Yes. Absolutely. At that age, even if the transport is repairable if it breaks, the caps and/or solder joints will be shot or almost shot. Better yet, check eBay for factory-refurbished CXCs for about $350. The Best Buy in the transport game. Not saying it’s better than the AL, but you can’t beat it at that price.
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I can't see purchasing older and/or well used cd transport. Even if one believed it may provide higher quality sound than today's transports I wouldn't do it. CD transports should be considered as consumable product, defined lifespan. I had a single well loved cd transport many years ago, when it died I was pretty shattered. I tried heroic diy repair, factory approved repair facility would have charged me at least half of what unit sold for new, no way. Anyway, I tried various subsequent cd transports, none approached sound quality of dead unit. The whole thing drove me away from cd transports and into streaming. My take is what if you love sound of used transport, it dies, you can't repair, too big a risk. My take is either stream or purchase low hour repairable used or new transport. |
Transports are the most unreliable component in audio. Ancient is not good, unlikely replaceable.
You might consider a streamer instead. CD players are slowly going extinct. Streaming is the future. My streamer sound better than my CD player, and the same as my analog end. For the price of one CD per month you get access to nearly infinite music. Qobuz streaming the highest quality. |
I don’t think it is prudent to pay 400 for a 28 year old player. Others have provided sufficient reasons for this assessment about a player of this vintage. Moving right along, $700 is a good workable number. Others on this esteemed forum have spoken about Tascam. I had not heard of it, but on a little investigation I reckon they seem pretty good value and quality. Features galore - like, recording, and other bells and whistles. OK, about the third edit - confusing, going in circles - the prior and out of production model, 900, did not have balanced connections, The one I link to in the next sentence does have balanced. If that kinda thing rocks ya boat. This one is about USD 600, a relatively new model I think. Whatever, just sayin’. I know nothing, and even less about Audio Lab. |
+1 for transition to streaming invest in the future or hold onto the past? Apporx 18 months ago I refreshed my transport with an Audiolabs 6000CDT, cost of roughly $600 with a digital coax uplink to the DAC Nice unit at a nice price point 6 months later I started streaming and can count the number of CDs I've played since on both hands I own approx 600 CDs The streamer is fiber connected from my internet router and i2s uplinked to the DAC Needless to say I haven't bought a CD since then but still get all the new material from Tidal or Qobuz No right or wrong here, like most aspects of this hobby it's more about personal preferences If part of your joy stems from the physical media touch and feel or bin diving for rare finds of used CDs, get the transport For new comers to the hobby who own no albums or CDs, the path of least resistance for price performance sound quality is streaming |
