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What are the advantages of tubes in a CD Player?

.....and are they better than solid state CD Players? I have had a few players. Rega Apollo, NAD 542, and a Cambridge Audio (actually a DVD Player). I loved the Apollo, but thought I wanted to go to a complete Computer Audio system so I sold it. Now I am contemplating buying another player. I hear the tube sound is so warm and non-digital sounding, which is why I bought the Apollo, well that and the look of it. So, should I go tubes this time? I was looking at that Raysonic 128 and the Shanling and maybe even the Consonance Droplet
restless_times
steuspeed's avatar
steuspeed
501 posts
 
Sonic Frontiers SFCD-1 or you could also go with a tube DAC. The SFD-2 is one of the best Red Book dacs ever made.
jaybo
4,478 posts
 
there are none. its simply a preference for people who like tubes
trelja
3,226 posts
 
Grant, if I may ask, what were your impressions of the Droplet?

Thanks in advance!
Joe
reb1208
518 posts
 
One of the potential advantages are life like dynamics. Often, tube output stages will make the drums sound more like what you hear from vinyl.
tripper
223 posts
 
An MHZS CD66 player weighs over 30#, has two 12AX7 tubes w/ LED status indicators and a window to see them without pulling the cover, balanced outputs, upsampling on the solid metal remote, and is a top loader to boot. I'm not sure how the tubes affect the output but the whole package makes for one musically satisfying experience. I found mine for less than the dac mentioned above, and have a few dollars left over for tube-rolling, although I'm not really tempted to do so yet as teh stock tubes play just fine for now. Nice to have the option down the road.
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