Audio Research No Longer Has A CD Player In Its Product Lineup

Audio Research CD players were never held in high regard vs Esoteric/MSB/DCS/T+A/Gryphon and plenty of others. Matter of fact the "8" was known to have plenty of issues.

riaa_ etc .... 

Sorry to be disagreeable.  I owned the CD-8 for about 9 years.  It gave me great service.  I since swapped up to the CD-9SE and it has been totally reliable. I haven't tried the DAC side of the house yet, but many forum members have posted complimentary compliments about the CD-9 DAC.

Not having heard the other players listed in your post, I can make no comment.

BIF 

I had the CD 8 for many years and now my father is using it.  No issues at all.  Also have had theCD 9 for 6 years and no Issues either.  

mitch4t

Thank You for posting. Dumb move on ARC behalf. Luckily, there are players available on the secondary marketplace.

Happy Listening!

ARC discontinued their CD players because the manufacturer of their transports discontinued production. I don’t know if they will bother to make another one. The age of the CD is over… just most people haven’t figured that out yet.

The ARC player is an exceptional player / DAC. While it performs both functions the DAC in it is amazing. I cannot detect any sonic difference between a red book cd playing on the ARC Ref CD9se transport and on streamed from my Aurender W20SE. I spent a couple weeks comparing it with the $22K Berkeley Alpha 3 DAC with streamed content and to my ears the ARC won… it was very slightly more natural and musical with a touch more bass and warmth in the midrange and bass. The Berkeley had ever so slightly more detail… differences on both sides were absolutely minuscule. Adding these two functions together for the price, it is quite the exceptional component.