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What CD Player would you like to see tested?

NTTY said:
I did a quick review of the A1 and I forgot I have the A11 in the basement. Good reminder, I should find time to review it soon.
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Owww that's fantastic news !...Now that could be interesting ..I'll keep an eye out.☝️. Many thanks as always ☺️.
 
You reported a partial review by Vintage of the Denon DVD-3910. I would like to see a review of its little brother, the Denon DVD-2910. I have one as my CD, SACD, DVD audio player. About to make a repair to fix the sticky cd tray.
Thanks for considering this!
 
MARCD5123 said:
Hi Guys ..

A few things to point out here please as I've actually owned these models ..

The Denon DVD-3930 was the direct successor and somewhat short lived model to the 3910 !... I had both models and the 3930 Denon definitely stepped up the internal hardware and build quality and it had 2 independent PSU the 3910 did not ..also to note the 3930 had a lot of the tech imported down from it's bigger brother A1XV just half the price take the top of both models and your quite clearly see the big differences between the two.


Moving on again I own both models Denon DVD-A1 in my humble opinion still edges the A1XV especially when it comes down to the Channel Pure Direct mode playback the A1XV is outstanding but the A1 has the famous Burr-Brown 1704 DAC's...in Dual-mono R2R configuration mode for direct Stereo playback their is also a lot more attention to details with the A1 than the A1XV model ..again the A1XV is still an outstanding machine and it was a later model and had far more digital circuitry implemented in comparison to the A1..So Denon was starting to scale some things back budget wise by the time the A1XV came out .


Lastly the DVD-A11 was the direct successor to the A1 ...their is absolutely no comparison whatsoever from the 3910 and 3910 .

The A1 in particular was created and produced as an absolute Denon's Reference model !!! The 3910 and 3930 were flagship grade not reference.

The A11 is also another outstanding model but by this time compared to it's predecessor the A1 Denon had started to make some sacrifices/trade-offs for budget again due to advances one of being SACD more digital circuitry and licensing agreements so side by side again attention to detail internal and external their are significant differences!!!

However both A1 and A11 were designed as Denon Reference Grade models .

So it went Flagship Grade approx £1200-£1500

2800
2900
3910
3930

Reference Grade £2.5k+

A1
A11
A1XV
A1UD


Personally despite the A1XV being Denons last stand and Denons Golden period and a super nice model design and electronics...I still personally believe ☝️the "A1" looking back was Denons "true" finest ever model produced and most expensive and finest ever sounding sonic wise that's just my own view and opinion. ☺️
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"finest ever sounding sonic wise" All CD players sound the same
 
pinger said:
"finest ever sounding sonic wise" All CD players sound the same
Click to expand...
Obviously it's subjective..and I meant that for me ..It's definitely the finest I've heard in 25+ years sonic wise out of all the players I've owned ,I stand by my comment.☺️. I also could not agree enough about your comment all CD Players
certainly do not sound the same with my own experience ...again we all have our own opinion and views and it's great we have that .
 
tccalvin said:
I'm also interested in how the FiiO DM15 performs, and that's just because it looks really cool! :D

With it being R2R though, I'm expecting some nastiness. FiiO claims a SINAD of 72dB at best. Yikes.

A Delta-Sigma version of this player would be very tempting.
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The looks with the transparent lid and the small form factor as I want to use it in my office are the reasons I've just ordered it. I will not use the dac, it will be connected via coax to a Topping. Hoping that the coax is bit perfect this time, not like DM13, which is not.
 
tccalvin said:
I'm also interested in how the FiiO DM15 performs, and that's just because it looks really cool! :D

With it being R2R though, I'm expecting some nastiness. FiiO claims a SINAD of 72dB at best. Yikes.

A Delta-Sigma version of this player would be very tempting.
Click to expand...
I think that those 72dB are for channel separation in 3.5mm out in SE headphones. The S/N is at 111dB.
In balanced mode channel separation is above 100dB and S/N at 112dB.

1769278465385.png
 
MARCD5123 said:
Obviously it's subjective..and I meant that for me ..It's definitely the finest I've heard in 25+ years sonic wise out of all the players I've owned ,I stand by my comment.☺️. I also could not agree enough about your comment all CD Players
certainly do not sound the same with my own experience ...again we all have our own opinion and views and it's great we have that .
Click to expand...
My "opinion" is based on there never being a documented valid double blind repeatable test where sonic differences between CD players could be reliably identified. I'll leave it there
 
If nobody mentioned it yet, the Magnavox CDB-650 was a notable reference. Great stair-step response, sounded much better than a competitor Phase Linear. The decay after the explosion in Don Dorsey's "Ascent" tapered down cleanly whereas in the PL you could clearly hear it getting garbled.
 
Head_Unit said:
If nobody mentioned it yet, the Magnavox CDB-650 was a notable reference. Great stair-step response, sounded much better than a competitor Phase Linear. The decay after the explosion in Don Dorsey's "Ascent" tapered down cleanly whereas in the PL you could clearly hear it getting garbled.
Click to expand...

I have measurements of both of my CDB-460s here: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...ments-and-review-cd-player.58110/post-2136510

I have not posted them, but my CDB-650 measures almost identically.
 
Do you plan on reviewing CD transports as well?
I'd love to see the Cambridge CXC reviewed.
 
Last edited:
tiagosv said:
Do you plan on reviewing CD transports as well?
I'd love to see the Cambridge CCC reviewed.
Click to expand...
You probably mean the CXC, right? ;)

Me too, also because I own a CXC myself. It's a great device, but I fear the test will turn out very similarly to most of the good devices that @NTTY has also tested as transports.
For me, it's one of the best CD transports ever, and I've handled quite a few.
Fast, quiet, flawless.
 
Roland68 said:
You probably mean the CXC, right? ;)

Me too, also because I own a CXC myself. It's a great device, but I fear the test will turn out very similarly to most of the good devices that @NTTY has also tested as transports.
For me, it's one of the best CD transports ever, and I've handled quite a few.
Fast, quiet, flawless.
Click to expand...
The CXC sports a plain-jane CD drive mechanism, absolutely nothing special. Assuming it produces an accurate digital stream (and I do assume that) it will sound like any other CD transport, at least for as long as it lasts. (And the mechanism in the CXC was not like the CEC drive, or the Philips Pro drive, both of which were built to last the ages and are priced accordingly.)

My CXC has been plagued, however, by an electro-fluorescent display that is now too dim to read. It's amazing to me that replacements are not generally available for this very common problem with that unit.

Rick "has three Cambridge CD players of various generations, only one of which works as it should at the moment" Denney
 
Roland68 said:
You probably mean the CXC, right? ;)

Me too, also because I own a CXC myself. It's a great device, but I fear the test will turn out very similarly to most of the good devices that @NTTY has also tested as transports.
For me, it's one of the best CD transports ever, and I've handled quite a few.
Fast, quiet, flawless.
Click to expand...
Yes the CXC (bloody autocorrect!)

I was confident in the beginning but then it skipped a bit on a few scratches CDs that I have that I would not assume it would skip on. Those same CDs read fine on a Sony Blu-ray player, which is expected since those usually use CD-ROM type drives which are known to be the most robust at reading discs and correcting errors.

So I wanted to know how it ranks in the scratch test to know how it fairs against the Hifi CD player/transports competition, since I'd prefer to use a Hifi component in my secondary system (for aesthetics).
 
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