General CD Player advice needed.

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Mixi

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Joined 2017
So I've been listening exclusively to vinyl for a couple of years, refusing CDs completely. Now the other day I stumbled over my boxed CD collection, connected my old and crappy blue ray player to my stereo and ...... wow did it sound good :)

So, well you've probably guessed it .... i now need to add a nice CD option to my stereo which currently consists of an ACA Amp or Neurochrome LM3886DR AMP, P88 (Rod Elliott) Pre amp, Troels Gravesen Discovery 15 Speakers.

To be honest the crappy old Philipps blue ray player sounds fine ... the buttons are really cheap and it's slow to react to the remote but the sound is surprisingly good. I know next to nothing about digital playback, so what are my options? Budget is a bit limited for now.

- Get a new CD player like a Marantz or NAD in the near future ... say 300 - 500 $ range?
- Maybe experiment with external DACs in the future
- Tweak the existing player? What kind of tweaks can be done?
- Build a player from scratch? Are there any nice kits out there?

The current player does not have a digital out, so I guess for now I'm stuck with the built-in DAC.

Any other ideas? I'm on vacation for a week so I have some time to tinker with this thing.

What do people on here generally use for CD playback?
 
Mooly

Mooly

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Joined 2007
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Tweaking the existing player would really be a case of looking at the analogue stages, the opamps used and perhaps looking at the muting arrangements. Hard to say what you might gain (or not) from that. If it used say 4558 opamps then yes, give it a go. Otherwise...

I've a Marantz Pearl-Lite SA-CD and its been brilliant. Fantastic build quality and terrific sound. Not really sure what is available at the moment although I would like to think a new Marantz or similar would be a significant step up from a Blue Ray. NAD players crop up a lot on the forum and I get the impression they are pretty decent sounding but lack a bit of build quality.

See what others think :)
 
Andersonix

Andersonix

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Joined 2004
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When you find a favorite player, get some more as spares!
 

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I

ianp

Member
Joined 2008
When I was in a similar situation I looked for a vintage TDA1541 based player and tweaked - caps - shottky diodes - opamp - NOS. Lots of pages out there to assist with the tweaks. In your case look for one that has a digital output as well.

It scratched the DIY itch that I (sometimes) suffer from and the sound is pretty good to boot. It may be simpler to just get a more modern player though.
 
M

Mixi

Member
Joined 2017
waxx

waxx

Member
Joined 2014
I think the cd is a bit an outdated medium. It's better to rip the cd's to HD and use them with a computer or media player with a good dac.

But if you insist on a good player, i would look second hands for a decent player. It's hard to tweak a player as it's mostly smd on board and microchips. You can find very good high end cd players for a few hundreds in perfect state...
 
M

Mixi

Member
Joined 2017
waxx said:
I think the cd is a bit an outdated medium. It's better to rip the cd's to HD and use them with a computer or media player with a good dac.

But if you insist on a good player, i would look second hands for a decent player. It's hard to tweak a player as it's mostly smd on board and microchips. You can find very good high end cd players for a few hundreds in perfect state...
Click to expand...

yeah i just want to avoid having to use a computer to play music. not having to use a computer is part of what makes listening to music so relaxing for me. a cd player would be as much digital as i can bear :p

thanks for the advice regarding the used equipment!
 
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