"Cheap" but good integrated Cd players

Here are some advices on good brands for affordable integrated Cd players (from 300€ to 3000€)

Nad
The cheapest among the good ones. Neutral and very musical.



Rotel
Close to Nad, but more precise and dynamic.



Rega (planet)
Warm and analog sounding. Very musical.



Naim (CD5)Dynamic and thick sound, good for rock.



Creek -another good english brand-very musical



Arcam - Neutral, dynamic and detailed.
The Cd33 below is the biggest of the brand.










Edited by oliverstoned

oliverstoned wrote: Here are some advices on good brands for affordable integrated Cd players (from 300€ to 3000€) Nad The cheapest among the good ones. Neutral and very musical.

Ive got the nad one...great cd player

Edit: NOT the one on the picutre...mine is a bit older...

Edited by maidenrulez

Actually it's a 520 that i have to sell.
If someone is interested in, i sell it for 150€.

Nad player + nad amp is the smallest budget system i advice. Put a pair of bookshelf mission on it, QED cables and a few accesories and you'll be happy.

The musicality is the ability of a device to make music.
it's something obvious when you listen and that you can't mesure of course!

goose wrote: Don't even bother, Mike!

Let's see what maidenrulez says about the players ...

BTW: It's strange that there should be players which are more suitable for Rock than others ... I guess that the "musical" players really alter the signal (smoothening through means of upsampling, and maybe even applying eqs and low pass filters to cut off or at least dampen the high frequencies). 

maidenrulez wrote: MikeEnRegalia wrote: goose wrote: Don't even bother, Mike!  Let's see what maidenrulez says about the players ... BTW: It's strange that there should be players which are more suitable for Rock than others ... I guess that the "musical" players really alter the signal (smoothening through means of upsampling, and maybe even applying eqs and low pass filters to cut off or at least dampen the high frequencies).  Now infact aslong you get a decent amp and some decent headphones you dont really need to get all expansive on the cd-player...anyways if you get a cheap amp and a cheap cd player and then get some "high" end headphones you get a really great sound wich is more than enough for me...But if you want the same quality sound through speakers you need a better amp and a better cd player and some reasonable speakers

But in what way does the CD player affect the sound?

^ thanks maidenrulez, that makes sense to me. Another reason to buy the Creative X-Fi sound card ... it has some of the features of musical players. And I can activate/deactivate the feature easily and compare the sound.

Good players have been optmized "with the ears".

Inside of Creek CD50

Creek CD53





Here's the technical description by the manufacturer.
You'll find some answering elements:

The CD53 physically matches the 5350 amplifier with 10mm thick machined alloy silver front panel and vacuum fluorescent function display. It's circuitry has been designed to achieve the best performance money can buy, limited only by the standards set for CD players and component availability. Inside its 2 mm thick alloy case, lies a Philips CDM12 transport with CD7 chipset running on neoprene sound isolation washers.

Custom Creek software runs in a microcontroller to control the entire mechanism and display functions. Speed and silence of operation, together with the ability to read CDR and CDRW discs are the essence of this new player. Advanced error correction algorithms work hard to read every bit of information, thus providing a better signal for the Digital to Analogue Converter to work with.

The rugged Philips laser transport and digital control circuitry has been matched to the highest quality Crystal Semi-conductor delta-sigma D to A converter boasting 24 bit 192kHz resolution capability. Analogue filtering is now performed using fully balanced circuitry and 0.1% precision resistors and 1% tolerance film capacitors that achieves a level of performance previously not seen in CD players. This results in a fast operating CD player with sound quality well ahead of much higher priced players, in the true Creek mould.
With a new customised ultra low jitter master clock and extra circuitry to reduce jitter from the Digital signal Processor, the CD53 truly sings. A re-clocked, low jitter, transformer coupled, co-axial and optical digital output makes it possible to fully realise the potential of high-end stand alone DAC, provided the correct type of interconnect is used.

To provide a useful upgrade path, the D to A converter, high quality master clock generator, jitter reduction circuitry and regulated power supplies are sited on a separate printed circuit board that can be removed and replaced by new or emerging technologies in the future.

Two high grade grain-oriented steel mains transformers, feeding low impedance, high temperature, capacitors and separate stabilised power supplies for digital and analogue sections, provides the highest degree of isolation and lowest noise performance possible. Front panel controls include Play, Stop, Pause, Open/Close, Skip Forward, Skip Back, Search Forward, Search Back, Shuffle, Repeat and Standby functions. They are supplemented by a modest sized full feature RC5 type remote control handset.

The rear panel now has a mains switch, together with the usual fused IEC mains inlet. Gold plated Phono/RCA's for the (un-balanced) analogue output are complimented by two professional 3 pin XLR sockets for balanced audio output. Digital outputs are via a transformer coupled co-axial SPDIF Phono/RCA and TORX optical types.

A new feature for Creek equipment is the ability to place the CD53 into Standby mode, which blanks the display, reducing the power supply consumption to a minimum. Operating any local or remote key will wake it up.
To maintain low levels of interference, the user interface is via a low current consumption vacuum florescent green digital display. This places very little demand on the power supply and helps to achieve high visibility even in difficult light conditions.