CD Player/Transport Reviews

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CD Player/Transport Reviews
NuForce CDP-8 CD player
Wes Phillips  |  Nov 21, 2010  |  3 comments
"So, what are you reviewing these days?" my friend Mark e-mailed me recently.

"A CD player," I said.

"They're still making those?"

Yes—and better than ever, for the most part. But I understood Mark's confusion. When a "Vote!" question on the Stereophile website asked readers what digital source components they used, a surprising number responded that they did not, or hadn't bought a dedicated player in years. Topping the list were computers and universal players.

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CD Player/Transport Reviews
Sony CDP-XA7ES CD player
Thomas J. Norton  |  Aug 25, 2010  |  First Published: Nov 25, 1996  |  3 comments
It's conventional wisdom among audiophiles: Small, high-end audio companies build high-quality products in small numbers. Products which are often expensive. But not always. Big mass-market companies build cookie-cutter products in big numbers. They're usually cheap. But not always.
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Solid State Preamp ReviewsCD Player/Transport Reviews
Meridian 207 Pro CD player
Thomas J. Norton  |  Jul 26, 2010  |  First Published: Nov 26, 1988  |  0 comments
In a way, you could say that Meridian started the now epidemic practice of modifying stock CD players (usually of the Philips-Magnavox species). The original Meridian player, the MCD, was a reworking of the first-generation Philips and was praised by J. Gordon Holt in these pages in his 1985 review (Vol.8 No.2). The Meridian Pro (Vol.8 No.6) won similar plaudits, and is still to be seen lurking in JA's system. And the original 207 was well-received by MC in Vol.10 No.3.
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CD Player/Transport ReviewsAudacious Audio
California Audio Labs Tempest II CD player
Thomas J. Norton  |  Jul 26, 2010  |  First Published: Oct 26, 1988  |  0 comments
Snickering was heard from the major consumer electronics purveyors when California Audio Labs came out with the original Tempest, their first CD player using tube output stages. But not from the audiophile community. It was, all things considered, an inevitable product; I'm certainly not the only one who wondered—before the emergence of California Audio Labs—who would be the first to build such a unit. The obvious candidates were Audio Research or Conrad-Johnson. But those companies apparently read the audio tea-leaves and, perhaps perceiving the early high-end hostility toward the new format, apparently decided to bide their time. (With regards to tube players, they're still biding it, though C-J has had a prototype player up and running for some time.)
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CD Player/Transport ReviewsIntegrated Amp ReviewsDigital Processor Reviews
Naim Uniti CD player/receiver
Art Dudley  |  Mar 22, 2010  |  1 comments
In an industry whose newest products are often as discouragingly unaffordable as they are short of the sonic mark, the Naim Audio Uniti ($3795) stands out. In a single reasonably sized box, the Uniti combines the guts of Naim's Nait 5i integrated amplifier and CD5i CD player with various additional sources: an FM/DAB tuner, and interfaces for an iPod, a USB memory stick, an iRadio, and a UPnP-compatible connected computer or server—all for the price of a very good television set.
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CD Player/Transport Reviews
Naim NA CDS CD player
Robert Harley  |  Feb 08, 2010  |  First Published: Aug 08, 1992  |  0 comments
"A reasonable man adapts himself to the world around him. An unreasonable man expects the world to adapt to him. All progress, therefore, is made by unreasonable men."
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CD Player/Transport Reviews
California Audio Laboratories Aria Mk.III CD player
Thomas J. Norton  |  Dec 07, 2009  |  First Published: Jan 07, 1991  |  0 comments
The face was different, but the look was familiar. It should have been. The $2395 Aria Mk.III is a close cousin to the Aria II that I'd hung around with for about two years. Same sense of style, same heart of tubes. CAL Audio apparently made it what it is today, from the ground up. They even designed its transport and transport-drive circuitry in-house (footnote 1). In a high-end world which has gone increasingly to separate digital processors, CAL has been, up till now, a conspicuous holdout. They've only recently introduced their first outboard converter, and have in the past argued in favor of the all-in-one player. Something about reduced jitter from all the timing circuits being under one roof.
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CD Player/Transport ReviewsHi-Rez Disc Player/Transport ReviewsAudacious AudioDigital Processor Reviews
dCS Scarlatti SACD/CD playback system
Michael Fremer  |  Aug 18, 2009  |  0 comments
Is anyone in this economy shopping for a four-box, rack-swallowing, two-channel SACD/CD player contending for the state of the art and costing $79,996? dCS is betting that its Scarlatti will attract a small crowd of those wealthy music enthusiasts who, in any economy, reliably pony up for the best. For the rest of us, the Scarlatti will be a spectator sport.
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CD Player/Transport ReviewsDigital Processor ReviewsMedia Server ReviewsComputer Audio Reviews
T+A Music Player Media Streamer
Jon Iverson  |  Aug 14, 2009  |  0 comments
