Okay......best single box reference CD player

Mapman,

The issue of parts goes well beyond just those using no-longer-manufactured parts. Production of current parts can end with little or no warning. That has particularly been the case with transport mechanisms for players. Your best bet, as far as such concerns go, is to stick with a manufacturer that has been around a long time that has a good reputation. Such manufacturers will keep enough parts around to service their products for a while.

I can see why a lot of people are reluctant to put a lot of money into gear that can become unserviceable. That happens with other electronics too, particularly solid state amplifiers using output transistors that cannot be readily substituted with other off the shelf transistors or vintage transistors that are in big supply.

I agree with Larryi, as quite a few high end units use older out of production DAC chips. For instance, Esoteric, Naim, Muse, Zanden, Lector, & Empirical Audio all use the older Burr Brown 1704 in at least one of their current production units, and Charles Hansen of Ayre had mentioned how much he likes it as well, but cannot obtain them anymore. In the DACS that I have listened to, I also prefer this older chip which is why I researched this in the first place. That says nothing of course on how well the unit that uses the chip is designed, which may or may not be better with more recently designed gear.

i suppose it is hard to isolate performance to just the DAC; but i do think that my perception of the performance advances of the Playback Designs is likely due a great deal to it's unique DAC design.

the DAC in the Playback Designs MPS-5 has an open architecture; it can be 1 bit-5.6mhz or 32 bit-196mhz, 72 bit-496 mhz or anything they want it to be. thru the USB port the software can be updated to whatever they want. algorithms can be updated.

this approach; properly implimented.....would likely trump any older set of 'off-the-shelf' dac chips. and would also be likely to stay at the top level of performance longer since it can be upgraded thru software.

the challenge, of course, is 'properly implimented'.

Mike I agree with you about the other DACs but EMM LABS still has the best SOTA DAC which can also be updated through the USB port. As everyone knows, differences between great cd players are very subtle and it takes great experience with hi-end, musical organs, and music productions to determine what is more "correct". And I think the EMM LABS is the best out there.

There is not the best single box CD player, as a component of a systems it depends of the rest of the chain.Said this, I think that EMM LABS CDSA, Reymio, Puccini, Naim 555 , Memory player are among the best, I have not heard PD MPS5.
But perhaps the question is: I need to pay 2 or 3 times more for to get a little better sound? When we make this question, we are talking about relation price/quality, that is a very different thing that maximum quality at any cost, and logically the answers will be differents.
Jean Hiraga, the french engineer who was the first to talk about sound in relation components, and designed great tubes amps that were on Stereophile class A, one time said: if you have a great system, that give you the 95% of the posible quality achievable, to upgrade it to achieve the 96%, you surely need to expend twice the price, but if you have a system with quality 60%, then to achieve 65% you only need to expend a little more, the conclusion is: when we are talking about great systems or components any small increase in quality must be paid with a lot of money.
I have heard dCS Scarlatti system, I don´t want to say that is the best, but surely, because I heard it , take a seat, with one integrated amplifier, I don´t remember the brand but perhaps Arcam? and speakers that I don´t remember,and the sound were incredible, and after also with systems with BAT, Spectral, Soulution, FM acoustics, said this I want to say that it surely sounds better than the EMM labs combo, but I don´t want to expend the money to achieve this small amount of better quality, but if money wasn´t the question, I will buy it to achieve what I think it´s the best, and for one single box, surely I will buy Memory player, it has the futur inside.

Well said Emigene.

