Any vintage CD players 21.5 inches wide?

ChopperChas

Super Member
I'm looking for a CD player to go with my Panasonic RA6500. I'd like to stack the RA6500 on top of the CD player, so the player should be the same width... which is 21.5 inches. It's just a small bedroom system, so I don't need anything spectacular or expensive. Are there even sources that wide?

Charles.
 
I doubt it, by the time CDPs were popular, most components were sized so they would fit in a 19" rack. Some were even narrower (I have an old Yamaha CDP from the mid-80s that is just the right width to stack with Dynaco stuff.)

Perhaps something like a monitor stand would allow you to do this, or time to knock something together from some wood to hold the receiver? I understand your concern, although in my case I could actually stack my Oppo and AR XA on TOP of my Sansui QRX-9001 as the sui is so damn big that those components actually don't block any of the vents...!
 
I recall some big ones right at the beginning of the CD roll out in the late 1980's. But I would not be interested in any of them because of the digital processing was just not as good as it in presently. Even the cheapest optical disc player made today sound wise will blow the doors of units that back them cost a couple of $1000 Dollars.
 
I recall some big ones right at the beginning of the CD roll out in the late 1980's. But I would not be interested in any of them because of the digital processing was just not as good as it in presently. Even the cheapest optical disc player made today sound wise will blow the doors of units that back them cost a couple of $1000 Dollars.

I'll take a Philips CDM-1 over anybody else's transport when it comes to longevity however. And they sound good. I see too many modern players which don't last long in heavy use though great sounding. As in 18 months, laser's used up. But this is also day shift on air on an FM station.
 
I'll take a Philips CDM-1 over anybody else's transport when it comes to longevity however. And they sound good. I see too many modern players which don't last long in heavy use though great sounding. As in 18 months, laser's used up. But this is also day shift on air on an FM station.
The transports these early $1000 plus Dollar CD players had were without equal today. The main thing is the conversion systems and error correction firmware is better now. The very best today is Tascam
 
The transports these early $1000 plus Dollar CD players had were without equal today. The main thing is the conversion systems and error correction firmware is better now. The very best today is Tascam

Some of the very early machines had fantastic transports and the reasons for that were many, not the least of which was the tracking and focusing systems were primitive, entirely analogue, and in many cases discrete. They were (and are) extremely time consuming and difficult to set up for reliable operation. Aligning a 1st generation 'battleship' CD player can take half a day to do properly.

Once tracking/focus and disc operations were integrated and then digitised, the tolerances and precision required in the transports was unnecessary.

Longevity was the obvious casualty once the transports were cheapened and the laser diode stripped of its aluminium optical block and high quality glass optics.

Error correction in early TOTL machines was better than anything you see now. Some early Philips and Sony TOTL machines will play right through my CBS wedge test which is over 1.2mm linear data loss. Try that with anything built after 2000. CIRC can theoretically correct over 2mm data loss IIRC.

I have a 'test' disc (a really badly damaged early Japanese pressed demo disc) which will not play on anything except a few early Philips (with CDM0 and CDM1 mechs, the Sony CDP-101 and 4 of my TOTL ES players) Not only will it play, it is quite listenable.

And I am interested, what specifically does Tascam do with CIRC to make it the best available? It is, after all, the error correction system that has been used since the outset. CIRC, coupled with some predictive logic and robust interpolation algorithms has given us 34 years of essentially perfect data recovery from damaged discs.
 
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Sorry OP, the discussion of old vs. new has become quite interesting. I am a fan of older TOTL CDP's such as early Sony ES and Phlips. Sony BU-1C is as fast as any new CDP and plays just about anything. The square belts for the tray mech are a pain to source. Philips CDM2 as found in the CDB650 is virtually skip proof. It would play upside down, sitting next to a bumping woofer, and for laughs with "finger" drums tapping on the top. The CDM2 would play the worst looking, road rash CD's and sound decently good. I am also a fan of the classic TDA1541 also found in the CDB650 and many others including my current runner, the 1988 Adcom GCD575.
 
The transports these early $1000 plus Dollar CD players had were without equal today. The main thing is the conversion systems and error correction firmware is better now. The very best today is Tascam

The new Tascams aren't that durable in a work environment on air on an FM station, usually dead in 2 years.
 
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