Good CD sound on a tight budget?

[horace]

Looks as if my trusty Sony DVP-S7700 may be about to expire (it's started skipping from time to time). I'll try cleaning the lens, but a replacement may be on the cards.

The Sony cost me £50 on ebay - the best £50 I've spent by far.

No funds available for anything fancy - £100 is about the limit.

So, apart from looking out for another DVP-S7700 (which I might be tempted to do), what else should I be looking for?

Cheers

Martin

[UV101]

Looks as if my trusty Sony DVP-S7700 may be about to expire (it's started skipping from time to time). I'll try cleaning the lens, but a replacement may be on the cards.

The Sony cost me £50 on ebay - the best £50 I've spent by far.

No funds available for anything fancy - £100 is about the limit.

So, apart from looking out for another DVP-S7700 (which I might be tempted to do), what else should I be looking for?

Cheers

Martin

Hi Martin, for me there are 2 budget players

Anything with a TDA1541 or a Marantz CD63/67. With the marantz, go for the SE but you don't need to go to the KI level. A few basic mods and a 63SE will be miles better than a KI.

Google CD63 Mods you'll see how much of a cult player this is!

All of course in my opinion!

[Marco]

Hi Martin,

Here's an excellent Sony CDP at a bargain price:

http://www.usedhifishop.co.uk/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=3&products_id=898

Dave, who runs the business, is a member here and I can personally vouch for the quality of the equipment he sells (all fully inspected and guaranteed), which makes the purchase risk-free, and also the superb service he offers his customers, especially members of AOS :)

You'll also have a fiver left over for a bottle of wine (or a few beers) to toast your good fortune! :cheers:

Marco.

[Ali Tait]

Good advice from Ian.Another option could be a Beresford dac (maybe you could find a 7510 secondhand on the bay) and a Tesco special dvd player as transport.Will be surprisingly good! You can't do better than Beresford for the money.

[The Grand Wazoo]

I second that, Dave is to be trusted as a thoroughly good egg!

[twelvebears]

Hi Martin.

If it's of any interest, I've a fully functional Meridian 206 which is just gathering dust on a shelf at home which I could do a very reasonable price on. I know I should eBay it but I just can't be bothered....

I understand that this makes an excellent transport, though I'm not sure how it measures up these days as a stand-alone CDP.

I believe Ian has played around with similar machines so may be able to comment.

[DSJR]

The original CD63 was a nice sounding player, but once the SE and KI conglomerate got hold of it they destroyed it IMO, the jitter ridden mech being left alone and the sound going hard and "HiFi."

The Sony you have may only need a good clean of the laser sled (lube with a drop of very fine oil), lens and some bluetac on the "platter" to clean it, the dirt coming away with the bluetac...

How good is a machine like the one you mention Marco? I could do with a spare and also for upstairs duties..

P.S. Most twenty year old 1541 based players will be shagged by now and the use of this chip *didn't* guarantee a good sound. It's the implementation of the chipset and the quality of the audio output stage which is more important. The 1541 players were also very dependant on mains quality and the abilities of partnering equipment to work with the sonic mush also coming out at supersonic and rf, often down the signal screens.

[Marco]

How good is a machine like the one you mention Marco? I could do with a spare and also for upstairs duties..


Hi Dave,

It utilises a decent quality transport mech, and is quite solidly built, (always the bedrock for good CD performance, IMO), so 'as is' the Sony sounds more than acceptable, and with a future internal DAC upgrade (Audiocom, etc) would, IMO, form the basis of a high quality digital source.

For £95, fully tested and working from a trusted dealer, it's a steal. I think they were around £300 new :)

Marco.

[horace]

Thanks chaps - plrnty of food for thought there.

I'll pull the lid off the Sony and see if I can fix it without killing it completely in the process!

If that doesn't work, I'll need to splash some cash.

Cheers

Martin

[Codifus]

Thanks chaps - plrnty of food for thought there.

I'll pull the lid off the Sony and see if I can fix it without killing it completely in the process!

If that doesn't work, I'll need to splash some cash.

Cheers

Martin

I know this is not quite what you had in mind and the budget may be a bit over, but why not retire the CD and start the process to build a computer based music server? Assuming you already have a computer, your initial investment could be an Apple Airport Express, a decent optical cable, and perhaps a Beresford TC-7520. Those two devices and the cable to connect them are the basic building blocks to get you started. You'd be surprised at how good it can sound.

What I like about the airport express is that;

1. It operates over the network, so the computer can be located away from the stereo.
2. The airport express is a completely silent device.
3. iTunes is free and hooks up to the airport.
4. Using the Airport express and its optical out, you can get some really good audio quality. Even Stereophile agrees;

http://www.stereophile.com/digitalprocessors/505apple/index.html

Lastly, the idea of having your entire music collection at your finger tips, does that not sound appealing?

