CD sound quality

Nrostov & Seanl:

I wasn't looking to stomp on anyone's parade. I left vinyl behind about 10 years ago for a host of reasons and admittedly, I am sometimes tempted to buy a turntable, because I really like turntables, not vinyl. I just understood the question, as well as bonvoyage's previous other post, to be ... hey, I just acquired the NAD & the Evo's and it's not sounding right ... what do I do. I never even entertained that it could be how the DVD hook-up was done. Duh!

I think that I obscured my main point which was ... as for the NAD C320/C720, despite what NAD claims in its manuals ... the associated equipment and cables matter a lot. The only CD player that I was ever happy pairing with the NAD was the Music Hall. The others ... and there were at least 2 other CD players and 3 other DVD players that were tried ... did not do the trick.

So to add to the original question ... given a $1500 set-up (list price), what turntable and phono preamp would make sense? If we are talking about $300 as a possible price, does one of the packages that KAB USA offers make the most sense?

Regards, Rich

Bonvoyage:

I seem to remember that Wharefedales, for the Diamond Series anyways, require using the bottom pair of terminals to work properly. Don't know about the Evolution series.

Regards, Rich

The NAD C720, which is based on the C320, will come alive with the right CD player. I had the most success with the Music Hall CD25 cd player. The combination was magical. See my remarks for my 2 channel HT system. With totally respectable CD players like the Pioneer PD 65 and the SONY SCD 555ES, the NAD C320 sounded OK, but nothing like the Music Hall. As for cables, the NAD/Music Hall combination worked very well with Signal Cable cables & interconnects and Better Cables interconnects.

Regards, Rich

Nrostov:

My hunch is that bonvoyage has a CD collection and not a vinyl collection, if for no other reason than the NAD does not offer a phono input. Also, I am not sure how applicable a discussion about selling an 8K cd player is when the other person's system costs $1500 tops. At the $8K level for a CD player, you are talking about a degree of playback resolution where if your system does not have excellent synergy, everything that is wrong will be magnified so much more so. (Roy Hall would chuckle quite a bit with this thread).

I am not sure introducing the "which medium is superior" provides an answer for someone who is asking ... I am into CD's and I am getting this ... can I make it better? True ... most CD's are not mastered as well as they could be. Truth be told though, the same holds true for a lot of vinyl ... unless you are getting audiophile vinyl pressings. Why not just introduce the "tubes vs solid state" and "separates vs integrated" superiority debates, while we are at it?

Simply put, a cheap DVD player and basic cables will degrade the sound of most decent systems quite a bit. Even though NAD states in its literature that cables are not that big a factor, in my experience they were with the NAD C320. I found that Better Cable Silver Serpent interconnects and Signal Cable Classic Speaker Cables worked very well when the NAD was paired with AR 302; NHT SB2; and Wharfedale Diamond 9.2 speakers and a Music Hall MMF CD 25 cd player. The system was very clear sounding with both good detail and musicality.

Hope this helps.

Regards, Rich