effect of tubes in cd players

I can't say it changes the sound of CD players generally--players are all different, and anyway you can't put tubes into a solid-state one to see if it changes the sound. (OK I lied, there was once an AMC unit you could do that with, and it was said to be an upgrade.)

Rolling tubes in a CD player does change the sound, though. I've owned two tubed players and they both sounded better (to me) with the right tubes. If that's what happens with a tube preamp (and many say it does) then I guess your answer is yes.

"Does it change the sound a lot?"

Obviously it depends on how you define 'lot'. I think tube CDP's do sound different from SS CDP's generically speaking, but there are some fine SS CDP's.

What makes the difference for me is the ability to fine tune the sound of a tubed CDP to match your system simply by changing tubes. Apart from vinyl, the best sound in my house involves a SS CDP direct to a tubed amp, its 'audiophile approved' so to speak.

However the sweetest sound in the house is a tubed CDP/Pre-amp/Amp in which I've paid careful attention to tube matching to make it all come together.
Its fun to tune your own system. To hell with 'audiophiledom! :-)

I agree, i have an Arcam dv29, and a Consonance sacd, which i have upgraded the tube in,2 totally different sounds, both are very pleasing,also use a tube headphone amp and the one in my benchmark dac, different sound both great with different music

Kurt

I have a solid-state CDP and a tube CDP. They are both very different and if you go by classical definitions, the SS one sounds more like tubes and the tubed one sounds like SS. So you can't go by that. There is a lot of overlap - you just have to experiement with many different ones to see which you like.

Arthur