The best CD player under $5000?

Slow down there, Eddy! Maybe some folks just want the best CD player. Redbook is all I am looking for; I am quite happy with my Rega Apollo.

If someone asked for "the best chef's knife", would you insist they need a multitool device with a saw and can opener?

 

You can get a McIntosh MVP871 universal player for $5300 list, less with discount. It's a GREAT player. Best digital source I've heard under 10K. (I'd avoid the MCD201 SACD player, almost as good, as many have complained of transport noise.)Or look at a used Ayre C7xe (~$6K list, NO discounts I've ever heard of) if you prefer a lighter, airyer sound.

 

Agreed. With all due respect to eddy, I could care less about DVD-A.

 

AudiophilePhil: " ... My point is there are many excellent sounding CD players from unheard high-end manufacturers that we are not aware of. ..."

Mr_X: " ... Slow down there, Eddy! Maybe some folks just want the best CD player. ... "

 

AudiophilePhil: " ... My point is there are many excellent sounding CD players from unheard high-end manufacturers that we are not aware of. ..."

Mr_X: " ... Slow down there, Eddy! Maybe some folks just want the best CD player. ... "

My point is that there are no good CD only players at any price ... not any more.

1) DVD transports are now better in any and all respects than any of the CD only mechanisms, period.
2) There is no substitute for a multichannel 24bit/192K or better DAC. No one can argue with 110+ db of bandwidth.
3) No matter how fancy the upconverter is, transposition from 16bit/44.1k or 16bit/48k will always be inferior to a direct 24bit/xxxk to 24bit/xxxk scenario.
4) As long as the latest magic is about Red Book or whatever, the change will never catch up with ordinary DVD-A / 24bit, so you might as well spend that hard earned on a decent "universal" player. (see #1, #2 and #3 again.)

The very high end manufacturers of CD only players spend most of your money tweaking the power supplys and cleaning up the conversion to something better than 16bit/44.1k (up converter to 24bit or whatever). These same improvements are being done to certain better DVD players.

Now that good music can be found in DVD-A and SACD formats, the CD only devices are obsolete ... sorry guys, but you really should not steer the readers of high end audio blogs toward obsolescence, newbe or not.

" ... If someone asked for "the best chef's knife", would you insist they need a multitool device with a saw and can opener? ..."

No, of course not, but I would suggest a better "best knife" if all the professional chefs were doing it too.

 

u know, that is just not my experience...
a sacd or a dvd-a played by the best universal Oppo player
just don't sound as good as a good CD player like my old Micromega (10 years old!), whatever the resolution.
the D/A converters are just not as good.
and i've been told many times that redbook players have make huge improvements in those last 10 years.
so it is not a universal rule.
what would be interesting is comparing a very good universal player like the best Denon aganst a CD plazyer in the same price range.

 

I'm not really sure where Eddy gets his information or experience. I don't see that you have a degree in EE or ME and I don't see the level of equipment being discussed.

The statement that a DVD drive is better than any other drive is simply false. The cd drive is absolutely the most reliable drive manufactured in the world. I can point you to numerous engineers, some of which helped develop SACD, and they will happily disagree with this assumption. The DVD drive is actually a very unreliable drive and a universal drive has enormous problems. As anyone with a universal player or single drive in their computer, most play but some don't. DVD drives in computers are notorious for not playing certain movies etc. A CD drive will last longer than you can imagine in a computer or in a component. The Philips cd drive is amazingly dependable.

BTW, I have a high end DVD-A player and have compared the same exact material to a high end 16 bit player (same Naim player) and the 16 bit player will excel and outperform even the DVD-A player. One other thing, since there isn't any good protocol relating to table of contents with DVD-A, some of them don't play very nice. This is true with SACD and DVD-A, some just don't play and people clearly return them as defective even though it is really their player.

 

I'm no engineer, but I've always read that DVD based players are generally worse for various reasons.

Besides, DVD-A is basically a dead format no?

 

Secondhand market is good always worth a look, new, Unison Research have just released their Secundo (the original Unico was incredibly well rated for both CD and indeed the amp). Italian manufacturer and well rated.

£2500 / $5000 buys a lot of CD player in the UK; you could get the Cyrus 8vs (I think it is) CD player for about £1000 which gets a huge rating too. Leaves a bit in the budget to add to the CD count as well...!

 

" ... I'm not really sure where Eddy gets his information or experience. I don't see that you have a degree in EE or ME and I don't see the level of equipment being discussed. ..." A BS in Physics and a BS in Math, enough to teach, anyway, and building my own electronics since 1960 ...

" ... The statement that a DVD drive is better than any other drive is simply false. ..." ... Well, all CD transport mechanisms (drives) can read about 700 MegaBytes of information, maximum and DVD drives can read about 7 GigaBytes of information, which in and of itself makes than an order of magnititude better = 10 X better.

