Do CD players sound different to each other?

[tonycollinet]

No. Too much dynamic compression to increase loudness is an element of (bad) sound quality. Too little compression is equally bad, if not worse.

Thanks for the correction - but I don't thing there is much doubt about what we suffer most from.

 

[coonmanx]

Two very good sounding CD players that I own. The Panasonic is from 1995 and the JVC is also from around that same time. The Scott DA-952A that I have in the bedroom is from the late 80s...

 

[Azazello13]

Why not second-hand records? Because I want to be the first owner. New is new.
Such a question for experts. What affects the sound of the CD player the most?
A user from the Polish audio forum wrote to me that the quality of the CD itself. I guess not silly, huh?

If you're removing speakers and everything, then the recording (CD) itself is at least 90% of overall sound quality.

If you're just talking about the CD player:
1) any kind of signal processing the unit might be doing. these "modes" always make it sound like crap. sometimes you have to find some obscure menu to defeat them.
2) the DAC, but this is only applicable if you are using analog outputs
3) the actual laser/reading mechanism. quality here can vary quite a bit actually. DVD and Bluray players tend to have more tightly calibrated lasers due to increased data density in those formats vs CD. But there is no subtle "nuance" here. If it seems like your player can read everything you throw at it without clearly audible problems, then this is likely not an issue at all for your player.

everything else is woooo. any money you spend in this area is likely to be wasted, as far as sound quality. If something looks nice with the rest of your system or your furniture, or you like the display or the remote, then whatever floats your boat.

 

[pvehling]

One of my favorite players was a 90s Japanese Discman, the Sony D-25S (S for silver). Had a rechargeable battery (which lasted a decent amount of time when new), 9v power supply, a wired remote, built in stabilizer puck on top of the door, 4x oversampling, and line out (!).. Sounded awesome and was my main CD player for about 2 years. Even the headphone out wasn't that bad, even if I rarely used it. Sadly, I sold it for way too cheap about 10 years ago. It developed issues as all those old players do, especially on the laser. Kind of want to track another one down, but they're expensive now! I'd be curious what the Line Out SINAD would be...

 

[BentonF]

A few Naimees or ex-Naim owners here. What do you all make of their CD players? They come in for high praise by the breadth of the hifi community. Good performance, improving sonics up the range, quality components and good service (though some have been retired due to lack of optical drives in short supply).

 

[Doodski]

A few Naimees or ex-Naim owners here. What do you all make of their CD players? They come in for high praise by the breadth of the hifi community. Good performance, improving sonics up the range, quality components and good service (though some have been retired due to lack of optical drives in short supply).

Is that a proprietary potted IC that I circled in red? What are those?

 

[Waxx]

I used a very cheap generic brand dvd player with a Philips mechanism for years as cd player, but coupled over spdif to a decent convertor, first an Musical Fidelity Digilog (i got for very cheap and sold again for way to much money to a collector), and later a Cambridge DagMacic100 that i still use (but now with a pc and a streamer). The standard dac was very bad, even for that time i got it (2004)

And with the external dac it sounded as good as some expensive models that were arround. A cd player has no sound, it's dac may have it, but not the player mechanism and the digital part itself as it's pure digital. It works or it doesn't work and skips or just does nothing. The only difference that can be made is in the dac concerning sound. So a very cheap cd player with a digital out can sound as good as a very expensive model on the digital out, and then it's just you who need to connect a decent dac to get good sound. And decent dac's can be found for about 100€ as was proved on this site

 

[Adi777]

I like this one. Nice, elegance style.