@tvrgeek
I appreciate your opinions. But for the benefit for those new to this pursuit I have to say your engineering background is getting in the way of your ears. This is not uncommon, that when you are absolutely sure something cannot mater it can cause your mind to focus on similarities and choose not to believe you hear a difference.
To those of use that developed our listening skills there is a huge world of difference out there. I recommend spending more time listening and a bit less time thinking about how there cannot be a difference. Find some audiophiles that can let you listen to great systems and coach your listening skills and your life will become richer in the nuance of music.
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@mbmi “…Streaming sucks. Why.......because people Don't sit there and enjoy a certain song or complete album...they bounce around playing 1 minute of this song and 30 sec. of the next song etc…”
That is typically only true when the sound quality of streaming is significantly below that of your other medium. In my system I get glued to a new streamed album I typically would not listen to and just can’t quit because I get immersed in it.
The “surfing” problem used to haunt me and my system until I finally raised the sound quality of my streamer / DAC. It put the musicality into streaming without loosing the detail. Both my main system and headphone system glue me to nearly anything musically in my sphere of interest… and a lot of things outside.
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I will soon be listing THE giant killer-
Resolution Audio Opus 21 CD player with Great Northern Sound Co. reference level modifications. Separate dac (BB 1704's) and new transport as of 11/22. It will meet your price range and exceed your expectations. Just read the reviews.
PM me if interested.
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@soix
Thanks for the clarification but the apology isn't necessary. I didn't take it at all personally -- I was simply attempting to be humorous, which doesn't always translate well in a medium where non-verbal cues are absent! It's all good.
I'm familiar with that "kid in a candy store" feeling -- it lasted for a good 20 years while I was focusing on exploring Jazz but at this point, I have a very good sense of what I like and don't like and it takes very little listening to an unfamiliar artist or release to determine whether it's something I'm likely to enjoy playing over and over. In other words, I'm limited by the boundaries of my own tastes/preferences, which I haven't found to be very flexible.
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If you want to call if "Neanderthal", that’s OK -- I don’t take it personally!
@stuartk Sorry, that wasn’t meant toward you at all but rather how the act of spinning CDs today seems to me. That said, I do find it surprising you’re not discovering tons of new music you’d like to explore and listen to. I feel like a kid in the audio candy shoppe and am constantly finding intriguing new music all over the place, and more often than not when I go to Qobuz it’s usually there in CD — and often times better — quality. But, in the end we all experience audio and music the way we enjoy most and that suits us best, and that’s really all that matters.
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Ironic. I find ASR useful and informative as I do have an engineering background, designed and modeled in Spice amplifiers, crossovers, and preamps. But most of us understand specs as currently understood are not the last word. I'll take a Hegel over a Benchmark amp any day. The irony is, I was tossed off ASR because I believed ( know) I could hear the difference between DACs and amplifiers. My wife can do with more precision than I.
I suggested load variances as one factor effecting sound. I also mentioned dynamic compression in tweeters. Both quite real, measurable, but not in Amir's playbook. Harder to measure is the effect on IPS and VAS from bass transients with poor board layout or insufficient dynamic current. Again very real. I can even model it. I found by testing, tweeter breakup causing IM making upper midrange edgy. Again, Amir does not believe this so he banned me. Not exactly scientific in my book, but it is his site.
I only have about 500 CDs on my server. Hitting Goodwill every week to grab any 69 cent one that looks' even mildly good. I have not gone streaming yet as it takes too much effort. I am an old guy and do not live with a phone attached to my hand and don't own a tablet. Eventually. Soooo much great music out there. And Sooo much garbage to wade through. I wish I had any assurance that streamed files were at least CD quality. From what I have heard and read, a lot are just old garbage up-sampled. I gather Qobuz is about the best. I have Prime, but found it to be a mess and did not have half of what I went looking for.
I compared some "HD" streamed files with the same music in RedBook and did not hear any difference,. Always a "but" and in this case, it was not showing the specific edginess that bothers me. Nora Jones does not hit those notes. She is always smoooooth.
