The Shanling Cd-T80 Player Has Arrived!!

Well, the moment I waited for all week has arrived...The Shanling T80Tube Cd player has arrived!! I promised a review as soon as I could, so here is is, to make your Saturday Night:

I grabbed a pair of Monster RCA Cables and set about hooking it into my system.

For the very first spin, I chose The Ventures "Surfing Deluxe", a Japanese Cd of 20 of their 60s Liberty Classic tracks, all in stereo.

Wow. Within one minute, I knew how much better this baby sounded than my Pioneer 563-A, which is what I had been playing Redbook Cds on. The difference is night and day!!!!

Next up on the player was Steves "The Searchers" SACD, playing in Cd mode. More of the same great sound. More on that later.

Finally, to hear some different type of music, I popped in "The Lettermen" "40 Great Hits" another Japanese CD of their Capitol Records years. This is where I REALLY heard the difference in this player.

Heres how I would describe it:

The soundstage was MUCH more "open" and detailed. I could really hear every instrument in the mix clearly. on the Ventures stuff, when Don Wilson does the famous "Ventures Slide" down the E string on "Walk Dont Run-64" you could really "feel" the string noise. The lower midrange really came alive. Much more "punch".

On The Searchers Cd, The Vocals were really upfront and you could even hear the "strain" in their voices. Again, much more "lifelike" than the 563-A.

On The Lettermen stuff, the tamber of the orchestra behind them was magnificent. The strings, especially, were alive and warm. The harmony of the voices REALLY shows on this player, you could hear one of The Lettermen slightly miss a note and then recover. I NEVER heard that with the 563-A.

So, it goes without saying I'm happy with this player. The REALLY great thing is this:

1) The Player is not even broken in yet...(only 3 hours on it)
2) I can change the tubes to teles or WEs for that Midrange magic
3) I'm getting a tube amp to complement this.

Mikey is happy!!

 

Is this unit a CD only player?

 

I am glad you like the player!

Anything will beat that Pioneer on redbook. The Pioneer IMO does redbook very poorly.

 

I agree. The redbook playback is subpar on the Pioneer. It's not a bad SACD or DVD-A player for the price, but redbook....

 

Have never heard the Shanling, but it sure does look pretty!!

 

Congratulations,
I have had my cdt-80 for about 6 weeks now and it just gets better. I have it hooked up to a shanling stp-80 tube integrated amp and a new pair of Klipsch Heresy II's. The music is just stunning. I use to have a solid state set up with my Klipsch and was almost going to get rid of them, it was so harsh. I eventually realized that the Klipsch Heritage line were meant to be used with tubes. Man, it was like night and day, the music was so warm and smooth. I listen mostly to jazz and I will never go back to solid state.

Good luck and enjoy the music.

Delano

 

I agree that redbook's sound with the 563A isn't the best redbook I've ever heard. I use the CD player part of my CD/MD combo for redbook playback since that is a dedicated redbook player that sounds great with the equipment and speakers I have.

 

Congrats! Anything that lets you enjoy the music more is good. Those "eureka" moments make it all worthwhile.

 

Congrats., Mikey. Do you mind my asking what the CD-T80 goes for?

 

Sure Keith, MSRP on the CD-T80 is around 1,200. It can be found for less, tho, if you hunt around. I paid less than 1,000$ for mine.

Well worth it, in my opinion. This is the best CD sound I have ever gotten.

 

Delano...congrats!! I have been eyeing that STP-80 Tube Amp myself.

The reviews are very, very good, altho it seems that the STP-80 is really for jazz and classcial, and mellow vocals. The reviewers didnt really like it for rock and roll guitars, which i happen to listen to a lot!! So, I may end up with an EICO or a Scott ultimately.
Altho, i did see that Shanling is going to offer a solid state budget amp soon. Its geared toward the CD-T80 also.


Glad you like your setup. i'm thinking that Shanling is offering some of the best value in tube equipment around. Rock on!!

 

I have a Scott and I don't think you'd regret it if you did. Just make sure it's in good working order and gone over by a technician.

