HDCD Cd Changer

[wilejoe]

Hello all. I'm new to this site and am looking for some help. I have a lot of hdcd music cd's and would love to hear them sound their best. I am going to replace my receiver with a yamaha rs700 100w receiver and have the bose acoustimass 5 speakers. I was looking at the Denon DCM 390 cd changer but it seems to have a whole lot of bad reviews. The oppo BDP 93 gets great reviews but I'm paying extra for the blueray part of it and it's only a single disc. Could anyone give me some advice on what to buy ? I'm not looking to spend more then $500 or so and am at a dead end. Does the oppo BDP 93 really sound that great or is there another player someone could recomend
Thanks

 

[markw]

This is a joke, right?

 

[templemaners]

I am going to replace my receiver with a yamaha rs700 100w receiver and have the bose acoustimass 5 speakers.

... Could anyone give me some advice on what to buy ?

Better speakers. And look into music servers. The multi disc CD player era is past it's expiration date IMO.

 

[sholling]

Better speakers. And look into music servers. The multi disc CD player era is past it's expiration date IMO.

I agree completely. Rip the CDs and store the music in FLAC (lossless) format and play them back with a network ready/FLAC compatible receiver like a Denon AVR-2112ci. I'd also replace the Bose ASAP.

 

[wilejoe]

This is a joke, right?

No it's not a joke. Sorry that you find this so funny.

Like i said I have a lot of hdcd's but no decoder to play them back on.
I thought this was a learning forum and if there is a better way to play back my cd's I would love to find out about it. My wife has been out of work for over 3 years and is currently pursuing her masters degree so I don't have $10,000 or more to spend on a stereo system.
If anyone has any thoughts or ideas I would love to hear them and learn from them.

But I am glad I was able to give you a good laugh at my expense!!

 

[markw]

IF you had lurked here a bit before jumping in with your first post, you would have gotten the joke. It's just that your worrying about a HDCD changer should be so far down on your priority list for better sound that it looked funny.

Point blank, HDCD ain't all that to begin with.

 

[wilejoe]

I agree completely. Rip the CDs and store the music in FLAC (lossless) format and play them back with a network ready/FLAC compatible receiver like a Denon AVR-2112ci. I'd also replace the Bose ASAP.

Thanks
it seems like a lot of people don't like my Bose speakers. I know I'll have to replace them eventually

So if I buy a receiver like the one you suggested and rip my cd's to a flac or wave ( is wave a good format) the receiver will decode the hdcd and play it back for me. Sounds great
Thanks once again

 

[wilejoe]

Sorry Mark. I have a lot of Grateful Dead live shows that are recorded in hdcd format and from what I've heard people say is that they sound much better in hdcd then in the standard cd format.

 

[markw]

So, you've never heard it for yourself eh?

I have. No big deal and, not to brag, but my system is most likely a bit better at resolving detail than anything you've probably ever lived with.

Sorry Mark. I have a lot of Grateful Dead live shows that are recorded in hdcd format and from what I've heard people say is that they sound much better in hdcd then in the standard cd format.

Be very, very careful about those words. Many times your own ears will tell you differently than what "they" say.

Or, another axiom of this hobby is "Sometimes you have to spend a lot of money to learn that you didn't have to spend a lot of money for the same results."

But, hey, it's your money. Alloocate it any way you want.

 

[sholling]

No it's not a joke. Sorry that you find this so funny.

Like i said I have a lot of hdcd's but no decoder to play them back on.
I thought this was a learning forum and if there is a better way to play back my cd's I would love to find out about it. My wife has been out of work for over 3 years and is currently pursuing her masters degree so I don't have $10,000 or more to spend on a stereo system.
If anyone has any thoughts or ideas I would love to hear them and learn from them.

But I am glad I was able to give you a good laugh at my expense!!

Sorry but we get trolled once in a while.

Let's go to square-1: home CD players are pretty much ancient history. You can still buy them but most people just use their DVD or Blu-Ray players for CD playback but if money is tight an Oppo is overkill. The future is ripping and storing the contents of your CDs in a popular lossless format, for iPeople that's ALAC for most of the rest of us that's FLAC. Quality ripping programs cost between $0-38 depending on features. The better ones will automate the ripping, tagging, and filing process leaving you to just feed your computer CDs. Just be sure to make a backup when you finish. Total cost: free if you have the room on your hard drive, $100-150 if you need to buy an external drive. Why do this you ask... so that you can select and queue music as easy as selecting a cable channel.

The second part of the equation is that Bose Acoustimas speakers aren't going to deliver you the level of detail that you're hoping to get from your CDs. I have yet to hear any that could deliver deep bass or mid and high-frequency details that you appear to want from your CDs. In other words it sounded like you were asking... "I own a set of really skinny tires (Bose) so can you guys recommend a really hot sports car for the them?" The weakest link in almost any system is the speakers. If you haven't purchased the speakers yet then see this recent thread for a budget speaker recommendation.

