound, is a "nearly bit-perfect data stream."
....
The Parasound Halo CD 1 CD-player comes in silver and black, and is priced at $4,500.
Comments from other readers:Blade says:
March 23, 2013 at 5:35 pm
...so it's a $100 computer, with a $10 CD-ROM drive, and a really high end sound card. So, like $400 of parts, and possibly some custom software, although I think that it's standard for most CD software these days to be able to read ahead and error correct.
Sounds like a potential open-source project - if anyone thought it were worth doing.Integration Guy says:
March 24, 2013 at 7:35 am
The company I work for does high end installs for people with so much money they really seem to be unsure how to spend it. Celebrities, Movie Stars, Rock Stars, Fortune 500 Execs, Politicians and just very, very wealthy people. Our jobs typically include a home automation system ... distributed audio through out the home, in wall touch screens like something out of Star Trek and an equipment room with multiple eight foot racks housing the brains for all this stuff.
... we have not installed a new CD player in well over a year for any of these jobs. Most continue to use their old unit and, when it dies, they don't replace it with a CD player. .... Instead [of] CDs they use a media server that access all of their music stored on hard drives or from their iTunes account or they just use AirPlay with their iPhones.
The audio CD is all but dead technology, at any price. At this price? Wow.
So it's not worth doing. It's an expensive product for a dieing market. Then again, there's still people buying vinyl, and listening with tube amps.
[This entry was originally posted as http://syntonic-comma.dreamwidth.org/589634.html on Dreamwidth (where there are
comments).]