CD Player/Transport Reviews

CD Player/Transport Reviews Media Server Reviews

NAD Masters Series M50 Digital Music Player & M52 Digital Music Vault

John Atkinson May 02, 2014 First Published: May 02, 2014

"Physical discs are so 20th century," I wrote back in 2006, when I began experimenting with using, in my high-end rig, a computer as a legitimate source of music. These days I rarely pop a disc into my Ayre Acoustics C-5xe^MP disc player, unless it's an SACD I want to hear, or a CD I haven't yet ripped into my library. But many audiophiles, even if attracted to the idea of using a file-based system as a primary music source, do not want a computer in their listening rooms. Nor do they want to be bothered by the fact that a computer demands too intimate a relationship with its user.

CD Player/Transport Reviews Budget Component Reviews

Rotel RCD-955AX and RCD-965BX CD players

Corey Greenberg Apr 17, 2014 First Published: Mar 01, 1992

On the mantel sat a stuffed Culo snake from Nuevo Laredo, with a red rubber tongue in freeze-frame flick. Above the bookcase hung the mounted head of a wild poi dog, killed in self-defense in Sri Lanka with only a Phillips-head screwdriver. A table-lamp made from a shellac'd, puffed-up frog wearing a sombrero and playing the contrabassoon bathed the room in a soft cream glow.

CD Player/Transport Reviews J. Gordon Holt Audacious Audio

Kyocera DA-910 CD player

J. Gordon Holt Apr 10, 2014 First Published: Dec 01, 1985

Those of our readers who are still anti-CD are going to be offended by what I am about to say. Partly because they do not want it to be true, but mainly because it is. I shall utter the heresy anyway: the Compact Disc is, right now, doing more for the cause of high-end audio than anything that has ever come along before!

There, I've said it. Now I shall explain it.

CD Player/Transport Reviews

MSB Universal Media Transport plus

Jon Iverson Mar 28, 2014 First Published: Mar 28, 2014

My primary focus this month was MSB's Analog DAC, but since it needed some software updates, MSB suggested that the easiest way to install them was with their Universal Media Transport plus ($5995). Turned out the updates were easier via my regular Meridian Sooloos system, but since they'd sent me a sample of the UMT+, I hooked it up.

CD Player/Transport Reviews

Parasound Halo CD 1 CD player

John Marks, Sam Tellig Dec 03, 2013 First Published: Jun 01, 2013

For the high-performance audio market, it makes a lot of sense to process digital audio data via sophisticated software running on a dedicated personal computer. Which brings us to Parasound's Halo CD 1 CD player ($4500). Some might find it questionable to release today, as one's first digital-disc player, a machine that plays only "Red Book" CDs, rather than a universal or near-universal (nonBlu-ray) player.

CD Player/Transport Reviews Digital Processor Reviews

Audio Research Reference CD9 CD player/DAC

Fred Kaplan Oct 07, 2013 First Published: Oct 07, 2013

Now entering its fourth decade, the Compact Disc player seems to have reached a stage of maturity where the best models within a given price range will sound pretty much alike. The technology of the Compact Disc itself is set, its possibilities and limitations are well understood; and the designers of CD players who figure out how to stretch the former and finesse the latter wind up at about the same sonic place (again, for the same price), even if they've taken different routes to get there.

CD Player/Transport Reviews Digital Processor Reviews

Aesthetix Saturn Romulus DAC/CD player

Jon Iverson Oct 07, 2013 First Published: Oct 07, 2013

Tubes?

In a CD player?

Century-old technology embedded in a modern digital design?

I realize that Aesthetix's Saturn Romulus is not the first disc player or D/A processor with tubes, nor will it be the lastbut does combining these technologies even make sense? Are audiophiles working at cross purposes to themselves, looking for modern perfection but preferring a little old-school sweetening here and there?

Floor Loudspeaker Reviews CD Player/Transport Reviews Integrated Amp Reviews

The Mission System

John Atkinson Feb 24, 2013 First Published: Oct 01, 1987

Since its founding just over ten years ago, Mission Electronics has grown to become one of the largest "real" hi-fi companies in the UK. Although their product line originally consisted of three relatively conventional loudspeakers, it rapidly grew to encompass high-end pre- and power amplifiers, cartridges, tonearms, and turntables, and, in the mid 1980s, a system concept based on CD replay and relatively inexpensive electronics: the Cyrus amplifiers and tuner.

CD Player/Transport Reviews Integrated Amp Reviews

AVM Evolution C9 CD receiver

Art Dudley Feb 06, 2013 First Published: Feb 06, 2013

In a perfect world, all a serious record lover would need to enjoy music at home would be a single source component, one or two loudspeakers, and one good integrated amplifier. Speaker wire would be given by the dealer, free of charge, to any shopper who spent x number of dollars on new gear. Cable risers would come in cereal boxes.

CD Player/Transport Reviews Audacious Audio

YBA CD 1 Blue Laser CD player

Jonathan Scull Jan 26, 2013 First Published: Feb 01, 1997

I'm about to out YYves-Bernard André as one of the great unknown tweakers of high-end audio. (My own predilection for stepping into uncharted tweakwaters is well known.) Yves-Bernard, his wife and partner Ariane Moran, and importer/distributor Daniel Jacques of Audio Plus Services seemed perfectly sanguine about letting the cat out of the bag. And why not? In a singular way, the YBA audio solution encompasses both the supertweak and the more-casual-about-equipment music lover.

The YBA CD 1 Blue Laser (or Lecteur CD 1, as it's known at home in France) breaks new ground. It is very French in that it's individualistic in the extreme, and perfectly embodies current thinking chez YBA regarding music playback in the home. Its design dates back to 1991, a point Yves-Bernard takes pains to point out in the manual.