Single Disc CD Player Recommendation

[mtrycrafts]

.... Excellent system BTW. And that's a great view out your window

Thanks. The picture doesn't do it justice though. The 2nd story is even better. I had a lot to do with the design and building of this home.

 

[kage]

I have the Sony BDP-S790 that I use to play cds with its 2 channel analog out and I use HDMI for watching movies. I have a Pioneer VSX-1120 receiver that I use for sound. I really don't like using my Sony blu-ray player to play cds. I tried out the Onkyo C-7030 cd player, it had really good sound quality but I had to return it because it could not play my cd-rs. I know that I finalize them right because my car's cd player could read them as well as my Sony bluray player.

I'm planning to use the analog output from the cd player to my receiver. I've been looking at the Marantz CD5004 and the Yamaha CD-S300. Please recommend a cd player thats around $350.

Would I be better off selling my Sony BDP-S790 and purchasing the Oppo BDP-103?

I decided to keep my Sony BDP-S790 for movie watching and I ended up ordering the Marantz CD5004 for audio cd playback.

 

[billy p]

Yup those are definitely two topics of discussion were they'll try and rip you a new one...there are some others and I'll leave it at that...

Yeah I enjoy using my antiquated CD player from T-T just like others like to spin their TT....

 

[little wing]

I decided to keep my Sony BDP-S790 for movie watching and I ended up ordering the Marantz CD5004 for audio cd playback.

Congrats. Long live CDs!

 

[3db]

I can't fault anyone for buying a CD player for ergonomic reasons. Like all Bluray players, my Sony Blu plays CD but it does take a minute or so longer than a dedicated CD player.

 

[oqpi]

If you have an AV set up, you absolutely do not need to waste money on a CD only player. Also you only need the HDMI connection to your receiver, that gives you the best sound. That way you just use the drive of your player, if you use a bitstream connection.

And of you buy a CD player with a vacuum, tube your a nutter pure and and simple.

Bottom line, you don't need a CD only player and if you buy one it won't make an iota of difference to what you hear.

I dare to differ.... Not any blu-ray player can play CDs at the CD player quality...
CD players have internal clock aligned with the CD and DAC can be relatively simple, because it deals with easy to process signal...
Plus 2 chanels are easier to acomodate electronically... signal path is shorter... etc...
You may need a $1300 oppo to have (maybe) the sound of a $200-$300 CD player...
As about USB run from PC, I brought it to CD level with a Wyrd (Schiit Audio) USB decrapifier inserted...
It's not only theoretical... it's the real world...

 

[oqpi]

I can't fault anyone for buying a CD player for ergonomic reasons. Like all Bluray players, my Sony Blu plays CD but it does take a minute or so longer than a dedicated CD player.

I totally agree !

 

[TLS Guy]

I dare to differ.... Not any blu-ray player can play CDs at the CD player quality...
CD players have internal clock aligned with the CD and DAC can be relatively simple, because it deals with easy to process signal...
Plus 2 chanels are easier to acomodate electronically... signal path is shorter... etc...
You may need a $1300 oppo to have (maybe) the sound of a $200-$300 CD player...
It's not only theoretical... it's the real world...

Complete BS and disproved many times. Bits are bits and in any event error correction totally takes care of errors.

Practically all of us steam to our processors anyway and do not use the analog outputs.

I have lots of players and various ways of doing the decoding, and it does not make a lick of difference how I route and decode and what player I use.

This is just another audiophool myth, and lately with the nonsense on these forums I'm coming down hard on it.

Digital disc players are not like turntables, where mechanical considerations are of prime importance. It is a totally different ball game with digital systems.

This is the sort of nonsense I'm talking about.

Buy any player with an HDMI out and connect it to your processor or use the analog outs and no one will tell a lick of difference in a double blind study.

This sort on nonsense intimidates people and prevents them enjoying the rapidly advancing and expanding ways to enjoy program in an expanding multitude of media options.

Advocating and waxing eloquent about products like I have illustrated above is a delusional dead end. There is absolutely no rational reason for the product illustrated above to exist.

 

[oqpi]

Complete BS and disproved many times. Bits are bits and in any event error correction totally takes care of errors.

Practically all of us steam to our processors anyway and do not use the analog outputs.

I have lots of players and various ways of doing the decoding, and it does not make a lick of difference how I route and decode and what player I use.

This is just another audiophool myth, and lately with the nonsense on these forums I'm coming down hard on it.

Digital disc players are not like turntables, where mechanical considerations are of prime importance. It is a totally different ball game with digital systems.

This is the sort of nonsense I'm talking about.

