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#1
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Advice on CD players, please.
Well, it is the end of an era. My Revox CD player, bought in 1985,
has finally given up the ghost. I could probably get it fixed but for a price that might very well purchase a brand new one of good quality. Does anyone have any ideas for a good CD player in the $300-$500 range? Simple, not fancy is what I'm after - the focus is on sound quality and reliability. I have no use for all the bells and whistles that seem to infect so much modern technology. Any thoughts? email or post is fine. Many thanks in advance, Greg. -- Greg Grainger grainger(at)vex.net 'What a world of gammon and spinach it is, though, ain't it?' - Miss Mowcher |
#2
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Advice on CD players, please.
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#3
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Advice on CD players, please.
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#4
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Advice on CD players, please.
On Jul 5, 9:05*pm, (Greg Grainger) wrote:
Well, it is the end of an era. My Revox CD player, bought in 1985, has finally given up the ghost. I could probably get it fixed but for a price that might very well purchase a brand new one of good quality. Does anyone have any ideas for a good CD player in the $300-$500 range? Simple, not fancy is what I'm after - the focus is on sound quality and reliability. I have no use for all the bells and whistles that seem to infect so much modern technology. Any thoughts? email or post is fine. Many thanks in advance, Greg. -- * * * * * *Greg Grainger * * * * * * * * * grainger(at)vex.net * * *'What a world of gammon and spinach it is, though, ain't it?' * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *- Miss Mowcher The Emotiva ERC-1 is an awesome player, in your price range. http://emotiva.com/erc1.shtm |
#6
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Advice on CD players, please.
On Jul 6, 8:39*am, Greg Wormald wrote:
In article , (Greg Grainger) wrote: Well, it is the end of an era. My Revox CD player, bought in 1985, has finally given up the ghost. I could probably get it fixed but for a price that might very well purchase a brand new one of good quality. Does anyone have any ideas for a good CD player in the $300-$500 range? Simple, not fancy is what I'm after - the focus is on sound quality and reliability. I have no use for all the bells and whistles that seem to infect so much modern technology. Any thoughts? email or post is fine. Many thanks in advance, Greg. I suspect that dedicated CD players are getting scarce. I can't say anything about reliability 'cause it's too new (and already unavailable), but my Harman Kardon HD 970 has a beautiful sound. It also has an optical input to the DAC that allows me to wirelessly stream music from the computer via an Apple Airport. I also get to use myiPhoneas a remote for iTunes. Greg I think that in our time the function of DVD player is to read data and redirect them through digital interface into DAC of your choice. So it does not make sense to buy pricey player with its own DAC and analog circuitry. I invested good money into high-end receiver that can do very good digital processing with good DAC and analog section. Now all my devices - CD-player, old NTSC-DVD, PAL-DVD, Blu-Ray, Roku, AppleTV, they all hooked into receiver through HDMI, Works very well. Of course if you insist on old fashioned analog only stereo amplifier then it is a different story. Then you have to pay for DAC with analog section in your CD player. My $0.02 worth :-) vlad |
#7
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Advice on CD players, please.
Greg Grainger wrote:
Well, it is the end of an era. My Revox CD player, bought in 1985, has finally given up the ghost. I could probably get it fixed but for a price that might very well purchase a brand new one of good quality. Does anyone have any ideas for a good CD player in the $300-$500 range? Simple, not fancy is what I'm after - the focus is on sound quality and reliability. I have no use for all the bells and whistles that seem to infect so much modern technology. The task of reading data from an optical disk is pretty much solved and is a commodity. Likewise, the task of turning a bitstream into analog audio is pretty cooked out. So, buy based on features, price, looks, etc. Avoid the really cheap ones, other than that they sound pretty much the same (except for a few that deliberately color the sound) . The biggest difference I hear between one and another is how much mechanical noise they make - the spinning disk can be noisy, and the "high end" boutique manufaturers are sometimes the biggest offenders. What's the point of 90db S/N if you're listening at 90 dbSPL and the player is making a racket of 50 dbSPL? Also, some players have trouble with Orange Book "burned" CDs. If you've transferred some of your vinyl to CD by burning it on your PC, you should make sure your new player can accommodate these CDs. //Walt |
#8
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Advice on CD players, please.
Greg Grainger wrote:
Well, it is the end of an era. My Revox CD player, bought in 1985, has finally given up the ghost. Wow, I hope you give it an honorable sendoff! I could probably get it fixed but for a price that might very well purchase a brand new one of good quality. Does anyone have any ideas for a good CD player in the $300-$500 range? Simple, not fancy is what I'm after - the focus is on sound quality and reliability. I have no use for all the bells and whistles that seem to infect so much modern technology. Any thoughts? Have you considered moving to an all-hard disc playback system? It would involve some tedium in transferring your CDS , but in the end you gain fantastic amount of convenience and flexibility. -- -S We have it in our power to begin the world over again - Thomas Paine |
#9
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Advice on CD players, please.
