CD transport advice

[Chrispy]

Hard drives deteriorate as well and fail. Streaming services have suspect quality digital files. Cd has a much larger music selection than ANY digital services. If music only on cd you have to buy one to rip it. What is the point of all the fooling around with digital devices, streaming services, storage(if you buy digital files), etc. Redbook cd music is highest quality sound.

CD just becomes your backup Lots easier to play the music file than a cd with a variety of gear/situations.

 

[Yuhasz01]

CD just becomes your backup Lots easier to play the music file than a cd with a variety of gear/situations.

I follow a number of forums and judging by configuration and capatability questions/issues playing streaming digital files not that easy to do for many people. Hope streamer does not go out of business. Buying digital files for download seems more reliable but again NAS issues /integration and expense.
One media is not superior to another: all have pros and cons. Preferences for enjoying music vary quite a lot. (I mean some people even prefer live music played by musicians.)

 

[Chrispy]

I follow a number of forums and judging by configuration and capatability questions/issues playing streaming digital files not that easy to do for many people. Hope streamer does not go out of business. Buying digital files for download seems more reliable but again NAS issues /integration and expense.
One media is not superior to another: all have pros and cons. Preferences for enjoying music vary quite a lot. (I mean some people even prefer live music played by musicians.)

Depends on your gear to an extent, some barely have digital. Depends on mobility of the gear too. I'm a lifelong collector (vinyl originally) and have lots of cds. I occasionally buy a digital download from an artist vs buying their cd, tho. NAS isn't necessary. I just find cds to be less versatile for playback.

 

[EJ3]

Smsl PL200. Top loading, can be used as a CD player, Dac, and Bluetooth.

I prefer top loading, good to know.

 

[VMAT4]

TEAC PD-301-X, you get an FM tuner with it!

 

[Ropeburn]

Hard drives deteriorate as well and fail. Streaming services have suspect quality digital files. Cd has a much larger music selection than ANY digital services. If music only on cd you have to buy one to rip it. What is the point of all the fooling around with digital devices, streaming services, storage(if you buy digital files), etc. Redbook cd music is highest quality sound.

You forget what I omitted in my above post because I thought it as overly obvious: digital files are infinitely copyable and backup-able, if only the user takes the bare minimum of care. As such, CD rips, or any digital files, are literally forever. Much unlike a physical format like CD. CD rot depends on manufacturing quality. Sometimes it is a real concern, sometimes it is not at all. But it's a problem, long term at least.

Harddrive deterioration is also a real thing. They do develop data errors over a long time, and sometimes even fail completely. It usually takes what, ten, twenty, thirty years? But boo hoo regardless, if you didn't make a backup, any data loss is your own fault! Same with CDs that simply get scratched by accident. It happens, but again, boo hoo!

My point is: purely digital music is the easiest in the world to keep, play back, and backup. No CD collection or streaming service can compete with the private music enthusiast who takes even the most basic care of his music collection.

 

[sq225917]

I'd buy something with a philips swing arm mech, in fact that's what I have with a NOS mech on ice just in case. Should outlast me.

 

[alin_im]

Hi all,

Thank you all for your inputs, I got the CXCv2. I am super happy with the purchase and the matching aesthetic.

 

[Haskil]

Hi all,

Thank you all for your inputs, I got the CXCv2. I am super happy with the purchase and the matching aesthetic.

Hurry up and buy a replacement mechanism... it doesn't cost much and unfortunately the manufacturers of CD players don't keep them in their spare parts catalog for long...
The cemetery of CD and DVD players whose mechanics have died and cannot be found for repair is too numerous to dig a new grave in 5 years.

 

[Snafu]

I was thinking this one. Not sure how it fits in your needs.

HiFi ROSE CD Drive, RSA780

HiFi ROSE CD Drive, RSA780 : HiFi ROSE

Beyond Audio, HiFi ROSE

hifirose.com

currently sold out, but won't be last patch of these i think.

 

[JeremyFife]

Other: cheap external Pioneer reader for my laptop.
Actually much more expensive than it needed to be because I wanted to rip Blu-ray movies too (~£90 vs £40 GBP).
Everything ripped - Exact Audio Copy - to FLAC, backed up locally and to Cloud, and streamed.

If I have a problem with the digital copies I'll just rip them again.

 

[Joe Smith]

I remain confused why a cd transport has to cost as much as the current offerings from Cambridge, Audiolab, etc. I continue to use legacy DVD players for this purpose (my current favorite being the Sony DVP-NS300), which has good stability and good front-face controls (so no need for use of remote), nice display, both coax and optical out.

I'm one of those users who either streams or uses legacy media. I don't want to re-rip my CDs again and ripping LPs is just not worth the time for me. With the wide variety of inexpensive and good DACs, it just continues to amaze me that someone does not create an attractive, simple transport solution. A "baby" Audiolab device, if you will.

I had hoped this was where @Fosi Audio was headed but they no longer seem to be talking about this type of product...?

 

[Room_101]

I would go for a machine that offers the fastest response, quickest track to track times and proven ability to track difficult, damaged and out of spec CDs.

Sadly, very few reviewers are equipped to do those tests these days.

