THE BEST cd player on the planet?

[honsten]

Hey, I'm curious to know what the absolute best cd player ever made is. There must be a single machine which which is the benchmark........

[phn]

For jazz, easy. The first version Sony PlayStation.

If it's the "suckiness" of the PlayStation (like vinyl) that makes the music come alive, I don't know. But I do know that I find the "Head Hunters" CD a lot more pleasurable on the PlayStation than on any other CD player. My experience is that the synthesiser can sound teeth-grindingly harsh on CD. But where I think the PlayStation really excels is with the "Time Out" album. It was such a revelation for me, it's almost embarrassing.

For "benchmark" all-round redbook player, possibly the EMT 982.

Now, your question assumes that there actually is such a thing as a benchmark player and that it doesn't come down to personal taste. Equally many will swear by Naim as hate it. You decide. (Hint: there's probably a good reason there's not just one CD manufacturer out there.)

[honsten]

ok, ive heard the greystations were good transports.......where can i get one? ive looked on ebay and no-one is selling

[phn]

Well, I got my PSX from a Swedish auction site similar to eBay. It's model SCPH-1002 (I guess 1001 is NTSC), the one with RCA jacks. The problem is that sellers make no distinction between models. And I guess the SCPH-100X is the scarcest one, being that it's ten years old now. I would think many got trashed once the laser stopped working.

The PSX has quite a distinct sound. The bass is lacking and it doesn't have the attack of even an average CD player. Hence, it's not very good with rock music. In a sense I would like to compare it to one of my favourite turntables, the Thorens TD-160. They are very different, of course. But the TD-160 has a very distinct sound as well. I love the sound of the floating suspension Thorens. Others love the Rega sound. Which takes us back to my original point of personal taste.

I did a quick search on eBay UK. The only SCPH-1002 I could find is part of this lot of defect PSXs. It has two SCPH-1002s.

[honsten]

wow! look at all those playstations! theres two in there that look like they might be just right. im thinking of builing a cd player witha psx transport and with suspended PCBs etc, got the idea off Naim....... make a big fat chunky case out of anodized aluminium annd use copper plated screws all over it......
should i take the DAC from the psx?

[phn]

Yes, there are two SCPH-1002s.

I'm not very good at answering questions about electronics. (If I knew that stuff I would have disabled the start up score on my PSX.) I wouldn't know my way around the busy PSX circuit board. Here you can see how the various versions of the PSX look like. Here is some further info. It's in German. Use some Internet translation tool. My experience is that you will have hard time making sense of the translation, being that the grammar is very different.

[ljozsef]

Hallo,
I have seen SCPH-10xx (xx different from 02 or 01).
Are they similar? Or what is the main external feature, the RCAs?

Laci

[phn]

Well, I'm no expert on the PlayStation. I picked it up because it was cheap. But the RCAs are telltale signs. Apparently there are 4 (or 5) versions, all with significant design changes. But those others (sans RCAs) start with 5, 7 or 9.

[BassAwdyO]

The best cd player would need the best digital to analog conversion. Thats what its all about.

Now I see many problems with this...

What would be the best sampling rate?

How is the signal converted to digital?

Obviously 48khz is not enough for some people's satisfaction. But that is neither here nor there.

We do live in a day where computers have gotten into the gigahertz magnitude, why not use some of that processing power!

I know you can buy a 1+gigahertz computer for less than 500 dollars. I'm sure that the "best CD player in the world" costs more. But which is really worth it?

[Septimus]

The best transport even built is the philips CDpro2M . Its ability to play virtually any disc, be it CD, CD-R, or CD-RW and even read very badly scratched disks is unmatched, basically its a workhorse. It is interesting to note that most Bang&Olufsen players utilize the CD pro 2 because of its build quality, and ability to read virtually any disk in any conidition. There are even some kits out there, you should be able to find more info if you search the archived threads here.