What is the affect of cd player?

Missioncoonery:

"I'll take great speakers in an average system all day long.."

I agree. Being neither a fat inheritance/trust fund child, or an orthopedic surgeon, most of my system dollars went into the speakers.

I agree, Bygolly. I started with my speakers. But my question is 'just how much does the cd player affect the sound in the whole system.? Would it improve y0ur sound if you moved up a couple of notches higher?

>Based on the reviews I have read, you would have to spend over $5,000 to better the Cambridge 840C<

Don't believe everything you read. I have heard that player and my lowly TRL modified Sony universal player cleaned it's clock. I also heard a BAT and a Granite Audio seedee player in the same session that were better.

Shakey

I upgraded from a Rotel 1072 ($700) to a Linn Majik ($3,500).

I have to go from memory, as I did not do a direct A/B comparision. I do like the Linn better, but is it 5 times better as reflected in the price? Probably not, but that's not a complaint. I'd say the Linn is more natural sounding. But the Rotel is an excellent player, and has a pretty good resale value, and used ones sell quickly, so I'd say that it is becoming something of a classic, at least for the money.

But I do think you can get better sound with a higher $$$ CD player. However, as noted above your Cambridge has received outstanding reviews, and you'd probably have to spend quite a lot of $$$ to upgrade.

Shakey- You mentioned that your Sony was modded. Obviously you would agree: They take modding(especially those OS-AMPs) to sound good. What was the original cost of your Sony and the final expenditure, before you were satisfied? I know the popularly modded SCD-1 was originally $5K. I've got a VK-D5 that was very close to $5K new($4500, then I added six NOS Siemens CCa's). What BAT costs less(the SE starts at $5500)? To which Granite did you listen, and with what upgrades? The 657 starts at $2900(almost twice the cost of the Azur), and if it was a 650 upgraded to the tubed version(makes a world of difference), that would up it's price to $2900 as well. Still a significant jump, even if not to the old $5K mark. The reviewers that set that price, admittedly hadn't listened to everything out there. They wrote based on their experience, ears and preferences(always encouraging readers to audition for themselves). What else can be expected of reviewers? Then, of course, there's always that ubiquitous/highly subjective term, "better".......