Help me choose a CD Player

[STROP]

Was over at my brothers place recently and was streaming Apple music from my Iphone to  his blue tooth speaker...very enjoyable listening to J J cale, Morning of the Earth soundtrack, etc etc..even streamed Led  Zepp.. Battle of Evermore sitting outside eating  to background music.Having a great time.

But...my brother is into vinyl records and wants everyone to come inside and sit down to critical listening to a record and no human being can speak, this is not party time ...

What can I do?

[Honreekea]

4 hours ago, rockeater said:

Overall, Marantz has been a brand name only for decades.
As far as CD players are concerned, it was Philips who owned it in the 80s.

Ibecause when they are new they work, and there is no demand.
When they stop working, they are no longer in production and you cannot order new ones.

 

Can you comment on this laser

https://www.donberg-electronics.com/catalogue/laser_units_cd_dvd/hop_1200r.html

I need to replace the laser ( again) in my Marantz SA-15S1.

 

thanks

[rockeater]

Donberg are a good supplier and have good range.

Once I made an order for half dozen Sanyo pick ups and one among them was faulty and one was clearly second-hand and they sorted it out promptly. Maybe because they knew that I wouldn't jerk them around, but still.

Buy from them with confidence.. This should be a direct replacement for your machine.

[doogie44]

15 hours ago, David A said:

I haven't bought into streaming at all, as I think it's 'soulless'. I much prefer to own the media, be able to enjoy the album art, read the liner notes and interact with my cd player. I also think in most cases physical media sounds better than streaming.

Yes, I thought this for years. Until I heard what a really good (and fairly expensive) streamer and DAC could do! [Auralic G1 and Denafrips Pontus 2). Then I realised I had been listening previously to relatively poor quality digital reproduction which I regarded as good enough. 

 

My daughter has a much cheaper Wiim Pro Plus streamer and an iFi Nano DAC. It's a pretty good combo into her small system: Cambridge amp and Acoustic Energy AE1 speakers + REL T5i!

 

Fast foward 2 years. I play my CDs infrequently--and this is mostly because of the fantastic convenience and quality of the same recordings on Qobuz. Yes, it can sometimes be all about which recording you are listening to from the streaming catalogue. The liner notes or edit notes about albums are adequate but not as much fun as physical media. I do gaze wistfully at the large boxes of CDs I have accumulated while playing music. Then I find myself back traversing the wide expanse of music--and new music--in the Qobuz catalogue...

 

The Qobuz catalogue must be the best value for money proposition ever for a music lover.

 

But I'm keeping my Audionote CD2 player...some great recordings are better represented on CD titles IMO.

 

My 2c worth

 

 

[Honreekea]

6 hours ago, rockeater said:

Donberg are a good supplier and have good range.

Once I made an order for half dozen Sanyo pick ups and one among them was faulty and one was clearly second-hand and they sorted it out promptly. Maybe because they knew that I wouldn't jerk them around, but still.

Buy from them with confidence.. This should be a direct replacement for your machine.

Thanks.  This will be the 3rd laser I'm replacing in the Marantz.  The first one from them only lasted 18mths or so.  Hopefully this replacement will keep going longer.  cheers

Edited September 17, 2024 by Honreekea

[crisis]

17 hours ago, David A said:

I haven't bought into streaming at all, as I think it's 'soulless'. I much prefer to own the media, be able to enjoy the album art, read the liner notes and interact with my cd player. I also think in most cases physical media sounds better than streaming. And as you elluded to, streaming services randomly delete albums. And those services periodically crash and go down altogether during internet outages. Then there is the privacy aspect which is another rabbit hole. My 2c.

 

I was lucky enough to secure a demo Primare CD35 with Prisma (streaming) at a discounted price. It is a fabulous CD player and that is the main use as I have a fair collection of CDs that I’ve accumulated over 40 years or so. Also still snapping up bargains while everyone gets gouged on vinyl.

As far as streaming, I use Spotify at its best quality (whatever that is). For my purposes it suffices. I use it to listen to new music that if I really like I buy a CD. I also use it for a bit of background and for music I’m not really going to play enough for a CD.

I tried TIDAL as a free offer and didn’t hear enough of an improvement over Spotify to justify another monthly bill. That may be different now as I have made some significant upgrades to my system and room since, however I find myself playing my favourite CDs and records so much that I would still probably not justify the extra expense.

