New CD player?

Hi, the time has come to replace a Roksan Caspian M CD player. Roksan gave up the ghost just as the Dyson was switched on.

Current system, stable for the last 8 years or so, has been Roksan Caspian M CD player, with Simaudio Moon i5 amp driving Revel M22 stand mount speakers. Connectors are Crystal Cable Piccolo and Hitachi linear crystal speakers cables that date back to an upgrade journey, going through several components, like Living Voice Auditoriums, Meridian G08, Linn Unidisk, Pathos Classic, Cayin A88T, Red Rose Rosette, Sudgen 21a, Jungson JA88d, Roksan Caspian M integrated amp, Final 300 electrostatics, PMC DB1s and several cables and connectors.

Music taste includes Blues, Rock, Classical, biased towards guitar and the system doubles up for audio on PS3 games and movies.

Whilst thinking about a replacement CD player, also considering if there might be an opportunity for sound quality improvement with digital streaming. Don't have much knowledge about this and the feeling is that ripping CD's to a hard drive may offer a level of convenience but not necessarily sound quality, though the latter may be attained by access to higher quality recordings, not available on CD media.

So current, somewhat wide, thinking is to get a replacement CD player, same Roksan or a used CD player from a long list that includes Simaudio Moon Nova, Bel Canto CD2, Cayin CD17, Shanling SACD player with valve output that looks interesting. Have some good memories of Marantz, an old Marantz CD17 KI that had a level of synergy directly driving Meridian M30 active speakers and stayed a long time, since student days. So also thinking about the Marantz CD players like the SA8005, SA15, SA-KI and the SA11.

Thanks, Narinder

you can`t go wrong with the marantz sa8005 . brilliant build and sound and reliability . highly recommended . been using one daily for a bit now and had a fair few others in the past . bel canto cd player good but they stopped making the mechanism


welcome to aos by the way

watch the price of the sa8005 as some places are selling them s/h for more than they cost new !!!

https://www.audiblefidelity.co.uk/pr...SABEgJ5tPD_BwE

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Narinder

Hi, the time has come to replace a Roksan Caspian M CD player. Roksan gave up the ghost just as the Dyson was switched on.

Current system, stable for the last 8 years or so, has been Roksan Caspian M CD player, with Simaudio Moon i5 amp driving Revel M22 stand mount speakers. Connectors are Crystal Cable Piccolo and Hitachi linear crystal speakers cables that date back to an upgrade journey, going through several components, like Living Voice Auditoriums, Meridian G08, Linn Unidisk, Pathos Classic, Cayin A88T, Red Rose Rosette, Sudgen 21a, Jungson JA88d, Roksan Caspian M integrated amp, Final 300 electrostatics, PMC DB1s and several cables and connectors.

Music taste includes Blues, Rock, Classical, biased towards guitar and the system doubles up for audio on PS3 games and movies.

Whilst thinking about a replacement CD player, also considering if there might be an opportunity for sound quality improvement with digital streaming. Don't have much knowledge about this and the feeling is that ripping CD's to a hard drive may offer a level of convenience but not necessarily sound quality, though the latter may be attained by access to higher quality recordings, not available on CD media.

So current, somewhat wide, thinking is to get a replacement CD player, same Roksan or a used CD player from a long list that includes Simaudio Moon Nova, Bel Canto CD2, Cayin CD17, Shanling SACD player with valve output that looks interesting. Have some good memories of Marantz, an old Marantz CD17 KI that had a level of synergy directly driving Meridian M30 active speakers and stayed a long time, since student days. So also thinking about the Marantz CD players like the SA8005, SA15, SA-KI and the SA11.

Thanks, Narinder

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Don't do it! Go for digital streaming. :hmm:

Sound quality with streaming and a good DAC (or DAC module) can be better than on many cd players, perhaps because the ripped file has already had error correction applied. Certainly in terms of value for money, you would have to spend really big bucks in order to improve on some of the beast streaming/DAC solutions. You can try out streaming yourself with a raspberry pi solution for £100 or less. Yes, ripping a big cd collection can be a big pain, but it can be done over time as you listen to the cd's.

Geoff

ripping cd`s is good for some but i love reading the covers etc. last night i was following karl lewis requim in latin on the booklet and it was so much better tha just listening as you could appreciate the meaning of the words

i have a pretty good dac and the sa8005 sounds better straight into the pre than putting it through the dac

for 599 quid it has digital in and out which makes it versatile

from the bumpf

For example, it faithfully reproduces a wide sound stage with no extra or missing information, thanks to the faster, low-noise and lower impedance symmetrical circuits with high-quality components. The loading mechanism virtually eliminates resonance, while its reduced distortion spectrum gets the very best of audio quality from SACDs. And just like the Premium SA-14S1, the SA8005 includes a DAC-mode. It has optical and coaxial digital input as well as USB-B for direct connection to your PC. This means you can use the player’s high-quality DAC and the high-quality audio output stage with HDAM®-SA2 modules. That’s why, importantly, this newly developed player also includes our latest ground/signal isolator technology, to virtually eliminate PC noise. The player operates as a soundcard for the PC and the USB-B port works in asynchronous mode to support not only 192 kHz / 24bits but also the DSD 2.8MHz and 5.6MHz for maximized versatility and performance. All these different sources use the same excellent audio processing, so all your music will radiate the same intense lustre, energy, and pin-point detail – whatever the source. Enjoy.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by hifinutt

you can`t go wrong with the marantz sa8005 . brilliant build and sound and reliability . highly recommended . been using one daily for a bit now and had a fair few others in the past . bel canto cd player good but they stopped making the mechanism


welcome to aos by the way

watch the price of the sa8005 as some places are selling them s/h for more than they cost new !!!

https://www.audiblefidelity.co.uk/pr...SABEgJ5tPD_BwE

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+1

I am currently ripping all my CD's to the .flac format, this is a lossless format so the sound should be the same if the rest of the equipment is the same.

I was after a new CD, now going to spend the money on a new amp (Not actually parting with my Quad 33/405 combo) just want something with a remote so I am probably going for a Cyrus One.

Not saying I won't buy a new CD player in the future, but certainly not for now, and there is nothing to stop you reading the booklet from the CD whilst you listen to your ripped files.

Hello Narinder. Welcome to AOS.

You've had some interesting equipment there.

Ask some questions about CD players in the Digital Expressions section and I'm sure you'll get some opinions.


Enjoy the forum,
Geoff.

Thanks all for the welcome, for the recommendations for a new CD player and for digital streaming.

Migrated before from LP's and cassettes to CD. Change is inevitable in pursuance of, hopefully, better sound quality. The Marantz 8005 does look interesting and its DAC supports FLAC files as well as DSD files that SACD's use. My PS3 has a hard drive, a bit noisy, and could be used for initial storage, whilst figuring out a higher sound quality and longer term storage solution.

Walpurgis, will continue the conversation in the suggested section of the forum.

Yamaha make a CD/network player. Maybe not top end but too expensive either, but you would have to buy a NAS drive as well. This would give you the option of listening to CDs while at your own pace copying them to the NAS for streaming. Another option could be to by a better CD player, NAS drive and a Raspberry Pi, they make great network players too. Pretty easy to set up and load the software.