" ... The DVD drive is actually a very unreliable drive ..." ... Some might say so, but that was several years ago. Now, reading CD and SACD and DVD-A discs, the mean time between failures (MTBF read only) of quite ordinary DVD drive mechanisms is significantly better than the older CD drive mechanisms reading just CDs. (It might be noted that both CD and DVD mechanisms have difficulties with cheap media, so these manufacturers' MTBF tests are invariably made with top quality media.)

" ... I have a high end DVD-A player and have compared the same exact material to a high end 16 bit player (same Naim player) and the 16 bit player will excel and outperform even the DVD-A player. ..." ... As I said before, 16bit garbage in = 16bit garbage out. I'll bet you can't even play a DVD-A on your CD player, so how can you possibly know whether 16bit is better or not? (I would also bet that a quality DVD-A recording played on your DVD player will sound amazingly better than your best version of the same music on CD played on your CD player ... check it out.)

=========

"... Besides, DVD-A is basically a dead format no? ..."

DVD-A dead? = Not Nearly, Not at all, considering that just about every DVD video player made will play them. Check that one out too.

You may quote me: The very best CD recording is not as good as the average DVD-A recording = Examples are numerous including most of the European EMI catalog. Check this out: All professional digital recording is now done at 24bits, whether the production is for 16bits CDs, SACD CDs or 24 bit DVD-A discs.

 

FastEddy, I'm sure you're correct that the newer disc formats can sound better (more bits or what have you), but: there's very little DVD-A (or SACD, for that matter) software out there that appeals to me, whereas there's still lots of stuff coming out on CD that I like. I suspect that's the same for most people - why get too worked up about a format with relatively few titles available? That's why folk continue to investigate better CD playback - it's where the music is.

 

What happened to the high-end hi-fi manufacturer Micromega? Are they still around?
Do they still manufacture CD players?

 

I'd be curious to know as well.

Nevermind, I should have read further down the thread.

 

Micromega is still active, or to be precise - active again, as I think they stopped production at one point.

Hoewever, the only review that I read lately (in Hifi+) was very so-so. On the other hand the Eera DL1 player from the same country got nothing but praises from the same reviewer (Roy Gregory). It was actually product of the year last year.

They are the only manufacturer outside Teac/Esoteric that use proper CD clamping (no funny pucks). Theirs is proprietary and based on a Philips CD transport. There is review on the 6moons.com with great photos of the clamping mech in action.

Regards,
Goran

 

FastEddy, I respect your opinion but I personaly don't care about SACD or DVD-A and started this thread just to find out the best sounding redbook player for my budget. As it happens quite a few folks are in the market for it as well. I appretiate (and will check out) all the recommendations on redbook players posted here why don't we keep the thread on it's course? If you want to debate Hi Rez VS Red Book it's better to start your own dedicated thread, all right?

 

" ... there's very little DVD-A (or SACD, for that matter) software out there that appeals to me, whereas there's still lots of stuff coming out on CD that I like. ..."

Me too ... It is sometimes a real chore to find anything worth listening to that isn't overly compressed to fit onto a 16bit CD (the manufacturers, big names, Sony mostly, do the compression on purpose, often for no apparent need or reason).

So, I buy almost everything in DVD video format of the artists I like, because very often the DVD sound track is vastly superior to the CD releases. (DVD video is often 24bit/48k, CDs usually 16bit/44.1k)

Examples: I just picked up KT Tunstall's DRASTIC FANTASTIC" double disc CD & DVD video. I'll be playing both discs on my main system, a hybred tube per-amp & solid state power amp, stereo ... and I'll post a review if anyone wants it.

I Like these live performance DVD videos:
KT Tunstall "Eye of the Needle"
Roger Water's "The Wall, Live in Berlin"
Pink Floyd "Pulse"

Eric Clapton "Live at Montreux"
Eric Clapton "& Friends in Concert"
Eric Clapton "Live in Hyde Park"
Eric Clapton et al "Concert for George"
Eric Clapton "24 Nights"
Eric Clapton "Live On Tour 2001"
Eric Clapton, et al 2 disc "Crossroads"

Fleetwood Mac "The Dance" (Christie McVie )

The Band "The Last Waltz"

... "Blues at Montreux" 3 disc:
Clarence Brown
Bobby Parker
Buddy Guy

... Van Morrison 2 disc:
"Live at Montreux 1980"
"Live at Montreux 1974"

Bonnie Raitt "Road Tested"

Martin Scorsese Presents "The Blues" 7 discs

Peter Gabriel "Secret World Live"

Simon and Garfunkel "Old Freinds Live on Stage"

