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Your experience:a cdp that gets best of lesser cds

I'm looking for a cd player that will get more out of the playback and sound of lesser quality recordings and/or poorly remastered cd's from the past (example: 70's soul/ 50's and 60's jazz remasters. By "more" I mean less thinness, leaness, in the sonics and more weight and lows, yet not rolled off or muted in the highs. In other words, a player that will dig deeper- do more with a lesser cd. I currently have an excellent player, the Modwright Sony 999ES, fully loaded, but synergy-wise it's not maximizing in my system. I'm looking for a used player in the $2500 -$3k area that will improve the sound quality on some of the lesser cd's I own. The one thing about this hobby that frustrates me no end is the synergy thing which can take away great performance from a quality piece of gear. My system: LSA/DK Signature int, Reimer Wind River GS, Modwright Sony,Acoutstic Zen cabling, Shunyata Hydra- various aftermarket PC's. Do you know of such a player?
foster_9
beheme
231 posts
 
I had a Rega Jupiter 2000 that I would call very forgiving and no slush either. On the other hand, I have yet to find one that is sharp as knife with audiophile recording and forgiving with bad stuff.

One other option, just my two cents, is to buy a very resolving one with two outputs, run one direct into your preamp and the other into a tube buffer first (Musical Fidelity X10-v3 for example).

A $250 Behringer EQ is still a very valid option or buy speakers that can be adjusted for treble down a few dB.
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newbee
4,767 posts
 
Well, on the cheap you could do worse than the Raysonic 128 as a 2d unit. It really responds well to tube changes and turns in a very credible performance. I retired my old Cal Alpha/Delta without a tear.

I'm not as as fond of the use of an equalizer in this function. IMHO, you can shelve down the frequencies where the 'digital glare' occurs on 'bad' CD's but you don't change the fundamental glare - at least I can still hear it anyway. But using the right tube CDP (or an outboard buffer as suggested by Beheme) you can by selecting the right tubes soften the glare itself.

FWIW.
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herman
2,259 posts
 
OK, I think we need some clarification here. Do you seek a single player that can do everything (make everything sound good) or an additional player or another piece of hardware than can compensate for bad recordings?

If it is the former then you seek the impossible. How can one player color bad recordings and not color good recordings? I don’t care how much synergy there is you can’t find a player that can do both. You can find a player that compromises on both ends and make everything sound mediocre, but you can’t have everything in one box.

I suggest the following. Switch to computer based audio with a USB DAC. Rip all CDs to hard drives. Investigate equalizer software that can be applied to bad recordings and bypassed for good ones. Properly implemented computers make great transports so you can concentrate on the software and DAC.
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