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RE: inroduced in ~ 2010, $1-2k, used CD player: worth?

Posted by RGA (R) on March 4, 2017 at 06:34:58

In Reply to: inroduced in ~ 2010, $1-2k, used CD player: worth? posted by dave789 on March 3, 2017 at 17:47:57:

Doesn't seem like a good deal to me. Used CD players are iffy. Consumer Reports way back noted that the average lifespan of disc spinners is 7 years. That takes into account the lucky folks who get 20-30 years and the unlucky folks that get 3 days.

Still it's 7 years old and it's not like Creek is exactly the pinnacle in audiophile name plates or the mechanism is one of the heavy hitters using VRDS or Philips Pro2 mechanisms.

So from a transport perspective - it's likely a "meh" unit. The DAC is probably nothing special either so $350 is probably about right for most $2000 CD players from 2010.

What you could do is buy a relatively entry level unit like the Sony UBP 800 for $300 that does every modern thing that can be done including CD and use it as a transport (which may not be great but probably no worse than most anything else up to $1,000) since again there is no one making premium transports anymore - so it's basically the Philips Pro 2 as being the premium mechanism and everything else that falls in the land of mediocrity (and note the Philips Pro 2 is also no longer made but some companies bought up massive stock of them and others just stopped making CD players)

So you get the cheapie Sony machine and then buy a separate external DAC. In theory DAC's are a safer buy second hand because there are no moving parts so they should last decades.

The external DAC at $1k combined with the Sony or something like it for $300 will likely sound better than (enter any Creek CD player here ....)

And if the disc spinner does break down it's only $300. If the $1300 Creek fails it all fails and could be an issue to repair.

Edits: 03/04/17

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