I wouldn’t knock streaming at all though. If anyone asked me what turntable to buy and they had no records I would immediately tell them to save their money, and grief, and go directly to streaming. Given the cost of “vinyl” they could buy an excellent streamer (or CD35 with Prisma) for the cost of a 100 records.

[POV]

19 hours ago, David A said:

I haven't bought into streaming at all, as I think it's 'soulless'. I much prefer to own the media, be able to enjoy the album art, read the liner notes and interact with my cd player. I also think in most cases physical media sounds better than streaming. And as you elluded to, streaming services randomly delete albums. And those services periodically crash and go down altogether during internet outages. Then there is the privacy aspect which is another rabbit hole. My 2c.

 

 

As always, it doesn't need to be either/or unless folks are seriouslly budget limited which you are clearly not!  Combining network streaming with physical media is a total winner, particulalry if you enjoy discovering new music which I absolutely love.  Internet Radio, Streaming Services, and Roon Radio are a total game changer in terms of musical enjoyment and musical discovery.  Then once discovered you can shop to your hearts content for music, merch and concert tickets.

 

With regards 'soul' and interaction, my personal take is there is no better interaction with album and artist than via Roon and I find this more engaging than physical album art from either CDs or VInyl (and yes I have both!)

[David A]

7 hours ago, doogie44 said:

Yes, I thought this for years. Until I heard what a really good (and fairly expensive) streamer and DAC could do! [Auralic G1 and Denafrips Pontus 2). Then I realised I had been listening previously to relatively poor quality digital reproduction which I regarded as good enough. 

 

My daughter has a much cheaper Wiim Pro Plus streamer and an iFi Nano DAC. It's a pretty good combo into her small system: Cambridge amp and Acoustic Energy AE1 speakers + REL T5i!

 

Fast foward 2 years. I play my CDs infrequently--and this is mostly because of the fantastic convenience and quality of the same recordings on Qobuz. Yes, it can sometimes be all about which recording you are listening to from the streaming catalogue. The liner notes or edit notes about albums are adequate but not as much fun as physical media. I do gaze wistfully at the large boxes of CDs I have accumulated while playing music. Then I find myself back traversing the wide expanse of music--and new music--in the Qobuz catalogue...

 

The Qobuz catalogue must be the best value for money proposition ever for a music lover.

 

But I'm keeping my Audionote CD2 player...some great recordings are better represented on CD titles IMO.

 

My 2c worth

 

 

You're commenting purely on the sound. You can argue till the cows come home that a/ server/streamer/dac sounds better than b/ cd player. But to me, there is another important element to playing music. And that is the tactile feel of handling the physical media and interacting with your player ... in my case, cd player. Much like the difference between driving a manual transmission vs auto.

 

As for streaming services like Qobuz, each to their own. But I find compelling reasons not to jump on that bandwagon.

 

My next player will be a CH Precision D1.5 sacd player with dual mono dac boards. I'm fairly confident it would take a very good server/streamer/dac to beat it.

 

Ps: I've always found AN cd players to be musical sounding.

[David A]

3 hours ago, POV said:

 

As always, it doesn't need to be either/or unless folks are seriouslly budget limited which you are clearly not!  Combining network streaming with physical media is a total winner, particulalry if you enjoy discovering new music which I absolutely love.  Internet Radio, Streaming Services, and Roon Radio are a total game changer in terms of musical enjoyment and musical discovery.  Then once discovered you can shop to your hearts content for music, merch and concert tickets.

 

With regards 'soul' and interaction, my personal take is there is no better interaction with album and artist than via Roon and I find this more engaging than physical album art from either CDs or VInyl (and yes I have both!)

I listen to Internet and DAB+ radio regularly for background listening/musical discovery. But streaming services can pay me if they want me to hand over my metadata for them to on-sell to mega corporations. For me, physical media is King and always will be.

[Craigandkim]

18 minutes ago, David A said:

For me, physical media is King and always will be.

And you can hunt down preferred masterings of your favourite albums...not sure you can do this with streaming services?

