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Per a previous topic, I bought a Teac CD recorder (model TECDRW880), mostly for making CD-R backups from my LP's and cassettes. Goodness, I think it is sounding better as a CD player than my Marantz bargain-audiophile one (several years old, model 63-SE or something like that) or a Sony SACD player when used on CD's. Could this modest $300 CD Recorder with no high-end cred really be superior? - it is newer than my other stuff, though it's been on the market for quite a while. Would like to hear your comments - but regardless, it's a toe-tapper - I will keep listening and try more different CD's to get a more complete picture.

I'm convinced that the latest generation of DAC chips have made a truly major improvement in the sound of Redbook digital. A couple months ago, after the death of a late-90s vintage "high-end consumer" type CD player, (a Denon) I bought one of those $99 Chinese SuperDAC units from audiomagus.com, figuring that even if it wasn't brilliant for CD listening, that I could use it as a DAC when monitoring my own recordings. It uses one of the newer generation Crystal chips. I figured I'd shell out for a new NAD or Cambridge a couple months down the line. Suffice it to say that, while certainly not a class "A" DAC (and I *have* heard those, especially the Benchmark, which is not uncommon in studios), it would certainly rate with most of the "C" rated CD players in Stereophile-- certainly over the base NAD or Cambridge CD players I'd been looking at. (I'm using it with an old CDROM drive that has SPDIF outs, which makes a pretty stable transport) I put the improvement entirely up to the DAC chip, since the discrete components are nothing special, and the transport/CD-ROM is something I picked up at on ebay or at a yard sale for $10. (JA, if you're reading this, this DAC might just be the next cheapo bit of audiophilia, on the level of the Oppo-- I'd love to see a set of measurements on this thing)

TEAC has always, for a mass market product, made pretty decent stuff. (I had a TEAC CD changer in law school in the late 90's, IIRC) If this recorder has one of these modern chips, I wouldn't be surprised that it sounded good. (And maybe, if it drops a bit in price, I'll think of getting one for my dad, who has a huge classical LP collection that he'd love to listen to in the car) Thanks for the tip!