DEDICATED CD PLAYER $1K AND UNDER, THOUGHTS?

While I have never personally heard any Rotel equipment, the owners of their cd players are very loyal so I am sure they sound as good as others have said.  I bought a Marantz SA8005 SACD player last August and sold it in October.  I sounded ok but the controls were so small and flimsy and the sound  although ok, was not really the least bit engaging.  It was like a one note performance.  I was playing it through a McIntosh integrated and GE Triton 1 speakers.  I replaced it with a Mac CD player which sounded great from the first listen.


If you can't afford the Oppo 205 (you can register on Oppo's site to be able to purchase one) at around $1,300, then I would go with the Rotel.  Plus, Rotel is a real  good company that makes low cost  audiophile equipment.

The Vault idea is sensational. Great deck. Does ripping at a much higher level than a standard computer copy. The App is sensational. It makes listening to music a Joy. I own the M50.2 by NAD. The sound quality is comparable to top level products unless you get to much higher priced products. Happy listening my friend. Buy one and make playlists. I am making one for my barbeque tonight and then my Kids Gender reveal on Monday.

smer319 I dunno.  The ALAC RIPs I get from iTunes on my Mac sound identical to the to the FLAC RIPS I got from DBpoweramp;  they seem to contain the same audio data (compared using AccurateRIP).  With very few exceptions the files appear to be identical.  Some differences in the way metadata is handled, but I am using Roon, and their metadata solutions more than satisfies me.

I have compared some of the FLAC files and ALAC files I have stored on my hard drive to the CDs they were ripped from.  They sound the same (AB tests running both sources at the same time and over long listening sessions).  Maybe I'm just lucky I do not have the "golden ears" required to tell the difference, but I have decided this is a non-issue.  If this causes you stress, just get DBpoweramp and use AccurateRIP to check their database.

When I decide to play a CD, I just pop it into a Superdrive that is connected to a Mac mini>optical out>DAC>stereo.  I am a graphic designer, so I already had the Superdrive and several old Mac minis laying around doing nothing.  Not long ago, I needed to press the mini into back-up service for my design work, so I took it off the rack and plugged my AppleTV optical out into the DAC (limited to 16bit/44.1, but most library is CD RIPs anyhow).  If I didn't have the Mac hardware, several DACs and extra hard drives laying around, I'd buy the Vault.

In my humble opinion gone the days that hi-res were suppirier over CDs just hook up reasonable CD transport ,quality digital cable to a good DAC and you’ll hear any difference compare to hi-res files.
The current DACs sold today are so good that you can leave in peace with your CD’s collection / CDs ripped files.

Great information, I do appreciate the advise and will consider very carefully...