Buy any player with an HDMI out and connect it to your processor or use the analog outs and no one will tell a lick of difference in a double blind study.

This sort on nonsense intimidates people and prevents them enjoying the rapidly advancing and expanding ways to enjoy program in an expanding multitude of media options.

Advocating and waxing eloquent about products like I have illustrated above is a delusional dead end. There is absolutely no rational reason for the product illustrated above to exist.

I agree that there is no need for a caterpillar to play a CD.. however, there are some nice sounding inexpensive CD players around..
And also, even being 1's and 0's, the digital signal gets noisy sometimes, especially through a USB port, which was a personal experience...
Digital signal is solid and noise free if it is transmitted properly and then decoded properly back to analog.. but it is not perfect in any situation...
I heard DVD or blu-ray players spinning a CD and they do not sound the same, also... it depends a lot of the DAC inside and power supply, also the analog path to the end...
If you transmit all digital into a receiver, then better get an external DAC and that will increase the cost...
In reality, they do not sound the same at all... I own 4 CD players and one DVD player and I listened to hundreds, literally...
But I agree, that the one in your example is just a big rip off...

 

[TLS Guy]

I agree that there is no need for a caterpillar to play a CD.. however, there are some nice sounding inexpensive CD players around..
And also, even being 1's and 0's, the digital signal gets noisy sometimes, especially through a USB port, which was a personal experience...
Digital signal is solid and noise free if it is transmitted properly and then decoded properly back to analog.. but it is not perfect in any situation...
I heard DVD or blu-ray players spinning a CD and they do not sound the same, also... it depends a lot of the DAC inside and power supply, also the analog path to the end...
If you transmit all digital into a receiver, then better get an external DAC and that will increase the cost...
In reality, they do not sound the same at all... I own 4 CD players and one DVD player and I listened to hundreds, literally...
But I agree, that the one in your example is just a big rip off...

Well there are five different digital disc drives here, a pre pro and a professional RME DAC.

In the first rack, there is a Marantz pre/pro, a Marantz CD/SACD/DVD player, an Oppo player, and a Pioneer BD player/burner in the HTPC. Connection is HDMI to the pre/pro.

In the next rack from bottom to top, there is a professional Plextor CD player/burner in the Audio workstation, a professional Marantz studio CD player and the RME DAC above it. Connection from mother board to RME is Fireface 800. There is both analog and optical connection from the RME to the pre/pro.

The connection from the pro Marantz CD player to the RME is Coax SPDIF.

Now you can use any drive, and use the digital or analog out from the RME and I defy anyone to tell the difference playing a CD. This is not like switching between turntables with different cartridges at all. All drives play the final master mix the same, however hooked up or decoded.

You do not need to spend a fortune on a CD player. You just need one of decent quality.

By the way all the drives have comparable boot times. The multi format players and the CD drives all start in about the same length of time.

I maintain that it is not necessary to have a stand alone CD player.

I do have a $120 Panasonic BD player downstairs and this does have some delay reading the disc, but it sounds excellent.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

Digital signal by definition doesn't gets noisy. It's ether passes bits or it doesn't.
Potentially an issue with long usb cords or high bandwidth required (hd video).
What you may experienced by using usb cord to external dac is a em/rfi noise which has nothing to do with digital portion, everything to do with your crappy power supply and other badly rf designed components in your pc.

 

[slipperybidness]

Digital signal by definition doesn't gets noisy. It's ether passes bits or it doesn't.
Potentially an issue with long usb cords or high bandwidth required (hd video).
What you may experienced by using usb cord to external dac is a em/rfi noise which has nothing to do with digital portion, everything to do with your crappy power supply and other badly rf designed components in your pc.

+1

Nailed it!

USB is often a lousy way to make a connection.

Digital signal is orders of magnitude more immune to noise than analog. That is one of the biggest advantages of working in the digi domain.

Personally, I really like the Parasound ZCD. It does everything I need, it is small, it is dead silent, and it also has a set of variable analog outs.

 

[TLS Guy]

Digital signal by definition doesn't gets noisy. It's ether passes bits or it doesn't.
Potentially an issue with long usb cords or high bandwidth required (hd video).
What you may experienced by using usb cord to external dac is a em/rfi noise which has nothing to do with digital portion, everything to do with your crappy power supply and other badly rf designed components in your pc.

You are right on. This is another area of garbage from the audiophools. There nonsense about jitter, means they do not understand how the bit stream is handled. Their biggest foolery in this area is that because a digital stream is binary code, it can not reproduce a sine wave!

 

[slipperybidness]

There nonsense about jitter, means they do not understand how the bit stream is handled.

