Recommend me a Cd player

[johnsen88]

Yep indeed, and it is part of the invention when playing an HDCD disc on a non-HDCD player. It is "compatible" but becomes a compressed (less dynamic) version that plays much louder (relative to full digital scale).
And there were mistakes too in studios when mixing and mastering which polluted some.

@NTTY Now that I got my Denon 900NE, I have some SACD discs(some hybrid ones). I was wondering If I am missing out on that wee bit of details that those SACD aficionados are raving about. What is the deal with SACDs?

 

[NTTY]

1bit high speed modulation with shape dither to reject the quantization noise (rounding errors due to mathematical processing with only 1bit instead of 16) after the audio band. It was theoretically bringing 20bits equivalent of resolution.

With modern shape dither techniques, the CDA can be very close to the same but can’t reject noise beyond the audio band, so it puts it where our ears are much less sensitive (ie above 10kHz). Modern Masters are created with shape dither for CDA releases. This is the best practice (but of course depends on the studio).

The true advantage of SACD was the great care given to recording/mixing/mastering by the studios. At the very beginning some were putting a different master on the CD layer to that of the SACD layer. It was a bad practice, only to show off.

Today, all SACD I buy (yes they are still produced) have the same quality on the SACD and CD layer, and I can’t tell them appart (classical music).

 

[Putter]

1bit high speed modulation with shape dither to reject the quantization noise (rounding errors due to mathematical processing with only 1bit instead of 16) after the audio band. It was theoretically bringing 20bits equivalent of resolution.

With modern shape dither techniques, the CDA can be very close to the same but can’t reject noise beyond the audio band, so it puts it where our ears are much less sensitive (ie above 10kHz). Modern Masters are created with shape dither for CDA releases. This is the best practice (but of course depends on the studio).

The true advantage of SACD was the great care given to recording/mixing/mastering by the studios. At the very beginning some were putting a different master on the CD layer to that of the SACD layer. It was a bad practice, only to show off.

Today, all SACD I buy (yes they are still produced) have the same quality on the SACD and CD layer, and I can’t tell them appart (classical music).

As far as I am concerned the true advantage of an SACD is the multi channel playback and it was doomed by the lack of emphasis on this ability. Otherwise there is no audible difference between the SACD and a CD of the same recording if they use the same master. Blu-ray audio has largely replaced it for multi channel.

 

[Scytales]

I would add that adopting multi-channel audio is well worth the investment, especially for classical music enthusiasts, as multi-channel sound has truly reached a remarkable level of maturity in this genre.

 

[thekingbeyond]

How does multi-channel SACD compare to Blu-ray and multi-channel hi-res files? Although I did own a sacd player I never really bought more than a handful; I do own a lot of Blu-ray titles that I rip to hard drive and playback via a zidoo z30 pro(as a transport).

 

[Roland68]

How does multi-channel SACD compare to Blu-ray and multi-channel hi-res files? Although I did own a sacd player I never really bought more than a handful; I do own a lot of Blu-ray titles that I rip to hard drive and playback via a zidoo z30 pro(as a transport).

The far more significant factor is the recording or mastering quality. This has an impact many times greater than the medium itself, provided there is sufficient bandwidth.
Therefore, many of us have all playback options and base our decisions on the available recordings.

 

[Sal1950]

How does multi-channel SACD compare to Blu-ray and multi-channel hi-res files?

If they're created from the same master there should be zero difference in sound quality.
Personally my issue with SACD was/is their incompatibly with anything PCM (DRC etc), plus the intended security measures that made them next to impossible to rip.
Beyond that, SACD is limited to about 4.7gb of data, Blu-Ray can do 25 -50gb allowing much more information to be included per disc.
I believe the SACD was, like the DVD, obsoleted by Blu-Ray and mostly deserves a polite and quiet burial.
We are mostly now at the end of the line for any disc medium, outside of our little world of audio-video enthusiasts, the general public has lost all interest in the shiny discs. I hope they don't totally disappear before I do.

 

[JeffS7444]

My own tentative plan is to buy an SMSL PL200 Mk II, and to continue ignoring SACD, MQA and HDCD. SMSL's slot-loading PL1xx would be the more convenient option, but I thought I might like the deluxe appearance of the 200.

