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Why are CD Players so uninteresting?

'Tables are lovely to look at for the most, and are very engaging. Everything is happening out in the open, there is a definite connection there.
However, for me, someone who really grew while CD matured, well I watched the players, then transports become more and more like an art form in the top end. Some even had display windows both in the beginning and later models.
These handsome and occasionally monolithic spinners give me the same sense of connectivity, even if the fun is all inside. Look at the Wadia I put up an image of. It's a pretty fantastic looking piece of industrial design.
 
The ugly duckling PS1 sounds great but with the right mods can become more than interesting.

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Djcoolray said:
Once you find a phenomenal sounding CD player it's hard to replace it with something that sounds like it is lacking in sound stage and depth !

And I've been looking....
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I recently bought a Marantz 72U, and it exactly that! Excellent sounding, terrific dimension and bass, not at all clinical or harsh sounding like my past players. More analog and warm. Also, when this was new, was way more expensive than the Technics players I've had. This proved to me that you get what you pay for. I was truly amazed at the improvement in sound from this player.
 
DaveVoorhis said:
Likewise, there's a lingering nostalgic fondness for kerosene lanterns. Unlike kerosene lanterns -- which actually make a bit of sense if the power fails -- there is no compelling reason for turntables to exist. Digital media offers equal or better quality at lower cost, so the only reason to continue producing vinyl records and turntables is for the limited and dubious pleasure of watching plastic spin. Once the aging generation of vinyl-only proponents die off, and the hipsters shuffle on to some new passing fancy, and all vinyl records of historical interest have been digitally copied, there'll only be a handful of historians who will rightfully preserve them in museums and private collections for the interest and amusement of future generations, along with -- and just as popular as -- horseless carriages, flintlock pistols, and brass spitoons.
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Perfectly understand your point, but the only part you for got to take into account was one enthusiast inspiring another newbie. The medium and the equipment it involves draws enthusiasts just like a flame draws a moth because of the practical hands on involvement based upon the necessity to maintain the equipment. The fact that they don't have to will never be relevant due to the stimulation provided by the medium and the band plays on.....

Just another medium....
 
I like cd players a lot. It's my primary format. The media is cheap and plentiful and less fussy than vinyl. I can detect differences in players pretty easily. It took a long time to find but my philips CD80 is great.
 
I have to admit, my cd player is very uninteresting. Doesn't even have a drawer you can make go in and out from your armchair.

Then I push Play...
 
GD70 said:
I recently bought a Marantz 72U, and it exactly that! Excellent sounding, terrific dimension and bass, not at all clinical or harsh sounding like my past players. More analog and warm. Also, when this was new, was way more expensive than the Technics players I've had. This proved to me that you get what you pay for. I was truly amazed at the improvement in sound from this player.
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Exactly my experience when I recently picked up this gem.PD-65.jpg
 
BilboBaggins said:
i was thinking tonight about my gear, and in my collection, I have a Denon CD player in my reference system that is starting to go wonky. My thought is to replace it with one of the other units I have accumulated over the years. And then I thought, none of them are beautiful. They are all BPC! My other system is beautiful, and then off in the corner and mostly out of sight are my cassette player and my pioneer 6 slot cassette CD player. Again, uninteresting.

I'm hoping that the response to my title is an introduction to beautiful CD players including photos!

Please?
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Well no offense but you must have seen something in them to purchase them.

As far as cool CDP's, here's a not great picture of my Sony XA7ES. It doesn't get a lot of use these days, sadly.

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GD70 said:
The Phillips are Marantz are basically the same excellent players. :beerchug:
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Correct. In most markets it was badged as a marantz and it shares a lot in common with your player. A major difference is yours is a tiny bit newer and uses the bitstream dac and mine uses the old tda1541. I like them both.
 
CD players are uninteresting because the very nature of what they are and how they work largely prevents them from being a potential bottleneck, and does not allow for much difference in functionality between units. Obviously there are multi-disc players and things of that nature, but it isn't like Vinyl where a better unit has the possibility of actually reading more data from the media. Digital files are all or nothing. Either 100% of the file is being read correctly or something is broken. There is never a situation where two correctly functioning units will read different information from two identical discs... so what exactly do you think you are getting from a more expensive unit?

Many players have built-in DACs but that is not directly related to the reading of the disc in any way, and many people these days simply use external DACs that aren't pointlessly tied to any one device. If you like your CD player due to the DAC that it has built-in, that's more than fine, but don't be under any illusion that that has anything to do with the reading of the CD.

Functionality such as auto disc switching on things like multi-disc players can be easily eclipsed by simply having a media server computer with every single one of your songs on it, bit for bit identical to what is stored on the CDs, sending digital output to a DAC just the same as a CD player would. A CD is just a pointless container now, and there have been better ways to store that data for well over a decade now.
 
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