DEDICATED CD PLAYER $1K AND UNDER, THOUGHTS?

The Vault solution has a lot going for it. I assume you can RIP your CDs as you listen to them. If not there will be a few minutes to RIP, then you can RIP next one in and start listening. From my experience, the internal DAC works fine (use a better one if you want). The BlueSound software will organize your collection, and with little work you can get most of the album art and metadata. Try Roon for an even more involving metadata experience. Plug in a hard drive to the Vault to back up your collection. Done.

If you don’t want to spend the money on a Vault, their are plenty of DIY solutions that will accomplish the same thing. Currently I am RIPing my CDs on my computer, then storing my collection on a networked 2T external drive (I’m at about 150 GB, 50+ FLAC redbook CDs). I do occasional manual backups on a spare 500GB drive, which works fine for now. Use Airplay to send stream to Apple TV or Airport Express (Mac user, you can do the same stuff with PCs). AEX>DAC>output to stereo. You can go AEX>stereo too, but a better DAC may be a good idea, depending on your system.

It’s hard to figure out why anyone would want a dedicated CD player when these options are available. The only thing I can think of is that the physical act of selecting a CD, manually inserting it and looking at the printed material as you listen is essential to your experience. If that’s the case, then I would still buy a Vault instead of a new CD player, and just pretend it is a CD player.

smer319 I dunno.  The ALAC RIPs I get from iTunes on my Mac sound identical to the to the FLAC RIPS I got from DBpoweramp;  they seem to contain the same audio data (compared using AccurateRIP).  With very few exceptions the files appear to be identical.  Some differences in the way metadata is handled, but I am using Roon, and their metadata solutions more than satisfies me.

I have compared some of the FLAC files and ALAC files I have stored on my hard drive to the CDs they were ripped from.  They sound the same (AB tests running both sources at the same time and over long listening sessions).  Maybe I'm just lucky I do not have the "golden ears" required to tell the difference, but I have decided this is a non-issue.  If this causes you stress, just get DBpoweramp and use AccurateRIP to check their database.

When I decide to play a CD, I just pop it into a Superdrive that is connected to a Mac mini>optical out>DAC>stereo.  I am a graphic designer, so I already had the Superdrive and several old Mac minis laying around doing nothing.  Not long ago, I needed to press the mini into back-up service for my design work, so I took it off the rack and plugged my AppleTV optical out into the DAC (limited to 16bit/44.1, but most library is CD RIPs anyhow).  If I didn't have the Mac hardware, several DACs and extra hard drives laying around, I'd buy the Vault.