CD/DVD Player
1 - 20 of 27 Posts
Joined
·
1,213 Posts
I have not. Porsche may keep this dated technology only because the majority of people who buy (can afford) the brand grew up with CDs and probably still have a stockpile of them (I got rid of my 8 tracks and older media a while back). It is useless and I suspect it will be phased out eventually.
Joined
·
717 Posts
I'd use it if I could rip the CD to the Jukebox - but it doesn't let you do that. So I copy them to a USB stick, insert that into the car and then copy that to the Jukebox.
Joined
·
1,891 Posts
I use it -- often, in fact, since I still buy physical CDs that I (eventually) rip as FLAC files for the home/DMP/car. Thing is, I tend to wait to have a ripping session after I've built up several new albums that need to be converted. It's definitely not a simple thing to do in my system -- which, incidentally, also includes a reference-quality CD player.
Currently spinning Opeth's latest (and, IMHO, greatest) in the car.
Also, @RussellHodgson and @InTgr8r : beware the Jukebox storage. I'm almost certain that it isn't hi-res. The only way to play hi-res files in the car is on an SD Card or straight from USB. After testing Jukebox against a CD and FLAC-stuffed SD Card soon after I got my car, I stopped using it.
Currently spinning Opeth's latest (and, IMHO, greatest) in the car.
Also, @RussellHodgson and @InTgr8r : beware the Jukebox storage. I'm almost certain that it isn't hi-res. The only way to play hi-res files in the car is on an SD Card or straight from USB. After testing Jukebox against a CD and FLAC-stuffed SD Card soon after I got my car, I stopped using it.
Joined
·
348 Posts
wow someone actualy using the thing!
Saying that I d probay use a cassette player given the chance.
I didnt know Opeth were still arround, that brings back student times memories, listened a lot Blackwater Park back then. : )
I just plug a usb and listen from there... I didnt even know the car had storage I could copy mp3s on to.
Saying that I d probay use a cassette player given the chance.
I didnt know Opeth were still arround, that brings back student times memories, listened a lot Blackwater Park back then. : )
I just plug a usb and listen from there... I didnt even know the car had storage I could copy mp3s on to.
Joined
·
2,589 Posts
I haven't used the CD player yet, but we play stuff from the jukebox quite a bit. What I find curious is that the PCM supports playing video and DVDs. What's the point? A passenger could watch a movie on a long trip except that it won't play video while the car is moving, and when it's stopped the PCM will shut itself off after 5 minutes or so unless the ignition is turned on.
On the other hand, as a working musician I wholeheartedly support people buying CDs as a way to purchase music. What you do with it afterwards is your business.
I just activated the 3 month free trial of Sirius XM radio. The signal is clear and sounds good. Can't say I understand the channel selection mechanism yet, nor how to set up a preferred list in the car.
On the other hand, as a working musician I wholeheartedly support people buying CDs as a way to purchase music. What you do with it afterwards is your business.
I just activated the 3 month free trial of Sirius XM radio. The signal is clear and sounds good. Can't say I understand the channel selection mechanism yet, nor how to set up a preferred list in the car.
Joined
·
813 Posts
I'm like @Viffermike. I still buy CD's (bought six this week) and will most likely use the CD player to play them until I rip them to my NAS drive at home. Every few months or so I will then update the SD or USB with a new selection of albums from my library.
Hope I'm not setting the precedence of being the nerdy one in regards VAG on this forum 
So, being a VAG product and sharing tech from group, the PCM/Navigation is shared with Porsche then putting their spin on it. The underlining system harks back from a few years now. With that in mind, I can only assume it's easier to keep all the components vs. engineering them out.
Look close and you can see how certain items are engineered/designed in the same place across Group. i.e. the SD/SIM slots are also under a small cover under or near the navigation screen in most Audi's. Compare a picture of the new Panamara and Bentley GT - note how the centre vents are almost in the identical place. Ducting etc is shared and expense to re-tool so some things must stay.
