$1200 vs $200 cd players

My experience was much different. I replaced a $350 Cambridge Audio CD player with a $1000 Eastsound player.

I wasn't sure what to expect. Had already upgraded speakers, amp and wires. CD player was the last component upgrade.

The difference was substantial. Every and I literally mean every area was an improvement right out of the box and only got better on burn-in. On the same magnitude as the amp upgrade.

A few caveats though may account for the significant difference.

1) This as menitoned, was the final upgrade and as the weakest link the original CDP I'm sure allowed the other upgrades to show their merit.

2) Speakers are $3000 Focus Audio FS688's. The difference while still very notable was not nearly as substantial when I used a couple of pairs of $500 bookshelves in the same system.

3) The Eastsound is not the average "$1000" CDP. Its one of those over achieving Chinese players. It spanked the Jolida and Cayin CDP in a shootout at Audiocostruzioni and bested a $3000 Copland 288 CDP in another shootout.

Trust your own ears. Follow the advice of Budget car sells: "If you can't tell the difference, then why pay the difference."

Yes the website is: WWW.East-Sound.com.cn It is in Chinese but you can go to babelfish-altavista.com and get the site translated. The information though is rather difficult to ascertain.

I found more information by going to many different sources and these are some of the things I found out.

Transport is from Philips.

Operational amps and chip set are not Burr browns as advertizsed here on audiogon. They are from Crystal Dynamics. Chip is the CS4390. The same one used in the $4000 Gamut player and several Meridian models.

Power source uses WIMA black box technology.

The most unusual part is the TCCO (Temperature Control Clock Ocillator). Did some research to find out what a TCCO does. Actually found the answer at a engineering website talking about clock designs.

According to them a traditional clock is affected by temperature and humidity. A TCCO clock minimizes the effect of temperature and humidity and is theoretically capable of being 20 times more accurate then a non temperature control clock.

The shootout Between the Cayin, Jolida and Eastsound is at Audiocostruzioni.com. Italian website with a English version. There is also a review of the Eastsound there which has a hyper link to the shootout between the Copland and Eastsound and the reviewer states the Eastsound "disintigrated" his own $3200 Copland.

The sound is analog in nature. The importer I got the Eastsound from was curious about the player, since it was the first one he imported and I let him keep it for a week to audition. He was very very suprised when he learned the player was all SS and had no tubes. It does slam like SS though.

Hope this helped some. Feel free to email me if you have any questions.

Best Wishes MaxxC