So, I RIP with JRiver. Play over USB to my DAC. WASAPI Exclusive, asynchronous. Testing buffer sizes, testing if -3 dB is best. May test ASIO as well but I don't see the advantage. Looking into host based oversampling, normalizing, and any other possible off-line processing to feed the DACs. Or, just a DAC like the RME or Cord that has the power internally. My PC DVD transport, about $15, reads the disks 100% error free at about 5X. There is nothing else a transport need do. Any jitter, noise, rise time issues are completely lost when the file is saved to disk. Just physics. We now have USB interfaces that don't mess up the signal, even in CH-FI. The DAC chips are all fantastic, which leaves the reconstruction (including clean power) as what effects the sound. Good and bad.
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"Several in the high end stores. Did not pay attention to the brand but hooked up to very high end systems. One was a Moon, Another a Mac"
I'll go out on a limb and say that the front end digital equipment was Sim and McIntosh since they make their own
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@tvrgeek Your perspective on things fits right in with ASR. Whatever works for you have at.
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@soix
I’d never dispute the advantage you cite! In fact, I’m finding it’s been harder and harder to find CDs I want to buy. This has in fact been going on for some time. But this is not for lack of trying! I spend a lot of time on spotify looking around for possibilities. The "problem" is me.
It’s an idiosyncrasy of mine that I’m very album-focused, rather than artist-focused. It’s not at all uncommon for me to own only one or two recordings from a single artist, because when I compare their entire output, those are the ones that really grab me. The rest, I can do without. And repeated listening rarely changes my opinion. If I didn’t like something 10 years ago, hearing it again almost never changes my initial impressions.
Similarly, I favor a small number of visual artists, photographers and poets, whose work I go back to again and again. Restaurants, too. It’s just the way I’m wired, I guess. If you want to call if "Neanderthal", that’s OK -- I don’t take it personally! ;o)
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Several in the high end stores. Did not pay attention to the brand but hooked up to very high end systems. One was a Moon, Another a Mac.
What you may be missing is how good a select number of inexpensive DACs really are. My dirt cheap Atom+ is much smoother than any DAC I have tested in my desk system under the price of a Aries.* It is the only one that tames the sibilance of a Joni Mitchel, Judy Collins, or brass edginess of Harry James. I have heard multi-thousand dollar CD players in the stores that did not. I have heard multi-thousand dollar DACs that did not. Now, what is critical to everyone is not the same. You may ignore what irritates me and vise-versa.
Can you adjust in your high end transport gain in the digital domain to prevent filter overshoot? Does it do it it's self for you? Can you match your filters to emphasize detail for headphones vs speakers? I do not believe any you listed do.
As both a music lover and an engineer, I know the transport is basically irrelevant. Any $20 disk player is as close to perfect as it gets to read a disk without error. The sound is all about the DAC, mostly the reconstruction and analog stage. It was not always true. Back in the day we did not have decent buffers and clocks so going back to the Phillips POOGE days, there were real improvements to be made.
Now, it is my experience the only improvement is to the prestige CD player bank account. Of course placebo and ego are totally relevant and I don't dismiss or criticize for that. If it makes you feel better, then well you feel better and that is great. Enjoyment is the bottom line. If $15,000 worth of billet aluminum and slick advertising makes your music better for you, by all means. Someday I may hear something that changes my mind. Here in N.C., we don't have too many opportunities. Just went through Richmond, DC, and Baltimore with little progress.
I would be far more impressed if someone like CORD slapped a decent DAC into a $200 transport. Use real engineering rather than advertising.
*My next possible upgrade is to compare the Aries, Qutest, RME and maybe a Geselli to see if they can surpass my lowly JDS. Nothing SMSL, Topping, Schiit, or IFI has so far for the specific issue I hear. Amazon probably hates me. Is there a higher level? Does Dave sound better? Not that I can hear and I have heard a Qutest vs Dave in a store. But I am not 30 any more either and I only listen to speakers, not headphones.
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@tvrgeek "I am not aware of any CD player for any price with a DAC that can beat some I know of for $100, let alone a RME, CORD, Denifritz etc"
Hyperbole! What high end CD players have you listened to please detail? Any of these for example amongst them Vitus, Esoteric, Metronome, CH Precision, Neodio, Goldmund, etc?
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I gave up on CD players. Library got too complicated.