Hope you are all well!
P
So, being a VAG product and sharing tech from group, the PCM/Navigation is shared with Porsche then putting their spin on it. The underlining system harks back from a few years now. With that in mind, I can only assume it's easier to keep all the components vs. engineering them out. Look close and you can see how certain items are engineered/designed in the same place across Group. i.e. the SD/SIM slots are also under a small cover under or near the navigation screen in most Audi's. Compare a picture of the new Panamara and Bentley GT - note how the centre vents are almost in the identical place. Ducting etc is shared and expense to re-tool so some things must stay.
Hope you are all well!
P
Joined
·
675 Posts
I guess PEC forgot to tell the factory that, in the configurator and in the press cars the slot is clearly still there...
Joined
·
1,891 Posts
We music purists like our CDs because it allows the music consumer to control the quality of the source material -- not the music publisher, not the delivery platform, not the hardware used to play the material, etc. Digital files such as the omnipresent .mp4 are nowhere near original quality. (Granted, CDs aren't either -- but, again, they allow the consumer to choose to downsample from a higher starting point.) I generally view music delivered in non-lossless file formats as both not worth their price and contributing to a wider trend of 'dumbing down' consumer-level recordings, and, ergo, music's appreciation and function as a societal catalyst, as an art form, and more.
I could go on for hours about this -- I'm that passionate and militant about it -- but I won't here.
(By the way: Opeth's never disappeared, though it's not the same band it was in the days of Blackwater Park. It's more like a Goteborg-ian version of Porcupine Tree these days.)
Joined
·
2,589 Posts
To which I would add that there is lot more that can be added.
In the old days the Holy Grail of reproduced audio was to make a listening experience be exactly like a live performance. That is theoretically possible though generally impractical. A good multi-channel surround system or even simple stereo can come close enough if the system is good enough and set up well. A key element is that speakers create an actual sound field, something headphones can't do. With the development of reasonable compression like mp3 it became possible for anyone to carry an entire musical library on their person and listen to whatever they wanted whenever they wanted, as long as they use headphones or earbuds. Convenience defeated realism for almost everyone not a musical purist, and thus became the market standard. Dumb'ed-down audio was the clear winner.
When CDs first came out they didn't sound as good as vimyl, especially for "re-released" original tracks. That wasn't because of any weakness in the medium (like the ridiculous holes-in-the-music argument) but because vinyl has its own properties which engineers had learned to accommodate. Just as audio engineers gradually learned how to mix and master CDs to sound good, they eventually adapted to create mixes which sounded okay in phones. High bit rate mp3s can sound good like raw PCM audio, but of course they are nearly as big too. The new goal isn't the live-performance of the old days but it isn't meant to be. It's meant to be something which sounds good, real or not. (I have in fact mixed several CDs and a DVD with phones and highest-bit-rate mp3s.)
So put all this in a car. Yeesh. A car is about the worst environment you can imagine for good audio. You have two seating positions, neither of which is very far away from the various speakers. How do you generate spatial effects correctly for both, or even one? I once worked out the transfer function math to use head-shadow effects to do it. It was messy. I was not able to determine whether the solution was degenerate or physically possible, and since no one in the company was interested and it wasn't my primary job I didn't pursued it further.
Porsche's Bose system has a surround effects feature. Sharon and I found that it made speech such as ball game on the radio less intelligible. I haven't been tempted to try it on music. I don't know what it does but I can guess. Disclaimer - the company I worked for was a Bose competitor and I understood a bit of their technology, so I'd be a biased judge.
Anyway, the point is, good audio is really hard, and in practice depends on what you are willing to call good enough.
Joined
·
2,229 Posts
Take all this with a grain of salt. You may re-create the concert hall, at least in your listening room in your house.
However,
None of us is getting any younger.
I was blessed with very good hearing. In my early twenties I could hear a very high frequency whine emitted from the HP 42 calculator (20+ kHz)
At age 31 I passed the company physical including a hearing test when the person in charge commented that he didn't see very often people passing the test with 100% at 16 kHz. What about 20 kHz I asked. He motioned forget that...