@restorer-john , can you recommend any that satisfy your criteria and also have good reliability/ build quality?

Thanks!

 

[little-endian]

Cd has a much larger music selection than ANY digital services.

Well, in some sense, the CD is a digital service as well, performed by the manufacturers to serve digital data conveyed by a physical medium. It is just not online- or internet-based.

digital files are infinitely copyable and backup-able, if only the user takes the bare minimum of care. As such, CD rips, or any digital files, are literally forever. Much unlike a physical format like CD.

The first sentences here are correct, but the latter one mixes up different logical levels because digital information always needs a carrier of some sort, i.e. a physical format and thus doesn't fundamentally differ at all from the stated example of a physical format like a CD.

The only question is which medium is more resilient, reliable, providing what capacity, transmission speeds and access times.

CD rot depends on manufacturing quality. Sometimes it is a real concern, sometimes it is not at all. But it's a problem, long term at least.

While it's true, that when the time coordinate is long enough, not only the survival rate of everyone drops to zero according to "Fight Club", also any physical media will eventually fail, I don't know why this trivial fact tends to get always so stressed in regard of CDs as if that would be a particular minus point of them. In practise, pressed CDs from 1982 pretty much still run more than 42 years later without an error rate exceeding the C1/C2 error correction capabilities in most cases which I consider to be damn remarkable.

Harddrive deterioration is also a real thing.

There you have it, and why wouldn't it be? The - at the end always 'analog' (or neither as in "it just is") - carrier of digital information is subject to the 'imperfect' physical world so only the latter may be preserved endlessly when copied in time as stated correctly in your posting.

My point is: purely digital music is the easiest in the world to keep, play back, and backup. No CD collection or streaming service can compete with the private music enthusiast who takes even the most basic care of his music collection.

That raises the question what "purely digital music" shall be given the preceding arguments. Digital is digital and can't be emphasized.

At the end, any music or data collection has to be stored somewhere, so the only question is what kind of medium one prefers.

In terms of accessibility, storage capacity and data throughput, the CD is without doubt entirely outdated whereas the aspect of reliability deserves a more differentiated analysis. Nonetheless, it is also one of the best and brillant product of its time where many things have been done right.

 

[antcollinet]

Cd has a much larger music selection than ANY digital services.

Not in my (or probably anyone's individual) CD collection it doesn't.

 

[Ropeburn]

Well, in some sense, the CD is a digital service as well, performed by the manufacturers to serve digital data conveyed by a physical medium. It is just not online- or internet-based.


The first sentences here are correct, but the latter one mixes up different logical levels because digital information always needs a carrier of some sort, i.e. a physical format and thus doesn't fundamentally differ at all from the stated example of a physical format like a CD.

The only question is which medium is more resilient, reliable, providing what capacity, transmission speeds and access times.


While it's true, that when the time coordinate is long enough, not only the survival rate of everyone drops to zero according to "Fight Club", also any physical media will eventually fail, I don't know why this trivial fact tends to get always so stressed in regard of CDs as if that would be a particular minus point of them. In practise, pressed CDs from 1982 pretty much still run more than 42 years later without an error rate exceeding the C1/C2 error correction capabilities in most cases which I consider to be damn remarkable.



There you have it, and why wouldn't it be? The - at the end always 'analog' (or neither as in "it just is") - carrier of digital information is subject to the 'imperfect' physical world so only the latter may be preserved endlessly when copied in time as stated correctly in your posting.


That raises the question what "purely digital music" shall be given the preceding arguments. Digital is digital and can't be emphasized.

At the end, any music or data collection has to be stored somewhere, so the only question is what kind of medium one prefers.

In terms of accessibility, storage capacity and data throughput, the CD is without doubt entirely outdated whereas the aspect of reliability deserves a more differentiated analysis. Nonetheless, it is also one of the best and brillant product of its time where many things have been done right.

That's a lot of words arguing over semantics and not making a real point.

 

[Ste_S]

At the end, any music or data collection has to be stored somewhere, so the only question is what kind of medium one prefers.

Which is the point for CDs, really. If you like a physical collection, which you can display and browse, then CD wins every time.

 

[little-endian]

That's a lot of words arguing over semantics[...]

Indeed, however I hope that even nowadays there is nothing wrong with trying to be correct.

[...] and not making a real point.

One of my points has been quoted by Ste_S. The other one, somewhat subtle, was questioning what your point is exactly when you construct some vague concept of having a "purely digital music" collection, omitting the part of its storage as if it could magically* exist independently from the physical world.

* not to say that with today's storage systems, one couldn't achieve extremely high levels of reliability and availability like never before by driving redundancy and location-independence to the max.

 

[Joe Smith]

Just saw this in a thread on Audiokarma; does anyone have this unit or know of a reputable review about it?

Shanling CR60

This is exactly the kind of functionality and form factor that I was looking for Fosi or SMSL to deliver one day... Much more than other compact players, this looks to have decent build quality, and is tray-load rather than slot-load...

 

[antcollinet]

If I was after a CD transport I'd definitely consider that.

Although I'd probably end up doing what I did, and get a vintage player with digitial output for £20