DVD Player instead of CD Player?

[Dr Tinear]

I have heard some good universal players but all have one thing in common, annoyingly slow loading and fiddly controls. And no DVD transport ever made even comes close to a good Philips Swing arm CDM transport, the best CD transport ever made by man or the current CD-Pro from Philips.

My Yamaha DVD-S1800 loads almost as quickly as my old swing-arm Magnavox players, so I can state that there's at least one universal player on the market that doesn't take an eternity to load a CD. The Yamaha is more sensitive to dirty or damaged discs than the Magnavoxes, though. Dust particles or smudges that the Philips CDM-2 and CDM-4 transports would sail right through will often cause skips or momentary mutes on the Yamaha.

 

[KeninDC]

I'm interested in the new OPPO Blu/DVD/SACD/CD/Streaming/MP3/ universal player w/ the improved DAC, balanced output option, and dedicated 2-channel output:

http://www.oppodigital.com/blu-ray-bdp-95/

I don't want to put in a dedicated CD player on my main system since it will mess up my clean lines and my LP playing to CD ratio is 20 to 1. My hope is that the CD/SACD sound will be an improvement over the Pioneer Elite universal player I am currently using.

 

[titanstats]

My Cambridge player will play CDs very well (though it's been a long while since it has), as well as SACD and DVD-A. Oh yeah, it's silver as well. Hard to beat for the price.

 

[Tom Brennan]

I'm interested in the new OPPO Blu/DVD/SACD/CD/Streaming/MP3/ universal player w/ the improved DAC, balanced output option, and dedicated 2-channel output:

http://www.oppodigital.com/blu-ray-bdp-95/

Streaming players are so cool. I use my LG bluray far more for streaming than for disc watching. I love watching Youtube on the big TV and listening to it through the hi-fi. And then there's Netflix, Pandora radio, Picasa, Vudu, Divx and other fun stuff.

Thing converts CD tracks to WAV files and puts them on a USB jumpdrive too. Best damned electronic toy I ever had.

 

[tx_polkhead]

My livingroom set-up was more video than music in the past. About a year ago I had a Panasonic DVD recorder, I used it for DVD movies, recording tv shows and games, and the occasional music CD. Then I managed to run a digital coax connection from the computer to the AVR and music happened in the livingroom more often. Last winter I found a Denon DVD changer on CL for $20, I did some quick research and found out it's MSRP was $1200, and it's street price was $800, for $20 it was a no brainer. The Denon is big and HEAVY (and black, maybe the OP will need a can of silver paint) and has a beautiful picture with DVD's. Further research said to get the best music sound I had to use the analog outs which means the unit is doing the DAC in house rather than just sending the digital data to the AVR. A couple of months ago I got a Bluray player and finally hooked up the analog outs on the Denon, thinking I'll do my movie watching with the LG bluray and my CD listening with the Denon DVD changer. The dual 24 bit DACs in the Denon are magic! I hear things I had missed before. It also plays HDCD's which I understand are all but dead. I looked through my collection and only found a few (all Dixie Chick cds are HDCD) and they sound superb. I am a relative Noob to the audio game and my gear is decidedly mid-fi but the Denon is so choice...

 

[Brett a]

All good, but where is the Original Poster in all this?

It's true. he's logged in as recently as last night, but hasn't been back to this discussion.

IIRC, the original question was about a silver-faced player in the sub-$100 range; the difficulty in finding a dedicated redbook player and the consideration of a DVD player instead.

Personally, I'd rather live with the compromise of the case color (go with black) instead of the compromise in using a DVD player for CDs. I don't see a sub-$100 DVD player sounding as good as a sub-$100 black-faced CDp.

 

[ng0k]

I've compared a 5 yr old Toshiba DVD/VCR combo, 2 year old Phillips DVD/VCR combo, and a brand new $50 Sony DVD player against my 1992 vintage lower end Sony CDP-311. All three were better with the Phillips being the best. I'm still using the CDP tho.

I recompared my CDP-311 with the Sony DVP-NS710H on GooGoo Dolls songs which always sounded harsh to me. The cdp indeed was very harsh with no clarity in the cymbals and very honky vocals. The dvd player was dynamic and well tempered with smooth detailed cymbals and vocals.

