Here is another really good thread, it gets a little too technical for me, though:
http://www.dsprelated.com/showmessage/2587/1.php
"I wonder if it was utilized perhaps more than the industry let on."
I also wonder: If so few discs were mastered with pre-emphasis, then why is so much ink being spilled on the subject??
"Not hard to believe JA is clueless to this"
I'm not sure he deserves this, but you may know something I don't...He routinely does this de-emphasis check in his measurments. From what I have seen in the reviews, it's not necessarily a question of either having or not having de-emphasis--in the graphs you can see quite a difference between no de-emphasis, and a slight error. JA noted that the Quad 99 CDP-2 or Cary 303/200 didn't have it at all, while others have the wrong amount. In the Cary review, "the Cary doesn't switch in the appropriate de-emphasis. As a reasonably large number of older CDs are pre-emphasized, these will sound thin and screechy on the CD303." But in the case of the Linn the error is "slight" and would be "just audible." In the review of the $13,495 Nagra CDP, he wrote, "with pre-emphasized data, a negative 2dB error appeared in the mid-treble. With those rare pre-emphasized CDs, the CDP will sound slightly distant or polite."
Note that he says more than once that pre-emphasized CD's are few or rare, but in the Cary review he says that there is a reasonably large number! So which is it?
http://www.dsprelated.com/showmessage/2587/1.php
"I wonder if it was utilized perhaps more than the industry let on."
I also wonder: If so few discs were mastered with pre-emphasis, then why is so much ink being spilled on the subject??
"Not hard to believe JA is clueless to this"
I'm not sure he deserves this, but you may know something I don't...He routinely does this de-emphasis check in his measurments. From what I have seen in the reviews, it's not necessarily a question of either having or not having de-emphasis--in the graphs you can see quite a difference between no de-emphasis, and a slight error. JA noted that the Quad 99 CDP-2 or Cary 303/200 didn't have it at all, while others have the wrong amount. In the Cary review, "the Cary doesn't switch in the appropriate de-emphasis. As a reasonably large number of older CDs are pre-emphasized, these will sound thin and screechy on the CD303." But in the case of the Linn the error is "slight" and would be "just audible." In the review of the $13,495 Nagra CDP, he wrote, "with pre-emphasized data, a negative 2dB error appeared in the mid-treble. With those rare pre-emphasized CDs, the CDP will sound slightly distant or polite."
Note that he says more than once that pre-emphasized CD's are few or rare, but in the Cary review he says that there is a reasonably large number! So which is it?