... mistakes I have made ...
Simon and Garfunkel "The Concert in Central Park" - bad source, bad sound track
Cyndi Lauper "Live ... At Last" - a good show, a bad sound engineer
Blind Faith "London Hyde Park 1969" - video and sound not good enough for commercial release.
John Mayer "Any Given Thrusday" except that almost all tracks sound the same, tiring to listen to after the fourth of fifth track (Mayer is much better on "Crossroads" w/ Clapton backing him.
Steve Miller Band "Fly Like An Eagle" - Sloppy live performance, not yet ready for prime time (The CD is good as it ever was ).
Willie Nelson & Friends "Outlaws and Angels" - a big drunk including the stage hands and engineers, not worth it more than once.
Roy Orbison "Black and White Night" - performance - sound - song selection ... but I hardly ever listen to it anymore.
... there are more DVD videos in the collection.
Next week, my SACD and DVD-A collection reviews, if anyone is interested.

.....

I like a lot of the "Live at Montreux" stuff. Most of it is ordinary video tape, but the sound tracks were and are recorded separately on quality 4 or 8 track tape, then digitally remastered to 24bit/48k. Pick of this litter so far: Van Morrison in 1980

 

" ... I ... started this thread just to find out the best sounding redbook player for my budget. ..."

OK, the best sounding CD player, IMHO, is one that plays more than just CDs or more than CDs and SACDs or more than CDs and most DVD videos and DVD-A ...

In other words, a "universal" player is the best CD player at any price, because it plays all that other great stuff too = CDs [all formats], SACD, DVD-A, DVD-Video ... and it would be nice to play the Euro Z2 stuff as well.

FYI: The US$250 Oppo players do all of this ... and with a few tweaks to the power supply actually sound pretty good compared to the US$2000+ CD only stuff ... It is what I did and now I have two Oppo "universal" players. I put several older CD only players and DVD players on eBay = bye, bye. I'm saving the extra US$2K+ for more DVDs and other addons to the system, not other disc players ... example: I just got a new Rega P3 TT w/cartridge ~= US$1000 ... ... g'dam man it sounds good!

 

Crazy thinking. That's like, to the question "what's the best 2 seater coupe?", you answer "the Ford Explorer" because not only does it have two seats in the front, it has two extra seats behind them; and it has these two extra doors that you can easily use, and the car does lots of things a coupe can't do.

 

The best "CD player" is the one that sounds the best to that particular listener. The best "universal player" is the one that sounds the best, to that particular listener, across each of the formats it can handle.

End of debate!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Nice answer

 

" ... That's like, to the question "what's the best 2 seater coupe?", you answer "the Ford Explorer" ..."

What's wrong with that? The Explorer can carry two people. Oh, I get it, you are looking for a smily for CD only ... and that is the "coupe' " in your defination. I can absolutely agree with that if you would allow the acquisition of more than one player. (Incidently, we recently traded my Explorer for another SUV, but kept my wife's MazdaSpeed Miata )

My original point: if you are going to spend more than small change of media players, you should spend it on a player that is better in several ways like the ability to play better sounding music, etc. After all if you intend to spend around US$3K to US$5K, go ahead, but be advised that if you spend an additional US$250 or less on a "universal" player too, then guess which one you will use to play back all of your discs ... including the CDs ...

(I still have a really wonderful sounding Marantz CD player that I spent months tweaking into something decent ... but even though it sits next to my system, it never gets used anymore, 'cause the Oppo can play the good stuff and the Marantz can't. )

 

Eddy - you can say it is the most "useful" to you to choose a universal player but you cannot say it is the "best sounding" unless it actully IS. It is not the best sounding by virtue of being universal, which in your post #96 you have asserted. You might not have meant exactly that of course????

If you have lots of different disc types you could state that it is the most "useful" player but that's another kettle of fish entirely.

 

" ... you can say it is the most "useful" to you to choose a universal player but you cannot say it is the "best sounding" unless it actully IS. ..."

Well, 24bit DVD players are the best sounding by far, compared to CD only players. And it is not just my opinion: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD-Audio#Sound_quality

I'm not an expert, but I can hear the differences. Heck, almost all of you here would agree that SACD sounds better than ordinary CDs, Yes? ... That's the wider bandwidth talking to you ...

 

Sorry mate but I wouldn't cite Wikipeadia as a source. The origin of the info has anything but a relaible provenance.

I would not state that that all SACD players (or DVD-a or whichever) are necessarily better than the higher end redbooks either. In my experience a well recorded CD played on the best redbook players will out-perform most multi players. But that's not what we should be arguiing about (discussing?). All of us will make our own choice, be it redbook ir any other variant of multi players, and we will decide which we think does the best job.

 

I think the thread is about the best player for redbook CD.
Oppo is certainly not the best redbook player.
And I am quite sure that a 2.2K Denon universal player won't compete with, let's say, a Rega Saturn.