Any advice on CD player upgrade?

save your money for a better preamp (or speakers, or *whatever*). dollar for dollar, you will get better sound substantially upgrading your preamp w/your same cd player, than the other way around. the law of diminishing returns is more applicable to cd hardware than to any other equipment, imho. also, lots folks report getting better sound w/res-audio cd players run thru good preamps, instead of being run straight into their amps, so why bother w/a unit that devotes so much of its cost to its volume control circuitry? one person's opinion... doug

hi soobie-guru, my point is that if ya inwest another $3k into yer preamp, you will get better results w/yer current cd player than investing $3k into another cd player, w/yer current preamp. yust my opinion of course. (i *am* biased towards vinyl, if ya haven't figured it out!) doug

hey subaruguru, here's the only info i can give ewe, it only reinforces the importance of having a good preamp: my brother-in-law compared a resolution-audio cd-55 (retail $3500), w/an alchemist nexus (retail ~$1700). preamp used was the alchemist kraken (retail $1080). 1st he tried 'em straight-in to his a-r 100.2 amp, driving his proac 2.5's. the r/a was definitely better. then he ran 'em thru the preamp. the r/a was better in this fashion than run straight-in, but, when now comparing it to the kraken thru the preamp, he said it was splitting hairs to detect any difference. and this was w/a relatively inexpensive preamp. i a-b'd the alchemist cd player w/my cheap nad cd *changer*, and there was absolutely *no* difference, when they were run thru a cary slp98 preamp. draw your own conclusions... doug

hi outlier, shoulda taken my adwice & gotten a better preamp! ;~) see my previous comments about this from another thread (vinyl vs cd): <<<<<<>>>>> going to better preamps have made *big* improvements to all my sources - cd, vinyl, tuner. regards, doug

sorry, dunno why this dint print the last post - here's my experience regarding cd players: w/my ~$500 nad cd changer, my digital is far from state of the art. but, i a-b'd my nad w/a $1700 alchemist nexus cd player, on *my* system, and there was *no* difference between the two. my brother-in-law a-b'd this same alchemist on *his* system w/a $3500 resolution audio cd-55, & he said there were "miniscule" differences between the two, only noticed, & yust "barely", when run in a direct a-b comparison. i can see no reason to upgrade my nad cd player - i wonder how much $$$ i'd really have to spend, if i wanted cd to come close to analog on my system. i agree that cd is way-convenient, but i'm waiting until the 24-192 format (or whatever) is commercially awailable before spending any more $$$ on cd-playback. doug