[thoglette]

And for something not entirely different: what about a small format CD?  Pro-ject CD DS box is the obvious choice but is there anything else out there? (This is for bedroom use and the power-supply-with-weird-connector  for my pre-Ark Panasonic SL-SX220 has died)

 

Staying somewhat closer to topic: my existing Rotel RCD-02 refuses to play certain CDs, so I am assuming the laser is on the way out.  Is that a reasonable assumption ? (a.k.a. an excuse to splash out on Diamond series DT-6000?)

[rockeater]

5 hours ago, thoglette said:

what about a small format CD?

Mission / Cyrus comes to mind.

Many people favour their sound. Never had to service one, so they must be reasonably reliable.

5 hours ago, thoglette said:

Rotel RCD-02 refuses to play certain CDs, so I am assuming the laser is on the way out.  Is that a reasonable assumption ?

It uses the cheapest laser you could get, Sony KSS-213C, so it is either that or the servo capacitors are beginning to fail.

If a particular CD does not play when the player is first turned on, but will play after half hour, it is most likely electronic fault with the servo.

[betty boop]

3 hours ago, rockeater said:

Mission / Cyrus comes to mind.

Many people favour their sound. Never had to service one, so they must be reasonably reliable.

 

are you seriously joking on this point ? 

 

they are probably THE most unreliable disc player brands i can think of i am sorry to say. wouldn't touch with a barge pole ! 

[POV]

2 hours ago, betty boop said:

 

are you seriously joking on this point ? 

 

they are probably THE most unreliable disc player brands i can think of i am sorry to say. wouldn't touch with a barge pole ! 

Have to agree, I know tons of folks that have had issues with Cyrus transports and players.  I thought it was generally accepted that Cyrus stuff sounds great but has reliability issues.

[Peter_F]

6 hours ago, rockeater said:

Mission / Cyrus comes to mind.

Many people favour their sound. Never had to service one, so they must be reasonably reliable.

 

 

2 hours ago, betty boop said:

 

are you seriously joking on this point ? 

 

they are probably THE most unreliable disc player brands i can think of i am sorry to say. wouldn't touch with a barge pole ! 

 

25 minutes ago, POV said:

Have to agree, I know tons of folks that have had issues with Cyrus transports and players.  I thought it was generally accepted that Cyrus stuff sounds great but has reliability issues.

 

Indeed they do sound great, but suffer chronic software issues and the diabolical, unreliable slot loading transport. 

[betty boop]

its rather sad really... its lovely gear, below is one i had .. ended up needing new transport just out of warranty.. i have never ever in 3 decades of owning disc players need to pop in a new transport in any player and have owned ones from all sorts... 

 

found out then the cyrus players are a tragedy  ! 

 

 

my old musical fidelity x-ray on other had from 90s ! seems to still keep going .... 

 

[crisis]

2 hours ago, betty boop said:

 

are you seriously joking on this point ? 

 

they are probably THE most unreliable disc player brands i can think of i am sorry to say. wouldn't touch with a barge pole ! 

Never had a Cyrus product but that is primarily due to negative feedback I’ve read about their reliability. A Cyrus Amp and CD player were definitely on my radar when I started looking at building y system 7 (!!!!) years back but after doing what many people describe as “research” (which is web search) found too many complaints about their CD players. I’m sure it’s not universal but I didn’t want to drop 3 or so grand on something that I would always need repaired.

[Steever]

21 minutes ago, betty boop said:

its rather sad really... its lovely gear, below is one i had .. ended up needing new transport just out of warranty.. i have never ever in 3 decades of owning disc players need to pop in a new transport in any player and have owned ones from all sorts... 

 

found out then the cyrus players are a tragedy  ! 

 

 

I've wanted to still have music when the www fails because of The Fall (and because I have a collection of CDs and they're cheap to buy) so I wanted to add a cd player to my system. Being a Cyrus tragic, I purchased, used, one of the newer SE2 transports fully aware of the "issues" many owners experience. I'll probably kick myself later if/when it faults but for now, it sounds marvellous. I know several techs who can service them if the need arises.

 

I do have a back up; an original Mission DAD7000 from 1986. It has its original Philips laser still and is still going strong.

