Whats the deal with CD players?

Why not try an A/B comparison at a good high-end dealer.
If you can't hear any differences through reference level equipment, then you have your answer.

Listen to practically any CD player that interest you. Take some time to acquaint yourself with its sound. And then listen to the Audio Aero Capitole, just for the purposes of differentiation, as this player is certainly expensive. This will expose you to the chasm of sound differences between the various CD players. It did for me. I now own the Capitole. The differences were not subtle (listened to Naim, Linn, Rega Jupiter, Cary, Levinson, Arcam...) Oh, and wires try the Mapleshade bare copper wires ($90 from Mapleshade Records). You'll notice a HUGE difference and it won't cost you very much.

Good Luck, Kurt

With respect to Audioslug and Dopogue's posts above, I've also taken their postion (controversial as it may be) in previous threads here going back about a year and a half or so. In that time period, I've been using an RCA 5223P DVD player (a full review that I wrote is posted at Audioasylum) as my prime digital source. It was better stock than my Arcam Alpha 8SE (which sold for about 4 times the price) which I ended up selling. Since then, I've improved the performance of the DVD player further with an aftermarket powercord and extensive chassis damping. As with any piece of audio equipment, I think it's important to properly site and isolate the piece, and my experience with the DVD player leads me to believe that they can benefit strongly from a decent power conditioner, probably because the power supplies in them are pretty cheap. By comparison, my Arcam was not as substantially improved by my power conditioner as the DVD player has been. I have always been an analogue fan, but cheap digital has made great strides in the past few years.

You are constantly working in your system. You decide to change your SACD player SCD333ES to the Rega Jupiter looking for better red book performance. The differences I heard was that the jupiter was less bright and seemed to track the music better. Still not satisfied you sell the Jupiter and decide to try a cheaper system of a seperate DAC and CD player.

Lets say the Theta Data Basic and ART DI/O. This time the listener here's a noticeable difference in everything from dynamics to soundstage depth, there was a slight increase in noise but I have not grounded the ART DI/O yet to my wall outlet.

I am currently going through the same process with other parts of my system and I've found that more expensive is NOT always better, especially in the audio hobby.

FYI- I paid 550 for the SCD333ES, 1700 for the Jupiter 2K, and 520 dollars for the Theta-ART DI/O combo. I like the last best and the ART is still stock.

So I guess what I'm saying is there are many players out there that may or may not work in the system you have, sometimes the sound difference will be subtle and other times it will be obvious.

Good Luck,

Hi Perkadin,

After reading your second post I think I have an answer for you. The Pioneer DV-333 (and 444?? I forget the model number, but one is regular and one is progressive scan) cost about $160-$200. Their video quality is supposed to be good, they're reliable, and they use the Burr-Brown DAC chips for audio. They also play CD-R, CD-RW, and most everything else. I bet they would sound as good or better as any sub $300 CD player. As mentioned above (with the older Pioneer DV-414), there are people like Stan Warren and Dan Wright that modify these units. You could pay Stan $250 and have audio quality that rivals $1000 players...if you want to, that is...if not, sit back and enjoy the $160 player as-is, and enjoy CD-R's too.

I own a Pioneer DV-05 and I've been happy with it. THe video quality is excellent and it makes a good CD player too. They retail was $1000, but they regulary sell for $250-$400 used on Audiogon. The newer model that replaced them (DVD-37??) are also supposed to be quite good, but they're more expensive.