Modded Cambridge Audio 550C player. Rating??

I would suggest a much longer break-in before you decide.

To JL35. I am probably going to take your advice and work the player another 60 hours. To date, my major complaint after additional careful listening yesterday is the mid highs sound bleached, thin, unmusical similar to what DHL 93449 described. Also, midrange lacks body or substance

However, this modded 550C is amazingly undistorted or congested on complex musical rock crescendos, and remains virtually silent in those passages. It is possible, the highs have been rolled off and smoothed out to provide a sense of transparency, but at the same time they have no bite, and the lower mids lack slam power. The sound often comes across as too polite and distant

In some ways, the more controlled highs reduce listening fatigue to a minimum. The larger issue is whether I can live with this type of sound. As a consequence, I am not running to dig out my favorite CD's for replay because the sound is neither musical nor engaging

Looks like I made a wrong turn somewhere on the audiophile highway. The problem could be the "modded" Cambridge player, or stupidly downgrading my speaker cable( though I never thought any of this cheap wonder wire would be acceptable.) At this point, I will give the 550C somemore time, and continue to look for quality speaker cable to replace the Audio Arts cheapo wire with something comparable or hopefully better than the Acoustic Zen Hologram 2 speaker cable I sold

I found out yesterday that Kimber Kable has an interim speaker cable (12tcVS) that is jacketed differently, with different dialetics and is almost half the price of standard 12tc which is $840.00 for a 12 ft pair. It "supposedly" delivers almost 90% of the same sound as the 12tc( which makes me suspicious that it is just a tad better than average, and no more) The good news is I can have one single wire side that only is 7FT OR 8FT, and save a few bucks. Interestingly, he claimed the major audio rags don't want to waste their time preparing reviews of mid to lower high-end speaker cables; I guess they are too busy writing reviews of $45,000 amps, and $25,000 turntables armed with an $8000 to $10,000 phono cartridge, and of course, DAC's and music servers ad infinitum.

I own several Mapleshade products including the modded Cambridge Audio 640c. As with all audio components, it’s open to interpretation of what sounds good (or great)...in the ear of the beholder. I personally believe that my modded CD player sounds better than much more expensive CD players I’ve owned. That being said, this mod may not be for everyone. To my ears, it sounds closer to my Pro-ject RPM-5 turntable than it does to a CD player. It has lost the harshness that seems to haunt many (but not all) digital sources. I’m still burning the CD player in but, even after only a few hours of play, it has already exceeded my expectations. Many of Mapleshade’s products will cause an immediate improvement in your stereo and others have a more cumulative effect. In short, I would recommend this modification...but, that’s me.