Edited September 19, 2024 by Steever

[betty boop]

12 minutes ago, Steever said:

I've wanted to still have music when the www fails because of The Fall (and because I have a collection of CDs and they're cheap to buy) so I wanted to add a cd player to my system. Being a Cyrus tragic, I purchased, used, one of the newer SE2 transports fully aware of the "issues" many owners experience. I'll probably kick myself later if/when it faults but for now, it sounds marvellous. I know several techs who can service them if the need arises.

lovely sounding. mine was older 8x, some articles around eg below

 

https://supersynthprojects.com/projects/cyrus-cd8x-repair/

 

when contacted the importer basically got gist they were not worth repairing even though a flagship model at time.. no doubt due to littany of issues possible... ended up upselling me on a cdi which worked fine.. not sure if has the new se2 transport .. but i ended up moving on from that with the bad taste left..

 

19 minutes ago, crisis said:

Never had a Cyrus product but that is primarily due to negative feedback I’ve read about their reliability. A Cyrus Amp and CD player were definitely on my radar when I started looking at building y system 7 (!!!!) years back but after doing what many people describe as “research” (which is web search) found too many complaints about their CD players. I’m sure it’s not universal but I didn’t want to drop 3 or so grand on something that I would always need repaired.

never had problem with the amp to be honest... but moved that on too once the cyrus player was gone and went back to my old mf x-a1 integrated was better in this system to my ears...

 

15 minutes ago, Steever said:

do have a back up; an original Mission DAD7000 from 1986. It has its original Philips laser still and is still going strong.

some of these old things are very well made ..and testament given still going all these years later

[Steever]

1 hour ago, betty boop said:

when contacted the importer basically got gist they were not worth repairing even though a flagship model at time.. no doubt due to littany of issues possible...

I don't really like naming and shaming but if that was Indi Imports, the previous importer, I'm not surprised. I called them about an X Power amplifier not coming out of standby. I was informed over the phone it required a complete new board at over $1k or a new amp at a slightly discounted rate.

I ended up finding Tim at Tuned In Audio in Sydney who rolled his eyes so hard I could hear it down the phone line. Since then, he's taken care of anything I've needed done at much more reasonable rates.

Edited September 19, 2024 by Steever

[betty boop]

24 minutes ago, Steever said:

don't really like naming and shaming but if that was Indi Audio, the previous importer, I'm not surprised. I called them about an X Power amplifier not coming out of standby. I was informed over the phone it required a complete new board at over $1k or a new amp at a slightly discounted rate.

I ended up finding Tim at Tuned In Audio in Sydney who rolled his eyes so hard I could hear it down the phone line. Since then, he's taken care of anything I've needed done at much more reasonable rates

it was one before steever and they i believe are no more.. not suprised... 

 

hopefully cyrus are having a better run now  

[rockeater]

6 hours ago, betty boop said:

10 hours ago, rockeater said:

Mission / Cyrus comes to mind.

Many people favour their sound. Never had to service one, so they must be reasonably reliable.

 

are you seriously joking on this point ? 

 

they are probably THE most unreliable disc player brands i can think of i am sorry to say. wouldn't touch with a barge pole ! 

I was serious but obviously wrong.

I was asked to fix one, but looking at their small size (which means densely packed interior) and having too much on my plate already, I decided to decline.

Maybe I'll have a look at the next one, just to see what's inside and their build quality.

Cyrus mostly have the cheapest mech (CDM-12). Slot loading is indeed a bad karma.

Thanks guys for letting me know.

[betty boop]

1 hour ago, rockeater said:

was asked to fix one, but looking at their small size (which means densely packed interior) and having too much on my plate already, I decided to decline.

Maybe I'll have a look at the next one, just to see what's inside and their build quality.

Cyrus mostly have the cheapest mech (CDM-12). Slot loading is indeed a bad karma.

Thanks guys for letting me know.

 

the article I earlier quoted has a few photos of internals ... might give some ideas of the insides and build etc ... 

https://supersynthprojects.com/projects/cyrus-cd8x-repair/

 

hopefully something has progressed with these over the years... 

[rockeater]

5 hours ago, betty boop said:

the article I earlier quoted has a few photos of internals ... might give some ideas of the insides and build etc ... 

Thanks for this.

Very well written and researched article

Edited September 19, 2024 by rockeater

[Grimmie]

Here's a small format CD player that has worked flawlessly since 2008 (touch wood) Bel Canto CD2