Cd player


Hi guys been building a new HI FI system and been waiting on the HI FI Rose 130, but want to light this system up! Lol Whats a really nice cd player that will not be the weak link? I am running mcintosh c2700, Power Q 707,  Mcintosh 611s & B&W 801 N all with high end cables. 

Thanks for all your input Matt 

skydog25

The two best in my opinion (if funds will allow) are 1) Esoteric or 2) McIntosh. 

The TEAC 701 is an excellent transport. It can also be clocked so there is the potential to upgrade it. There isn't a massive difference in price between the transport and CD player versions so it would be worth auditioning the CD against the transport running into the Mac's DAC.

Jay's cdt2-mk3, more $ but the Cambridge CXC cannot compete. Have owned both.

Since you have DAC, and assuming that you are happy with it, I would get a dedicated transport. However, some Mac preamps have a proprietary input for Mac CD players. I once had a Pioneer Elite Universal Player that had an “ i link “ (basically a FireWire connection) to pair with a Pioneer AVR. It sounded amazing, far better than any other input into the AVR and much better than the Universal Player into the same AVR by HDMI.
I don’t know much about Mac proprietary inputs, but if your amp has one, I would at least attempt a trial with a Mac disc spinner that is similarly equipped

@skydog25 

I have around 2500 CD’s and my CD transport died a of years ago. I bought an Audiolab 6000CDT and my first streamer, a Bluesound Node, N130. As time went by, I found that I was using the streamer more and more and CD’s less and less. About six weeks ago I got a different preamp and when I was plugging everything back in I didn’t plug the CDT back in.