 

Whats makes the Eico or Scott a standout for rock over other tube amps? I'm seriously thinking of purchasing a tube amp and have been trying to learn from you'all for the last year or so and highly value the input I recieve from this site. Thanks, Bryan.

 

Well, I can only speak from what I have and the Scott LK-72 is pretty powerful, 35+ wpc. which I like for rock. With my not very efficient speakers I wanted to make sure I had about that much. Mine also was serviced by a tech (nosvalves) who did a lot of work to get it to sound its best, so I'd be hesitant to endorse it in its stock form, ie. untouched from 1960-ish. But with period tubes in it (Telefunkens, RCA, Mullard) it is pretty tremendous.

Apologies for straying off topic here....I'd love to hear a CD-T80 since I'm in the same boat as everyone else and own a DV-563A, bought to get my SACD feet wet.

 

Well, i had an EICO ST-40 and i thought it sounded pretty good. Then again, I was not an audiophile at that time.

Still, I would imagine with a change to all tele tuves it would sound good.

 

The Eico's originally shipped with Mullard's

If you want a high powered Eico amp, the HF-87 and HF-89 are the ones to look at. The HF-89 delivers the deepest bass that I have ever heard! If you want monoblocks, the HF-60's with the Acrosound transformers are very good.

As for integrateds, the ST-40 and ST-70 are both excellent.

 

The thing about the ST-40 is that you really need to change the caps. too noisy in its original config. Mine was noisy, i retubed the whole damn thing and it was just as noisy afterwards.

 

Collectors told me that that the way to mod the ST40 was to change all the caps to low noise, and all the resistors to deposited film resistors.

 

Cap replacement with vintage electronics is a given. They simply dont hold up. When they are recapped, they are nice and quiet as when they were new. The selector switch also needs cleaning.

 

I generally use standard caps, Spragues and the like. They sound fine. The original resistors are generally OK, however if there are any carbon resistors, they should be replaced, as they usually literally fall apart.

The Eico stuff was well designed. IMO it does not need any electrical mods. The only thing I would mod would be the rear jack panel. I would replace the old RCA jacks with nice new gold plated ones, and get rid of the screw terminals for the speakers, and replace them with nice binding posts. Also, I would use heavy gauge insulated wire inside the unit for phono connections. This will lower the noise floor in the phono stage.

 

Good Evening,

I do not want to start a flame war here, just give my input. My Shanling tube integrated sounds awesome with rock just as much as it sounds with jazz. I listen to everything from Nick Cave to Pink Floyd to Rush and it keeps up fine with all. It has plenty of power (35 watts) plus plenty of bass. To be honest I was going to go down the Vintage route myself. My buddy has a scott and an eico which he lent me to try out. They sounded pretty good but this was after all the updating and other expenses to bring them up to speed. The Shanling sounded just as good. I went with the Shanling because I wanted the tube sound with the modern convenience of "new" electronics. The Shanling is built solid (over 50 pounds) and easy to use. I wanted the music to be my hobby, not the equipment.

If you like the looks of the vintage stuff and you like to tweak and work on your own gear then go for it. But if you want to sit back and enjoy the tubes and not have to constantly bias and tweak then go for a Shanling or any other new tube amp. Just my two cents.

Enjoy
Delano

 

Most tube amps still require biasing. However, this is not a difficult process. A lot of tube amps today have built in bias meters that make biasing very simple.

 

I think Delanos point is well taken.....The Shanling amp will give you an "instant tube fix" like the CD-T80 did for me. Anyone, myself included, buying a vintage amp has to worry about it breaking down. Buy a new one eliminates that problem.

i'll tell you one thing...that Shanling tube amps LOOKS so damn good.....

 

Hey Mikey,

You know I did lot's of research for months before making my purchase. I can definitely tell you that it looks even better in person. The pictures looke great on the web but when i got it home and out of the box it looked awesome. I also know now what the addiction is to the glowing tubes, half the fun is turning the light off and listening to some Coltrane or p. Floyd and watch the glow. Whatever you decide to get you will enjiy because YOU decided.

Talk to you later
Delano

 

I agree...the first time it really hit me how good the tube gear was, was listening to some Coltrane one recent night with the lights off.

Modern or vintage, it's all good.