CD sound quality

Bonvoyage, Are you saying the vocals sound a littled recessed or are you saying it sounds like it is broken. how bad is the problem? If you are talking a little bit recessed, a different player may help. If you are saying it sounds like it is broken, i.e. almost no sound/vocals/center image/etc, it may be a setup issue.

Does your DVD player have 6 RCA Analog outputs for 5.1 playback? How it it attached to your amp? What CDs exhibit the problem ( you said "some CDs"). Is it possible that you are playing mulit-track material and are only hearing the L&R front outputs, and not all of the 5.1 output?

Just curious. I've owned lots of DVD players and CD players. Some are better than others, but none actually sounded like the system was on mute when being played. This sounds like a setup issue, a media issue, or a broken player to me.

Enjoy,

TIC

Nrostov & Seanl:

I wasn't looking to stomp on anyone's parade. I left vinyl behind about 10 years ago for a host of reasons and admittedly, I am sometimes tempted to buy a turntable, because I really like turntables, not vinyl. I just understood the question, as well as bonvoyage's previous other post, to be ... hey, I just acquired the NAD & the Evo's and it's not sounding right ... what do I do. I never even entertained that it could be how the DVD hook-up was done. Duh!

I think that I obscured my main point which was ... as for the NAD C320/C720, despite what NAD claims in its manuals ... the associated equipment and cables matter a lot. The only CD player that I was ever happy pairing with the NAD was the Music Hall. The others ... and there were at least 2 other CD players and 3 other DVD players that were tried ... did not do the trick.

So to add to the original question ... given a $1500 set-up (list price), what turntable and phono preamp would make sense? If we are talking about $300 as a possible price, does one of the packages that KAB USA offers make the most sense?

Regards, Rich

Regarding cheap DVD players as CD players: I have a Samsung HD850 and there's no way I could live with it as my main CD player. How does it rate compared to the DVD players that are considered acceptable?

Rich,

If you are looking to get back into vinyl on a budget I would look for a used "Logic" table. One helluva lot of table for the money. They are quite a bit better sonically that the VPIs and way better than the Regas and they cost $200 when you can find one. Most people that bought them keep them.
Also, there are guys that add a suspension to the old AR turntable and it becomes essentially a Sondek. Throw the AR arm away and put a used Grace 707 on it and a Koetsu Rosewood and you will have a no joke audiophile rig that will run with the best of them for about a grand (and $800
of that is cartridge) The old Supex 900 is the forerunner of the koetsu and is even cheaper and sounds great.
I have info I can send on the AR and Logic turntables if you want.
Hope this helps.

Ross

Thanks everyone for these very helpful comments.

Let me be more specific about the sound quality. Specific instruments/voices almost sound as if they are in another room. The sound is never totally muted; that would be a setup problem or device failure/defective hardware. Itzak Perlman’s violin is missing treble. Removing the bypass and turning up treble all the way helps the instrument sound more normal. Of course, its preferable to keep the bypass and the music engineer’s balancing. I did a similar test with a Metallica CD and bass also seemed too distant. Turning up the bass helped a little but quickly muddied the sound of course…

The tuner actually sounds good, though since I have no control over radio broadcasts I cant specifically compare and re-listen to specific sections of music. This cuts out any problem with the CD player and I assume sound quality should be high with the tuner since the only loss of sound quality would be with speaker cables (Oehlbach – 4mm(?))

Could the combination NAD/Wharfedale be less favorable for certain types of music?

I have the most basic cables to connect the Amp/CD player. Before spending $500 on a new CD player, perhaps a small investment in those connecting cables could make a difference?

Cheers