 

[niles300z]

It does depend. I have an NAD DVD player that I'm quite sure is a sleeper of a CD player but it does take more time to load.
I agree it's usually better to think about a dedicated CD player with no junk it doesn't need but there are a few exceptions. I do tend to think a well built transport or something that is very stable, well damped, and heavy tend to make the best disk handlers and then just pick your dacs to try as the years go by. Some cheap DVD players do not fit that mold.Then , after fiddling with more devices, wires, and setups, in the end, simpler is usually better. It's just a lot of fun to try all these gadgets and tweaks in search of one's holy grail. Ultimately though, matching, synergy and setup have proven to be large factors that may actually leave a Sony Playstation in your CD player spot.

 

[jcamero]

I bought a Cambridge Audio DVD89 at GW a while back and use it exclusively for CD's. I a-b'ed it against a couple of Sony's I have, and it sounds so much better. Not as harsh or fatiguing.

 

[BrocLuno]

Sony DVP-NS975 with real brushed aluminum face and built-in Burr-Brown DAC

 

[Lawrence-lp]

Take longer to load? That seems odd. I've heard that about Blu-ray (which I haven't experienced) but not CD playback. Your probably right about the machine determining what is loaded, just not sure why it would take longer.

No, they are slow to use and at least with cheaper models sound horrible. I used one as a cd player for years but was never satisfied with the sound. In fact it wasn't until I bought turntable did I realise the source made so much difference. I then experimented with other dedicated cd players and came to the conclusion that my dvd player was utter crap, and was the cause of my audio woes.

Lesson learnt, buy a cd player instead.

Most of the replies at the start of this thread (like the quote above) might have been true 5 years ago when posted (in 2011), but now there are plenty of blu-ray players that suffice. Digital is not nearly as source-reliant as records. The difference between a cheap CD/DVD player and a high-end one is no where near the difference between a cheap turntable and a high-end turntable.

With analog sound on a turntable, there are all sorts of variables that greatly affect the transmission of the recording to the speakers--and a weak link in any of those variables can ruin the whole thing--including the cleanliness of the record, scratches, static, the quality and shape of the stylus, quality of the cantilever holding the stylus, quality of the cartridge, calibration set-up of the cartridge, quality of the tonearm, angle of the tonearm, counter-weight adjustment of the tone arm, anti-skate, quality of the turntable motor, belt or direct drive, quality of the shock absorbtion, etc.

With digital, the only real variable is the digital processor that converts the digital code into analog sound to send it to the speakers. The net difference of all other variables (laser, electronics, materials) is barely perceptible. Digital reading of a CD is either a "yes-no" binary option; quality barely goes up if it is "read." The only perceptible difference (as I understand) is the digital processor. And that does not depend on whether it is a combo blu-ray/DVD/CD/MP3-CD player or a dedicated CD player. It just depends on the brand and such.

So, the gist is that combo players can be just as good if not better than dedicated CD players. You can't generalize. Combo players do take longer to read media because they do have a delay to identify the type of media in the player. But the sound quality is not necessarily worse just because it is a combo player.

 

[for_p1]

When you hut player today it should be able to play ANY digital media. Which today means that you need Oppo device. Anything else is limited in what disk you can feed it with.

 

[cipriano]

I was recently in the market for a new CD player but I had a unique requirement: it had to have pitch control. It came down to a Marantz 5005 or a Pioneer DJ deck. I went with the Pioneer CDJ-200. Unconventional looks but tons of fun!

 

[N8Nagel]

Hit the thrifts. I have found two Samsung DVD players that play both SACD and DVD-A, one is silver, also an apparently well regarded Sony unit which is only SACD no DVD-A but sounds good.

 

[guiller]

With digital, the only real variable is the digital processor that converts the digital code into analog sound to send it to the speakers. The net difference of all other variables (laser, electronics, materials) is barely perceptible.

After the DAC there is an important analog stage that amplifies the signal. Most cheap CDPs, DVDPs and BRPs have cheap amplifying sections, driven a IC and cheap components. The upper class CDPs have a high quality (e.g., class A) amplifier with discrete components. That stage, also present in external DACs make an important difference in the sound quality output of both CDPs and DACs, at least in my opinion. As far as my experience goes, sound quality differences among CDPs could be huge, just as in the turntable+cart+arm world.

 

[BrocLuno]

In digital transmission, the master clock rate and stability make a large difference (TOSLINK/SPDIF/PSM...), the file decoder does too. Digital to Audio Conversion (DAC) is one of the most critical issue. Burr-Brown is my preferred, but I have heard some nice Wolfson based units too. There are plenty of other options, but these two are the primary leaders in the "Good" category

Where you can tell if the whole is implemented well is in listening to the units L&R analog stereo output into your AUX vs the digital output through a downstream device. If they are both good and similar, the circuitry is reasonably well done. If there are big differences, you have what Lawrence-lp stated above...

