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This is probably my last CD-only player. I'll be going to a hard-drive based streamer soon, with only a a universal player for the occasional movie on the TV or a friend dropping by with a new CD to check out.
Discs may be getting passé, but the technology keeps maturing and most music is still released on CD. Besides, deals on used discs also abound. Are you still interested in CD players?
You know what's really interesting is tweaking an older player with new audio grade capacitors! That's hot stuff for me! I really got surprised by older Panasonic DVD players from around the year 2000. I use them as audio CD players and they are quite remarkable! They didn't cut corners like they do now and they upgrade really well. They sound better than nearly any of the newer players and you can pick them up for a fraction of the cost of new "audio only" players. Audio recording technology has improved a lot too, making for an exciting time to listen to regular audio CD's! I also have a vintage Sansui CD player that's even better in imaging and sound quality than the Panasonic DVD players, especially when the SPDIF coaxial signal is fed into my Theta Pro Prime DAC. All this stuff has been recapped with audiophile grade capacitors. It's awsome sounding! It's not that hard to learn to solder, folks, and there's a lot of vintage gear out there for the taking or should I say tweaking!
Many (most?) CD's have near hi-res quality digital data16/44.1 is considerably better than generally assumed by ripping them with a current generation computer and them burning to high quality CD-R (gold surface), the resulting CDs frequently sound much improved vs the original disc (for many good technical reasons). Interestingly, the better the CD player, the greater the improvements! Try it and you'll experience it for yourself. Simply A/B compare the CD & its "remastered" CDR. Now, do same comparison on the "best" player available at local dealer. Our CD collections' music/sound quality is much better than currently realized!
CD and SACD for that matter are perfect digital-format mediums. Portable, small package for convenient easy storage, doesn't require time-consuming maintenance, provides easy retrival, and sounds as good as one can get. Well, for audiophiles, today's wisdom is that vinyl is king when it comes to the sound, but CD and SACD are the queens. Just listen to SACD's rendition of an orchestra's sure dynamics. It is in my opinion amazing and unsurpassed.These digital mediums will always have their niches in the brutal market place. Non audiophiles, which is the mainstream market purchaser of music, digital disc especially CD, generally do not dissect sound quality like the archtypical obbessive and complusive audiophile.
I recently purchased the new NAD C 565BEE upsampling CD player and I have been astounded by the sound quality. The player brought my huge CD collection back to life. The NAD has on tap six different filter slopes, which are user adjustable, as well as upsampling of the digital signal to either 96 or 192kHz. And the standard mode is also outstanding. The new NAD offers state-of-the-art analog DACs as well as robust build quality, both under the hood and in its solid casing. The remote is upgraded from the usual NAD fare, and all sound adjustments can be done on the fly for instant comparison. After hundreds of hours of listening and experementing, I prefer the 96kHz for most jazz recordings and the 192 setting on most classical music. For rock, either the standard mode or 96 works great for me. Over the last year, prior to buying the NAD CD player, I had slowly drifted away from cd playback to LP. But in head-to-head comparisons on every high quality LP playback equipment I own,as well as 180 and 200 gram LPs [including dozens of 45 RPM Blue Notes], I clearly preferred the sound of the NAD player in upsampled mode. I also tried a new BluSpec CD imported from Japan, [RTF's Romantic Warrior] and was stunned by the terrific sound, which blew away even my SACD copy. I would highly recommend the new NAD player to any music lover. With the improved sound quality of most recent jazz and classical cd releases, many music lovers will wonder why they ever doubted CD sound. Note: I ordered the BluSpec CD from Amazon, every high-end equipment owner should try at least one.
Discs are passé and most music is released on it. So what? I still put them onto my music server and it's happy days. Never again will I buy another disc player - it'd be like inserting the Microsoft Word 1.44MB floppy disk every time you wanted to type something.