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Crazy to buy a 17 year old CD Player?

My ARC CD2 just died...I think the laser finally gave up the ghost.  Any how I've got thousands of red book CDs in my library and need a replacement player.  I'm thinking an ARC CD 3MKII or the Mark Levinson 390S.  Am I crazy to be thinking this?  Got a budget of around $2000.00.  My system, though dated, is made up of higher end stuff: ARC 25 pre amp, ARC VT 150 mono amps, VPI TNT IV, Wilson Witts, all running through Transparent Reference (Balanced).
cmcdaniel5
bigkidz
3,381 posts
 
Buying an older unit is fine if you get a rally good deal.  I would see if the parts are still available or the mfg still supports the unit.  Georgehifi is right about the R2R they do sound better IMO but a good DAC design can make things sound special also.  Happy Listening.
jl35
3,980 posts
 
I found the CD3mkll to sound significantly better than the CD2
tbone5
2 posts
 
Thank you all for your time to respond.  I'm hearing from most that its best to move on...kind of thought so myself, just out of the loop for so long and not really sure what is up to the quality I'm used to .

Am open to suggestions on used equipment @ 5yrs old.  Again, max budget is @ $2000 - $2500.  As you can probably infer, I'm very old school with a preference toward analog.  That said I've got so many CDs it makes no sense to walk away from my very nice library.
imgoodwithtools
236 posts
 
There's a Ayre C-5xeMP Universal Disc Player listed right now for $2250. I'm not sure you could do any better under your budget.
nordicnorm
313 posts
 
What really separates the older, high-end CDPs from the newer ones is the improvement in DAC technology.

In order to future-proof any investment you make, I would suggest that you buy a decent older CDP (i.e. Primare, Rega, Hegel, Yamaha, etc.) and mate it with a newer external DAC (i.e. Denafrips. Lampizator, Ayre, Soekris,  etc.). But if you are only interested in CD playback (i.e. non-DSD), focus on R2R DACs (Denafrips,  Soekris, Holo, etc.).  

What is the advantage of R2R-based DACs for CD playback, you ask? An R2R DAC converts 16bit/44kHz  Redbook PCM bit perfectly (i.e. without any conversion or processing). When a PCM file is played on a single-bit Delta Sigma DAC (used in most DACs that support DSD), it has to convert the PCM to DSD in real time.     

I recently compared the DAC in my Esoteric DV-50Ss against my Gustard x20Pro DAC (new, $800), which is considerably newer technology. After level matching, I was unable to detect any difference in sound quality between the two.

Now, the DAC in the DV-50S would probably be easily beaten by a $3,500 external DAC, but I only paid $1,000 for the DV-50S in the first place, so I am more than happy with it.
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