CD players

    Following some member's request, here's a topic about good, but still affordable integrated CD players, with a few advices to upgrade it.


In this price range, the best brands are the english ones:

You can go for any player from the following brands:
Nad, Rotel, Creek, Rega, Naim, Arcam...

Entry level products:

The smallest budget, Nad, "the Rega3" of CD.
Very musical and natural:




Better performances than Nad : Rotel





Mid level products:

Refined and natural: Creek






Very smooth and analog: Rega planet (with its original drawer design)





Dynamic, with much matter and soft highs: Naim CD5
Perfect for rock, slim and nice design, features an original manual steel drawer.








Arcam: Neutral and dynamic (CD33)







To go further: Linn Ikemi


    
    

Edited by oliverstoned - May 19 2006 at 03:51

That's a pleasure, mystic!

Upgrade advices to come!

Advices to upgrade your CD player:

Vibration cancelling:

-Put your CD on a stable and steady support.

-Use quality vibration cancelling accesories below the player, such as "Golden sound" ceramic cones.

-Put your CD perfectly horizontal in the two dimensions,
using a plumb level. If needed, compensate lack of horizontality with pieces of hard wood, or better, thin plate metal piece(s) (such as coins i.e) that yout put below the cones until it's perfectly horizontal.

-If the upper side of the player is plate, put a heavy object on it to cancel vibes (such as a granite piece).

-If the upper side of the player is plate, you can glue some self adhesive bitumen plates (used for cancelling vibes in car tuning) inside the player on the upper side and the lateral side.


Power optimization:

-Respect electric phase.

-Avoid multiplugs.

-Use a good power cable.

-Separate your CD from the rest of the system.

-Use simple, double or triple power filtering (will be developped later).


    
    
    

Edited by oliverstoned - May 23 2006 at 12:18

I wonder if Mike en Regalia will be able to resist the temptation to post in this thread. 

Empathy wrote: I wonder if Mike en Regalia will be able to resist the temptation to post in this thread.

I can resist. It makes no sense for me to invade a thread about audiophile technology - let the fans of the technology be among themselves. I think I have to practice what I preach - and I'm always saying that you should post within the context of the thread topic whenever possible. So if the topic is "What is the best CD player", it makes no sense to spoil the thread by posting "computer drives can play CDs just as well as CD players".

The question is: can Olivier resist to post a reply to this post?


Edited by MikeEnRegalia - May 22 2006 at 11:39

"You won't find units with separate transport mechanisms unless you're ready to shell out some serious coin..."

That's what i own, and it goes further than any integrated players up. And yes, it costs some serious coins, my friend...

My digital setup:

-Drive Sonic frontiers SFT-1 (it's the device up)

    

-Converter Goldmund Mimesis 14



( And i plain to upgrade to a more musical converter "Brinkmann Zenith III")

My digital cable, Nordost:





And yeah Wadia's not bad, using excellent Teac VRDS modified transports.
    

PS: Forget multi channel. There's nothing like classic stereo -or even mono- but you can go further with a good subwoofer -at least 38cm to make real extreme low-.
My own system is made with a pair of bookshelf on good feet and with a sub.
    
    
    

Edited by oliverstoned - May 23 2006 at 09:36

Keep on like that! you make progress. Let's sign a non-agression pact!

That's fine!

^ that's right - I'M NOT POSTING!

wolf0621 wrote: Sweet...I'm assuming you're operating in Europe? Nice setup, looks very heavy...I haven't gotten into the multi-channel music formats (DVD-A and/or SACD) personally, at least not yet, but I hear some of it's fantastic. I have heard various demos...Very dependent on the production of the source material though. Some producers not yet familiar with it & still experimenting tend to overemphasize certain channels,especially the surrounds, such that it no longer sounds natural...   You should keep an open mind to multi-channel music though...The concert dvd's that I play back through my video system (recorded in DD 5.1, I'm playing back via 5 full-range speakers through a DD7.1-capable processor, plus 2 side-firing surrounds & a 12-inch Velodyne sub) sound great. Just finished watching The Flower Kings' "Meet The Flower Kings" last night...Even playing back stereo cd's & using the Dolby Pro Logic II Music mode, or the DTS Neo:6 mode, it really adds to the music's spaciousness on most material (especially acoustic recordings). My processor allows separate adjustment of surround parameters such as separate speaker distance setting for each speaker (incl sub), liveness, delay time, separate level adjustment in 0.1db increments for each speaker, etc...Next up is to expand my setup to true 7.1...   I use a separate music-only setup for critical music listening. That's still stereo-only, although I'm running 2 pairs of main full-range speakers driven by a NAD power amp & pre-amp (150w/channel). I've got a Denon cd player but looking to upgrade soon (hopefully), maybe to a Meridian unit (the 588 is a possibility)...I'm also using a separate 30-band 1/3 octave Alesis EQ & an old Carver Sonic Holography processor (got this for about 100 bucks way back, it adds "liveness" & depth to the sound similar to an aural exciter). Also a separate Nakamichi AM/FM tuner & an old Nakamichi Dragon tape deck (it's a beast but I can't part with it)...Also inherited a couple of old real-to-real tape decks from my father at some point, one of them's hooked up & working (a 1/4 inch stereo Teac model), although I haven't used it recently. The Sony's in a closet somewhere...   Hey, no arguing with EnRegalia without me...Not sure who you're trading arguments with anyway since he's still not posting in this thread...