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Which CD Player

UncleDave

UncleDave

New Member
I have to replace my Cambridge Audio 640C CD player. It has been repaired once and I am officially giving up on it. What players would you folks recommend. I am in the $1,000 to $2,000 price range. Two that have caught my eye are the DECWARE ZCD-200 and the REGA SATURN. Does anyone have any experience with either of these?
 
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I have 2 Rega Planet CDP's. While I'm a Revox guy myself, I like the Rega because it sounds good and uses a very common, off the shelf sony pickup. So fixing them is a breeze. And it SHOULD be, for the money some of these CDP's cost. I think the Rega is a good player for the money.
 
Uncle - I posted this a few weeks ago, as I went through the same thing you're going through with a dead CDP. I ended up with the Apollo, the Saturn might be that much better.

I copied and pasted what I wrote back then:
My 12+ year old Arcam Alpha 8SE just died on me a few weeks ago so I went CDP shopping. I considered all that you seem to be thinking about, then decided to buy 1 more CD Player for the rest of my life.
This is my 2 cents. The rest of my system is a single ended 2A3 amp and Klipsch KHorns.
I can comment on Primare CD21, Music Hall CD25.2, Arcam Alpha 8SE, Rega Apollo (the one I ended up with). All of these were in my room in my system for at least 1 week while I evaluated which way I wanted to go.

MH CD25.2 - For the money ($350 new), the Music Hall was best by far IMO. Great bass, detail, slam. Very nice except that in my system, any glare in the upper midrange is death (Klipsch Horns), and the CD25.2 had a little too much for me. Other systems would probably be a great fit - It's selling for a great price at Music Direct. I recommend this to pretty much anyone but me, or anyone with a similar system.

Primare CD21 ($1300 new) - Nice and laid back, a bit shy on detail (at least in my system). I sold it when I found the Alpha 8SE.

Arcam Alpha 8SE (used ~ $200) - Very nice player, great detail and musicality (Is that a word?). Music flowed nicely, very little digital crud. It's dead, traded in on the Rega Cash for Clunkers deal.

Rega Apollo ($850 new if you act fast and get in on the "Cash for Clunkers" deal) - Musical. Musical. Musical. No digital glare at all, not quite the bass and slam as the MH, but music just flows from this player. Good detail as well, seems to extract the most out of what's on the disc. The top-loading deal is pretty cool, too. Like playing a record.

Hope this helps
 
Just a thought - why not consider an SACD player? I replaced my Cambridge 540c with a Marantz SA8003 and never looked back. Its immediate predecessor, the SA8001, was exceptionally well reviewed...

Sounds great with CDs, and as a bonus plays SACDs(whihc I have recenlty really started to dig almost as much as my vinyl)...

Just a thought. Good luck. Any of the options discussed would be quite nice.

Cheers,
 
I have a Rega Saturn and absolutely love it. I had a couple of good players including the Apollo and the Apolo but the Saturn does everything right to my ears. I would also consider Naim players as they are excellent as well.
 
I second the SACD option - sounds way better than regular CD, and you can get them for about the same price on the Amazon.

We should all make the jump - better sooner than later, and start collecting the better stuff.
 
Problem is that not everything we like is available on SACD. Many better titles are now scarce collectibles. And most of these combo players don't give very good Redbook playback. And they're slow loading discs. I like SACD and wish the medium had succeeded, but it is only a niche medium.
 
To answer Dr*Audio, the 640C will not read the disks. It tries but then displays "no play". Still looking at all the alternatives.
 
KentTeffeteller said:
Problem is that not everything we like is available on SACD. Many better titles are now scarce collectibles. And most of these combo players don't give very good Redbook playback. And they're slow loading discs. I like SACD and wish the medium had succeeded, but it is only a niche medium.
Click to expand...

You're right, at this point it's basically a medium for new classical music releases. Now, in my case, that would be great, and possibly enough to justify buying a good SACD player just for that, but I suspect the vast majority of people wouldn't be down with it.
 
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