Dave

Mike I agree with you about the other DACs but EMM LABS still has the best SOTA DAC which can also be updated through the USB port. As everyone knows, differences between great cd players are very subtle and it takes great experience with hi-end, musical organs, and music productions to determine what is more "correct". And I think the EMM LABS is the best out there.

hi Argyro; i owned EMM Labs for the last 6 years. first the original DAC6 with the modified Philips SACD-1000 transport.....then i got the original CDSD transport, and then later i got the SE combo CDSD and DAC6.

the only one of these units which is 'user' software upgradeable by USB port is the transport CDSD SE. none of the DAC's are upgradeable by a consumer and none have a USB port. i cannot say what can be done by sending the unit back to EMM Labs.....there may be some sort of DAC upgrade that way. of course; you could say that about any digital player. but rarely does anyone upgrade DAC chips because the whole player is designed around a particular DAC chip set.

the CDSA does have a USB port which potentially could upgrade the DAC. but why would their second tier unit have an upgradable DAC and the DAC6 SE and DCC2 SE not have that same capability? it's more likely the USB port on the CDSA is there for the same reason it's on the CDSD, to update the transport software.

regarding performance i agree that the EMM Labs is excellent. OTOH in my listening tests the Playback Designs was quite a bit better to my ears.

Can't disagree with Emigene.

Anyone ever heard the Electrocompaniet Emc 1-UP or compared it to some of the gold standard players mentioned?

Recently had a chance to audition the new Boulder 1021 CD player at a local dealer. My comments will be prefaced by the dislaimer that listening to anything outside of your home system makes analysis challenging. The Boulder CD player is ultra-expensive (24K). However, it is a beautiful piece, and has some uniques attributes in how it reads CD's. Anyway, it was paired with Wilson Maxx 2 speakers, and the lower Boulder series (800) preamp and powers amps. We A/B'ed with the Esoteric X-01 player. The Boulder was clearly superior and offered improved detail with a lack of grain and hash that one would not have noticed if the Boulder didn't remove it. Whether it bests any of the others previously mentioned I cannot say. It is likely worthy of mention in the uber-CD player category.

What's unique about how the Boulder reads CDs and is it measurable somehow outside of subjective listening?

I heard the Boulder at the distributor house, great piece of equioment, but i will pay 24k? surely not, mostly due that the futur is in other way, PC based digital fronts, memory players, but less expensives....

My explanation will likely fall short of complete accuracy, but here is my best shot. The drive is only used for data retrieval. The signal is then processed, error corrected, reclocked, and then sent to the DAC. I presume it is supposed to resemble how a computer would present music for playback. A full description, I believe, can be found on their website.

In answer to your original question-The Playback Designs MPS 5 is the best single box reference CD player I've heard, by a HUGE margin. I've owned every iteration of the EMM Labs units- starting with the Modded Philips drive & DAC 6 up through the CDSA SE. I've owned the Playback Designs for several weeks now and it is literally transcendental. I don't mean to gush, but this digital is that good. I'm starting to question the superiority of vinyl playback. Is it possible that dragging a needle through a groove is, in fact, primitive after all?

Andreas did great work at EMM Labs, but he has truly come into his own with this player.

Fbhifi said:

"...this digital is that good. I'm starting to question the superiority of vinyl playback. Is it possible that dragging a needle through a groove is, in fact, primitive after all?"

I've been having the very same thoughts lately.

Dave

Fbhifi,

Can you please let us know what components you are using in your system. Thanks.

Wow. How does the Playback Designs accomplish what apparently other players cannot? What is the difference or new innovation in a technical sense? The designer must be doing something special or unique?

My System: EMT 928 (Re-plinthed), Dynavector 507 Mk.2, Dynavector DRT-XV1-S; Playback Designs MPS 5; DartZeel amp and pre-amp; Evolution Acoustics MM3.

I'm achieving a synergy with the above components that I've never had before.

Mapman: I do believe that the designer IS "doing something special or unique."
I'm sure you and many others are most interested in discovering exactly how Andreas approached this design. I rather doubt that he will be sharing his design secrets with the world any time soon.

"Wow. How does the Playback Designs accomplish what apparently other players cannot? What is the difference or new innovation in a technical sense? The designer must be doing something special or unique?"

the Playback Designs MPS-5 does all the obvious things right; a transformer instead of switching power supply, excellent analog output stage, a high quality Esoteric transport, and digital inputs for use as a server DAC. beyond that Andreas has somehow eliminated jitter both from the Esoteric transport and any digital input....and he has a totally custom designed, programable DAC.

it's the combination of all these elements which results in the performance. the hard part for the competition will be to compete with Andreas's digital design since it's proprietary; also meeting the price point with all the value.