In my mid forties I had to pass a physical for survival training in the North Sea. At 16 kHz it was a statistical hit or miss. I can't remember what the next step down was, but even there I didn't have 100%. Now, I am not sure whether I can hear kHz... Is there an online test?
However,
None of us is getting any younger.
I was blessed with very good hearing. In my early twenties I could hear a very high frequency whine emitted from the HP 42 calculator (20+ kHz)
At age 31 I passed the company physical including a hearing test when the person in charge commented that he didn't see very often people passing the test with 100% at 16 kHz. What about 20 kHz I asked. He motioned forget that...
In my mid forties I had to pass a physical for survival training in the North Sea. At 16 kHz it was a statistical hit or miss. I can't remember what the next step down was, but even there I didn't have 100%. Now, I am not sure whether I can hear kHz... Is there an online test?
Joined
·
548 Posts
Right on the money. A well produced CD has excellent high fidelity, especially when compared to all the other options people choose for convenience sake. As others have stated, the automobile environment is not the best place to attempt to do critical listening. For that reason, as well as having all my preferred music on one SD card. I downsample my CDs for the car to MP3 320kbps. I would never do this for home critical listening, but on a good car system, and especially in a convertible, it sounds pretty decent. Somewhere in the future, hopefully in 2020, I'm going to upgrade the Bose system. I'm looking at a JL Audio VX700/5i, Hertz MPK 163.3 PRO 3 way speakers system, and a custom built slimline sub box that will fit behind the seat housing a low profile 8" sub. I wish we had some more alternatives for the MOST 150 system. From what I've read, I think I'll be happy with the JL Audio though.
Joined
·
1,891 Posts
All very true. Good sound is part subjective, part objective -- and even the objective part is informed by subjective predilections. The perfect example of this is (ahem) vinyl. It's 'warm' by nature partially because when it was developed as a medium, vinyl players were anything but capable of high fidelity -- particularly in the lower realms of the audible spectrum. Mixes, and masters, and pressings, and reproductions were each summarily tuned to offset this.
That's part and parcel of why I am adamant that I have the highest-quality example of source material available (within reason) because I want to make the decision to downscale. I don't want, say, Amazon, or Apple, or VW AG, or BMI, or Bose, or whoever to make that decision for me. Perfectly balanced sound is impossible -- its closest facsimile is very cold and clinical -- and for many types of musical or audible programming, flat response is undesirable (example: spoken word.). But, again: I want to make that adjustment. I don't want others doing it for me.
Joined
·
2,589 Posts
He! I get younger every day. At least I try to.
One key point is that good audio is more than just good frequency response of the ears. (In the hearing test I had a few years ago the audiologist said I had good hearing "for someone of my generation, who was also a musician.") What is sometimes called psychoacoustics covers a bunch of perception details, including the head shadow effect which each of us becomes accustomed to as we grow up, the frequency response and directionality of our ear lobes (each of us is different!), for low frequencies a subtle perception of phase differences between the two ears to perceive direction, for mid and higher frequencies the subtle timing difference between the two ears to perceive direction, and even the amount of time delay of harmonic components due to dispersion helping us perceive distance. Getting all that other stuff right is the hard part. Anybody can build a speaker with a nominally flat frequency response. Getting a bunch of speakers' output to add up to a proper air-displacement vector field at the listener, let alone two of them sitting three feet apart, is non-trivial.
Joined
·
108 Posts
I still do this exact same thing. CD's until I can copy to a lossless format and then onto SD card for "permanent" usage in my Macan.
Joined
·
813 Posts
I have to chuckle when people comment about how analogue and warm sounding vinyl is, ergo how much better it is than CD. What they are hearing is more likely to do with sub-optimal gear or set-up. My analogue front end doesn't sound warm at all - it does sound fantastic though!
1 - 20 of 27 Posts
