What CD players do you folks have? (or DVD/BR)

A 25-year old Sony Discman, a photo that I posted in another thread, but why not repost it here for giggles. It works. It sounds better than cassette and LP, no hiss and no W&F, that is all I need. It has analog line out. Buffering can be turned off. 1-bit DAC is a major improvement over 1980s ladder DACs. The major downside: it is too stupid to play consecutive tracks seamlessly when they immediately follow one another in a programmed playlist, it always makes a little pause between tracks in this mode.

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Sony DVP-NC 555ES in my main system, Denon DVD-1920 in my secondary. The Sony is excellent, I just got the Denon and the jury is still out.
 
Oppo 103 - Playing burned discs &
4 channel PCM discs.

Yamaha bd-a1060 - Playing SACD & CD

Sony X-800 region free - Playing 4K movies and other region discs.

I use HDMI outputs on all of the players.
They all use the DAC on my Yamaha 3080 AVR.
 
The Shocker said:
I just watched a video on the Ana[DIA]log YouTube channel, and he just bought a Marantz 94 MKII that he paid almost $1000 for, and said that was a reasonable price. He praised the Philips CD-1 optical pickup and the dual TDA1541 S1 Single Crown DACs.
I would not pay that much for it. It might be a wonderful CD player. But it has a Philips CD-1 swing arm optical pickup. They're no longer made. If my $1000 vintage CD player from 1989 breaks and needs a new pickup, then I'm going to need a new donor unit, which will probably cost me another $1000. The only optical pickup I have ever had fail was a Philips CD-4 pickup in a Magnavox CDB492 CD player. I believe the CD-4 is the plastic version of the CD-1, which is all metal.
Some vintage Sony optical pickups are still being made, and you would probably be better off buying a vintage player with an optical pickup that's still being made if you want to drop $1000 on a CD player.
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There seems to be a degree of confusion regarding some of the older CD players. First I would say that some DIY ability is beneficial when buying a 40 year old electronic device of any type, be they cassette player, CD player or even a radio for that matter. But one has (to me at least) take a view on what one is hoping to get out of it. Older CD mechs can go wrong, in my experience on the CDM1 at least, this tends to be down to 'Griplets' (a connection between both sides of the driver PCB) or the 33uf axial cap on the same board, (not the actual laser). Lots of information is out there, but these things don't go wrong very often considering the number of units made. New mech replacements obviously are no longer produced for any of the Philips swing arm mechs, but I've just had a quick count, and at least 50 different machines were made using the CDM1 mech, so it should be possible to source replacements from donor machines if really needed. These (depending on luck) can be bought for less than £200 (in Europe, and far less in U.S thrift stores). More often, CD drawer belts or tray gears tend to need replacement, a fairly simple job. One just has to maybe listen to the older units and base decisions on that rather than hear say. As said, the CD94 is a reference unit, comparable to some modern products costing many $thousands. I do not own a CD94 as I've other similar units and I've missed the boat as to when they were cheap enough for me to buy one.
It would be interesting to hear others views, but mine, (and some may find this surprising) is that the DAC and supporting electronics actually play a much larger role in what is heard than the mech, (I have some great sounding players with really cheap mechanics (Kenwood DP-7090 for instance), and vice versa), it's not possible to chop and change easily, so the unit must be considered as a whole, so one must find a machine that has the 'sound' one likes and accept other parts of it for what they are.
None of this is written to boost or knock any specific machines, just to lay out the facts as I see them.
 
I have a Sony CDP-XA7ES. One of the last flagship CD only players. Basically never use it and I've thought of selling it but its all I have left from my old TOTL Sony ES system and I'm reluctant to let it go.
 
jotom750 said:
It would be interesting to hear others views, but mine, (and some may find this surprising) is that the DAC and supporting electronics actually play a much larger role in what is heard than the mech,
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Agreed, apart from the 'surprising' bit; the read mechanism is a just a means to grab bits off the disc. Provided it does that within the error recovery capabilities of the CIRC scheme, then audio quality is dependent only on circuitry downstream of the sample FIFO; DAC, clock, analogue processing & associated power supplies.
 
cpt_paranoia said:
Agreed, apart from the 'surprising' bit; the read mechanism is a just a means to grab bits off the disc. Provided it does that within the error recovery capabilities of the CIRC scheme, then audio quality is dependent only on circuitry downstream of the sample FIFO; DAC, clock, analogue processing & associated power supplies.
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It is funny how people treat CD player as something more than an optical disc drive with a DAC and preamp.
 
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Roypercy said:
Sony DVP-NC 555ES in my main system, Denon DVD-1920 in my secondary. The Sony is excellent, I just got the Denon and the jury is still out.
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I'd be interested in your thoughts on the Denon. I recently bought a DVD-1920 as a backup for a Yamaha DVD S-1800. The Denon was bought mostly because it plays SACD's as does the Yamaha.
 
Just picked up this Marantz DV9600 DVD/CD/SACD-player today to replace its slightly older DV6400 brother.
Mostly picked it up because I wanted a silver model and the 6400 was about twice as expensive as when I got it last year. The 9600 I picked up for €170 + another €50 for the remote that was missing.

Sounds great though. <3



 
JoeESP9 said:
I'd be interested in your thoughts on the Denon. I recently bought a DVD-1920 as a backup for a Yamaha DVD S-1800. The Denon was bought mostly because it plays SACD's as does the Yamaha.
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I bought mine new in 2005. It doesn't get a lot of use, But I'm satisfied with its performance and operation. When compared to my Denon 1500II I purchased new in 1988, one of their better CD players then, it's about the same in terms of sound quality.

When compared with a much more recent and more expensive Pioneer PD9 CD player, The 1920 was no match overall. The pioneer had a wider deeper soundstage and greater detail. The Denon is a good player for what it is. An entry level DVD/SACD universal player with DD/DTS 5.1 analog audio control/outputs and HDMI video. I believe Denon had 3 better models then this in 2005.
 
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SPL db said:
My main player is my Meridian 508.24 that I recently had refurbished by a retired Meridian engineer that now runs his own shop.
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Hi I have the same unit - it has reading problem with some CD's - can u please share the contact of the Ex Meridian technician ? Thx!
 
Sanyo DAD M15
Akai CD-D1
Studer A 727
Sony CDP 295
Rotel RCD-991
Tascam CD-RW750
Tascam CD-RW2000
Denon CDR W1500
NAD S500
Sony BDP 7200
Pioneer CLD 2850

oh my.. never realized... I've got that many o_O
 
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