 

[PENG]

wilejoe, did you know you posted the same thing in two areas? Anyway I responded there:

http://forums.audioholics.com/forums/cd-dvd-blu-ray-misc-hardware/79149-hdcd-cd-changer.html

 

[wilejoe]

Yes I posted there by mistake at first. Would love to know if they can remove that post and leave the one here that's for beginners

 

[PENG]

Yes I posted there by mistake at first. Would love to know if they can remove that post and leave the one here that's for beginners

So would you not consider trading in the Yammie for the 4311 so that you can use any CD changer you want as long as it is one that has digital output?

 

[wilejoe]

Thanks I'll look into the speakers and eventually the subwoofer.
Have to get a set of speakers that my wife won't mind in the living room.
That's why I got the bose in the first place in our old house. I'll just be playing music so i won't need the surround sound part or will I.
I'll take your advice and get another external hard drive and just put my music on it. You seem to like the Denon receivers so I'll look into them.
Any other suggestions on a speaker that looks good and sounds great besides the ones in that post you mentioned?

 

[sholling]

Thanks
it seems like a lot of people don't like my Bose speakers. I know I'll have to replace them eventually

So if I buy a receiver like the one you suggested and rip my cd's to a flac or wave ( is wave a good format) the receiver will decode the hdcd and play it back for me. Sounds great
Thanks once again

I have no experience with HDCD but it looks like (link) dbPowerAmp ($38) will rip HDCD to a 24bit FLAC files. There is also some discussion on their forum. Not every music player supports 24bit audio but it appears form the specs that the Denon AVR-2112 does. I actually use a cheap ($100) but very good external player for FLAC playback because it supports gapless playback, something I'm not sure whether or not the Denon does. I'd double check with Denon.

 

[wilejoe]

Thanks for all the info. I learned a lot tonight and you sent me in the right direction to learn more.

 

[sholling]

Thanks I'll look into the speakers and eventually the subwoofer.
Have to get a set of speakers that my wife won't mind in the living room.
That's why I got the bose in the first place in our old house. I'll just be playing music so i won't need the surround sound part or will I.
I'll take your advice and get another external hard drive and just put my music on it. You seem to like the Denon receivers so I'll look into them.
Any other suggestions on a speaker that looks good and sounds great besides the ones in that post you mentioned?

The surrounds were just for movies unless you have some multichannel music. I have a bit of multichannel music in my collection so I use 5.1 speakers for both. The Infinity P362 are big and homely but if you're only playing music they may play deep enough to save you the expense of a sub. Ascend Acoustics makes some sweet sounding bookshelf speakers but they need the help of a sub. EMP Tek has their well regarded and attractive E55Ti towers (review) but I won't endorse speakers I haven't heard and I've never heard them.

I'm mostly brand agnostic about receivers. Pick the Denon or Yamaha that has the features and power that you want. I used the AVR-2112 as an example because of its network features but I'm sure Yamaha has an equivalent. I just avoid non-Elite Pioneers and Sony receivers.

If you go ahead with ripping your collection plan to spend a bit of time in advance figuring out your filing system, your naming convention, and tagging system. Once you do that you can enter it into dbPowerAmp and it'll automate the whole process. You just don't want to do it twice because you didn't think it through in advance. I use "drive letter:\Music\Artist\Album" for my filing system. For naming I use "Artist - Album - Track number - Song title" but you may want something different or shorter because the limit including the path is 256 characters.

Once you complete the rip of your whole library you can have dbPowerAmp "convert" the FLACs (as a second copy leaving the original untouched) everything to MP3s for playback on your portable player. Think through where you want them e.g. "Drive:\MP3\Artist\Album". The whole process with be completely automated.

You don't need any special hardware but if you want to see a really tricked out homemade 100CD/hour mega-ripper they demo one at 17:18 into this youtube video.

 

[wilejoe]

So would you not consider trading in the Yammie for the 4311 so that you can use any CD changer you want as long as it is one that has digital output?

Didn't buy the yamaha yet so that's another option. The $2000 price tag is a little steep though. But thanks for the input. I'll look into that also

 

[sholling]

Didn't buy the yamaha yet so that's another option. The $2000 price tag is a little steep though. But thanks for the input. I'll look into that also

I like the 4311 a lot but I think you'd be better off spending $600 for a less expensive receiver and put the rest into speakers.

 

[PENG]

I like the 4311 a lot but I think you'd be better off spending $600 for a less expensive receiver and put the rest into speakers.

Agree, if he likes the rip to flac option, otherwise the 4311 or 4310 allows him to play his favorite HDCD discs with a CD changer that he asked about. It has been reported more than once by members that the 4311 had gone as low as under $1,400. The AVR-4310, at under $1,300 could also be a viable option, it actually offers better (on paper) DACs but no Audyssey XT32, just XT.

Amazon.com: avr-4310