 

[Lawrence-lp]

After the DAC there is an important analog stage that amplifies the signal. Most cheap CDPs, DVDPs and BRPs have cheap amplifying sections, driven a IC and cheap components. The upper class CDPs have a high quality (e.g., class A) amplifier with discrete components. That stage, also present in external DACs make an important difference in the sound quality output of both CDPs and DACs, at least in my opinion. As far as my experience goes, sound quality differences among CDPs could be huge, just as in the turntable+cart+arm world.

A great rejoinder/supplement until the last sentence. Yes, I overlooked the amplification, even though that is more of an audiophile concern than a concern that most people would notice.

The difference between a cheap CD player and an expensive CD player (or a combo vs. a dedicated CD player) is far less than the difference between a cheap turntable and an elite turntable. In the analog/turntable world, not only can a weak link disrupt the sound, but there are an infinite number of stages between a good (audiophile) analog sound and a cheap, teenie-bopper, RCA portable record-player sound. Not so in the digital world: even the low-end produces decent quality. Even a small Sony discman by far out-performs the cheap record players. That's the reason digital media overwhelmed analog/LP media for the past thirty years: the high-end audiophile-quality digital sound wasn't necessarily better, but the mid-to-low-end everyday-user digital product was (and is) much, much, much, much better than the low-end record players.

 

[guiller]

The difference between a cheap CD player and an expensive CD player (or a combo vs. a dedicated CD player) is far less than the difference between a cheap turntable and an elite turntable.

I'm sorry, but my personal experience disagrees with this statement. Of course, I understand that other people may have different experiences on this. All is good. Recently I had my Astin Trew AT 3500+ gone for a major upgrade and had to deal with alternative CDPs (Philips CD350, Denon DCD-1650G, laserdisc Sony MDP-800 , DVDP Pioneer DV-343 and BRP Sony BDP-S360) that provided efficient and "nice" playing but far away from the sound quality provided by the AT. In my analog setup, I feel a similar performance difference between my Clearaudio Emotion+Benz Micro Ace combo and any of my alternative TT+cart combos, e.g., my Thorens TD126+Yamaha MC7.

 

[BrocLuno]

Well let's see - I have $100 in most of my Sony or Denon combo players (Burr-Brown) and you have maybe $3,000 (?) in your AstinTrew (the kind of coin I have in a whole system). My best TT is a JVC QL-Y5F bought used for $250 with a $350 cartridge and my lowest TT is a plastic Garrard for $30 with a Red-Ed. I'm in this as a hobby on wage earner numbers... I have no tube stages in anything. I might go there if I can find an affordable way to get that done...

So comparing at my level, Lawrence-lp makes perfect sense. Cheap BD and DVP's can produce acceptable output. They are not that far below the select Denon or Sony SQ, either by themselves, or into external DAC's. The difference between my best TT and my worst is quite a bit bigger than the differences between all my combo players (I sold my dedicated CD players long ago).

Thing is, I play mostly used CD's, just like I play mostly used LP's. It's really hit of miss on the quality of the source material... There are few finely crafted CDs in my library. There are few finely crafted LPs too. But they are the exception, not the norm. So since I do not have the source material to wring out the technology, I can't justify the expense of your AstinTrew.

It's not for desire, it's about family budget and family priorities... My wife thinks 3K worth of LP's and 1K worth of CDs is a bit over the top... She wants to know when and where I'll build decent custom cabinetry to store this stuff? She wants some of her book shelves back and I don't blame her... But I think her book library is a bit over the top at 1,800 so we are battling nuance here

I get smiles from my wife when she drops a disk or needle on one of the stereo systems. I like the sounds I hear too. I do critical listening on decent headphones, although I have speakers that are pretty revealing also. And I worked in the recording industry for a few years. I was even involved in building a QC studio for the recording engineers. My wife was a professional speech pathologist who did hearing test analysis and auditory cognition analysis among other pursuits. I guess we know our way around sound... It's pretty hard for either of us to have "bad" stuff around.

So we approach this, not as an absolute best-of rocket launch, but as a "that's really nice" sort of a budget hobby with modest, but meaningful results. In that scenario I'll have to side with Lawrence-lp. A little part of me wants the QC studio we assembled at GRT, but it would not really fit into our lifestyles and home arrangement. I can live with my compromises and make small discoveries as I go

I get the sense that most in this particular discussion are closer to me and my circumstances... I always appreciate hearing from the higher-ups, but can't really emulate your situation ...

 

[DonQuixote99]

(deleted by author--resp to old msg)