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Audiolab 6000CDT experience
- Thread starter audiopile
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No response yet, but I’m interested, too.
I’ve only seen subjective reviews, but the functionality seems good. At this point the only thing to worry about in a transport is the longevity of the laser and moving parts, right? It’s about the same price as the Cambridge Audio transport but the Cambridge doesn’t have number buttons on the remote so that would make the choice easy for me.
On the other hand, the marantz cd6006 is about the same price and if you ever wanted to use it as a CD player and not just a transport you could.
On the other hand, the marantz cd6006 is about the same price and if you ever wanted to use it as a CD player and not just a transport you could.
- Thread Starter
- #4
I spend about 90% of my time listening to LP's - subjectivly just more pleasure than CD in my system and to my old ears. On my second Benchmark DAC -have gone from a 1 to a 3 HGC - solidly built and excellent service if you need it. All my CD players that I have fed into the Benchmark are at least 15 years old -most are 25 or 30 years since they left the factory -used means no idea of use hours ? So it seems worth a try -spending all the money on a drive seems to make sense ?
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- Feb 5, 2019
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I have a CD6003. Good but the drive is noisy.
With a good, solid DAC like that, I suppose it’s mostly a matter of personal preference (slot vs tray, aesthetics, etc.). There’s a discussion on another thread you may have seen where they’re debatin something similar. https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...-transports-the-same.12884/page-2#post-451574
- Thread Starter
- #7
So popped into my local dealer and bought one. Unpluged the Parks Audio Puffin - plugged that cable into the SPDIF on the back of the 6000 and straight into the second SPDIF input on the Meridian DSP-5000 speakers. I remain just plain gobsmacked at what a plesure listening thru the 20 year old 128X oversampling DAC's in the Meridians is. At any rate -the remastered MIles Davis KOB sounded just fine. Please note; The 6000CDT comes out of the box set to the EU mandated 20 min and it's auto standby (off in English) -you will probably want to read the instructions on page 6 under the heading "6: Operation". Easily done and I reset mine to one hour in about 2 min. Your choices are 20 min. (factory out of the box), 1 hour of inactivity and it's auto off or never turns off/always on.
Glad you enjoy it! I considered going that route for a while, but now I think I’m going to *gulp* rip my CDs onto a NAS drive 
I’m also looking for a cd transport - but I have only 150 CDs so not sure if it worth the cost.
I now think maybe I should use my pc as transport, and I can also rip them to my NAS for my streamer if the setup doesn’t work well. Anybody has experience with PC as transport?
I now think maybe I should use my pc as transport, and I can also rip them to my NAS for my streamer if the setup doesn’t work well. Anybody has experience with PC as transport?
The times I've used a PC as a CD player (often during college), it was fine for near field where the speakers were connected to the computer because I was right there and didn't need a remote. If I were to hook that up to my system now, I would find it very inconvenient. Using an external CD transport on my laptop, I find it so loud that I can't use it for listening while the CD is spinning. If you use headphones, it may be fine.
Ok sounds like I should get a cheap usb burner and rip all my CDs. Thanks
Or an inexpensive CD player. You can get one for far less than the Audiolab.
I have an Audiolab 6000CDT and I am very happy with it. A noticeable improvement over my old Rotel. As far as ripping ... I have ripped a lot of CD's to my laptop, but they sound better played through the Audiolab. This makes sense: the Audiolab's reading is probably better than my laptop's and the Audiolab puts out a signal with a lot less noise than my laptop. (I am running the Audiolab into a Schiit Modi DAC; I am running the digital output of my laptop into the same DAC. If I were using the headphone output it would be worse because the DAC in my laptop is much worse than the Modi.) Whether it is worth $550 to you is for you to decide. However at the moment you can buy one from Amazon Prime with free shipping and 30 day returns which should be enough time to see if you like it enough. (That's what I did and I definitely like it enough.) BTW: I very much doubt that a pioneer USB Blu-ray burner for 95 Euros will be any good.
Hi I don’t understand how a cdt can be better than another? Isn’t it just send digital 0/1s to DAC?
- Thread Starter
- #16
I used to repair audio equipment -not much except my own stuff in the last 25 years or so. So -i pull the covers off of stuff -given my lack of real world experience with audio repairs over such a long time - I'm working off of ignorance as much as experience nowadays. But I'm just underwhelmed when I look at most CD compatible drives built into DVD/CD players today. I've been doing exactly what I DON'T recomend to friends and former customers -letting my old n once esteemed motley collection rot in the basement. Got plenty o DAC's -so why pay for one I'm not going to use ? But quality CD players (quality for me means first n foremost = reliable) -much less transports - is already a pretty small universe. I choose the AudioLab based on a recommendation from a friend who sells them and on decades of reading about AudioLab products in HiFi News and record Review -mostly favorable and what seems like lots of long term users. I do think the name has been sold at least once -but frankly I no longer track ownership changes since for the last decade or so it's sorta like tracking Queen Victoria's grandkids. Because I know my eyes have as much influence on me as the next guy - I will use/listen to the 6000CDT for a couple of weeks before I pop the covers. In terms of features direct access to tracks with numeric buttons on the remote is occasionally something I will use. In the end - I figure the retail price of this product allows the manufacturer to budget for either (maybe both?) test and select drives for best performance or adjust to meet a standard. But mainly -bought on reputation and three thousand plus CD's I want to continue to enjoy.
- Thread Starter
- #18
So pulled the top cover off the CDT-6000. Nice looking boards -as one would expect -about half the case is simply air. I appreciated that there are a couple of "hatches" covered by plastic covers in the bottom plate . One of these is the voltage selector (115V on mine -BTW-if this is wrong for your voltage-don't plug it in!) -the other allows easy access to what i assume is a test/adjustment plug -not something us consumer-users will use. Lots of multi-language blue words often accomany finding the paragraph plus diagram that in service manuals shows a amazingly inaccessible location of such features in way too many products. This would kill your labour rate on warranty repairs. So-Audiolab gets some points for punchin a hole in the chassis .
BTW- have set the CDT-6000 to be always on -simply found the energy saving feature awkward -even at 1 hour and off setting. You can still turn the unit off ("Standby" ) by simply pressing the clearly marked power button at the right end of the front panel or from the upper right corner power button on the remote.
BTW- have set the CDT-6000 to be always on -simply found the energy saving feature awkward -even at 1 hour and off setting. You can still turn the unit off ("Standby" ) by simply pressing the clearly marked power button at the right end of the front panel or from the upper right corner power button on the remote.
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Hi everyone, I'm also looking for a cd transport, because my good old marantz cd6000ose can't read several cd's anymore. I am tempted by the nuprime cdt-8 but the remote control cannot be accessed directly (yes for me it is really inconvenient, but this is my thought). has anyone compared nuprime with audiolab?
@guybrush nuprime cdt-8 is smaller, very transparent and provides upsampling options and is tray based. Audiolab 6000CDT has better remote, is larger, is slot loader and provides no upsampling options. 6000CDT is also cheaper. If you want small CD transport there are many other options a lot cheaper than cdt-8 so it really comes down to what you need and what you value. I am very happy with cdt-8, except for the remote. If you like skipping and selecting tracks you will dislike nuprime remote and I would suggest to go with other transport. If you value transparency and upsampling options, nuprime cdt-8 is better choice than 6000CDT.
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