A Magnavox but I cannot recall the model. Very flimsy but it worked.

Kal

I can't believe I still have the receipt for this thing in my file...lol.

It was a Magnavox FD-3030; a top-loading brushed-gold finish player. It was all metal on the outside, and fairly heavy; I don't recall it being flimsy at all.

I paid $288 for it at Fedco in Cerritos, CA, 10/5/1984. I was using a NAD 3020 amplifier then, with Polk speakers.

I also bought my first CD at the same time, which was Denon CD 38C38-7047, "OUR MAN, PAPA JO JONES".

I still have that CD; everything but the track names is in Japanese...lol.

The first Sony machine imported to the USA, serial number 342, bought from Reed Brothers in Charleston SC with all ten existing CD's at the time.

POS Pioneer. Three beam laser with a filter! Whoooo. Got rid of it after a year, although at first I was the only kid on the block with one and thought it was way cool. This was about 8 months after they came down in price to around $200. It was another 6 years until I got another due to the dirth or new LPs during the 90's.

So glad I'm back to 90% vinyl.

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It was a Magnavox FD-3030; a top-loading brushed-gold finish player. It was all metal on the outside, and fairly heavy; I don't recall it being flimsy at all.

If I recall, those Magnavox players were built with heavier supports/frame/transport. The later ones were plastic and felt more flimsy to me.

The attraction for audiophiles back then was that the unit used the Philips chips. I compared two CD players at a store, Sony vs. Yamaha. The two sounded distinctly different, and neither sounded good.

Magnavox CD players, especially the plastic 470 series, were the subject of heavy modding by some tweakers. It was an inexpensive way to get better sound than the stock unit for those on a budget. I got my 471 (the one with no remote) as a gift, and went the tweak route after the warranty expired. Wow, what an improvement.

Marantz CD63 that I bought in the spring of 1983. Gold-colored metal-construction, top-loader, with the original 4x-oversampling 14-bit chip set. My then-wife got it in our 1986 divorce, and I think it worked for her throughout the 1990s.

John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile

Edited to correct 24-bit to 14-bit

John,
I think my 471 is 128x oversampling but don't remember the bit depth. I'm going off memory now and the info may not be right.

My first unit was a Technics 5-disc with the flip up translucent dust cover. From the outside it looked like a cheap turntable when if fact it was an even cheaper CD changer. One of my first "tweaks" was to spray paint the inside of the lid black so that light from the outside didn't interfere with the laser.

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Marantz CD63 that I bought in the spring of 1983. Gold-colored metal-construction, top-loader, with the original 4x-oversampling 24-bit chip set. My then-wife got it in our 1986 divorce, and I think it worked for her throughout the 1990s.

John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile

The ex went after the stereo equipment? OUCH! But an optimist would look at it as a chance to up grade.

I once knew a guy whose wife wanted half all of the speakers. Literally, half. The right ones as she specified because in her mind she was in "the right." She didn't fully understand why speakers needed to be in pairs until it was explained to her. After she realized how irrational that was and how difficult it would be for him to buy just one speaker to replace the units that she would get she wanted them even more.

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I think my 471 is 128x oversampling but don't remember the bit depth. I'm going off memory now and the info may not be right.

I still have a Magnavox 471 that I used as a test bed for various mods. It used the 16-bit TDA1541 DAC chip operating at 4x oversampling.

John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile

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My then-wife got [the Marantz CD63] in our 1986 divorce, and I think it worked for her throughout the 1990s.

The ex went after the stereo equipment? OUCH!

She got my old Quads as well :-(

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But an optimist would look at it as a chance to upgrade.

Indeed, my next player was a Meridian Pro-MCD that I borrowed from J. Gordon Holt.

John Atkinson
Editor, Stereophile

A JVC something or other, in about 1987. It starting skipping and not reading discs after about 6 months. Took it in for service, and starting skipping again only days after I got it back. The dealer gave me full purchase price towards a new Pioneer PDM-40 mulit-disc machine that I still have to this day (it's in my 10 yo son's system).

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.......... What was your first CD player?

I'm still trying to forget the first half dozen I tried to live with. Hated all of them so much they drove me to spend lots of money on analogue gear. The first CD player that didn't make me feel my eardrums were being sandpapered was a Musical Fidelity A5.5. My latest, the Meridian 808.2 has finally gotten me listening to almost as many CD's as LP's. Never thought I'd see the day.

I think the Ayre C5-Xe is the best-sounding player I have ever heard; amazing sonic purity.

I have not heard some of the exotic combos that run $15-40K,
but when Stereophile essentially created a Class A+ for the Ayre, I decided to listen to it very carefully, even though it was a budget-stretcher for me...lol.

I guess the bottom line is that I am really happy with it; it sounds fantastic.

My previous CD player was the very nice SONY SCD-777ES. The only thing I didn't like about it was that it was the most sensitive component I have ever had to cables; with the cables that came with it, it sounded so bad I thought it was defective...literally horrible-sounding. With some 3-conductor Audioquest cables (shield terminated at one end only) it sounded very nice. I used it from 1999 until 2006.

