Do expensive CD players sound better?

[Seth=L]

test post to test thread stability....

[WmAx]

Originally Posted by woofersus

Yes, that's true, but I wasn't necessarily trying to start that debate. Just subjective opinions on my part. I'm at least objective enough in my comparisons of gear to admit that. I do believe that accross the lineup they don't all sound the same though.

And I don't think anyone ever said they sound the same across the line up. You always have those units with poor anti-alias filter design, odd up-sampling algorythms and other factors that end up coloring the output. But it's easy for any company to design a neutral unit, and at low price, if they really cared.

You may be more likely to run across the highest percentage of neutral units in the so-called 'mid-fi' category, where manufacturers are not trying to play silly feature games usually, have sufficient budget to make quality/reliable units and usually, only highly qualified technically oriented electronic engineers are more likely to be designing the units, as opposed to some audiophile oriented nutjob designer.

-Chris

[Boerd]

Originally Posted by JDawg

I have an old Teac PD-D1200 cd player that I've been using for about the last 15 years. Then I started reading about more expensive cd players such as Cambridge Audio Azur 640C, Rotel 1072 or the NAD C542. So I was just wondering if these cd players would be a noticeable improvement over what I have right now or do all cd players sound the same?

I own a 5 years old "El Cheapo" DVD player with 24/96 DAC for movies (60$) and a SqueezeBox3 about 2 years old (299$) with 24/48 DAC for audio and I cannot tell the difference for the life in me...
The only reason I like the digital WIFI player better (the SqueezeBox) is that it has no mechanic noise from spinning the CD and even if you put your ear close to it, it doesn't have electrical hum so in the evening or nights when the volume is low I can hear only music.
Between two CD/DVD players I could never tell the difference - maybe let's say one is mechanically noisier than the other (you may hear the CD spinning like my DVD player).