So, FLAC form a PC. I can then use a very good DAC. I am not aware of any CD player for any price with a DAC that can beat some I know of for $100, let alone a RME, CORD, Denifritz etc.
CD transports are inherently SYNCHRONOUS, so you are stuck with the transports clock. If it was good enough, fine. You lose all the issues of not well implemented USB and PCM outputs. Big IF.
My best CD player was the old "last" tray style Rotel. Internal DAC was garbage compared to today but excellent in the day. I used at that time a SOA Wolfson. Now, a PC, JRiver or MusicBee into a JDS Atom+ blew it away plus I can find my music, drag half a dozen CDs to the play list and walk away.
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@mahler123 "These technologies are not mutually exclusive. One can happily play their physical media and also listen to streaming. Or not. I don’t think that we have to badger people to do it one way or the highway"
+1
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A lot of over simplified cliches going on here. Let’s look at a few.
1) streaming is great because it facilitates exploration of new music, and people that listen to the same stuff all the time are dinosaurs.
Well, streaming does make it easier to hear new music. However the CD era ushered this in, because the cost of producing and storing CDs was lower than vinyl. In Classical Music, budget labels such as Naxos and Independents such as Chandos, Hyperion, and Bridge and a raft of others gave exposure to thousands of previously little known composers. Streaming lowers the barriers again, but the trend was well on its way before streaming. Internet Radio is another great way to discover unfamiliar music.
The Dinosaur Issue-most people here are on the wrong side of fifty and while we have our favorites, and keep listening to them, that is still a heck of a lot of music. I have several thousand CDs on my shelves. Several hundred of them are favorites and it is a rare CD that I don’t enjoy. Frequently I pull something that I haven’t played in 30 years and then wonder why I haven’t given it more love, and it becomes a new favorite.
2) Streaming sucks because it facilitates ADHD style listening, and artists intended you to listen to a whole album at a shot.
Streaming does allow one to jump around. In my genre I still listen to whole albums most of the, even when streaming. For example if I am listening to Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony, the chances that I will want to follow the epic first movement with the Can Can by Offenbach isn’t great. However this week I have been obsessed by a short work of J.S. Bach, the Fourth Fugue from Book I of The Well Tempered Clavier. I pulled up 5 different Pianists during the week on Apple Music that I didn’t have in my collection. Wonderful! And we have no evidence that Bach intended people to play or listen to all 24 of the Preludes and Fugues in one sitting so no sacrilege committed there.
Not every pop album is Sargent Pepper or DSOM. Most Motown albums until Marvin Gaye What’s Going On were just random collections of singles. The artist and the label expected you to buy 45s, and the albums were issued as a way to buy multiple records at once when the lp format began to be popular with consumers. Miles Davis albums were someone editing hours of tape into a 45 minute finished product, and I doubt that Miles expected people to inhale them in one sitting or viewed the outcome as a planned journey.
These technologies are not mutually exclusive. One can happily play their physical media and also listen to streaming. Or not. I don’t think that we have to badger people to do it one way or the highway
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Streaming sucks. Why.......because people Don't sit there and enjoy a certain song or complete album...they bounce around playing 1 minute of this song and 30 sec. of the next song etc...etc. ..Put on vinyl and you are forced the listen to your beautiful albums the way the artist intended you to hear them...completely
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I have a Pioneer dv-48 elite CD/SACd player + Merason Frerot DAC. I can literally sing the praises of this combo. One of my close friends has the audiolab 6000 CDT+Merason Frerot DAC. Sound amazing. Well within the budget of you consider used.
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@soix
+1 very true. You can do both. I still like to pull out a vinyl disk every week or two. But I listen to mostly new music the other 20 hours a week.
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Call me a "dinosaur", a "nostalgist" or even a "nostalgic dinosaur"; I enjoysearching shelves for a CD, pulling it off the shelf, removing it from it’s case and placing it into my Jay’s. Perhaps there’s a ritual aspect to it -- I haven’t psychoanalyzed myself in this particular regard but it’s physical media for me!
