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I am not at all up to date with digital, having listened to records through vintage stuff for years. I have elderly parents whose cd player has died, and even though their hearing is not so great, I would like to get them a decent ( read --not too expensive) cd player for them . Easy to operate and reliable. The tech where they took their old player said, save your money and by something "new" Any suggestions, new or used, as long as they work, are reliable and sound good. Thanks Norm
Follow Ups:
1) Ease of use. Try to find one with large buttons that are logically laid out and of different shapes. These new slimline players with their tiny buttons that all look the same are a nightmare. The design engineers who submit these to manufacturing should be taken out back of the factory and horse whipped.2) A nice bright display with large characters. Once again, the slimline models fail this requirement miserably.
3) Make sure the tray, when it is open, does not obscure the transport buttons and/or the display. For an egregious example of this deficiency, take a good look at the Yamaha 6770 - once the tray slides out, you can no longer see the buttons OR the display:
http://www.onecall.com/popups/ProductImages.aspx?id=25454Talk about shabby industrial design!
4) Reliability. Choose a model from a manufacturer whose reliability is known to be top-notch. This immediately rules out Philips, NAD, and most of the tweaky makes. Denon are known to be very well-constructed and are also known to have better than average sound.
5) Make sure the remote is easy to use and has buttons that are of a decent size, well-marked, and logically arrayed. The Pause button gets the most use, make sure it is easy to access/distinguish from the others. Also, make sure the battery door is solidly constructed and not likely to break from falling off the coffee table. A good backlight feature is important, too. That "soft-glow" shit doesn't work, you need an actual light that can be summoned easily. Being able to adjust the length of the light's "on" cycle is also important.
I can still hear the difference between a $500 CDP and a $1500 CDP. Soem of the suggestions here are downright insulting. So, if you love your folks, still have some unusued credit and they really do like music, I would start with the usual $500 suspects: the low end of Cambridge Audio, NAD, Marantz, even Harmon Kardon. Of these, I like Marantz best: more musical. My $500 Marantz from 1996 is still running like a dream.
Gonzo,
...you've come over to the "dark" side from your safe haven "Vinyl land". Hopefully you won't be too traumatize by the lack of crackle and pops but do try to listen to this medium with some decently recorded discs (Norah Jones-"COme Away with Me"). My parents actually use their unit to also watch movies that are sometimes encoded as PAL (they have friends in faraway places). Compatability with user generated video (various DivX, Xvid, SVCD, VCD standards)is also important to them. Of course you should plug in this box into your system... just to make sure it works :)I'm pretty impressed with a low cost ($60) unit that I picked up for a friend on extended loan. Call it the pursuit of "most-est" for pocket money.
nt
If you need help with the the letters, see James Joyce. Unless you dismiss the Irish as flippantly as you do the elderly.
and buy a low end Sony for around $100. Not to be cheep on your parents, but the sound quality is fine for your application.
I agree - I suspect that the parents will be far more concerned about matters like the size of buttons on the remote and the quality and brightness of the display than subtle differences in sonics.
by cd player do you mean JUST a cd player? or do you mean CD player in the mainstream sense of the word that includes an amp and speakers and you can get at Target? more info and a price range please
this would be part of a old pioneer receiver, jbl set up. Is it possible to get a decent one for <300$? Thanks Norm
I have auditioned the marantz Cd5001 which I think is pretty good for its price. If I was getting a cheap one box player I would have gone for the 5001.
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