Looking for a CD player (for a friend)

[The Black Adder]

Hi.

I'm looking for a cd player for a friend. He has about £350 to spend and wants a superb sounding, bullet proof, totally serviceable and easy to obtain parts for as his last cd player has become obsolete in parts and service of which he wasn't best pleased.

So that kind of points to a sony transport and not Philips I guess. New or used.

He has a cool system including a croft micronaught.

Can anyone suggest a player?

Cheers
Joe

[DSJR]

REGA ANYTHING!!!!!

Fugg the shilling for a firm I know and sold for years! ANY of their CD players are good, solid machines with a very approachable sound quality which is NEVER "screaming HiFi." Planets are cheap enough and lightly bodgable, although they were pretty well sorted from new and little needs to be done apart from component upgrades here and there, The Jupiter/Io pair may come up occasionally and these were lovely, the replacement Apollo and Saturn have been extremely popular and the new Apollo R sounds great to me for under £500!

I know in some quarters "they" just tell you to buy any blue-ray player and if necessary add a DAC for under £200, but the above players last, retain value and sound pretty darned good in all sorts of systems, as well as having clean digital outputs for a DAC of your choice.

OK, there's loads of used classic CD players for £350, but old Sony's are getting difficult to get bits for, cheaper models can vary from poor to stunning I've found, Arcam 8SE, CD81 upwards will be good for service a while longer I think and marantz's with KI's monika on are and were popular, although it's purely a marketing thing I feel, since many of these players don't always sound "better," merely more "HiFi" to me.....

Good luck.

[The Black Adder]

Cheers Dave.

Great info there, Rega looks like a contender. I'm surprised the Sony ES series are getting hard to service (so I've heard). I have seen a XA777ES for sale which is just out of his budget but I thought would be a great player as I've heard the XA777ES before and it's a cracking sound. I am tempted with it myself to be honest but I find myself trying to find parts for it first just in case to which seem thin on the ground. Is this the way of cd-players these days?.. It seems they are getting more like disposable items.

[Macca]

I have a Cambridge 840 Azur I could let go for £350. Original box, packaging, remote , manual, good runner, nice and tidy. Collection only, though.

[DSJR]

CD playback appears to be dying a slow death since downloads have been increasing. We're shielded from the outside world in our little audiophile bubble and with Spotify and others like it, I'm not surprised CD's and the shops that sell them are in decline.

As for good old vintage players, it's simple really (sadly). These things were never intended to have more than a ten year or so service life, but like other good vintage gear from the far east, they were built far too well and, twenty years or more on from manufacture, these once expensive products (not as expensive as some because of the mass manufacture), are still running well and giving enjoyment to their owners. Many laser failures can be got round with alternatives and often, it's careful cleaning a la lampizator? that can restore things (there's a lens ABOVE the laser itself).

These days, it's reported that CD transports are either rare as hens teeth, or no longer made and many CD machines now use a version of a CD-Rom drive I understand (citation needed on this point due to its source ;)). I believe "jitter" hasn't been an audible issue for a decade or more and the better vintage transports out there have a small legion of agents for updates and upgrades.

I keep going on about Rega because their products are well made where they need to be, are usually very reliable, they carry plenty of spares, unlike some I could mention (!) and are and were very well designed to start with, even if they weren't slick like the far eastern machines.

[DSJR]

I have a Cambridge 840 Azur I could let go for £350. Original box, packaging, remote , manual, good runner, nice and tidy. Collection only, though.

Apart from the wilder CD players and DAC's out there, this model is a pretty good bet for a recent product, is tuneable I understand, sounds pretty darned good and offers external digital inputs - another goodie I think :)

[The Black Adder]

I have a Cambridge 840 Azur I could let go for £350. Original box, packaging, remote , manual, good runner, nice and tidy. Collection only, though.

I will put it to him, Martin... Many thanks.

[The Black Adder]

CD playback appears to be dying a slow death since downloads have been increasing. We're shielded from the outside world in our little audiophile bubble and with Spotify and others like it, I'm not surprised CD's and the shops that sell them are in decline.

As for good old vintage players, it's simple really (sadly). These things were never intended to have more than a ten year or so service life, but like other good vintage gear from the far east, they were built far too well and, twenty years or more on from manufacture, these once expensive products (not as expensive as some because of the mass manufacture), are still running well and giving enjoyment to their owners. Many laser failures can be got round with alternatives and often, it's careful cleaning a la lampizator? that can restore things (there's a lens ABOVE the laser itself).

These days, it's reported that CD transports are either rare as hens teeth, or no longer made and many CD machines now use a version of a CD-Rom drive I understand (citation needed on this point due to its source ;)). I believe "jitter" hasn't been an audible issue for a decade or more and the better vintage transports out there have a small legion of agents for updates and upgrades.

I keep going on about Rega because their products are well made where they need to be, are usually very reliable, they carry plenty of spares, unlike some I could mention (!) and are and were very well designed to start with, even if they weren't slick like the far eastern machines.

You know... it's a tragedy. CD players although they have their faults are still an amazing bit of engineering, to me anyway. Laser light, reading music?... Garlic Bread?

Another thing too, the new BT adverts seem to grate me more often than not, simply as one of the young characters who refers to Duran Duran says 'oh, you have got their first album', and there it is.... on iTunes... On the screen. To me that's not having as in 'got' the album and it seems odd to me to even say that... It should be 'oh, you have downloaded their first album'... It might be just me being old... fret!, fret!, fret!, spit!

[bobbasrah]

....It should be 'oh, you have downloaded their first album'... It might be just me being old... fret!, fret!, fret!, spit!

We are all getting old Joe, but as David pointed out the CD is disappearing fast both as a player and as a medium...

However much I hope for a higher quality online distribution business to replace the expensive existing legacy system, there is the real possibility that within a generation none of the consumers will own their music anyway in any form.

The push toward cloud etc for computing, online storage, spotify etc., seems to point to online rental of all media as the endgame, which would indeed be sad....