Its weird that everybody who has an Evolution Acoustics speaker has a Darzteel amp. And everybody who has both has a Playback designs cd player.

I suppose synergy is above everything.

"the Playback Designs MPS-5 has a totally custom designed, programable DAC"

A programmable DAC sounds like a useful feature. Does that mean it can in practice be programmed to sound different case by case if needed/desired?

I'm curious if anyone knows how this feature is applied in practice and by which party, the vendor, user, or both?

Any other players out there that may have user programmable or configurable DACS?

Its weird that everybody who has an Evolution Acoustics speaker has a Darzteel amp.

the Evolution Acoustics use an integral digital amp to power the 15" woofers; which allow for a 93db, 6 ohm speaker which only needs a main amp to power above 100hz. one then has the opportunity to choose a mid or low powered amp with maximum refinement and naturalness. the dart then becomes the ideal solid state choice to use. when you hear these two products together it is easy to understand why they are combined.

what other mid-powered solid state amp would one choose that is better than the dart? some are likely a bit different; but better? there would probably be a few different tubed mid-powered choices which one could choose.

And everybody who has both has a Playback designs cd player.

obviously; the source for the above products manufacturers the Playback Designs....and therefore these customers are naturally among the first to be offered the Playback Designs.

i suppose synergy is above everything.

actually; there are a good percentage of early Playback Designs owners who own neither the Evolutions nor the darts. these other owners are experiencing the same performance leap that the Evolution-dart people are.

i think that amps and speakers must be synergistic to work.

the highest quality sources should synergize with any/every natural, high resolution system. sources should be neutral and should not require specific speakers or amps to work right.

Yeah, no DarTZ here, just a "lowly" Rowland Continuum 500 and Vienna Acoustic speakers. I think the MPS-5 is going to payoff for anyone with a transparent and revealing system, tube or SS.

The Playback Designs turns out to be my most expensive component by a small margin, BUT that'll probably change in '09 when (if) I get a larger room and move up the line in speakers.

Dave

>>Its weird that everybody who has an Evolution Acoustics speaker has a Darzteel amp<<

Not if you are familar with all of them.

It's not a coincidence.

I'm using my Playback Designs with Lamm 1.2 Ref. monos and Talon Firebird Diamonds. Not that I wouldn't want the Darts and MM3's but I'm happy with what I have.

One can come to trust a dealer after a number transactions. If a dealers recommendations turn out as promised that dealer earns your trust. That's how a dealer will build a successful business with many loyal customers.

So I agree with Mr. Feil that's it's no coincidence. I would hope that he too has such loyal customers.

But enough of dealer attacks, lets get back to the best one box player.

Frank

Dont ever buy a Mark Levinson #39, pure junk, I have owned mine for 4 years. Nothing but trouble, I have 20 year old el cheapos that still play. Last year I spent $800 geting all the caps replaced, the drawer recaled (that took em 1 month),and other stuff. This year my transport went out, $600 for that part and what ever for labor.
IN THE END A $6000 piece of crap.
oh but when it plays it does sound good, if it plays.

LEVINSON should be ashamed, used to think they made quality...boy I was wrong.

Give me a Wadia

I can't believe no one listed the Ayre C5xe in the list. This is the one to beat. You must use it in balanced mode however.

>>I can't believe no one listed the Ayre C5xe in the list<<

Believe it.

It would have been mentioned otherwise.

what's in the Ayre that's competing with Emmlabs, dCS or other top single boxes?

We are talking about -at least- over 1 class of performance.

Kops..Have you heard the Ayre in balanced mode in a good system? If you had you wouldn't ask that question.

