thoughts on HK

disisme

Active Member
Hi everyone
Can you's tell me if a harman kardon tl8500 5 disc cd player would do well with my Marantz 2238b?
Thanks
 
It's a bitstream player, but a pretty good one. I sold those in the mid 90's, and found it to be a solid performer.
Used in the aux inputs, I don't foresee a matching issue. The output on the back is 2v, so the only thing is to look at the input sensitivity on the Marantz's aux input.
Check the disc tray operation, make sure it spins freely and that it reads the discs with no hiccups.
 
Did some googleing in bitstream players and got myself extremely confused now. From what I'm reading bitstream is more inline with 5.1 sound systems , am I reading correctly? Seeing as we with the Vintage Audio players are so appreciate of the warm sound that come from the older units, would I be further ahead looking for a cd player that came from the same time period,such as the early 80's.
 
Nah. Bitstream isn't related to surround sound. It has to do with the over-sampling rate.

I had a Phillips bitstream 5 disc player, and i thought it was the bomb back in the '90s.
 
Nah. Bitstream isn't related to surround sound. It has to do with the over-sampling rate.

I had a Phillips bitstream 5 disc player, and i thought it was the bomb back in the '90s.
So I did read it incorrectly or I'm looking too much into a mismatch for my precious Marantz.
Back in the 90's? So I take it the disk player was well matched to the sound system amp, around the same year/
 
That came out just around the time I was leaving retail audio so I probably sold it or a closely related previous model as it looks familiar. They were good sounding CDPs, much better than many of the competition. I picked up a later HK multi for my folks and it is very good sounding as well. I agree you should check out the mechanism and disc reading as I seem to recall they were a bit trouble prone but any example that is working well now is no more likely than any other multi CD to have issues.
 
So I did read it incorrectly or I'm looking too much into a mismatch for my precious Marantz.
Back in the 90's? So I take it the disk player was well matched to the sound system amp, around the same year/

My Philips carousel was hitched to a Parasound preamp, and a Parasound HCA amp driving electrostatic loudspeakers. It did a pretty nice job, sound wise.

There are other CD players that I would recommend more than the Harman Kardon TL8500 to go with your marantz 2238B.

Tell me, are you dead set on a five disc changer ? What is your max budget ?

Do you already have the HK TL8500 ?
 
My Philips carousel was hitched to a Parasound preamp, and a Parasound HCA amp driving electrostatic loudspeakers. It did a pretty nice job, sound wise.

There are other CD players that I would recommend more than the Harman Kardon TL8500 to go with your marantz 2238B.

Tell me, are you dead set on a five disc changer ? What is your max budget ?

Do you already have the HK TL8500 ?
I don't have it already and not dead set on 5 disc player but it is really annoying haveing to change a cd after its done. Budget is probably $300
 
With that budget, you could go new with a Yamaha changer, which also accepts USB input (including flash drives) and has optical toslink output.
 
EyeGee would you be referring to a newer model like from a box store? I always thought the vintage amps mated well with stuff from the same time period.
 
Yes, it's one of the few changers left on the market. Mine has been absolutely reliable for years now, frequently running 8-10 hours daily. I use it with a McIntosh 2120 and Mac 4300V, but I do feed the optical into a tube DAC and the analog out of the Yamaha straight into the 4300V. A/B'ing these results in a negligible difference, mostly fuller bass/not as brittle highs using the DAC tube'd output. http://usa.yamaha.com/products/audio-visual/hifi-components/cd-players/cd-c600_black__u/
 
I was reading in the DIY section a sticky on repairing CDPs. One comment was on lifespan of the lasers and paying a lot for old units was not recommended. Personally if I were spending $300, would buy new or almost.
 
This was another thought I had , jolida glass fx dac 2. Anyone familar with them?
I'm not familiar with this DAC, but a stand alone DAC is an excellent way to go.

I have a Sony CDP-CE375 five disc carousel in my system. I paid $10 for it at a yard sale because it had a Toslink digital output. I have it hooked up to a $600 DAC, and it works and sounds great.

The HK cd changer you mentioned does not have a digital output, so you couldn't use it.

IMHO, coax digital sounds better than Toslink. I have a Tascam single disc player hooked to coax input on my DAC. The Tascam sounds a smidge better than the Sony, but I think the difference is the connection type.

My DAC is MusicHall dac25.3 with an upgraded tube. I need to replace the tube again.

I think solid state might be better than tube in regard to DACs. The tube buffer doesn't seem to gain me a whole lot. It makes my system harder to diagnosis. I've been chasing a noise for months, now I suspect the tube.
 
This is interesting information as I never would have thought to get a CD player with digital output, guess that's out of the picture. I did order the Dac I mentioned, can I put all my music on a hard drive and play it that way through the Dac ? Sorry this is something else I know nothing about, the Dac that is.
 
Heck yeah, you can do that ! It takes a little doing to get a PC to sound as nice as a CD player, but hard drives can store tons of music, and turn your PC into a juke box. You'd want a second hard drive to back up the first one. It takes awhile to burn all your CDs to a hard drive.

Tell me a little bit about your PC. What Operating System do you have ? Windows 7 or Windows 10 ? How big is your hard drive ?

People are now using music streaming services, instead of loading their own hard drive. For monthly a monthly fee, they can have access to large music libraries over the internet. I don't know much about this.
 
I'm using new Dell laptop running Windows 10 but I have other laptops running windows 7 . I have a rather large external HD or if I needed I could get another, they are relatively inexpensive now adays.
 
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