Law of Diminishing Returns - CD/SACD Players

Forgive me in advance for my lack of listenning skill. I recently decided to re-visit the mid-fi journey by buying a Rotel RCC 1072 and after three continuous days of listenning, I have to say these mid-fi sound will give you listenning fatigue due to bright, metallic, cold and harsh sound. Yet it gives you a false sense of big bass. not a kind of tight bass but sissy bass. the soundstage is quite wide but not deep. High frequency is very high and will be harsh on bright recording. Etta James in "All the way" with several tracks are unbearable. Yes, it may sound better in details than the Pioneer or Technics DVD players but is it worth 700.00 ? For me it is not quite. Sorry Rotel fan. I owned a Krell CDP KAV 280 matched with the 400xi, and to me that heavenly tight bass, warm and opening vocals...Yes, I rather save up 4000.00 for a good CDP than buying under 1000.00 wimpy one. Live and learn everyday and I do learn a good lesson : All CDP sounds different and you will get what you pay for. Hi-fi choice of the year not the ears.

Best sub-$1000 player is the Marantz sa-8001, which improves upon the Marantz 8260 in several ways. First, the TOC error problem has been solved. Secondly, its upgraded power supply significantly raises the transparency and dynamic range of this unit. And thirdly, although the SACD performance is roughly indentical to that of the 8260, the resolution on redbook playback has improved. The audible differences in recordings is astounding. You probably have to spend twice as much to buy something that improves upon the overall performance of the 8001. My system consists of an Audible Illusion pre-amp, Innersound amp and Martin Logan loudspeakers, with Cardas Neutral Reference cabling. I find that the Marantz 8001 sounds best when connected to PS Audio 300 at 78 Hertz.

I've spent the last year researching/auditioning this question. I've learned:

1) Good luck auditioning - Modded units, low production specialty jobs, etc.

2) Someone out there will swear that they've heard (almost all brands here) and the best is certainly (his brand here) over (every other brand here).

3) Mechanical reliability is an issue just about everywhere - especially with SACD capable units - regardless of price.

4) Upsampling is ABSOLUTELY essential, unless its UNQUESTIONABLY inferior.

5) Just about everyone prefers balanced outputs

6) The mod believers find great benefit in upgraded (usually tubed) output sections.

So:
I ended up with a Cary 303 - reportedly more reliable than a 306 SACD or Esoteric X, defeatable upsampling, switchable tube/SS output section, balanced or RCA out and very good redbook sound at audition for $4k -not crazy in today's market. Although I also auditioned DCS and Esoteric as well the Cary 306 SACD, I couldn't definitively conclude that any one was "in a different leauge" on redbook performance. I chose good sound, versatility, and a manageable price.

It's still new and I can't offer much in the way of performance evaluation yet, but (FWIW) I did A/B versus the new Rega (@1K) which I have in my family room. The Rega is often cited as a value leader and it sounds very good. Off my quick A/B at home I would guess that most people would choose the Cary in less than a minute. Both sound very good, the Cary just sounds better - in this system.

Hi Calgarian,

I can empathize with your situation. I had a chance to listen to many top players and there certainly are differences: the best players (the Aurum Integris and Audio Research CD7 for example) do indeed sound markedly better than less costly players (my opinion of course).

However, having said that I would strongly recommend getting a top used CDP. The best CDP's of the past are still very good and offer much more value than brand new products. In my opinion, they simply sound much better than brand new CDP's of the same price. I ended up picking up an Audio Research CD2 ($1500) and am very happy with it. In my system, it is only bettered by far more expensive units - and I mean the best of the best. As an aside, note that the CD2 must be run balanced to produce good results. In any case, others I know have been very happy with older Meridian products.

If you don't have an aversion to used products, I think you will find that there are indeed many fantastic buys out there. Newer is often just newer - not necessarily better.

Best of luck,

Peter

Ok, so this is NOT a comprehensive comparison. But it may nevertheless be interesting to some.

I was listening to all my CDs via 2 ganged Sony ES changers (CDP-M555ES) and I was pretty happy with the sound. The convenience of selecting any of up to 800 discs outweighed the supposedly ‘better’ sound of my Mac MVP-851 DVD/CD player, so I hardly used it and eventually sold it since I owned no DVD-A discs anyway.

A audiophile colleague visiting on a business trip spent some time listening to my system and encouraged me to consider getting a high-performance DAC to feed from the 555s. I thought that might be the way to have both convenience and performance. So I bit, and started looking for a DAC. Well, you know how things go…I ended up WAY over my original budget and ended up with an Esoteric P70/D70 combo, which had glowing reviews as a state-of-the-art CD playing system.

I also decided to improve the CD selection interface by adding an Escient E-40 changer ‘manager’ and a 3rd M555. Now I had a great video interface to catalog, find and select my CDs and a capacity of 1200 CDs. I ran changer optical to the Escient and from there via S/PDIF into the D70 DAC. I was also using a 4th M555 as a ‘staging’ unit for newly purchased CDs. This unit was routed directly via its analog output to my Mac preamp, with the Toslink output sent to the DAC.

After getting this all set up, I finally sat down to listen to all these options and make some comparisons of sound ‘quality’. What I heard (or didn’t ) really surprised me.
First, I matched all the levels from the different CD playing options using a pink noise disc using headphones (which I used for all comparisons). I find that headphones really let me concentrate on the music in its little nuances better than using my main speakers.

Soooo, here’s what I found…

1) M555 analog to PA vs M555 optical to DAC to PA
Indistinguishable from each other. Maybe the M555 transport was the limiting factor? Or the Toslink was canceling any improvement from the D07 DAC vs the Sony built-in DAC?

2) M555 optical to Escient S/PDIF to DAC to PA vs M555 analog to PA
Indistinguishable from each other. At least the Escient conversion of the optical input from the M555 to S/PDIF into the DAC didn’t affect the sound quality.

3) P70 transport via dual AES/EBU and clock sync to D70 DAC (upsampling at 176kHz plus word sync) to PA vs M555 analog to PA
Esoteric ‘better’ (music overtones, microdynamics and bass ‘fullness’), but I had to listen REAL hard to find this very small improvement. Over the loudspeakers, this subtlety was lost.

In a nutshell, I was pretty disappointed. I fully expected the Esoteric combo to ‘wipe the floor’ as many here often state about one piece of equipment or the other. So what do I do now? Sell the Esoteric and use the cash for other stuff? Get new ears? Maybe all the trash talk about Sony changer capabilities is just that….talk.

Ok, going back to sleep now.

Thanks for listening.