Your Preferred CD Player

[howard.zinman]

Do you have one? I am in the market for a new player. Thanks!

[jazzbo]

I've gone a transport to DAC route for over a decade but I have two friends who two years ago each bought a new cd player they were very happy with.

One: https://www.audioadvisor.com/prnt-macd6007?sku=NEW-MACD6007

a review: https://www.whathifi.com/reviews/marantz-cd6007

The other: https://www.audioadvisor.com/prnt-nac538?sku=NEW-NAC538

a review: https://www.whathifi.com/reviews/nad-c-538

Edited 22 hours ago by jazzbo

[Dub Modal]

17 hours ago, jazzbo said:

a transport to DAC route for over a decade

Does this route play redbook, sacds, etc? 

[jazzbo]

Yes, I am using a PS Audio transport and a PS Audio DAC and they have purchased the right to pass the transport spun raw DSD files from SACD via HDMI to the DAC. Can also play files from a stick (I don't do that). 

[Dub Modal]

2 minutes ago, jazzbo said:

Yes, I am using a PS Audio transport and a PS Audio DAC and they have purchased the right to pass the transport spun raw DSD files from SACD via HDMI to the DAC. Can also play files from a stick (I don't do that). 

Nice. Thank you. My CD player has likely gone kaput so I'll be pricing options in the near future and will check this out. 

[Kevin Bresnahan]

If I were in the market for a straight-up player, I would likely look at Marantz or NAD like Lon recommended earlier. I wish Oppo Digital didn't exit the business. Their players were great bang-for-the-buck.

I personally think a transport and an external DAC is a solution looking for a problem. Most of the claims of improvement using this type of set-up revolve around jitter, which is proven to be 1) not a problem with almost any CD player made and 2) not audible even if it is really really bad.

[jazzbo]

Kevin, I have had many cd players. . . the sound of my Transport and DAC together is MUCH better. There are so many more factors besides "jitter." Of course the combo is more than many would spend for an entire system, so they should be.

Edited 1 hour ago by jazzbo

[Kevin Bresnahan]

As I've told many people when I'm asked about stuff like this, try both side by side and see for yourself. I'd never stop someone from buying anything they like. We're all different.

Personally, I have heard several transport/DAC set-ups recently. One had a very expensive DAC. That system had an NAD CD player in the system as well. We went back & forth between the two playback systems and we just couldn't hear any differences. No change in the highs or lows and certainly no change in the noise levels. To our ears, there was no difference. As I've said before, this is a good thing to me, because it saves me a bunch of money by not forcing me to upgrade.  

To be honest, back in the days when my hearing was much better, I sampled a lot of CD players, probably close to a hundred players, and I was never able to tell much difference between any of them. There were stereo shops where I would compare CD player to CD player to CD player with the same CD with no discernible differences. I expected this because digital audio kinda works that way. The 1's and 0's get converted to analog and unless the player has a really shitty DAC, and I've yet to hear one that does, it will sound pretty much the same. The identical set of 1's and 0's simply cannot change the frequency response through a different DAC. Error correction can be improved, but error correction doesn't mess with the audio frequencies. Poor error correction just adds noise.