TLS, please enlighten us on the topic of jitter. Is this anything of real-world concern, or is this a marketing department cash cow?

I have discussed this topic with my electronics profs at the local community college. Granted, these guys are not specialists in audio, so that's why I want your opinion.

The general consensus amongst the profs is that jitter and the benefits of asynch clock / data transfer are purely marketing. Their stance is that there are actually benefits to using synchronous clocking schemes to avoid timing errors. What's your stance, TLS?

The most recent issue of Sound&Vision talks about hi-res audio. They make the bold claim that you NEED an external DAC and that the USB connection is the BEST option, using asynch clocking. USB is often a lousy connection from my personal experience. I'm seriously considering dropping my S&V subscription due to some sketchy and suspect advice.

What exactly does jitter sound like? I have certainly never heard anything that I can attribute to jitter!

 

[rojo]

Tom Andry wrote a bit about using a DAC to resolve issues with jitter that might answer some of your questions. Read the entire article for context, but he specifically addresses jitter in the penultimate section, "But seriously, do I need an external DAC?"

Tom describes jitter as sounding like wow and flutter, like minute pitch and tempo variations from mechanical analog sources. I imagine jitter to sound more like a slightly rushed downbeat, or a crisp plosive K being subtly distorted into an almost imperceptibly longer Ksh. At least that's what I think I hear when I have experimented with having Kodi upconvert video streams to the display's refresh rate, then sync to the audio clock. Jitter makes the output less perfectly metronomic, if I understand it correctly.

TLS is at a conference the rest of the week. He'll be back Monday.

 

[TLS Guy]

TLS, please enlighten us on the topic of jitter. Is this anything of real-world concern, or is this a marketing department cash cow?

I have discussed this topic with my electronics profs at the local community college. Granted, these guys are not specialists in audio, so that's why I want your opinion.

The general consensus amongst the profs is that jitter and the benefits of asynch clock / data transfer are purely marketing. Their stance is that there are actually benefits to using synchronous clocking schemes to avoid timing errors. What's your stance, TLS?

The most recent issue of Sound&Vision talks about hi-res audio. They make the bold claim that you NEED an external DAC and that the USB connection is the BEST option, using asynch clocking. USB is often a lousy connection from my personal experience. I'm seriously considering dropping my S&V subscription due to some sketchy and suspect advice.

What exactly does jitter sound like? I have certainly never heard anything that I can attribute to jitter!

Your prof's nailed it. Just an excuse to make ridiculous players costing thousands.

They are correct the clock takes care of it. Then you get into how accurate does the clock have to be. Likely it is already overkill even in the cheap players.

Just keep helping me knock daft nonsense down. It intimidates the non technical and deprives them purchasing equipment that would give them endless pleasure.

These scam artists, idiots, delusionists, what ever you want to call them, have deprived a lot of people of enjoyment and severely damaged the industry.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

here some good reads on the subject if any one interesting actually learning dacs and audio resolution:
http://xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep07/articles/digitalmyths.htm
http://www.head-fi.org/t/415361/24bit-vs-16bit-the-myth-exploded

 

[cpp]

I agree. I use a CD player primarily because I have an audio-only system, but I get so sick and tired of lousy ergonomics for disc players that I think the simple pleasure of a dedicated, fast-acting CD player with effective controls is worth a bit of money. That's why I chose the Tascam, it reminds me of something from the 1990s.

If parts and service weren't so expensive I'd still be using the old Madrigal / Levinson No39 or No37 transports with my DAC/Pre-amp. They don't sound any better in digital mode, but the ergonomics and the way they operated were such a pleasure. I miss my No39 since I sold it.

Same here. Two rooms, HT and 2chl. My HT room is a OPPO105 and my 2 chl room is a Sony ES5400. The Sony is built like a tank, never had an issue. Just can't see putting a universal player in my 2 chl room since I don't need any monitors or TVs in there.

 

[Mark of Cenla]

In the system I am using right now, I am sitting right next to the component rack. If I use a new Blu-ray player or DVD player, I would have to use the remote, which would seem silly since I am just inches away. Also is the issue of lack of display on the front. I listen to lots of instrumental music and often want to see the track number. New video players lack a display on the front, so I prefer using a CD player in this system. Peace and goodwill.

 

[3db]

This is the sort of nonsense I'm talking about.

.

That machine is just beautiful to behold and if I had more money than I knew what to do with I would purchase this unit in a heartbeat... maybe give it a name ..like... "Her"

Oracle just makes some of the most glamorous eye candy around and I would buy it for looks alone.