CD Player/Transport Reviews

The Hegel Viking appears to be a fine choice for one's last CD player. I opted for a Bryston BCD-3 a couple of years ago for the same purpose. If I were in the market again, the Luxman D-03X would get serious consideration, as it could prove the perfect match to my Luxman integrated amplifier.

To respond to the "Why bother?" question: I still have some quite rare CDs that are central to my enjoyment of music. The CDs sound very, very good through my particular system. That's enough to justify the choice to me, though clearly your mileage may vary.

I'm not opposed to streaming, though I have not approached streaming in a high-end fashion. So far I've been happy with the SiriusXM app on my iPad, which surprised me by offering Pandora radio channels. So, I can set the app to the Pandora channel for Bill Evans and let it go for hours at a time. It's clearly not a high-definition stream, but it often sounds remarkably good through a T+A Elektroakustic Cala CDR. That T+A unit boggles me as an example of how good a contemporary all-in-one can sound. But that's another story to post to a different article.

Cheers and happy holidays to all!

your sonic tastes leaned towards the rich, tubey and euphonic ? I ask as I am in the market to replace a dying Italian made tube CD player with something similar. But there is something very intriguing about a cd player as smartly engineered as the Hegel. Herb never once called it analytical or thin sounding....

I use a Bryston BCD-3, which was born of the same objectives (no-frills Redbook CD player) and uses the same chip as the Viking precursor, the Mohican. It may not be applicable to you, but I've found that there is richness when there is richness in the source recording and dryness on less-well engineered recordings. It's up to the disc. Then again, I've never understood the use of tubes in a CD player, so there is that. Herb loves color and texture in his sound. I would trust this player is going to meet your needs.

I have a Hegel, the old H360 (as a USB receiver, reclocker and preamplifier in combination with the Holo Audio Spring 3 KTE DAC and Nad C298 power amplifier, what a fantastic combination but that's besides the point) so what I want to say, I have sympathy for Hegel, sure, but if you still feel the need to buy a separate CD drive / transport, then the 2.5 cheaper TEAC VRDS-701T is the ultimate device for you I think. Or the more or less similarly priced (as the Teac) Cyrus CD Xt Signature. I have a really large CD collection, built up from the mid-eighties until a few years ago, but I now swear by the convenience and better quality of Hi-Res files of purchased AIFF files stored (no streaming!!!) on my iPod .... i mean iPhone (with the ONKYO Hi-Res app)..

http://www.rubatoappassionato.es/audio-es.html

Click the "Audio" button at the left.

The compact disc "Le Temple du Goût" appears to be out of print. I bought one on eBay last night. I hope others can find a copy.

That's at the top of my spending limit but it's beautiful, well made and it seems to check all the boxes. I was hoping to get away with buying something in the 3k range, but as this one needs to last a lifetime, it may be worth the outlay.

For playing CDs and SACDs I use a Sony UBP-X800M2 Blu-Ray Disc Player and I run it through my Denafrips AresII and get wonderful sound, compared to streaming it is alive with ambience and air, something I find missing in streaming.

This question mostly for JA, but anyone can chime in.
Way back when -- 1990s -- JA (and maybe TJN and RH) used to measure square wave performance of DACs and CD players. Even way back when, SW perf. was not routine. (i.e., not every DAC or CDP that came in for review was square wave'd). Why was this test abandoned?
Please comment on the importance (or non-importance) of conducting square-wave tests, especially over >1k. Say, 12k.
See:
https://www.stereophile.com/content/quality-lies-details-page-3
https://www.stereophile.com/content/musical-fidelity-x-24k-da-processor-...

NOTE: AUDIO magazine was more consistent in measuring square waves from the begining of the CD era right thru the 1980s. But seemed to have also abandoned measuring in early 1990s.
https://gammaelectronics.xyz/audio_12-1987_technics.html

[please forgive my poor English]

As an aside,

Thank you Herb for sharing Gieseking's interpretation. I will listen to it asap.

Personally, I am delighted by the interpretation of Hungarian pianist Zoltan Kocsis. Very good recording BTW, some reverberation but really fine-sounding.

Suite Bergamasque, Estampes, Images; by Zoltan Kocsis - Philips.