@stuartk Well, that’s fine if you enjoy the “ritual” and playing the same stuff over and over again. But what you’re really missing out on more than anything else by not embracing streaming are the thousands upon thousands of new songs/albums you’d have access to (a lot of it in hi res BTW) for the price of just one new CD per month. Finding and enjoying new music is infinitely more enjoyable than living Groundhog Day over and over. Once you experience discovering worlds of new music, going back and spinning the same CDs seems downright stifling and Neanderthal. That’s been my experience anyway, and I very rarely spin a CD anymore and don’t miss it in the least. But, to each his own.
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@vonhelmholtz
A bit over a year ago I decided to take the 4K I was going to spend on a top transport and upgrade my streamer/server and I’m very happy with the results. My music is on an internal Aurender SSD and backed up to a Synology Raid network drive. CDs are in storage. All is controlled by my iPad.
Glad you’re happy with your set-up. I have no doubt it sounds excellent.
I spend enough time and experience more than enough frustration as it is with my PC, smart-phone and various other digital devices with screens. Having a similar interface with my audio system holds absolutely zero appeal for me.
Call me a "dinosaur", a "nostalgist" or even a "nostalgic dinosaur"; I enjoy searching shelves for a CD, pulling it off the shelf, removing it from it’s case and placing it into my Jay’s. Perhaps there’s a ritual aspect to it -- I haven’t psychoanalyzed myself in this particular regard but it’s physical media for me!
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The OP didn’t mention SACD, but I think the Denon flagship CD/SACD is in his price range. I had just pulled an earlier version out of storage after several years and was pleasantly reminded of how good it is
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The Nuprime CDP-9 with LPS212 Linear power supply. The best CD playback
I've ever had-
pawsman
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Project rs2 transport is amazing... A bit over budget in US maybe so next one down rs transport is under a grand and top loading like the Rs2 so no tray wobbles ever. I matched mine with rs2 DAC as perfect partner but a SH chord qutest is great value for money too.
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I’m using a Cambridge Audio CXC CD Transport @$599.00. It requires an external DAC. My DAC of choice is the Jolida Glass FX Tube DAC III @$750.00 and uses twin 12AX7 tubes in the input stage. The sound of this combination is miraculous in that the Cambridge is exact and sonically pure in its bit-perfect output. The DAC, with its 12AX7 dual-triode front end returns the audio character to a softer analog presence reminiscent of a vinyl format. The pair of components won’t break the bank either.
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Regardless of the format the key is to enjoy the music.
@jimmyblues1959 Big +1 there brother. In the end we all pick what’s most comfortable and sounds the best to us. That’s the ONLY thing that matters in the end.
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If you purchase an MHDT Orchid and you're handy with a soldering iron, you can do much more to upgrade this DAC to a more analog sound by not only tube rolling but replacing the large 2 uF caps with much higher quality caps and investing in an 'S' grade chip(but these can be expensive....takes some hunting to find one for less than $200). I'm using an Audiolab CD transport. This combo comes very close to sounding like my very expensive analog system fed through high quality speakers.
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Jayctoy has it right...no used unless covered.A used oppo is a cheap refurfish but my sim $ to replace drive.It does sound better than it ever has.
still love sim quality build.
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Soix, you may well be right. Time will tell.
Regardless of the format the key is to enjoy the music. 😊
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Naim cd5 si.
Open drawer, drop 💿, press play.
Benefit from Naim analogue stage.
Enjoy!
@cat345 The beauty of simplicity. I like my Naim CDi for the same reason.
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Meanwhile lots of enthusiasts still own many CD's, so CD players and transports are experiencing a similar type of resurgence to Vinyl and turntables.
@jimmyblues1959 Yeah, while you make some good points I have to disagree with this one. There are relatively few CD players left on the market and even fewer dedicated transports, and the numbers will continue to shrink as more people just stream or rip their CD collections to a server or external drive. Conversely, the demand — and therefore and options — for analog rigs, DACs, and streamers are experiencing huge growth. CD players and transports still have their place for now, but the handwriting is on the wall and they are the audio buggy whips of the future, and this will only accelerate as streamers/servers continue to improve and higher and higher performance can be had at an increasingly lower and lower cost. CDs are going the way of the cassette and VCR and for many of the same reasons.
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Naim cd5 si.
Open drawer, drop 💿, press play.
Benefit from Naim analogue stage.
Enjoy!
