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jsj24uk
01-02-2009, 15:51
Hi everyone.

From my previous thread, my old Philips CD204 is currently in for repair and on investigation by a technician, it turns out it needs a new laser unit. Now, being an old CD player, the last I heard they are having trouble locating a new laser for it so there is a chance I will have to retire it.

It looks like I will jave a budget of upto £300 and I'm a bit lost as to what to replace it with. I have an Arcam A65+ amp and Mission speakers. I like the CD players from Marantz but I would also like a matching Arcam unit but I will have to go second hand as the prices of these are too much for my budget.

Any recomendations will be well received.

Many thanks and hope everyone has had a good weekend.

Jim.

Clive
01-02-2009, 17:50
Computer, a couple of 1TB USB disks (1 for backup) and a Beresford DAC.

StanleyB
01-02-2009, 18:02
I have one of those laser pick ups. I just have to remember where I put it... Give me a reminder by Wednesday via PM just in case I haven't tracked it down by then.

Stan

YoG
01-02-2009, 18:54
Computer, a couple of 1TB USB disks (1 for backup) and a Beresford DAC.
I totally agree with that! My Beresford is sounding better every day i do the burn-in process

No, i am not affiliated with Stan in any way.. but im loving this piece of equipment more and more.. so much detail.. i like to yell this over various forums because of its low price and the excellent quality you get in return

..all you need is a digital cable to hook your pc to the dac and one analogue to your amp..
Heck you can even connect three extra devices such as your tv, dvd or cd to it.. it has a total of four digital inputs (2 analogue out)

I'd say, forget about the old CD-standard and go digital/computerbased instead.. just feed your amp a good source (like FLAC files) and a good dac.. you'll be amazed how much you gain in quality

Im Convinced, in case you did not noticed :smoking:

jsj24uk
01-02-2009, 19:25
I have one of those laser pick ups. I just have to remember where I put it... Give me a reminder by Wednesday via PM just in case I haven't tracked it down by then.

Stan

Hi Stan.

Thanks very much for that. I doubt the repair shop will be able to find one. If I havn't heard from them by Tuesday, I will probably give you s shout for it and get the repair shop to fit it for me.

Many thanks.

Jim.

Spur07
02-02-2009, 11:01
js,

forget your cdp and invest in computer audio - the quality should be way superior to the budget you've set yourself.


but if you still want CDP suggestions - apparently Rega make the best sub £1000 player - can't think of the model name.

Clive
02-02-2009, 11:08
I'd say, forget about the old CD-standard and go digital/computerbased instead.. just feed your amp a good source (like FLAC files) and a good dac.. you'll be amazed how much you gain in quality

I'm only now starting to think seriously about going this route myself. I have 350 CDs, should I rip them as FLAC or as the original WAV files? It seems like disc space is not an issue anymore. Is it ok to have disks running over USB at the same time the USB is feeding the DAC? No throughput issues? USB 2 is assumed.

StanleyB
02-02-2009, 11:16
I briefly covered the HD media route a while back, but here I go again...

Get a HD media drive like the Freecom 350 or 450, or the IONI (www.inoi.com). They have a digital output and a remote control. The digital output goes to a DAC. The HD drive also has a video output, which you connect to a monitor that has a video input.

I shall do my best to take pictures of my set up in various stages so that everyone can get an idea of what I am on about. I am just overworked right now with all sorts of other pressing things to get done.

Stan

Spur07
02-02-2009, 11:24
clive,

if your on PC use EAC to rip your CD's to WAV - apparently its the best. you can always convert from WAV to other formats if necessary later on. I use FLAC for my MP3 player as its less size that full lossless, but for my Hi-Fi I used MAX (Apple Mac user) to convert my CD's to WAV. I decided against AIFF (Apple lossless format).

"Is it ok to have disks running over USB at the same time the USB is feeding the DAC? "
not sure what you mean by this - but make sure you're using USB 2 to feed the DAC or USB convertor, especially if your running a long USB cable. I'm pretty sure this has some kind of affect on performance.

