Let's talk CD Players!

[typericey]

@restorer-john oh la la, now those are CD playback ritual machines!

For those who still use CD players and have external DACs: any audible difference between using the player's analog outputs vs. the DAC?

 

[milw50717]

I have a couple of CD players with TDA-1541 DACs that I have done some work on - recapping and NOS mods.

• Rotel RCD-955 that I modified years ago and recently was gifted back as they have ripped all their CDs
• SONY CDP-950 that I found cheap on Craigslist when I felt the need to solder something.

I rarely use either at this point, as I have also ripped my CDs. I'll probably sell off the Rotel at some point, but I can't see me getting rid of the SONY until I also decide to sell my CDs.

Hmm, now I think about it I have a number of players of deprecated formats - turntable, minidisc, DAT, cassette, laserdisc, VHS - as occasionally I find something that needs to be ripped and converted to a more modern format. This past summer I ripped a PAL VHS to DV that I can watch on the computer and I have an eye out for a laserdisc at the moment.

 

[Daverz]

Hmm, now I think about it I have a number of players of deprecated formats - turntable, minidisc, DAT, cassette, laserdisc, VHS - as occasionally I find something that needs to be ripped and converted to a more modern format. This past summer I ripped a PAL VHS to DV that I can watch on the computer and I have an eye out for a laserdisc at the moment.

Do I have the Youtube channel for you:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5I2hjZYiW9gZPVkvzM8_Cw

(Techmoan)

 

[Victoria]

I prefer listening to music using a cd player.

When I am in the mood to listen to music, I don't like to interact with computers. It impacts my mood. I sit behind computer screens all day at work and would like to minimize that as much as possible. Occasionally , I use a Spotify on my iPad and stream using Airplay and a AppleTV. However, that brings me less relaxation since it always comes with a slight unrest in the back of my mind of "what to play next". Also, using an iPad it makes it easy to wander off websites and some of them have the nasty habbit of taking control of the the music that is being played. Very annoying.

Further, it is a joy to build a physical collection of music. Owning music music on physical media creates a nearness or closeness to the music.

100% this. I used to own a CD transport about a decade ago, and my absolute most memorable moments with CD transports can be summed down to this small little fact: with a CD transport you are less likely to swap and interrupt albums as frequently due to the fact that it's necessary for you to get up, find your next CD, walk to the transport, eject the CD, insert the new CD, put the old CD back into its jewel case, and you get the picture.

Because of that CD transports made me learn to appreciate albums in their entirety a lot more, not just select tracks.

When I owned my CD transport I discovered so much more in my existing collection than I otherwise would have, and I hold those memories extremely closely to my heart. I still try and mimic this experience as much as possible even when I'm listening to music from my PC.

I just let each of my albums run their due course.

This is something I would have likely never experienced if I never took that route. I myself was formerly from the IT industry, and because of that I try to limit my interactions with computers as much as possible. Sure, I still have my PC, and I do spend a lot of time in front of it. But outside of that, I really do try and limit my dependency on my PC, and even my phone.

I'm also a seriously big believer in owning my music and paying my dues to all the artists who pour their blood and sweat into their creations, so I own hundreds and hundreds of CD's (many of which purchased directly from smaller indie artists) and also digital albums from websites where I know that artists are fairly compensated (Bandcamp being my favorite (their cut is 15% for the first five grand, 10% thereafter)). I pour a lot more money into my music than my equipment, and that's really the way it should be. I spend a ridiculous amount of time every week scouring the internet looking for that something special to listen to, and such satisfaction is well and truly immeasurable.

 

[Rja4000]

There's a huge 2nd market for quality early and special releases for your CDs. Just have a look on Ebay. Prices are variable, but the desired copies go for big dollars.

Was speaking about the player, not about the discs.

 

[watchnerd]

When you found that sex-tape you made in the 80s with the entire UK female Olympic gymnastics team at that seedy hotel in Ibiza?

Of all the female athletic fantasies to pick, why this one?

Were the Brazillian beach volleyball team, Russian ice skating team, or Swedish downhill teams just too sexy?

 

[Batty]

I have 3 dedicated CD players, a Sony CDP-390, a California Audio Labs CL-15 and most recently I just purchased a Vincent CD-S4

 

[Julf]

I don't think you get what I am saying, the standalone machines can read, track, buffer, error correct and interpolate better than any CD rom drive and piece of software you can name. And, they do it in real time while you're playing the disc...

Interpolation means faking it. Sure, I can easily make my ripping program do that if that's what I want.

Anyway, I would love to see actual evidence - have you measured raw error rates?

 

[restorer-john]

Were the Brazillian beach volleyball team, Russian ice skating team, or Swedish downhill teams just too sexy?

I just figured it was more believable than the Denver Broncos Cheerleaders...

 

[DonH56]

I just figured it was more believable than the Denver Broncos Cheerleaders...

View attachment 34334

Hey, don't pick on the only part of the team actually worth watching lately!