"Two years ago I discovered my latest guilty pleasure: Internet radio. As long as it's 192k or higher. My whole buying/download cycle had been reduced. The pleasure and savings have increased. If they succeed in killing Net radio, I'm done with the hobby."—Reader Peter DeBoer, in response to a recent Stereophile online poll.
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CD Player/Transport ReviewsHi-Rez Disc Player/Transport ReviewsAudacious Audio
Boulder 1021 disc player
John Atkinson  |  Jul 13, 2009  |  0 comments
As we approach the end of the 21st century's "oughts" decade, many feel that playing music from a discrete physical medium is positively 20th century. Much of my own music enjoyment now comes from computer files, often high-resolution, streamed to my high-end rig via a Logitech Transporter or Bel Canto USB Link 24/96. It is perhaps a paradox, therefore, that high-end audio companies are still devoting so much effort to developing expensive, state-of-the-art disc players. In April I very favorably reviewed Meridian's superb 808i.2 CD player–preamplifier, which costs $16,995 as reviewed, and Michael Fremer is about to review the ultimate Scarlatti SACD playback system from another English company, dCS. The $80,000 price tag of the Scarlatti makes the subject of my review this month, the Boulder 1021, seem relatively affordable at $24,000.
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CD Player/Transport ReviewsAudacious Audio
Esoteric P-2 CD transport
Robert Harley  |  Jun 08, 2009  |  First Published: Dec 08, 1990  |  0 comments
The whole idea that different CD transports have different sonic characteristics when driving the same digital-to-analog converter is a vexing problem. It is easy to prove that even the cheapest CD players recover the data stored on most CDs with bit-for-bit accuracy, thus disproving the widespread and erroneous belief that errors in the digital code are commonplace and affect presentation aspects such as imaging, soundstage depth, textural liquidity, etc (footnote 1). If the datastream driving the digital converter is comprised of the same sequence of ones and zeros, regardless of the transport, what other factors could account for the sonic differences between CD drives reported by many listeners?
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CD Player/Transport ReviewsAudacious AudioDigital Processor Reviews
Meridian 808.2/808i.2 Signature Reference CD player/preamplifier
John Atkinson  |  Apr 13, 2009  |  0 comments
It's been a while since I auditioned a Meridian CD player in my system. I had enthusiastically reviewed the English company's groundbreaking Pro-MCD player in early 1986, and over the years had kept up with the progress they were making in digital playback, either through my own reviews or by performing the measurements to accompany reviews by other Stereophile writers. The 508-24 player, reviewed by Wes Phillips in May 1998, was one of the finest digital products of the 1990s, I thought. But when Meridian began promoting surround sound and DVD-Audio at the turn of the century, their goals became somewhat incompatible with my own. Yes, I can appreciate what surround playback can do, but my own musical life is still solidly rooted in Two-Channel Land.
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CD Player/Transport Reviews
Krell KPS-20i CD player
Robert Harley  |  Apr 03, 2009  |  First Published: Apr 03, 1995  |  0 comments
The Krell KPS-20i (KPS stands for "Krell Playback System") is essentially a CD transport and digital processor in one chassis. What make the KPS-20i different from a CD player are the unit's five digital inputs, which allow the KPS-20i to function as a digital/analog converter for external digital sources.
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CD Player/Transport Reviews
Bryston BCD-1 CD player
Larry Greenhill  |  Feb 12, 2009  |  0 comments
Bryston's first CD player, the $2695 BCD-1, is a drawer-loading player with a front panel of polished aluminum. The slim disc drawer, engraved with the Bryston logo, sits in the panel's center. To the drawer's left are an infrared sensor and Open/Close button, then a two-line, 16-character alphanumeric display. To the drawer's right are the usual transport controls and a power On/Off button. All of these functions are also accessible via the BCD-1's remote control, as well as two more: Back and Forward. Hold down either and the player moves through the selected track at several times normal speed until the button is released.
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CD Player/Transport Reviews
PrimaLuna ProLogue Eight CD player
John Atkinson, Fred Kaplan  |  Jul 27, 2008  |  0 comments
There's a retro, Heathkit vibe to the curiously capitalized PrimaLuna ProLogue Eight CD player: a shelf of glowing tubes and a chunky transformer case perched atop a plain black chassis. But on closer inspection, it seems there's much more going on here. The chassis is made of heavy-gauge steel, with (according to the manual) a "five-coat, high-gloss, automotive finish," each coating hand-rubbed and -polished. The tube sockets are ceramic, the output jacks gold-plated. Inside, separate toroidal transformers power each channel. Custom-designed isolation transformers separate the analog and digital devices, to reduce noise. The power supply incorporates 11 separate regulation circuits. The output stage is dual-mono with zero feedback. Audio-handling chips include a Burr-Brown SRC4192 that upsamples "Red Book" data to 24-bit/192kHz, and one 24-bit Burr-Brown PCM1792 DAC per channel. Only the tiny silver control buttons (on the otherwise hefty faceplate of machined aluminum) betray a whiff of chintz.
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