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I still own an Arcam Delta 70 they were very good players. Not using it now (I only have one of my 3 systems with a CD player, an Emotiva, but rarely use it since I ripped my entire CD library (thousands of them!) and boxed them up) Consider streaming as an option. It is a bit of work initially but has a lot to offer.
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It amazes me how the saying "the more things change the more they stay the same" applies to audio. As a teenager back in the 1970's I had a turntable and many LP's.
When CD came along in the 1980's the popular belief was that vinyl playback would go the way of the dinosaur. However, Hi-End audio manufacturers didn't like the sound of compact discs and refrained from manufacturing CD players for nearly a decade, until they realized that CD had become a viable alternative to analogue.
Yet, turntables didn't become obsolete at the time and instead have continued to experience a Renaissance, where more quality oriented turntables in various price ranges exist in the modern day than ever before.
Then various other physical digital media formats entered the marketplace to compete with CD, all of which have since been largely displaced by non physical digital media formats which offer incredible convenience.
Meanwhile lots of enthusiasts still own many CD's, so CD players and transports are experiencing a similar type of resurgence to Vinyl and turntables.
As for the belief that CD playback benefits from using a separate transport and dac, a case can certainly be made for this. However, there are also many well designed CD players that do a fine job of CD playback. I still use a 1992 Naim CDi for playing my CDs and it remains an excellent sounding source in spite of its age.
What amazes me is that my Onkyo C-7030 ($169 US in 2017) used as a CD transport with a number of my affordable dac's, gets so close to the CDi at a small fraction of what its inflation compensated value would be today (over $9000 US).
In spite of its only being 16 bit 4X over sampling, the CDi has a sense of refinement that the C-7030 does not. Yet, IME, for casual listening the subtle improvements with the CDi go largely unnoticed.
If you have a large CD collection and listen mostly to CD's - and you listen critically - it's probably wise to make a significant investment in your CD playback system.
Whether you choose a one box CD player or a separate transport/dac system has as much to do with the design implementation of components as it does with their quality. It all comes down to what your audio needs are.
Best of luck in your search and remember to enjoy the journey! 😊
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I also need to track down the source of a mid-range screech, which I'll address in a future post.
Eeeek! That sure don’t sound good. Is that present with both vinyl and CDs? I noticed your amp only puts out 36 Wpc in ultra linear mode (and obviously much less in triode) and recall the Totems tend to require some power, so I’d be a little concerned your amp may be straining to power your speakers and might be a source of what you’re hearing. But this is just a semi-educated guess so just chalk it up as food for thought.
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John, just food for thought for the present or future if you do go down the separates route. Transports are not all the same SQ wise and will either hold back or release the potential of the DAC. Benjamin Zwickel, Mojo Audio DACs, clued me into this when I was purchasing one of his ,and he was correct. I went from Cambridge CXC to Simaudio DT 260 and the SQ materially improved. Check out the threads on the top Project transport or the Jay’s transports and you will find similar experiences. Also, when you go beyond the likes of the Cambridge or Audio Lab transports one of the digital output connections might be optimized for SQ so you may want to have a DAC that accepts that connection. I initially used the SPDIF on the Simaudio and it sounded very good. However, out of curiosity I asked Simaudio if one of the connections was optimized for SQ and was told the AES/EBU was. The result was a further uptick in SQ. I believe the top of the line Project is optimized likewise, though folks using the SPDIF connection appear to be very pleased with its SQ. I don’t know if either of the Jay’s transports have an optimized output. Again, just some things to possibly consider.
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OP don’t buy used CD player because lasers died in 10 yrs most of them. I don’t know about transport.Music direct has good sale of Ruby Marantz sometimes but it’s more than 2 k.
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I have Schiit Gungnir Dac paired with Cambridge DAc using Marigo apparition dig Cable this is a good combo for less than 2k. You can get Yamaha s1000 cdp with sacd and transport capability Iam using Denafrips Ares DAC And Kimber d60 digital cable. Good combo as well.for less than 2 k. You have Dac , transport and cdp.
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Marantz has always made excellent CD players. Look into a model under S1K.
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I just scored about 90 used MHS Mozart and Beethoven albums, so I'm listening to a lot of that. I mostly listen to classical from the romantic period back. I've also developed an interest in medieval choral and early instrument music. I'm trying to improve the equipment to accommodate voice and strings. I recently replaced the turntable and the CD player is next. I also need to track down the source of a mid-range screech, which I'll address in a future post.