An interesting thing; The Absolute Sound absolutely raved about the C5-Xe when they tested it about 2 years ago; and then they went dead silent about it!! It never even appeared in their list of preferred components, and still has not. Given the absolute rave review they gave it, that is very very odd.
I personally suspect some sort of personal bad relationship or feud between someone at Ayre and Mr. High-and-mighty at TAS. I can't imagine how they can just go silent about Ayre after a review that essentially said "state-of-the-art".

Anyone heard anything about this?

See below; some sort of double-posting occurred, so I deleted the content here.

WTL;

Oh, yeah, I remember when there were all kinds of mods being done; the guys at Havens and Hardesty had some of that going on. Remember Havens and Hardesty in Huntington Beach (I see you are from OC); I used to hang out there and drink wine on Sundays when it was slow (we would sort of close early and party...lol).

Too bad they closed, but times got tough and the owner got involved in the California Audio Labs startup and Steve's wife made him go back to Minnesota and Audio Research...lol.

The only mod I ever did (to a CD player) was to change an output op-amp to a better one; it was helpful.

By the way;I taught electronics at Santa Ana College for 25 years and lived in Los Alamitos then...small world.

I hear you; I was on a fairly tight budget for many years, but since I retired am able to splurge occasionally.

Stereophile really likes the Marantz SA8003 at $1000; maybe that is a near-term upgrade you might consider?

I had an inexpensive Hitachi and believed what I reads in Consumer Reports that all CD players sounded the same. When it finally died and I went shopping, I went, "oh..." I bought a Marantz CD67 SE II, and it still sounds pretty good, and WAY better than the Hitachi

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I think the Ayre C5-Xe is the best-sounding player I have ever heard; amazing sonic purity...................................
An interesting thing; The Absolute Sound absolutely raved about the C5-Xe when they tested it about 2 years ago; and then they went dead silent about it!! It never even appeared in their list of preferred components, and still has not. Given the absolute rave review they gave it, that is very very odd.
I personally suspect some sort of personal bad relationship or feud between someone at Ayre and Mr. High-and-mighty at TAS. I can't imagine how they can just go silent about Ayre after a review that essentially said "state-of-the-art".

That wouldn't be the first time Harriet P has stamped her stilettos having a tantrum with a manufacturer. The stories I could tell but, given the litigious character of madam P, I desist.

My first is still the same one I'm using. A 15 year old Sony single CD player. It was new at the time of purchase. Not one thing has gone wrong with it. Ever.

i was very into audio in 1983, so i bought one of the very first sony's in the wash d.c. area for a staggering (at that time) $995. my friends had no idea what it was for about 2 years. i was taken in by the black backgrounds and the dynamics. i don't think the shimmer in the high end bothered me because i was using a dynaco tube rig at the time and they rolled off on top anyway. after about 10 years it died and i bought a brand X becasue i thought they all sounded the same and was not so interested in high end audio by then.

commsysman,
I remember the store Havens and Hardesty. Richard Hardesty still has a on-line presence and website www.audioperfectionist.com.

I have lived in the SoCal area for most of my life. I've probably have been to most of the audio stores from northern LA to San Diego, and inbeween. I also hit the electonic and surplus stores for parts and capacitors for modding equipment. So far I've modded the TT and tonearm, Tuner, Pre-Amp, Amp, CD player, and speakers, and custom interconnects. It was a cheaper way to go than paying $$$$ for wire.

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WTL;

Oh, yeah, I remember when there were all kinds of mods being done; the guys at Havens and Hardesty had some of that going on. Remember Havens and Hardesty in Huntington Beach (I see you are from OC); I used to hang out there and drink wine on Sundays when it was slow (we would sort of close early and party...lol).
...

That clownish guy who had a falling out with Gary Reber of Widescreen Review... He was a little bit too thirsty of personal publicity for my taste, just like GR, milking everything they could from manufacturers for one line of text in WSR, with no separation what so ever of editorial content from advertising, getting free Dunlavy speakers for praising Dunlavy's, etc.. Advertising totally integrated to content! I would not be surprised to learn that GR built his space with JVC's money.

It was a Sony, model # forgotten, purchased in 1986 at Crazy Eddie's. Surely could not hold a candle to today's players, but had one very cool feature: there was a touchpad of track numbers 1-20, with a "skip" button, so you could play a cd, but skip over tracks 3 and 7 for instance. Way easier than programming 10 out of 12 tracks to play. I used that feature all the time! Wish I had it now.

When I used to hang out at Havens and Hardesty, both Havens and Hardesty were long gone, and Bob was the sole owner and operator by then. After the store went out of business, he went north and was at California Audio Labs.

.

Yes, it's too bad that immature people let their petty personal agenda get in the way of objectivity; Harriet P., huh?...ROFL...I love it!

I would think that you are pretty safe from litigation down under...tell us all!