Which New CD Player to Buy???

[colin.hepburn]

Hi all
Well thinking about a New CD player Price Range £300/£450 starting with the Nad C542?? Has anyone on here got some ideas for this price range?
Ah but wait is it worth it at the moment I senses that the CD as we no it days are numbers what will it be HDCD Blue/Ray SACD??? Your advice is welcome on this which Player
Cheers
Colin

[Mike]

Well!...

Just my twopenneth, I'm 'holding tight' at the moment. There seems to be several 'new' technologies which are very much in their infancy, so to speak. I expect many advances coming very rapidly in the near future!

I think I'll be sitting back for a while, and seeing what develops! ;)

[purite audio]

Does your old player have digital 'out' if it does why not keep it and try a few different DACS, Lavry make the Da10 which is around your budget.

[colin.hepburn]

yep well advised mike i think

[colin.hepburn]

Does your old player have digital 'out' if it does why not keep it and try a few different DACS, Lavry make the Da10 which is around your budget.
Well yes modded marantz 52se plus the maranz 67 a dac may be a good way to go just thought the players i have are getting on a bit now

[Mike]

Just my opinion (again), but I don't think I'm alone in this. I see physical digital media soon becoming very much a 'legacy format' but not in the way that CD was supposed to make vinyl become.

This time round I expect the upcoming digital 'formats' to move away from physical media (not necessarily a good thing in itself - time will tell) and becoming more and more 'software' based. Downloads etc. I DO expect these to become (in due course) significantly better that red book CD, which were not, and are not, 'better' than good analogue.

Will the 'future formats' be better than analogue?... Dunno, kind of doubt it. I said it earlier, but one day analogue will be re-invented, "ooh look, a system that records a whole note instead of umpteen little slices of it" ! ;)

Cheers...

[Marco]

I'll delve into this subject in a bit more detail later, particularly with regard to (good) older players and DACs using TDA1541 chipsets which can be modified with new components to become something pretty special.

However, Colin, as far as new CDPs are concerned in your price range I'd recommend you look at models from Cambridge Audio and Rotel, both of which produce CDPs that punch well above their weight on the sound-per-pound stakes.

Marco.

[Mike]

Better than 'good' analogue though? :eyebrows:

Nah!.... Pull the other one!

:lolsign:

[Marco]

Nothing is better than good analogue, mate!

The 'digital boys' can of course disagree, but we know we're right :eyebrows:

Marco.

[Togil]

Will the 'future formats' be better than analogue?... Dunno, kind of doubt it. I said it earlier, but one day analogue will be re-invented, "ooh look, a system that records a whole note instead of umpteen little slices of it" ! ;)

Cheers...

What about the individual particles on the magnetic tape ?
Everything is digital, ultimately

[Historicus]

Hi Colin,
why don't you try with an Oppo that costs about 160 pounds and you can play Sacd, Cd, Dvd-audio. For someone in a blind test it sounded better then a Wadia that costs much more! Anyway, I didn't test still this player but reading on various magazines it's a sort of buy hint.
The mechanics isn't good at all referred to other expensive players but oversampling the bitrate cd's would sound better ...