I *was* going to go full DIY, with an AliExpress controller board which turns a PC optical drive into a CD player, but got stuck on how to package it in a way that's not an eyesore.

 

[Roland68]

My own tentative plan is to buy an SMSL PL200 Mk II, and to continue ignoring SACD, MQA and HDCD. SMSL's slot-loading PL1xx would be the more convenient option, but I thought I might like the deluxe appearance of the 200.

I *was* going to go full DIY, with an AliExpress controller board which turns a PC optical drive into a CD player, but got stuck on how to package it in a way that's not an eyesore.

That was actually one of the plans I once had for a dedicated CD transport.
However, it is hardly possible to find a computer CD drive that can be controlled by these systems to run at 1x speed.
This means that most drives will operate at the highest possible speed—32x, 48x, or even 52x—resulting in considerable noise.

 

[JeffS7444]

That was actually one of the plans I once had for a dedicated CD transport.
However, it is hardly possible to find a computer CD drive that can be controlled by these systems to run at 1x speed.
This means that most drives will operate at the highest possible speed—32x, 48x, or even 52x—resulting in considerable noise.

As I already have the major components on hand, I might want to confirm that, because it seems iffy: My recollection is that, even when used with a PC for media playback, the drives typically run at ~1x speed. The drive that I bought (secondhand) is actually a DVD-R, because that seemed to be most common, whereas 1x CD-ROM is relatively rare.

 

[Madao]

Without looking through the many reviews, I was hoping if someone can narrow it down or at least give me a direct answer. Are there any modern CD players that load CDs quickly? Or do I need to start thrifting for a 90s player?

 

[Nutul]

Without looking through the many reviews, I was hoping if someone can narrow it down or at least give me a direct answer. Are there any modern CD players that load CDs quickly? Or do I need to start thrifting for a 90s player?

yes, there are. But you need to go through the reviews...
I think there is a summary table somewhere, which can help, but cannot tell you more.

HTH

 

[Mart68]

Without looking through the many reviews, I was hoping if someone can narrow it down or at least give me a direct answer. Are there any modern CD players that load CDs quickly? Or do I need to start thrifting for a 90s player?

TEAC 701 is fast.

 

[Sal1950]

Just out of curiosity I just inserted the David Gilmour - Live at Gdansk CD-1 into my Sony UDP X800m2 player. It loaded the CD and began playing track 1 in 6 seconds.

Are there any modern CD players that load CDs quickly? Or do I need to start thrifting for a 90s player?

How fast do you need?

 

[Roland68]

Without looking through the many reviews, I was hoping if someone can narrow it down or at least give me a direct answer. Are there any modern CD players that load CDs quickly? Or do I need to start thrifting for a 90s player?

All Tascam CD 200 and Cambridge CXC units are very fast.

 

[Mart68]

How fast do you need?

Some are so slow to read you could go and make a cup of tea and come back before it's cued itself up.

 

[Madao]

I think it's important to get the basics right, and if it can't load up a disc quickly really what are we doing? I'm so hesitant to buy anything these days as while it may get better in some ways, it gets so much worse in others. (Whither it's reliability, following standards or basic function loading / gapless playback)

 

[El_Duderino]

The load time of my Marantz cd6007 is approximately 6 seconds. Which is acceptable. My vintage Sony player on the other hand loads the disc in only 1-2 seconds. If you want nearly instant loading times, you have to look for an older player, because the newer ones search for more playable formats and thus slowing down the reading process quite a bit.

 

[Ste_S]

Without looking through the many reviews, I was hoping if someone can narrow it down or at least give me a direct answer. Are there any modern CD players that load CDs quickly? Or do I need to start thrifting for a 90s player?

I'd just thrift. For example, there's a perfectly fine Technics CD player down my local Cash Converters for £30; I'm sure there's similar near where you live, or online.

 

[Nopiano]

The load time of my Marantz cd6007 is approximately 6 seconds. Which is acceptable. My vintage Sony player on the other hand loads the disc in only 1-2 seconds. If you want nearly instant loading times, you have to look for an older player, because the newer ones search for more playable formats and thus slowing down the reading process quite a bit.

I’ve heard this before, and certainly my Marantz SA-14s1 takes seemingly forever to load. But why can’t they program it to look for CD first, then only look for the rest if a CD isn't found? Surely that’s not beyond the ability of a typical manufacturer?