Advice on buying used CD Players

[khewa]

I see some good deals on the web. I see a $4500 CD player (retails price) going for less than $1000, but it's 5 years old. Then there is a $1780 CD player (retail price) going for $880, but it's 3 years old.
Which provides better value for money ? on first thought the $1000 player seems a better value, but it is 5 years old and that means that the transport mechanism and laser would suffer wear and tear. The transport mechanism is already obsolete and it is impossible to get new ones.

Is there anyone with experience of buying a 5 year old CD player ? can the transport last longer than 5 years without service or do you think there is a need for replacement parts ?

bearing this in mind (wear and tear of transport and laser), should I even buy a second hand CD player, maybe I should just get a new player ?

 

[markw]

just some random thoughts...

Cd players are basically two main components on one chassis. The transport, which spins the CD ans containsthe laser/pickup which reads the digital media and outputs a stream of ones and zeroes, or the digital signal. On the whole, one transport is pretty much the same as another in that regard.

The other component is the DAC, or Digital to Analog converter which, as the name implies, converts that digital signal into an analog signal, which is what you feed to your amplifier.

Some people choose to feed this digital signal in it's raw form (skipping the DAC entirely) directly to their HT receivers which have their own DAC's capable of decoding this into stereo (or DD/DTS in the case of DVD players) and thru the rest of the system.

Also, there is a tremendous market in stand-alone DACs that can work with virtually any transport on the market, thereby obviating the need for an all-in-one CD player.

...just something to think about before dropping big bucks on an old unit in questionable condition.

 

[tbewick]

I've posted several times on this forum to mount some defense of higher quality CD players. Technically some CD players are better than others at reproducing the music faithfully, but what appears to be open to question is the audibility of distortion added. I have read that a sine wave run through a CD player simply does not tell you about all about the distortion characteristics of the device.

I don't really know how long CD players last for. From advice I've read on the subject, buying older CD player units can be a bit risky. The focus can go on the laser which reads the CD, and if this happens, it's not worth the repair cost. If you do buy, you really should try the unit out with some CD's first. Try out some really mucky ones to test the player out.

 

[head_unit]

What's the warranty?

Buying any old electronics used can be risky. If you can get something exotic that you like the sound of for cheap-great! But assuming that such sales are "as is" ya gotta ask yourself, how will I feel if I spend $xx and it dies within a week? (And probably cannot be fixed economically).

Not all players are created equal. The basic quality of D/A converters and power supply can be a definite limiting factor. Then, the subleties of the circuit layout and the quality of other parts can make a difference-no question about it.

I don't believe there have been amazing advances in good audio circuits, or in parts quality. So unlike automobiles or high performance tires, a newer one isn't generally better just because the design is newer.

Nonetheless, because of the warranty issue, I would strongly lean towards buying a new player with a warranty. You may well find yourself quite satisfied by a mid-price player like a Marantz or Denon or Rotel etc etc-and if you are connected digitally to a receiver, aren't even using the audio circuit on your CD player.

 

[khewa]

Buying any old electronics used can be risky. If you can get something exotic that you like the sound of for cheap-great! But assuming that such sales are "as is" ya gotta ask yourself, how will I feel if I spend $xx and it dies within a week? (And probably cannot be fixed economically).

Not all players are created equal. The basic quality of D/A converters and power supply can be a definite limiting factor. Then, the subleties of the circuit layout and the quality of other parts can make a difference-no question about it.

I don't believe there have been amazing advances in good audio circuits, or in parts quality. So unlike automobiles or high performance tires, a newer one isn't generally better just because the design is newer.

Nonetheless, because of the warranty issue, I would strongly lean towards buying a new player with a warranty. You may well find yourself quite satisfied by a mid-price player like a Marantz or Denon or Rotel etc etc-and if you are connected digitally to a receiver, aren't even using the audio circuit on your CD player.

hmm....maybe I should use my current cheap dvd player as a transport and hook up to a good 2nd hand DAC? this is an idea I'm toying with. The DAC is pure solid state, so it should be quite robust compared to the mechanical transport of a cdp. Or there are a number of good items on audiogon that still has warranty on it.... choices..choices...

