Ruminations On CD Players

I gave up on CD players.  Library got too complicated.

So, FLAC form a PC.  I can then use a very good DAC. I am not aware of any CD player for any price with a DAC that can beat some I know of for $100, let alone a RME, CORD, Denifritz etc. 

CD transports are inherently SYNCHRONOUS, so you are stuck with the transports clock.  If it was good enough, fine. You lose all the issues of not well implemented USB and PCM outputs.  Big IF.  

My best CD player was the old "last" tray style Rotel. Internal DAC was garbage compared to today but excellent in the day.  I used at that time a SOA Wolfson.  Now, a PC, JRiver or MusicBee into a JDS Atom+ blew it away plus I can find my music, drag half a dozen CDs to the play list and walk away. 

@tvrgeek "I am not aware of any CD player for any price with a DAC that can beat some I know of for $100, let alone a RME, CORD, Denifritz etc"

Hyperbole! What high end CD players have you listened to please detail?  Any of these for example amongst them Vitus, Esoteric, Metronome, CH Precision, Neodio, Goldmund, etc?

Several in the high end stores. Did not pay attention to the brand but hooked up to very high end systems. One was a Moon, Another a Mac. 

What you may be missing is how good a select number of inexpensive DACs really are.  My dirt cheap Atom+ is much smoother than any DAC I have tested in my desk system under the price of a Aries.*  It is the only one that tames the sibilance of a Joni Mitchel, Judy Collins, or brass edginess of Harry James.  I have heard multi-thousand dollar CD players in the stores that did not. I have heard multi-thousand dollar DACs that did not.  Now, what is critical to everyone is not the same. You may ignore what irritates me and vise-versa.

Can you adjust in your high end transport  gain in the digital domain to prevent filter overshoot? Does it do it it's self for you? Can you match your filters to emphasize detail for headphones vs speakers?   I do not believe any you listed do. 

As both a music lover and an engineer, I know the transport is basically irrelevant. Any $20 disk player is as close to perfect as it gets to read a disk without error.  The sound is all about the DAC, mostly the reconstruction and analog stage.  It was not always true. Back in the day we did not have decent buffers and clocks so going back to the Phillips POOGE days, there were real improvements to be made.

Now, it is my experience the only improvement  is to the prestige CD player bank account.  Of course placebo and ego are totally relevant and I don't dismiss or criticize for that.  If it makes you feel better, then well you feel better and that is great. Enjoyment is the bottom line. If $15,000 worth of billet aluminum and slick advertising makes your music better for you, by all means.  Someday I may hear something that changes my mind.  Here in N.C., we don't have too many opportunities.  Just went through Richmond, DC, and Baltimore with little progress. 

I would be far more impressed if someone like CORD slapped a decent DAC into a $200 transport.  Use real engineering rather than advertising. 

*My next possible upgrade is to compare the Aries, Qutest, RME and maybe a Geselli to see if they can surpass my lowly JDS. Nothing SMSL, Topping, Schiit, or IFI has so far for the specific issue I hear. Amazon probably hates me. Is there a higher level? Does Dave sound better?  Not that I can hear and I have heard a Qutest vs Dave in a store. But I am not 30 any more either and I only listen to speakers, not headphones. 

@mahler123 

Agreed!!! +2. Very well put.

Charles

@soix

I’d never dispute the advantage you cite! In fact, I’m finding it’s been harder and harder to find CDs I want to buy. This has in fact been going on for some time. But this is not for lack of trying! I spend a lot of time on spotify looking around for possibilities. The "problem" is me.

It’s an idiosyncrasy of mine that I’m very album-focused, rather than artist-focused. It’s not at all uncommon for me to own only one or two recordings from a single  artist, because when I compare their entire output, those are the ones that really grab me. The rest, I can do without. And repeated listening rarely changes my opinion. If I didn’t like something 10 years ago, hearing it again almost never changes my initial impressions.

Similarly, I favor a small number of visual artists, photographers and poets, whose work I go back to again and again. Restaurants, too. It’s just the way I’m wired, I guess. If you want to call if "Neanderthal", that’s OK -- I don’t take it personally! ;o)