In article ,
Steven Sullivan wrote: Greg Grainger wrote: Well, it is the end of an era. My Revox CD player, bought in 1985, has finally given up the ghost. Wow, I hope you give it an honorable sendoff! I took it to a place recommended to me for repair. The estimate was free, and the General Manager of the stereo store (who recommended the place) told me to tell the repair guy that he was taking a'personal interest' in this business. So, we'll see. Have you considered moving to an all-hard disc playback system? It would involve some tedium in transferring your CDS , but in the end you gain fantastic amount of convenience and flexibility. When I win the lottery, I'm going to buy a Sooloos. As a matter of fact, I have been in the process of ripping all my CDs to WAV files. Nearly done. Trouble is, the wiring, D/A design and output circuitry in your average computer are all vastly inferior to those in your average high-end stereo system (mine, for example). Even plugging the sound card drectly into my power amp would not get around the weaknesses in the transport and other cicuits before the signal finally got outside the box. sigh So, I'll just wait and see what the repair guy has to say. Speaking of lotteries, if I won, I'd buy a Bryston CD player. Yum. Greg. -- Greg Grainger grainger(at)vex.net 'What a world of gammon and spinach it is, though, ain't it?' - Miss Mowcher |
#10
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Advice on CD players, please.
On Jul 9, 1:48*pm, Steven Sullivan wrote:
Greg Grainger wrote: Well, it is the end of an era. My Revox CD player, bought in 1985, has finally given up the ghost. Does anyone have any ideas for a good CD player in the $300-$500 range? Simple, not fancy is what I'm after - the focus is on sound quality and reliability. I have no use for all the bells and whistles that seem to infect so much modern technology. Have you considered moving to an all-hard disc playback system? It would involve some tedium in transferring your CDS , but in the end you gain fantastic amount of convenience and flexibility. If you have a magic interconnect between your PC and preamp/receiver, go ahead and try the music server route. If you want a good basic CD player, you would probably be safe with Cambridge Audio. Their full line is available from Audio Adviser. I have happily owned a Cambridge for years without experiencing any major problems. Good luck! |
#11
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Advice on CD players, please.
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#12
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Advice on CD players, please.
On Jul 10, 12:40*am, (Greg Grainger) wrote:
snip Trouble is, the wiring, D/A design and output circuitry in your average computer are all vastly inferior to those in your average high-end stereo system (mine, for example). Even plugging the sound card drectly into my power amp would not get around the weaknesses in the transport and other cicuits before the signal finally got outside the box. Do you have a technical basis to justify your statement regarding "vastly inferior" circuitry and wiring in modern sound cards? What transport weakness are you talking about? The digital information captured from a CD and stored on a hard drive can be bit perfect and extremely convenient. An external DAC can be used if one is overly concerned about analog signal corruption but in reality, well-designed sound cards will provide extremely good results. Some even have SNRs greater than 100 dB. Given that real-world recordings rarely have an SNR greater than 70 dB, there is little reason to avoid PC hardware for music storage and playback. |
#13
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Advice on CD players, please.
Greg Grainger wrote:
In article , Steven Sullivan wrote: So, we'll see. Have you considered moving to an all-hard disc playback system? It would involve some tedium in transferring your CDS , but in the end you gain fantastic amount of convenience and flexibility. When I win the lottery, I'm going to buy a Sooloos. As a matter of fact, I have been in the process of ripping all my CDs to WAV files. Nearly done. Trouble is, the wiring, D/A design and output circuitry in your average computer are all vastly inferior to those in your average high-end stereo system (mine, for example). Even plugging the sound card drectly into my power amp would not get around the weaknesses in the transport and other cicuits before the signal finally got outside the box. My computer isn't ever doing the D/A (and the concerns about wiring and transport(!) etc are IMO overblown). I've used USB, and wireless to transmit the data to my AVR, which does the DA conversion. Currently I'm using optical S/PDIF via a Creative Audigy 2ZS laptop PCMCIA card (which I scored for $20 on ebay), because I've started ripping multichannel DTS and Dolby Digital tracks and my USB/wireless can't transmit those. Transmission is bit-perfect from my laptop (otherwise DD/DTS bitstreams wouldn't work, and they do) and I'm outputting sample rates up to 96k kHz with nominally 24 bit resolution. Player software is foobar2000 (freeware), which is massively user-configurable (though not exactly user-friendly). The main cost was for backup hard drives ( need about ~500Gb for all my music + some space for more, at this point. ) And they're cheap nowadays. -- -S We have it in our power to begin the world over again - Thomas Paine |
#14
Posted to rec.audio.high-end
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Advice on CD players, please.
On Jul 6, 12:05*am, (Greg Grainger) wrote:
Well, it is the end of an era. My Revox CD player, bought in 1985, has finally given up the ghost. I could probably get it fixed but for a price that might very well purchase a brand new one of good quality. Does anyone have any ideas for a good CD player in the $300-$500 range? Simple, not fancy is what I'm after - the focus is on sound quality and reliability. I have no use for all the bells and whistles that seem to infect so much modern technology. Any thoughts? email or post is fine. Repair the Revox if you can. They are _remarkably_ simple inside. I have one of the same vintage (B225) that I have successfully repaired several times. Once with a toothpick as the rack had warped a little, once simply by replacing lubrication, once replacing two electrolytics in the power-supply, once by re-setting the laser intensity. No repairs in the last 5 years, however, and the cluster noted above was all within one year. Otherwise, after the basics are met (quiet, solid, decent ergonomics) after about $100-$150 or so, there isn't much to choose between players. Peter Wieck Melrose Park, PA |
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