 

[buckyg4]

Its so hard to say what is a good deal. There are alot of over priced equipment out there. Good equipment like Mark Levinson (built like a rock!) does a better job holding its value over time because it was so far ahead at its time that it will match up with 90% of the market 5 years later. I've purchased and sold equipment on audiogon and have never had an issues, but everything I have purchased has been a good brand. I think people who own high end equipment have alot of pride and take good care of their equipment.

Regarding a DAC, that should definetly improve your sound. What are you looking to spend? If you are looking for a nice small unit I would recommend a Benchmark DAC1. They are about $975 new and are hard to find used. I personally own an Apogee Mini-DAC and use it for Pro Audio. I have it matched with other Apogee equipment, but if I were to just get a DAC it would probably be a Benchmark.

 

[hciman77]

In the past 2 years I have bought 7 different CD players. Six of these have been used players. These have varied in age from 2 to 15 years. Even the oldest player played everything I threw at it with no problems. Of course I have been lucky and I would certainly not risk *big* bucks on used gear but on the whole I find I actually slightly prefer the sound of older CD players.

 

[tbewick]

I have to say that I've seen no evidence for the DAC's/power supply/jitter etc. making audible differences to CD sound quality.

I even read today in What Hi-Fi? that they think CD players require breaking-in! Even I find this hard to believe. When you've got a supporter of high-end DAC's/CD players saying things like this, it makes you think that they're talking rubbish about most things.

 

[buckyg4]

I have to say that I've seen no evidence for the DAC's/power supply/jitter etc. making audible differences to CD sound quality.

I even read today in What Hi-Fi? that they think CD players require breaking-in! Even I find this hard to believe. When you've got a supporter of high-end DAC's/CD players saying things like this, it makes you think that they're talking rubbish about most things.

Out of curiosity what CD players have you heard? Your statement above indicates that there is no difference between a $50 player and a $3000 player which is just crazy! You can put any decent outboard DAC on a $50 player and it will sound a heck of alot better.

 

[tbewick]

I'm currently using the built-in CD player on my Pioneer DVD player, with an optical digital cable out into my Denon A/V receiver. Most recently, I tried this against an older dedicated Marantz CD player, and could not tell any difference. Of course, I have tried other players in the past, and I could not tell much difference between them. I've never used a very expensive unit.

I'm not saying that there is no technical difference between a $50 CD player and a $3000 one, but maybe no audible difference. This, as other members on this forum have pointed out, has been shown in double-blind tests. The technical differences in the design of CD players, and the fact that you cannot design perfect filters, plus other technical differences, does to some extent justify the higher expense of more pricey units, in that you are paying for better design.

What is the point though, when the higher quality does not produce objective audible improvement? I do understand that one possible failing of this augument is that DAC's will produce noise depending, in a quite complicated fashion, on the program material. A good CD player unit will suppress this noise into the subsonic region. It's not enough to use sine wave patterns to check for this. The test must be designed to take these sorts of things into account.

 

[DaveOCP]

I'm not big on spending $1000s on a CD player. If you already have $50K speakers and $20K amps and preamps, sure what the hell. If not, spend your money on those things first. A 16-bit, 44.1khz PCM signal does not exactly need the worlds most sophisticated DAC. If you've got a mega-buck pre-amp and want to put its XLR or AES\EBU inputs to use I'd say go for it. Otherwise dont waste your money.

 

[buckyg4]

I'm currently using the built-in CD player on my Pioneer DVD player, with an optical digital cable out into my Denon A/V receiver. Most recently, I tried this against an older dedicated Marantz CD player, and could not tell any difference. Of course, I have tried other players in the past, and I could not tell much difference between them. I've never used a very expensive unit.

I'm not saying that there is no technical difference between a $50 CD player and a $3000 one, but maybe no audible difference. This, as other members on this forum have pointed out, has been shown in double-blind tests. The technical differences in the design of CD players, and the fact that you cannot design perfect filters, plus other technical differences, does to some extent justify the higher expense of more pricey units, in that you are paying for better design.

What is the point though, when the higher quality does not produce objective audible improvement? I do understand that one possible failing of this augument is that DAC's will produce noise depending, in a quite complicated fashion, on the program material. A good CD player unit will suppress this noise into the subsonic region. It's not enough to use sine wave patterns to check for this. The test must be designed to take these sorts of things into account.

