Is my dealer lying to me?

Here's to adding a bit more fuel to the fire of debate here. I was a late convert to digital around 1995 or so when I purchased my first CD player, a Cambridge CD4. Went through either 2 or 3 of them (I can't actually remember) in a 6 month period due to breakdowns before I upgraded through my dealer (who graciously gave me a full trade-in value) to an Arcam Alpha 7. I would avoid Cambridge on this basis alone, but maybe they've cleaned up their act. Upgraded the 7 to an 8, upgraded the 8 to an 8SE with improvements each time. The 8SE was/is a $1000 CD player and pretty reasonably thought of. What do I use now as a CD player? An RCA 5223P DVD player. The RCA (in stock form, plugged straight into the wall, which is not the way I use it now) which last sold for about $179 (discontinued now) was/is better than the 8SE at CD playback. I wrote a review of it and posted it at Audioasylum if anyone cares to read it, along with the details of my system. Since then I've added a Harmonic Tech adapter and a Cardas Golden power cord to the RCA and run it into an Inouye Line Conditioner (a good line conditioner that retails for around $800 Cnd. and is still used by the Canadian magazine UHF in their reference system). Interestingly, my Arcam 8SE did not benefit all that much from the conditioner, but the RCA does substantially, leading me to believe the power supply in the RCA is probably pretty lousy. That in itself probably shouldn't be much of a surprise on a really cheap DVD player. But I'm not the only one to experience this type of thing. There's a post at Audioasylum right now in the digital section from a guy who figures the new Toshiba DVD player he just paid $250 for offers up about 95% of the performance of his Pioneer Stable Platter/EVS Millenium II Dac combo. I've heard the Arcam 9, the CD92 and the FMJ and would estimate I'm getting about 85-90% of the Arcam 9/CD 92 performance with my RCA/Cardas Golden/Inouye tweaked up combo (paid $150 for the Inouye used) for about 25% of the price. My guess is that a couple of things are at work with the new DVD players: firstly, DAC chips are probably getting better all the time and secondly, DVD players are designed to read much smaller bits of information off the discs than CD players are. Perhaps even with lousy DACs (if that is indeed what they have), DVD players are getting more redbook information before it hits the DAC, resulting in less error correction, I don't know. In any event, in the under $1000 price range, I wouldn't consider buying a stand alone CD player after my experience. I bought the RCA never intending to use it for audio, but after reading some posts either here or at Audioasylum, I gave it a serious listen and ended up selling the Arcam. I guess if I had money to burn and price was no object, I'd consider looking at the $2000-$5000 standalone CD players, but I've heard a lot of them, including the Linn CD 12 (at much more than $5000!) and never really been all that impressed. My ancient Gyrodec/FT3/Ortofon MC 20 Super still sounds more like real music than any CD player I've heard, and it's not a particularly state of the art analogue set-up. Haven't heard SACD, but would be interested in it (especially in a combo DVD player, the Sony 9000 looks pretty interesting) if there was a lot more software out there, but I'm not convinced it will succeed in breaking into the market. Most people think redbook CD is fabulous and don't really care.

So, Natalie, what I think I hear you saying is...Junk in is junk out. Your position on the topic is abundantly clear.

Here's my two-cents. Just as others have said, balance (synergy) is the most important factor in a music system. A $2K (or $20K for that matter) CDP, when paired with budget components will not sound much if any better than a $500 CDP.

Natalie, would you buy a $2K cartridge for a $179 Sony turntable. No? Why not? Junk in is junk out. If you don't have a quality stylus and cartridge, you will never fully realize its' capability. As you said, "the best speakers in the world can't correct a bad signal."

It all comes down to balance and context. It doesn't sound like Gunbunny is assembling a mega-buck system. Based on what he's told us, a $500 Cambridge CDP (or comparable) will be more than adequate.

Trust your ears, not the opinions of others. That being said, don't forget about gold old-fashioned common sense. If your budget is 5K, you'd be pretty silly to blow 40% on the CDP. Rbirke was right on with his observations about the order of importance in selecting your system components:

1) amp/preamp
2) speakers
3) cables
4) cd player (most bang for the buck and, consequently, sonic improvements are only realized when the rest of the components are in place and of good quality/synergy - without the rest in place, you'll never hear the subtle differences between other players.)

The End

Hi Natalie ... please explain why one part of the signal chain is more important than another. After all the signal must pass through all components(source-cable-amp-cable-speakers-room) in order to reach the listener and is degraded at each stage. The optimum system (at a given price point) matches the capabilities of all parts of the signal chain. Disproportionately favouring one part of the chain means you'll compromise another.
Having an outstanding source and so-so amp + speakers means you have wasted money on the outstanding source and compromised the cable/speakers/room treatment. That is unless you plan to later update the amp and speakers to the same level as the source.
It would be a similar waste of money to have a very expensive amp and or speakers with a so-so source.

Don't know about the Cambridge, but would have agreed with Natalie until I just hooked up a Sony DVP-S9000ES DVD/CD/SACD player, with the intention of using it for DVD's. Played a regular CD on it and was AMAZED! Disconnected my Meta Research Laser 1, originally retailed at $3850, and am THRILLED at the sound of the Sony. Not to mention it plays SACD's and, of course DVD's. It can be found around the web now for around $850 I think.

The source is most important beause it gets the information to the rest of the system.If you start off with a bad singmal it only gets worse.
Ncarv.You cant compare your 9 year old Meta to a current player.An 199.00 sony Player will sound better than your 3850.00 9 year old player.
Buy a Sony Cd/SACD player at the same price point of your s9000es and see if it is not better at Cd playback than the combo player.