• WANTED: Happy members who like to discuss audio and other topics related to our interest. Desire to learn and share knowledge of science required. There are many reviews of audio hardware and expert members to help answer your questions. Click here to have your audio equipment measured for free!

Let's talk CD Players!

renevoorburg

Member
Joined
Jul 9, 2019
Messages
32
Likes
61
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.
 

Kal Rubinson

Master Contributor
Industry Insider
Forum Donor
Joined
Mar 23, 2016
Messages
5,273
Likes
9,790
Location
NYC
- Do you still own a dedicated* CD Player (or players)? *plays CDs only Why or why not?
No because there is no need for them. I have 3 Oppo disc players which are used for ripping SACDs and for playing BDs. All music playback is from files on my NAS. Discs are inconvenient.
 

Julf

Major Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Mar 1, 2016
Messages
3,004
Likes
3,998
Location
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
The error correction and tracking ability of the older dedicated upper range machines are in another league also.

On the other hand, a computer doing the rip can try re-reading as many times as it takes to get a perfect copy (and also verify the result against the accurip database).
 

sergeauckland

Major Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Mar 16, 2016
Messages
3,440
Likes
9,100
Location
Suffolk UK
On the other hand, a computer doing the rip can try re-reading as many times as it takes to get a perfect copy (and also verify the result against the accurip database).
Whilst this is true, I have had a few discs that wouldn't rip however long it took, yet played audibly correctly. Using the S-PDIF output of the CD player allowed me to get an audibly clean rip. With copy protected CDs (which I know shouldn't be called CDs as they're not to Red-Book spec), the only way of ripping them is through the S-PDIF output, or at worse, the analogue outputs.

S.
 

Julf

Major Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Mar 1, 2016
Messages
3,004
Likes
3,998
Location
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Whilst this is true, I have had a few discs that wouldn't rip however long it took, yet played audibly correctly. Using the S-PDIF output of the CD player allowed me to get an audibly clean rip. With copy protected CDs (which I know shouldn't be called CDs as they're not to Red-Book spec), the only way of ripping them is through the S-PDIF output, or at worse, the analogue outputs.

Yes, the out of spec copy protection is really annoying.
 

Willem

Major Contributor
Joined
Jan 8, 2019
Messages
3,658
Likes
5,276
A basic Bluray player, using its digital output into my ADI-2 DAC.
 

Rja4000

Major Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
May 31, 2019
Messages
2,682
Likes
4,220
Location
Liège, Belgium
Hi
I still have a few.
Let's make it clear: I only use one when I can't avoid it.
I ripped all my CDs a long time ago, and I can very well do without handling those fragile cases and that piece of round plastic, so prone to scratches and fingerprints.
But, anyway, nobody would purchase them 2nd hand, so...
 

orangejello

Active Member
Joined
Apr 18, 2019
Messages
232
Likes
354
...Discs are inconvenient.
Doesn't that belong in the class of "white people problems"?

Anyway, I am much to lazy to rip and organize my CDs. And I am not very happy spending time administering computers, file system storage, backups, and networks in my spare time. I already have to do enough of that in my "not spare" time. Since is not very odious when it comes to interacting with a computer, I use Spotify for background listening.

CDs will be in my world for awhile longer. One reason is that I live in an area where you can often find highend, eclectic CDs in thrift stores for a dollar - half price on their sale days. Some of the titles I have found, particularly western classical and Indian classical are rather remarkable. So I recently decided to spring for a Pioneer LX500 for the dual purpose of playing old DVDs and CDs. My POS cheap DVD player often could not read disks. It would just hang while trying to load. The Pioneer works great. It is extremely quiet both while loading and spinning. I really cannot hear it spin even with my ear right next to the player. That is why I bought it. Besides surface noise on my LPs, transport noise is the greatest contributor to S/N degradation in system. The Pioneer is reminiscent of the Japanese tanks from the early 90's that @restorer-john was referring to.
 

restorer-john

Grand Contributor
Joined
Mar 1, 2018
Messages
12,580
Likes
38,281
Location
Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia
On the other hand, a computer doing the rip can try re-reading as many times as it takes to get a perfect copy (and also verify the result against the accurip database).