I think we may be talking about different things. From reading your response above am I clear in that you are using your CD and DVD player as a transport and leting the DAC in the receiver do the D/A converting? I'm not surprised that you don't hear a difference between the two players. I personally wouldn't spend alot of money on a high end transport either, I wouldn't say there isn't any audible difference, but I have not really listened to to many high end transports.

What my intention was in writing the message above is that if your using the DAC in the CD or DVD player you will notice audible differences in sound. I'm not saying just because something is more expensive that it will sound better, but there will be noticable differences in sound due to the DAC. If the DAC didn't make a difference you would not see such a large price difference between units.

 

[khewa]

Musical Fidelity DAC

Its so hard to say what is a good deal. There are alot of over priced equipment out there. Good equipment like Mark Levinson (built like a rock!) does a better job holding its value over time because it was so far ahead at its time that it will match up with 90% of the market 5 years later. I've purchased and sold equipment on audiogon and have never had an issues, but everything I have purchased has been a good brand. I think people who own high end equipment have alot of pride and take good care of their equipment.

Regarding a DAC, that should definetly improve your sound. What are you looking to spend? If you are looking for a nice small unit I would recommend a Benchmark DAC1. They are about $975 new and are hard to find used. I personally own an Apogee Mini-DAC and use it for Pro Audio. I have it matched with other Apogee equipment, but if I were to just get a DAC it would probably be a Benchmark.

I am thinking of the Musical Fidelity A3-24 DAC. I've seen some good reviews on this but have not heard it.

 

[khewa]

Price / Performance Ratio

I think we may be talking about different things. From reading your response above am I clear in that you are using your CD and DVD player as a transport and leting the DAC in the receiver do the D/A converting? I'm not surprised that you don't hear a difference between the two players. I personally wouldn't spend alot of money on a high end transport either, I wouldn't say there isn't any audible difference, but I have not really listened to to many high end transports.

What my intention was in writing the message above is that if your using the DAC in the CD or DVD player you will notice audible differences in sound. I'm not saying just because something is more expensive that it will sound better, but there will be noticable differences in sound due to the DAC. If the DAC didn't make a difference you would not see such a large price difference between units.

that is exactly why I think a cheap player (ie existing DVD player) paired with a mid priced DAC ($500) will provide the best price/performance ratio.
I am curious to know if others think otherwise (ie. no audible difference in outboard DACs and onboard cheapie DVD player DACs)

On another angle, I find it strange that DACs cost so much at the high end. At the end of the day, they are are all microchips. The cost of manufacture should not be such a big difference amongst the various DACs. What we are paying for is the intellectual property of the design and of course the decreased sales volume of high end DACs. I would have thought by now, in the 21st century, an average engineer should be able to design competent DACs that meets high end audiophile requirements, heck it's not rocket science anymore, so why charge sky high rocket prices for intellectual rights?

I am sure the manufacture of these DACs would not be using the latest 65nm wafer fabrication technology, so manufacturing cost should not be a big percentage of the DAC's cost.

Bottom line is I think high end DACs are overpriced. What we need is some good DAC design to come out of the Far East, get it produced for a low cost and we will all enjoy high end audio at low end prices.

 

[DaveOCP]

Ultra high-end DACs cost so much because there are people willing to pay that much. First rule of free market capitalism, charge as much as the market will bare. It costs Apple some $50 to make an iPod.

 

[MDS]

What we are paying for is the intellectual property of the design and of course the decreased sales volume of high end DACs. I would have thought by now, in the 21st century, an average engineer should be able to design competent DACs that meets high end audiophile requirements, heck it's not rocket science anymore, so why charge sky high rocket prices for intellectual rights?

I think you answered your own question quite well. Burr Brown has a reputation for making some of the highest quality dacs in the business but are their designs leaps and bounds above Wolfson or Analog Devices? When purchased in quantity, dacs are cheap. It's the end product manufacturers that charge the steep prices.

 

[tbewick]

I think the reason for the high prices is that the DAC/cut-off filters cannot be perfectly designed, because of practical limitations. Let me give an example:

"...the sampling jitter accuracy necessary for 16 bit working was shown to be a few hundred picoseconds. This implies that something like 2 to the power 15 filter phases will be required for adequate performance in a 16 bit sampling rate converter. The direct provision of so many phases is difficult, since more than a million different coefficients must be stored, so alternative methods have been devised".

An Introduction to Digital Audio, John Watkinson (c), 1994 Focal Press.