Audiofeil... You were booed by many contributors on the Vinyl edition of Audiogon, and here you are again with your snide remarks on the digital section.

There is not a single product that pleases everyone, but surely ranking CD players, the Ayre unit should be listed in the handful of top players - those that provide real music in real time.

Stringbean,
Thanks. but it doesn't change the fact that nobody mentioned the Ayre heretofore.

And for good reason.

I could care less about being booed; it's still better than being you.

Stringbean,
Let me address two issues.

First, if you canvas 10 folks with really high end systems (I mean high end, not stuff like yours) and ask which one box cd player they prefer, none will say Ayre. You'll hear Esoteric, EMM, AMR, etc.

Point two, getting "booed" by some amateur analogists is not a big deal.

Thank you.

Audiofeil said:
"I could care less about being booed; it's still better than being you."

I'm amazed, disgusted, and saddened by this comment.

Here is a guy who gets booed every game. We love to hate our bullies.

I think that the old DACs have a place, particularly for a company like Naim that's not staking their whole reputation on the performance of their CDP. They want to be considered top echelon in everything that they do, but not necessarily the very best. They might sacrifice the last bit of performance to be able to be "in the running" and reliable, consistant with their brand.

Contrast that with a designer that can build a custom DAC that may do one or two things much better than any off-the-shelf DAC, current or past. That's a much riskier strategy, particularly for a big company, but for a designer with the particular experience needed, that could be a huge advantage.

On the risk side, lots of these custom DACs in the past might have issues with playing all formats of CDs, or the transport drawer would do odd things at the worst times. So, it takes an experienced designer that really thinks of all the possible failure issues and addresses them. Add with a really solid transport in a solid chassis and you get into high potential. That gets expensive and high expense most often converts to low volumes, etc., etc.

Naim, Cambridge, PS and others make good digital products at their various price points, but none of those are purely digital companies. I'm not saying that a full-line manufacturer can't make a top-of-the-heap CDP, but the odds that a single designer or small group of like minded designers can do something better is high, particularly now that the digital technology has started to mature.

Dave

Stringreen
I've heard Ayre and it's a very good player but not even close to dCS Puccini and Emmlabs cdsa se. And I guess in PD if the designer pushed further his previous design.\

And the title of this thread is "best single box reference cd player" so I guess that's why it was not mentioned before.

You're right Kops. As you said, that is the title of the thread.

There are a dozen players an experienced audiophile would select before the Ayre as the "best one box player".

Concur, Ayre digital is certainly not up to the standards of their amplification.

The only player mentioned here that I've heard myself is the DCS Puccini, which sounded very good. I've heard other high end players at dealers and all sound different, but I can't say one is necessarily better or not based on my limited exposure.

I'm really trying to understand what it is that makes one CD player in this league better than the other. Are there any that are truly better in ALL aspects, not just those that appeal to a certain listener?

It would help if some objective details were provided to help justify claims that any particular box, Ayre, DCS, PD, whatever, is superior, as in my mind, this should be the case to justify the cost of these players.

In the end, I am still convinced that personal taste is the prime determining factor in many cases.

Agree with Bar81 on Ayre amps.

Killer products; among the best solid state gear available.

Measureable objective evidence can be tough to come by when we're talking about the nth degree. Playback Designs reports absolute zero jitter, but until a third party like Stereophile validates it, that's just a report. Owners of Emm report that upgrading the transport improves the overall sound by bringing the mids and bass more forward, but no one can measure anything different, at least so far as I can find.

Why do certain components improve a lot with burn-in? Jeff Rowland told some of us on a tour of his place that he hears the improvement with burn-in but has been unable to measure it. He theorizes that it's due to the dielectrics settling into a a charge, but he can't "prove" it.

I think that the very top players that I've heard are very close in sound and the differences come down to small degrees of transparency and small differences in the emphasis of various aspects of the spectral presentation with more details available in different regions of the EQ that are unmeasureable. All of these top players have eliminated digital glaze from the equation; therefore, they're all pleasant to live with and have you roaring through your CD collection to re-hear everything that you missed before, but there are still very slight differences in other areas that distinguish one from the other and provide us with all this entertaining discussion.

