Kyocera DA-910 CD player Specifications

Sidebar 2: Specifications

Description: CD player with remote control.
Dimensions: 17" W by 13" D by 5.5" H. Weight: 22 lbs.
Price: $1600 (1985); no longer available (2014).
Manufacturer: Kyocera International, Inc. (1985). Company no longer involved in audio equipment manufacture (2014).

COMMENTS
junker's picture

On the dawn of high-res downloads from Apple and lossless streaming from Pandora, farewell sweet Prince. It was good while it lasted but you just keep spinning me around and around. I have needs that are more than physical.

 

Good-bye Compact Disc...

volvic's picture

I remember when they came out, they were expensive but oh so beautifully built.  Still fetch top $ on ebay these days.  Holt was right, CD did more for hi-fi than I believe high res downloads ever will, and I have moved into computer audio myself, but still lament the decline of the physical CD and the plug and play aspect of the CD.  

Anon2's picture

I owned the lower-grade Kyocera DA-410cx CD player.  Its sound was excellent for the era.  The unit lasted exactly a decade before it finally gave out.

Kyocera's famed skills in ceramics found their way into the internal components of their now defunct CD players.  I do own a Kyocera paring knife today, complete with a ceramic blade.

As for CDs, I still have and listen to many of the CDs that I played on the Kyocera CD player. I have a DAC, mainly used for internet streaming, given the still very limited selection of downloads in the classical repertoire.  I will continue to listen to these CDs for many years to come.  I suspect that CD players on which to play this music will also continue to be available for many years to come.

Download services, as I have written in previous posts in Stereophile, have many years, perhaps decades, to build a repertoire to match that of CD recordings.  Many of these same CDs are available used on amazon.com, often for prices in which the shipping price exceeds the price of the CD.

Meanwhile the catalog of classical CDs continues to grow on arkivmusic and on amazon.com.  When one considers the used CDs available on amazon.com, the catalog has never been larger than it is today.

Computer audio will complement, but will not replace anytime in the foreseeable future, the same CDs that I still own and played on my late Kyocera CD player back in the late 1980s. 

Perhaps this weekend I will return to my first CD played on my old Kyocera CD player:  Bruckner's 9th Symphony with Bruno Walter with the Columbia Symphony Orchestra (LP fans will have this one too).  When I see this recording available for download in something other than mp3, then I'll reevaluate my point of view on the "demise of CDs."

tmsorosk's picture

Although I have many ways of listening to music I still prefer the CD format to all others . I still purchase a lot of disc's . 

attilahun's picture

I had the da-710cx and loved it. 

I still miss it. 

Amazing build quality, played scratched CDs with no problem and had good sound for the era. 

Always wondered what Kyocera would have made if they hung in the audio business. 

Great reprint. 

Herbert's picture

"It has a noticeably sweeter, easier, and more open high end than either the Sony or the other prior contender for best high end, the Nakamichi OMS-5."

The Nakamichi OMS5 / 7 and Kocera DA-910 are identical as well:

http://vintage-audio-laser.com/A-l-atelier-page-13

Love my Nak and still use it, an OMS-7Mark II, PCM56 based with true 16bit/four times oversampling whereas the OMS-5 / 7 and DA-910 were capable of only 14 bits (TDA1540)

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