This is to do with interpolation, where sampling rate converters are used. Filters are a part of the CD player which maybe subject to further technical improvement.

As I said on my earlier post, very cheap CD players seem to do a very good job of reproducing digital music, and according to others on this forum, some tests have shown that more expensive players are indestinguishable from the cheaper ones.

 

[mfabien]

With today's techology, to play a CD we connect the DVD player with a digital connection to an a/v receiver and use the receiver's DAC to transmit to the speakers in Stereo or in PL or PL II (I now prefer Stereo).

A CD player can still be of interest if:

- It has a 5 discs capacity, and

- If it can be programmed to shuffle between numbers on the 5 discs.

**Random Play - Create your own "radio station" with your CD player using random play. The player will randomly select tracks from all the discs it holds (without repeating) until all tracks are played. This feature is sometimes called "shuffle".**

Example the Sony CE 375. See the specs at:

http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/+INTERSHOP.enfinity/eCS/Store/en/-/USD/BB_DisplayProductInformation-Start;sid=-M4ZRYR89SAZGMdLHk4TTsttzS1lRd-Zrds=?CategoryName=smb-hav_HiFiComponents_CDPlayers&Dept=smb-hav&TemplateName=smb%2fitem%2fsy_item_b&ProductSKU=CDPCE375&RequestChannel=SonyStyle

...and it has an optical digital output to connect to your a/v.

 

[khewa]

Ideal CD Player system

With today's techology, to play a CD we connect the DVD player with a digital connection to an a/v receiver and use the receiver's DAC to transmit to the speakers in Stereo or in PL or PL II (I now prefer Stereo).

A CD player can still be of interest if:

- It has a 5 discs capacity, and

- If it can be programmed to shuffle between numbers on the 5 discs.

**Random Play - Create your own "radio station" with your CD player using random play. The player will randomly select tracks from all the discs it holds (without repeating) until all tracks are played. This feature is sometimes called "shuffle".**

Example the Sony CE 375. See the specs at:

http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/+INTERSHOP.enfinity/eCS/Store/en/-/USD/BB_DisplayProductInformation-Start;sid=-M4ZRYR89SAZGMdLHk4TTsttzS1lRd-Zrds=?CategoryName=smb-hav_HiFiComponents_CDPlayers&Dept=smb-hav&TemplateName=smb%2fitem%2fsy_item_b&ProductSKU=CDPCE375&RequestChannel=SonyStyle

...and it has an optical digital output to connect to your a/v.

My ideal CD Player system would consists of a CD-ROM drive as a transport, hooked up to a universal decoder (SACD, DVD-AUDIO, MP3, DTS, Dolby, etc..) and then to the DAC. The decoder and DAC should be in the same box and the connection to the CD transport should be via firewire. The DSD data should be sent over the firewire and not converted to PCM first. The decoder should reside in software so that new formats can be easily downloaded from the web. Today's DSP chips should be fast enough for that, else we can always buffer the data with today's cheap memory.
The transport would have a few versions, with the basic version supporting single disc and the deluxe jukebox version supporting 10 discs or more.

Currently a few AVRs, namely Pioneer and Yamaha supports this concept to a degree. However, their Universal DVD player is still not cheap enough yet, in my opinion. The players can made cheaper if the decoders are removed out of the DVD player box. After all, the AVR already has a decoder, so we are paying for duplicate function.

 

[khewa]

High Prices for imperfect design

I think the reason for the high prices is that the DAC/cut-off filters cannot be perfectly designed, because of practical limitations. Let me give an example:

"...the sampling jitter accuracy necessary for 16 bit working was shown to be a few hundred picoseconds. This implies that something like 2 to the power 15 filter phases will be required for adequate performance in a 16 bit sampling rate converter. The direct provision of so many phases is difficult, since more than a million different coefficients must be stored, so alternative methods have been devised".

An Introduction to Digital Audio, John Watkinson (c), 1994 Focal Press.

This is to do with interpolation, where sampling rate converters are used. Filters are a part of the CD player which maybe subject to further technical improvement.

As I said on my earlier post, very cheap CD players seem to do a very good job of reproducing digital music, and according to others on this forum, some tests have shown that more expensive players are indestinguishable from the cheaper ones.

If filters cannot be perfectly design due to practical limitations, why are we paying high prices for imperfect designs ?