CD Player quality essential?

[ifsixwasnin9]

I've been using a very cheap Panasonic CD Player thru my Carver/Yamaha system and JBL L110's and it does a great job. Is CD Player quality essential? If so, how?

 

[lovinthehd]

Some get excited about the onboard DAC quality when using their analog outputs. If using one with a digital connection it becomes more a drive/reader/transport sort of device which is pretty much as ubiquitous as a computer drive these days (and most players use a few widely sourced and similar drive/laser components from what I've read). If it delivers audio without audible artifacts I think you're good.

 

[slipperybidness]

I've been using a very cheap Panasonic CD Player thru my Carver/Yamaha system and JBL L110's and it does a great job. Is CD Player quality essential? If so, how?

I agree with HD, but I will add:

Smooth operation (especially if it is a drawer loading device) and little mechanical noise are the key factors for selecting a CD player.

 

[3db]

I would also like to add (not a deal buster ) that you can control the brightness of the display/logo . I don't like overly bright displays.

 

[jmalecki05]

Consider using a Blu Ray / DVD player as your CD player. I am considering the one of the new Oppo models to function as my BD, DVD, and CD.

 

[mr sarnoff]

Get a cheap but decent Blu Ray player like a Sony or Samsung for under a benjamin and use HDMI out for external decoding , Loose the coaters or digitize them correctly to spinning metal with a PC ODD and or instead just get millions of lossless 16/44 FLAC tracks and albums you can't possibly have the room to conveniently organize and store on CD media at Tidal Hi Fi premium 16/44 FLAC streaming on a compatible device or Win. PC/MAC PC and Chrome and a not spendy competent DAC or a decent AVR or media player or HDD player or PC with competent DAC in the device or USB DAC .


PCM 44/1 audio data doesn't care if it comes off a HDD or spendy CD player not expensive BD player or PC ODD or spendy HDD player , it's usually more stable off a HDD anyway and WAY faster to switch tracks ,albums ,songs and load and you can view the cover art and metadata with a PC .

HDMI can do 2.0 hires and multi channel hires also but HDMI ARC is constrained to 2.0 lossless or up to 7.1 protected content audio /video data just like optical data .
Tidal FLAC 16/44 is better than 99.9 % of commercial CD but it all starts with a good recording/mix either way .

The usual provenance at Tidal Hi FI FLAC are 24 bit mixes and 24 bit digitized analog contact media from the labels before CD media mixing in POST and they are only truncated to 16 bit FLAC without audio degradation before steaming .

CD and NEW CDP are foolish in 2017 unless you have one already you like or haven't digitized your CD collection correctly but a PC ODD is as good as anthing for all that or playing CD for external PCM/44 decoding within RBCD error tolerance you cant hear anyway you don't hear them so much as exactly what they are spinning to the Optical reader in real time like a vinyl record.

Outside of a poor mix you can't fix with a spendy CDP or spendy good for nothing bling cables digital artifacts are inaudible below the RBCD or 16 bit lower nyquist rate you cant hear anyway .

If you understand digital music at all ,you should know all this or at least understand it now ,but if you don't ,you don't and will continue the futility of CDP use and maybe spendy exotic metal fool cables .

Outside of that a HDD and not spendy competent dac is the thing now ouside of lossless streaming or with it and maybe loose the ancient plastic coasters altogether or store them , analog out from a CDP is wholly unnecessary in 2017 and yesterday's news and BD are getting there

 

[mr sarnoff]

I agree with HD, but I will add:

Smooth operation (especially if it is a drawer loading device) and little mechanical noise are the key factors for selecting a CD player.

A PC ODD is as good as anthing out there for external decoding but spinning metal is the best anyway

 

[sterling shoote]

OP,

There may not today be any reason for purchasing a CD Player. I play CD's from a universal player. You too may be attracted to one of those. For me, the universal player's ability to process multi-channel SACD is most appealing. Since I have a legacy pre/pro with no HDMI input, I like the latest OPPO UDP-203 player, which will decode multi-channel SACD and output to 7.1 analog RCA. This sort of players DAC will also process and deliver pretty much any kind of music file to your home audio/theatre system from your computers player. For stereo, the universal player may also serve as a preamp for active speaker systems.

 

[Johnny2Bad]

The CD (or disk player's) transport quality is a rather important factor. Whether the digital processing is, or not, is dependent on the specific gear involved. For example an external DAC can improve many disk players, making the built-in processing less important.

I believe that it is important to have the ability to read physical media, so personally it's my opinion that everyone should have a disk player of some sort. Whether that's a standalone CD player or a DVD player or a unversal format disk player is more a matter of personal choice. Certainly the highest quality players tend to be CD only, but that doesn't mean you need something along those lines in a good quality HiFi system. As far as bang for your buck, it's often not one of a CD-only machine's advantages, and a more versatile multi-format machine would almost certainly offer better value.

If your chosen disk player is a computer-attached device, the one thing I would suggest is you don't play disks directly from it for serious listening, but instead rip the original to your computer storage, and use that file for playback. It of course doesn't matter for casual listening, but if Sound Quality (SQ) is important in a listening session, I know of few instances where that won't offer the best option (note I am not suggesting a standalone disk player wouldn't work well; I'm only referring to situations where your computer is the only disk player available).

With digital playback devices, it's extremely difficult to make generalizations about sound quality and price to performance ratios. Everything pretty much has to be considered on the basis of specific components and how they perform, offer the features you demand, how they fit your overall system quality level, and of course what they cost. There certainly are bargains out there if value is your top priority, and in some cases that extends to surprisingly inexpensive units.

I'm sorry in that I can't offer you any hard and fast rules, but that is the reality. If you have specific questions about a particular unit or two, start a new thread and I'm sure you will get plenty of responses to consider.