Yamaha CD-S303

[The Shocker]

Yamaha’s newest CD player is the CD-S303. It retails for around $340, and is a dedicated CD player. Thinking that high quality CD players that are reasonably priced are going to become rarer and rarer, I thought getting one of these now might be a good idea.

Then I began watching reviews, This thing costs $399 and it DOES NOT support gapless playback.

Guess I am going to stick with my vintage CD players for now. “Back in the day,” even the cheapest CD players did gapless playback. Even the old DVD players I own, will play CDs gaplessly.

I don’t understand how you can release a brand new CD player in 2021 and it doesn’t support gapless playback.

What’s even stranger is that CD-S303 replaces the CD-S300, which DOES do gapless playback.

https://usa.yamaha.com/products/audio_visual/hifi_components/cd-s303/index.html

 

[lini]

T_S: How precise were those reviews in that regard? Shall mean, I could imagine, that the non-gapless playback merely refers to media other than regular audio CDs (= Red-Book-compliant CD-DA).

Greetings from Munich!

Manfred / lini

 

[cpt_paranoia]

Redbook CD is inherently gapless, since the digital stream is continuous.

They must be doing something strange to insert gaps; maybe it's more like a CD ripper. Or always uses a 'programmed playback order', with a default running order, so after one track finishes, it does a seek to the next programmed track, rather than simply continuing.

Are you sure reviewers were using Redbook CDs, not some file-based disc, or burned CDR?

 

[The Shocker]

T_S: How precise were those reviews in that regard? Shall mean, I could imagine, that the non-gapless playback merely refers to media other than regular audio CDs (= Red-Book-compliant CD-DA).

Greetings from Munich!

Manfred / lini

The reviewer said he put his Dark Side of the Moon CD in and there were gaps between all the songs.

 

[The Shocker]

Redbook CD is inherently gapless, since the digital stream is continuous.

They must be doing something strange to insert gaps; maybe it's more like a CD ripper. Or always uses a 'programmed playback order', with a default running order, so after one track finishes, it does a seek to the next programmed track, rather than simply continuing.

Are you sure reviewers were using Redbook CDs, not some file-based disc, or burned CDR?

If the CD player has anti-skip technology, then it would read a track and cache it. That could introduce gaps.

 

[lini]

If the CD player has anti-skip technology, then it would read a track and cache it. That could introduce gaps.

Don't think so. Not only, as an anti-skip buffer would be a rather unusual feature for a model for home use (*), but also because I don't think, that there has been much further development of anti-skip chips/chip-sets for CD playback since the early 00s, when the PCDPs with anti-skip memory typically featured a buffer capacity of 10 seconds (non lossy).

Greetings from Munich!

Manfred / lini

*) Which of course isn't supposed to mean, that this Yamaha wouldn't contain some sort of buffer - but probably just as much as necessary for unpacking the data blocks of the compressed formats, that it can additionally handle.

 

[The Shocker]

Don't think so. Not only, as an anti-skip buffer would be a rather unusual feature for a model for home use (*), but also because I don't think, that there has been much further development of anti-skip chips/chip-sets for CD playback since the early 00s, when the PCDPs with anti-skip memory typically featured a buffer capacity of 10 seconds (non lossy).

Greetings from Munich!

Manfred / lini

*) Which of course isn't supposed to mean, that this Yamaha wouldn't contain some sort of buffer - but probably just as much as necessary for unpacking the data blocks of the compressed formats, that it can additionally handle.

At this point, I would think that a lot of CD player components are standardized. I could be wrong, but I would think that buffering/anti-skip technology might just be standard on any CD player now, because they all use the same board.

Do my homework on this player, I am seeing very mixed messages. Some people on various other forums say that is does do gapless playback, but only for CDs, and not USB. And in those same threads, people are claiming they own the player and they're getting gaps on gapless albums such as Dark Side of the Moon.

I guess I won't know the truth without actually trying one out. Since a have a mountain of vintage CD players, I don't see myself getting this one any time soon.

 

[Adaboy5]

I just purchased this CD player from Goodwill auction like new in the box and playback is continuous. It plays just as good as my 35 year old player, but with modern features. Hopefully yours is just as good!

 

[Trystero]

I just wrote an answer in another discussion about the CD Player Yamaha S-303

https://audiokarma.org/forums/index...ant-do-gapless-playback.1047487/post-17117772

Resume:
When I purchased it two years ago it had an issue, if I started playing a CD with continuous music (live, classical, medleys...) from tracks different than track 1 the player inserted gaps where there should not be, but I did a firmware update and then everything worked perfectly. Now there is a more recent firmware: https://it.yamaha.com/it/support/updates/cd-s303_cd-s303rk.html

 

[psylocyber]

Hey,
I know nobody will probably even read this now, but I am also considering buying an s-303. They have gone up $100 since the OP.
What I find amazing about this player, and what's missing in every other player I've looked at under $1500 (which admittedly is not very many, mostly Crutchfield and Amazon): Supposedly, it can play FLAC files, not only from it's USB port, but also from the CD. Does anyone else know of a comparable CD player (old or new) that does that?
Because I've also read mixed reviews on it's musicality. Nothing really negative, but nothing overwhelmingly positive either. One of the main reasons I want another CD player is they are one of the few devices that occasionally offer a USB input for digital files. I'm perplexed at why CD players that can decode FLAC from the USB, can't decode FLAC from the CD. Isn't it decoded in the dac?
Thanks

I think I might re-post this as a new thread because I am really curious and I do want to make a purchase while I still can.