 

[Robin L]

Being one of those "music first" sorts, I've been using DVD and Blu-Ray players for years because a substantial amount of my discs are SACDs, so I've been using players that can still play SACDs. Just got one at Value Village for $5, spent an additional $8 to get a remote. Most of the time I'm listening to ripped files on my DAP anyway. I can't think of any reason to ever get a device that plays CDs and CDs only.

 

[The Equalizer]

For those who still use CD players and have external DACs: any audible difference between using the player's analog outputs vs. the DAC?

I occasionally use a JVC CD player from 1988 with a Benchmark DAC1. If the JVC didn't have a digital out, I would not still be using it. The difference between it and the Benchmark isn't all that subtle, and the comparison is not to the JVC's advantage.

That said, I wouldn't be surprised if most modern disc players sound about the same with an external DAC. A Sony CD player I used to own, for example, built a few years after the JVC, sounded much less congested.

 

[The Equalizer]

Speaking of which, the tray on the JVC is beginning to have trouble opening and closing. I assume it needs new belts. For those who have done it, is it hard changing belts? Do different models usually require different size belts?

 

[Krunok]

Speaking of which, the tray on the JVC is beginning to have trouble opening and closing. I assume it needs new belts. For those who have done it, is it hard changing belts? Do different models usually require different size belts?

There's a chance WD-40 can solve it.

 

[Deleted member 4987]

I sold my Cambrige Audio CD player a couple of years ago after realising that I didn't use it much. My notoriously unorganised CD collection made it a time consuming task finding anything. Since I put everything on NAS I actually listen to them again. I'll still pick up CDs if I see anything worthwhile though.

If I'm going to go to the effort of hunting through music I'll choose vinyl every time.

You do know that when you stream you can listened to whole albums, you're not forced to chop and change, 95% of the time I stream I do just that.

 

[LightninBoy]

Oppo players (all of them AFAIK) have a problem that causes them to "miss" the first fraction of a second (maybe 0.1~0.2 s using analog outputs, up to 1 s or so using HDMI) so for a while I used my old Sony ES-something-or-other or ancient CDP-620 and then a newer cheap Sony BD player to get around the lag. Don't have either in my system at the moment; ripped all my CDs to my NAS and usually listen that way.

I bought the first oppo bluray and ran into this exact issue. It would literally cut off the intros to some songs. I couldn't believe this bug was never mentioned in any reviews - I mean being able to play the entire track should be table stakes right? I ended up sending it back.

I still have fond memories of my first good CD player. It was one of the first generation universal (meaning DVD, CD, SACD, DVD-A) players from Yamaha. Sounded great to me and was operationally flawless. Then one day it just stopped working. Then I bought the Oppo bluray and it was terrible for CD playback. Then I picked up a used NAD M55, which was fine but didn't seem to handle scratched disks as well as the Yammy. I still have it, but its barely functioning. So now I use a Sony Universal bluray player as a digital transport only.

However, I miss the operational aspects of a true CD player (I put that Yamaha Universal in this category). The Sony doesn't even have a display, and even the OSD isn't very user friendly IMO for CD playback. But I'm tired of spending money on disc spinners that just die on me. If someone built a digital transport with flawless operation and replaceable parts for a reasonable price, I'd be interested.

 

[JJB70]

I pour a lot more money into my music than my equipment, and that's really the way it should be. I spend a ridiculous amount of time every week scouring the internet looking for that something special to listen to, and such satisfaction is well and truly immeasurable.

Very true, this hobby is about the music, the equipment is a tool.

 

[JJB70]

On CD, it is sad that such a transformational technology has been the subject of such derision from some audiophiles.

The disc itself was not really the big leap, it was the transition to digital audio, a transition which revolutionised audio. Even the Sony and Phillips engineers who developed the CD recognised that the disc format had a limited shelf life and in fact it has had a much longer run than they expected. Digital transformed quality expectations, democratised (or commoditised, if you prefer) high quality audio, made the whole audio experience so much more user friendly and should have binned the voodoo (I don't blame CD for all the voodoo idiocy that the lunatic fringe of audiophilia dreamt up to replace all that tinkering that was necessary with vinyl) and it was a physically very robust format (especially compared to vinyl).

Perhaps the most remarkable aspect was that the RBCD standard created all those years ago basically set the bar for sample rate and bit depth as high as it needed to go all those years ago and established an enduring standard that still makes high res pointless.

I still have a CD player and still use it at times, as well as a Sony universal disc spinner. I still buy music on CD even if most listening is via the ripped FLAC files.

 

[renaudrenaud]

I still have plenty of CD players. Most of them where modded to have an spdif output with low jitter and clock < 500 femto second error. Right now I am listening the old marantz cd94 with the new smsl SU8 and it is a great pleasure. I plan to switch on the big Teac later.

 

[zermak]

I have a Marantz CD-60 that my dad still uses to play his CDs while I am trying to force him on using my ripped music library (I'll get rid of it as soon as I'll complete my project for audio/video streaming).

He bought it second hand a long time ago to replace a dead NAD CD player (don't remember the model and I don't remember what happened to it because I didn't care: I was using liquid music already; probably the disk mechanism broke, twice(?)).
Thanks to this site I've found it uses the famous Philips TDA1541.