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Personally I prefer the separate CD transport and DAC solution, for many reasons others have pointed out. I use an Audiolab 6000CDT transport ($599) and a Denafrips Pontus II DAC ($1,825). That's $2,424 all in for a terrific CD transport and an amazing DAC. As time goes on (or if you have the funds) you could always upgrade either. If want to spend more up front, the Jay's Audio CDT2 MKII $2,500 is truly an end game transport......and what I will upgrade to.
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Will your unit still function as a transport ? i also say seperates and get a 2k used dac . I have a Cambridge player as transport and Bel Canto dac
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Forgot to mention, I just watched a movie called “New in Town” starring Renee Zelwegger and Harry Connick Jr. that was actually pretty good and located in…wait for it…New Ulm, MN. Coincidence? Hmmm.
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I think it’s so great that you’re keeping your mind open to other options, and in the end it will likely pay off big and be well worth the added effort. I noticed that you haven’t really touched on what improvements you might aspire to with a new digital front end and what sound characteristics are most important to you as this should ultimately be what guides you to the best upgrade path, and any thoughts you have on this critical info could be very helpful in getting more targeted recommendations here. Also, in addition to the Cambridge transport mentioned above I’ll also mention this Audiolab transport that has garnered a lot of positive feedback. Just something else to chew on while your in research mode.
https://www.crutchfield.com/p_2486KCDTS/Audiolab-6000CDT-Silver.html
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I like that idea. I'll give the Orchid a look. I'm getting swayed toward the notion of separates.
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+1 mahler123 comments. With a CDP you have to like the voicing of the DAC. With separates you can either find the DAC to optimize your sonic preferences and or match your system. There are tastes in DACs like Difference chip, R2R, tube buffer etc. Can't match that with an all in one. I'm running a Cambridge CXC transport and MHDT Orchid (R2R, tube single buffer) DAC. I can change the sound by swapping a single inexpensive 2C51 tube for $15 to $90 from warm, rounded to crisp and revealing with that tube. I think MSRP for both is now around $2300. I got an open box CXC for about $350. Orchids are tougher to find used and new run about $1300. And yes, a DAC will allow for future growth like a streamer.
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I don't have a streamer and hate to say never, but I'll likely stick with CDs and vinyl.
It’s good you’re at least open to the possibility of streaming in the future. Once I started streaming via Qobuz I very rarely spin a CD anymore because 90%+ of my music is available to stream from my chair in any order, and a good bit of it is also available in hi res. Plus, I spend much more time exploring worlds of new music, which I find infinitely more rewarding, enlightening, and enjoyable than just playing the same stuff over and over — best thing to happen to audio in decades IMHO and has totally reinvigorated my love of audio. My only regret is I didn’t start streaming even sooner. All that said, if you do think you might try streaming in the future you might consider a separate transport/DAC or at least a CD player that has a digital input and can be used as a DAC. These days you’ll also have a lot more choices in DACs than CD players, so there’s also that to consider. Anyway, best of luck in whichever way you choose to go.
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If you have a dac I’d recommend getting a transport. Much more flexibility.
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Going down the road of transport and DAC gives a lot of flexibility for future upgrades and "tuning" SQ to ones liking. Limit of $2K is well enough to start on this path. Cambridge or Audiolab transports, very well regarded, and lots to chose from DAC category under $1.5K. Been there, done that.
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Thanks for the info and advice. One of the posters asked about my system. I have a Prima Luna Dialogue One amp and Forest Totem speakers. I don't have a streamer and hate to say never, but I'll likely stick with CDs and vinyl. When the time comes I'll pick a separate and inclusive CD player from the suggestions, and find an online dealer with a liberal return policy.
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Plenty of options - Get an old Rotel and have the parts upgraded along with the laser if you want really good sound but don't want to spend too much. Or get an old Cary 306SACD model and have that upgraded. Once that is upgraded it will complete with much higher priced DACs for a ton less in standard Rebook CD sound. We were amazed how good it sounded compared to DACs like the Mola-Mola, Kasandra, etc.
Happy Listening.
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