Dave

DcStep,

I agree that these subtle things are often not measured in practice. However, I do believe that if someone makes a claim that a particular design is the "best" in some regard, they should be able to back it up with quantifiable measurement to validate the claim.

Practically, verbal descriptions like you give work for me as long as they are a result of critical listening exercises. I can tell from your posts that you are indeed a critical listener, so your assessments carry weight for me.

Saying that one player has more detail or smoother response of some sort has meaning to me whereas "player x is/is not in the same league" without something to back it up other than opinion is meaningless.

To me, this high end audio stuff is much like fine wine. You can have two very fine wines that clearly taste different, or are of different styles. Same true of audio.

Also, no two people even have the same taste buds nor ears in terms of the ability for these biological sensors to discern taste or sound equivalently.

Its ironic that as we grow older and claim ability to be more discerning as a result of our experience, the fact is that our ability to hear physically deteriorates over time due to natural biological processes, so technically we are less competent than we were when we were young and still "wet behind the ears". This is a scientific fact, I am fairly certain. Very ironic!

I also believe it is true to a large extent that we also become more opinionated over time and this is a direct result of each person's unique experience.

About that getting older thing, it's true, but not entirely relevent, depending on the listener. You must consider the training and experience that the ears have received. Mario Andretti is over 60 and seldom drives competitively anymore, but he can still outdrive 99.9% of the male population of the western world. His nervous system is probably firing 30% slower than when he was 20, but his experience still leaves him in a different league than the rest of us humans.

Some of us have been playing musical instruments daily since we were ten or so and listening to "high end" stereos since we were in our late teens (decades ago) and we easily hear differences that others don't notice or can't isolate. So, like athletics, I think that listening is a skill that can be refined and honed with practice. Also, like certain skills, it helps to have started early in life and continued to develop over a period of decades.

Dave

Dcstep,

You are right. Trained ears can hear things less trained ears cannot even when older.

However, the time in which Mario correctly navigates a course can be measured and compared. And there are a lot of young pups out there who can maybe beat him now.

In the end, all that really matters is what sounds best to each person, or more realistically, what sounds best that that person can afford.

So I'd assert the question posed in this thread is a moot point, but still intertesting in that it does bring out useful information and some interesting opinions on the topic as well.

DC,

One other point I would agree with you wholeheartedly on is that there is no substitute for experience in listening closely to live music (particularly acoustic music) when it comes to making a determination about how good a system or component sounds.

Acoustic music played live is the real thing....the reference standard.

Yes, being a musician and/or hearing a lot of live acoustic music is a big plus. You get very good at hearing timbre and dynamics, particularly as a musician, since you're responsible for making it happen.

I have know several non-musicians that developed very good ears, so it's not exclusive to musicians, but they do tend to listen to live music also. In all my years as an audiophile I only met one person with really great ears that I trusted that claimed that she'd never been to a live concert. She'd been in audio as a dealer for over a decade when I met her. I think someone helped her build a very good first system (it included big electrostatics -- Beverage, anyone remember those) and by using that as a reference she then got to where she could pick between various lesser products. I consider her the exception, but I'm certain, based on her experience, that it can be done.

Dave

Garebear,

If you audition other players mentioned here or others compared to your current dcs, please share your findings here.

Thanks + Cheers!

..by the way gentlemen, the Ayre C5xe is a single box player, and as I said before has to be used in balanced mode. I heard it set up this way with dcs and through Audio Research top electronics and Wilson Alexandrias. The results in the room were defined by the tastes of the listeners...the music being played, the strengths of each of the units. The Ayre should be auditioned correctly (as should all exquipment) before final judgements be dictated as truth.

Stringreen,

What differences did you hear between the DCS and Ayre?

Which DCS? Puccini?