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...

It's funny to watch drives struggle with deliberately wedged (data interuption) or heavily scratched discs when a high quality CD player will sail through with perfect audio.

Consider 2.4mm of linear burst data loss can be corrected- fully and perfectly.
 

Daverz

Major Contributor
Joined
Mar 17, 2019
Messages
1,294
Likes
1,451
Did a title search here and did not find much discussion.

- Do you still own a dedicated* CD Player (or players)? *plays CDs only Why or why not?
- If yes, what model(s)? Pics would be nice.
- anecdotes about CD playback most welcome
- links to measurements of CD players also welcome

Unfortunately, both my dedicated CD players have broken loading drawers, an Arcam Alpha 9 and a Cambridge Audio 840C. I sent the Arcam for repair but it came back broken. Apparently the mechanism is too fragile for shipping. The 840C also has what sounds like a cold solder join in one of the XLR outputs: one of the channels sounds distorted until it's been on for 15 minutes or so (unbalanced channels are OK).

I do have a cheap Oppo DVD player that works like a champ, but that's not being used for CDs at the moment. I always just rip new CDs to the squeezebox music server with dBPoweramp, which only takes a few minutes.
 
Last edited:

restorer-john

Grand Contributor
Joined
Mar 1, 2018
Messages
12,580
Likes
38,281
Location
Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia
But, anyway, nobody would purchase them 2nd hand, so...

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.

I buy them all the time and pick up some incredible masterings, especially if you know what you're looking for.

Recently, picked up a motherlode of classical including virtually the entire early Telarc catalogue and another few hundred premium recordings/ performances for around 70c per disc. All in mint condition from an op-shop. Clearly an entire audiophile's collection.
 

VMAT4

Addicted to Fun and Learning
Forum Donor
Joined
Oct 25, 2018
Messages
937
Likes
743
Location
South Central Pennsylvania
Did a title search here and did not find much discussion.

- Do you still own a dedicated* CD Player (or players)? *plays CDs only Why or why not?
- If yes, what model(s)? Pics would be nice.
- anecdotes about CD playback most welcome
- links to measurements of CD players also welcome
Yes, I do. These are a Marantz 6005 and a Marantz HD-CD1. I can't see the use of posting pics of these run-of-the-mill decks.
I Owned two NAD CD players in the '90s lost a couple of CDs in them when the trays malfunctioned and would not open. I'm still tempted to think highly of NAD to this day despite the chequered track record NAD has with me. I also owned an NAD AVR (a 741 maybe?) that just went POP! and never worked again not to mention the "cards" or "boards" for it were never in production after this incident. How does this brand survive? Oh, reviewers must keep it alive. Because, word on the street can't be too good!
 

DonH56

Master Contributor
Technical Expert
Forum Donor
Joined
Mar 15, 2016
Messages
7,835
Likes
16,497
Location
Monument, CO
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.
 

captain paranoia

Active Member
Joined
Feb 9, 2018
Messages
293
Likes
218
I still have my old Marantz CD-41, bought off a colleague who was moving back to the US after being seconded to the UK for some time.

Recently, I picked up a Cambridge D500SE, and then a Philips CDR-796 recorder, both for £5.

I still hardly ever use them, and all the CDs I buy are immediately ripped to my NAS, and streamed to various DLNA renderers around the house, from any number of media player apps.
 

MOCKBA

Member
Joined
Sep 23, 2019
Messages
80
Likes
28
I have 5 disks changer, but listen to it very ocasionaly, because most of my music Diana Krall or Patricia Barber and their 24/192 albums. Recently I bought Shield TV, but unfortunately it can't play physical CDs, so I need to digitize them first. It takes time, so no a CD player for me currently.
 

restorer-john

Grand Contributor
Joined
Mar 1, 2018
Messages
12,580
Likes
38,281
Location
Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia
- If yes, what model(s)? Pics would be nice.

These are three Sony machines I have out at the moment:

CDP-338ESD, CDP-338ESD and the far right is a CDP-X7ESD. Including the Pioneer A-91D, the weight on that buffet is 162.5lbs (73.9kg)
cd players (Medium).jpeg
 
Top Bottom