Small CD player

Feral

Feral

New Member
I'm looking for a CD player with a small footprint to use on a built-in bookshelf in my living room with my AudioEngine A2+ speakers. Currently, I have an iPod connected to the speakers and find I'm really missing a CD player there. The smaller the better, but somewhere around 8"x8" or maybe 10"x10" would work.

The players I've seen so far that look like they would work are:
Pro-ject Maia CD
Pro-ject CD Box S
Teac PD-301

Does anyone have experience with any of these players or any others? I don't need Bluetooth or SACD capabilities, but if it could play FLAC from a USB drive, that would be great.

Since the ones listed above cost about $400, I'd like to set that at my budget. The Pro-ject players can be found for less as demo units.

Does anyone know the difference between the two Pro-ject players? I see the Maia has optical SPDIF while the CD Box S has coaxial SPDIF, but is there anything else different about them?
 
I stopped by a local store that sells the Teac PD-301 on their website but unfortunately they didn't have it available to demo.

Has anyone listened to either Pro-ject model or have any experience with any of Pro-ject's Box Design gear? I'm having trouble finding any local places that sells anything from Pro-ject other than turntables.
 
I'm in the same boat. I tried a Pro-ject cd box s and it was problematic. The display would disappear randomly and the buttons were also unresponsive at the same time. The only way to solve it was unplugging the unit. I returned it. I'm not sure if the Maia is the same player or different.

Two more models I'm looking at are the Marantz HD-CD1 or the Denon DCD-50. Anyone with experience with either of these?
 
Jhoppes said:
I'm in the same boat. I tried a Pro-ject cd box s and it was problematic. The display would disappear randomly and the buttons were also unresponsive at the same time. The only way to solve it was unplugging the unit. I returned it. I'm not sure if the Maia is the same player or different.

Two more models I'm looking at are the Marantz HD-CD1 or the Denon DCD-50. Anyone with experience with either of these?
Click to expand...
That's disappointing to hear. How soon after you bought it did you see the problems? Did you buy it new?

I sent an email to Pro-ject's distributor asking the difference between the Maia CD and CD Box S, but I haven't heard back.

I'm also interested in anyone's experience with the Marantz and Denon players.
 
Going back to the pre-iPod days, every Disman portable I tried sounded great through Line Out into a normal Stereo system. A friend who was a professional audio critic, had the same fine results and attributed it to the extremely short signal paths internally, and anti-vibration mountings. The footprint cannot be smaller. Every manufacturer had at least one model with serious audiophile aspirations; some even had Digital Out for an external DAC, which today would be a quantum leap in SQ. Avoid chintzy features like Mega-Bass etc.

Price is certainly affordable, like close to free. At the least, a good and immediate music source while you search for your ideal...
 
MaiA CD and CD Box S are effectively the same transport and DAC- the display is in a different location (to match MaiA) and the MaiA CD has a TOSlink output instead of a Coaxial digital output on the CD Box S.

Both are in a nice heavy metal case, and are built in Europe! Not bad for $400

I've spent some time with the MaiA CD and really like it!
 
As someone that has done woodworking, I'd say the enclosure measurement would depend on the dimensions of the needed equipment. Now, if you dealing with IKEA cubby-hole shelfing there are many ways to make selection of equipment work. As IKEA has a better selection to chose from and is probably the most chosen shelfing used by members on this site. That you get a better selection and aren't stuck with a lousy sound and the need to replace a lousy minimal sounding CD player. I do know of a CD player being sold on Amazon that has a Wolfson WM8741 DAC, you see Wolfson sold out to Cirrus Logic, but before doing so Wolfson sold all excess inventory to Onkyo. Then Onkyo put the 8741 into the Onkyo C 7030. The cost of the unit is only $165.00 and sounds just as good as the most expensive CD players and plays Wav and Flac files. The thing about this player is, to enjoy a great sound you can not turn the player off because it takes like six hours of use before the sound comes to its best. But of course that's my golden ears that I'm using and the player only sits four inches high, seventeen wide and twelve deep. I wouldn't except these players to last very long at this price as audiophile quality usually does not come at this price.....
 
Another suggestion for a smaller DVD player. Just check to make sure it has analog outs - many newer ones don't.

Also wasn't the original Playstation considered to be a good CD player? And it had a small footprint, I think.
 
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I might have a Discman stuffed in a drawer somewhere that I could try. I'll look for it this weekend.
 
Several nice little Teac units
1366383082000_966717.jpg
 
I realize this is an old thread, but this is a topic that comes up on a regular basis around here. So, someone may find this useful.

Denon has made a number of dedicated small form factor CD players over the years. Most are a little under 10" wide (250mm). The depth of the cases are also generally about the same, but you will need to allow and inch and a half to two inches for connectors and interconnect cables. These are attractive, well built units, with no video circuitry to complicate things.

I recently picked up a Denon DCD-F101. It's well built, attractive, sounds good and has an optical out if I want to use it as a transport with an external DAC.

Here are a couple photos lifted from the internet:
Denon-DCD-F101-HiFi-Component-CD-Player.jpg


Denon-DCD-F101-HiFi-Component-CD-Player-_57.jpg


The faceplate in the photos appears to have a bit of a champagne cast. That's caused by the lighting in the photos. The face plate is actually a bright, shiny silver, which makes it a decent visual match for classic silver faced gear.

Other models I am aware of are the DCD-F100, DCD-F102 and DCD-F109. I'm sure there are others. Not all models were available for sale in the US. The DCD-F101 was only sold in the US as part of a mini-component system (the D-F101S) that included a matching receiver (DRA-F101) and a pair of miniature bookshelf speakers made by for Denon by Mission:

61rWMt%2BlveS._SL1000_.jpg
 
MaiA CD and CD Box S are effectively the same transport and DAC- the display is in a different location (to match MaiA) and the MaiA CD has a TOSlink output instead of a Coaxial digital output on the CD Box S.

Both are in a nice heavy metal case, and are built in Europe! Not bad for $400

At least in the CD Box S the transport is a cheap plastic KSS-313 from Sony. DAC is Burr Bown, The european part:
The austrian company Streamumlimited made the controlling circuit. They are working for many small HiFi companies
and sell basically the same configuration to all:

http://www.streamunlimited.com/products/optical-storage/

So nothing is original from ProJect and probably the MaiA and S are twins...
 
Sorry, just reading all of the follow up from this thread. I have since sent the Pro-Ject back and bought a small Marantz HD cd -1. It also has issues. Discs freeze, won’t load until I just reload it and then it plays. Sound is good, design is nice...
 
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