Clive
02-02-2009, 11:49
clive,

"Is it ok to have disks running over USB at the same time the USB is feeding the DAC? "
not sure what you mean by this - but make sure you're using USB 2 to feed the DAC or USB convertor, especially if your running a long USB cable. I'm pretty sure this has some kind of affect on performance.
I suppose it depends on how USB is implemented internally in the PC. I was thinking that with USB disks I would be using the same I/O channel in the PC as I would use to drive the DAC. I'm just wondering if the 2 datastreams over the same channel cause any performance issues.

Thanks for your comments BTW!

YoG
02-02-2009, 20:58
I'm only now starting to think seriously about going this route myself. I have 350 CDs, should I rip them as FLAC or as the original WAV files? It seems like disc space is not an issue anymore.
FLAC and WAV will not differ in quality. Only downside of WAV is that you cannot tag the.. if thats what youre concerned about... and yup they take up massive filespace.
I'd compress them to FLAC and tag your cd's using an online database (Foobar has one built-in, and a plugin for more flexibility)
I'd also use Level 0 when you convert the Flacs.. this parameter will take up a little more more space but put less load on the cpu when playing them (0 = less compression, 9 = highest, ..smaller but eats more resources).
Also make sure your media-devices support FLAC..(mp3player, streamdevice, server etc) otherwise you can try other lossless formats, like APE or lossless WMA

Clive
03-02-2009, 09:07
FLAC and WAV will not differ in quality. Only downside of WAV is that you cannot tag the.. if thats what youre concerned about... and yup they take up massive filespace.
I'd compress them to FLAC and tag your cd's using an online database (Foobar has one built-in, and a plugin for more flexibility)
I'd also use Level 0 when you convert the Flacs.. this parameter will take up a little more more space but put less load on the cpu when playing them (0 = less compression, 9 = highest, ..smaller but eats more resources).
Also make sure your media-devices support FLAC..(mp3player, streamdevice, server etc) otherwise you can try other lossless formats, like APE or lossless WMA
RE tagging, is this the same as CUE files? freedb seems to create a CUE file for WAVs with what seem like tags. I've ripped a couple of CDs using EAC plus Foobar to access them. Seems to work ok. I'm not really bothered about diskspace for 350 CDs, it's only a little over 200GB. When I started out in IT I was working with 5KB disk drives but now that 1TB disks are under 90 quid my CD collection can reside on spare space on my backup drives.

YoG
06-02-2009, 19:53
CUE files are primarily used for indexing a big audiofile (can be anything, mp3, flac, wav etc).. if your audioplayer supports it it can be a neat way play your files. I never use it, i like to have full control of my music.. But i may come in handy f.e. with a DJ mixset in MP3. MP3 always adds a little pause between two files, that is really anoying, particularly in continous (sp?) music streams.. but FLAC handles it nicely, so its a little obsolete now.
Another reason to choose for FLAC :eyebrows:

I'd rather handle my tracks the basic way: all sliced up in seperate tracks instead of an index CUE file

I'm not really bothered about diskspace for 350 CDs, it's only a little over 200GB. When I started out in IT I was working with 5KB disk drives but now that 1TB disks are under 90 quid my CD collection can reside on spare space on my backup drives.
Yep, and make sure you make decent backups of your music.. i got myself a external usb harddrive of 1 TB.. that cost me around 120 euro (plm. 100 pounds)
Works great and gives a safe feeling over your 'candy'

Clive
06-02-2009, 20:04
I've got FLAC working with EAC now. The feeling I have is that I should use FLAC as the tagging may come in useful in the future, maybe for something like a Sueezebox one day, ie for show the track names?

YoG
06-02-2009, 20:55
Yeah, if you dont tag you must rely on filenames.. which are not ideal for organizing audio.. you can stuff a lot of info (if you like) in tags.. genres, year, composer etc.. etc.. very useful for quickly find what you need
Not only for Squeezebox.. anything that plays digital audio will handle TAGs (if not get rid of it now)