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Digital Drive Upsamplers, DACs, jitter, shakes and analogue withdrawals, this is it. |
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Digital Drive Upsamplers, DACs, jitter, shakes and analogue withdrawals, this is it. |
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In Reply to: looking for CD player upgrade BUT... posted by BJordan on May 15, 2005 at 18:44:19:
One things a in-the-last-5-years CDP does really well, *if* it is designed right is to pull the exact waveform from the disc and put it at the RCA or balanced output without grain - so you are in some rather happy circumstances. As you also have given yourself a good budget to work with, you won't be having to hunt down used gear with possible worn out transports, etc.I went through a long period myself, and while my budget wasn't $3k, it *was* $2k and I considered things up to about $4k before settling on what I did.
Based upon my search and considerations to your budget/tastes/system here is my shortlist:
For consideration in a stand alone CDP:
1. Ayre CX-7 [This is a great player, and my personal favorite, but at $3k, working better for balanced interconnects than unbalanced [my system i'connects are unbalanced], and a budget conscious wife kept me looking]
2. Arcam CD192 or CD33 [I though the CD192 was teriffic and bought it, just couldn't justify blowing my budget by and extra $500 for what appeared to me to be just subtle improvements]
3. YBA CDP's [If you like classical and jazz and HATE grain this is a player not to miss!][not Audio Refinement, just the YBA branded stuff] - this is the sleeper in the crowd. DOn't hear about them much in the press, doesn't change models very often, but whoa boy does this stuff sound great. I didn't get it because it was a top loader and the WAF was not met by that...
4. Linn Genki [A bit long in the tooth, but an excellent player all 'round] - sounds great, treats discs the same, and is a lot like the Linn higher end players with a standard transport. I *think* it does HDCD, but all in all, in any of these players it doesn't matter to ultimate sound quality.
5. A lot of folks like the Cary 303/300 - I haven't heard it but wanted to include it because so many people rave about it - it has tubes in it which some like, never been a big deal to me since a well designed analog front end won't really matter if it is tube or SS in my experience. I have never been a big fan of the lesser Cary stuff.Given you listening tastes, I don't think you would like Naimn very much - they are very kind to rock and heavier stuff - they lack some delicacy IMHO, that classical requires to get your money;s worth. If you were 70-80% rock and jazz with <20% classical, this would be a good one to consider. Given that Naim is getting into standalone gear, too, it is posisble to do a naim CDP without the other Naim stuff. Naim tends to be rather $$$ for what you get 1 notch above their entry level.
You may want to consider a D to A as well:
1. Bel Canto DAC2 - may be just the trick - nice, natrual bass, and is reminiscent of analog. I didn't buy it, (though I really wanted to) because on some of my wife's favorite discs (Elvis Costello) sounded really, really bad [worse than normal] and it didn't seem to go along with my CDP at the time the NAD C541i.
2. Benchmark DAC-1 - piece of pro-gear, rave reviews, ad earned them - around $900. It isn't as good as the reviews say, but it is so much better than anything until you get to my #3.
3. Grace DAC - better than the Benchmark, but also about $1400.All of my reference gear has been listened to in comparison to my 2 CDP's the NAD C541i, and Arcan CD192, and my excellent dealer's dCS, Mark Levinson and YBA CDP's.
Most pro-gear has a 30 day money back guarantee. You can get it from a national sales place such a Sweetwater Sound or a brick and mortar place like Guitar Center.
Have fun!!
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Follow Ups
- Re: looking for CD player upgrade BUT... - Bromo33333 05:35:03 05/22/05 (0)
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