CDs are so, um , yesterday:)

CD

[The Vinyl Adventure]

:sofa: yeah man, them wierd spinny silver things are dead... move on, move on!

[horace]

I know this is not quite what you had in mind and the budget may be a bit over, but why not retire the CD and start the process to build a computer based music server? Assuming you already have a computer, your initial investment could be an Apple Airport Express, a decent optical cable, and perhaps a Beresford TC-7520. Those two devices and the cable to connect them are the basic building blocks to get you started. You'd be surprised at how good it can sound.

What I like about the airport express is that;

1. It operates over the network, so the computer can be located away from the stereo.
2. The airport express is a completely silent device.
3. iTunes is free and hooks up to the airport.
4. Using the Airport express and its optical out, you can get some really good audio quality. Even Stereophile agrees;

http://www.stereophile.com/digitalprocessors/505apple/index.html

Lastly, the idea of having your entire music collection at your finger tips, does that not sound appealing?

CDs are so, um , yesterday:)

CD

You may be right - I already have quite a collection of FLAC files on my hard drive (I'm not a fan of MP3, so use FLAC on my Sansa Fuze in the car) and have thought about a squeezebox in the past (will the Apple alternative do FLAC btw?), so I could investigate that.

Cheers

Martin

[Barry]

Hi Martin,

Here's an excellent Sony CDP at a bargain price:

http://www.usedhifishop.co.uk/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=3&products_id=898

Dave, who runs the business, is a member here and I can personally vouch for the quality of the equipment he sells (all fully inspected and guaranteed), which makes the purchase risk-free, and also the superb service he offers his customers, especially members of AOS :)

You'll also have a fiver left over for a bottle of wine (or a few beers) to toast your good fortune! :cheers:

Marco.

That player is a better version of the one that I use: the Sony CDP XB720E QS. I bought mine for about £150 three years ago as a 'stop gap' but kept it as I am quite happy with the performance. I hope to try out a separate DAC soon.

£95 for the CDP XB930E QS is a bargain indeed.

Regards

[Codifus]

You may be right - I already have quite a collection of FLAC files on my hard drive (I'm not a fan of MP3, so use FLAC on my Sansa Fuze in the car) and have thought about a squeezebox in the past (will the Apple alternative do FLAC btw?), so I could investigate that.

Cheers

Martin

Unfortunately, Apple does not do FLAC. Rather, they have their own version;ALAC:)

Since you already have a FLAC collection, the Squeezebox and a decent DAC may be the right path for you.

CD

[Ali Tait]

Should be a few Squeezeboxes coming on to ebay from people upgrading to the Touch.

[ReggieB]

I'm very pleased with my Musical Fidelity VDAC. It replaced an Arcam black box 5. It also has a USB in so good for playing back from your PC too! Excellent value.

[lovejoy]

Another vote for the Marantz players here.

I picked up a CD53 from a car boot sale for £7 a few weeks ago and wasn't sure at the time whether this was one of the players that could be tweaked, but a quick google when I got home turned up not only a fully tweakable player but a bonus over even the CD63 in that I didn't have to cut out the HDAM circuit as it didn't have one anyway.

So far I've spent about £25 on top of my initial £7 outlay and quite sickeningly it's giving me music in ways my Densen B-410 never did.

I've performed every single mod one by one so I know which ones improved things and which ones needed to be reverted - That could be for another thread though if anyone's interested...

[Rare Bird]

How good is a machine like the one you mention Marco? I could do with a spare and also for upstairs duties..



Dave i have the 'XB930E' QS UK Special Edition player it's a stonker... which looks the same at first glimpse.

[UV101]

:sofa: yeah man, them wierd spinny silver things are dead... move on, move on!

Got to say that my heavily modded SB (although very good) is a million miles off my disk spinner! (night and day difference)

The problem is the DAC. I think the SB will be awesome as a transport (replacing cd's) but the fact is its a budget dac. It sounds awesome don't get me wrong but thus far its not going to compete with a proper high end cdp.

I will however stick my neck on the line and say with a decent split psu, a few caps and a clock, it WILL wipe the floor with most players up to about £1500! Thats a bold statement!!! dont ask me to qualify other than its better than the MF A5.5 I had here for a while by some distance! (when playing lossless of course!)

:cool:

[chrism]

Yes Ian's modded SB really deserves a great DAC. On this basis I think that it will deliver the goods very well indeed.

Back to the drawing board I am afraid Ian and design us a world beating DAC!

Regards

Chris

[aBe]

You also won't go wrong with those MASH Technics CDP of yonder years.
SLPG series is going cheap for less than 50 quid nowadays.

Pity about the lack of Digital Out though, but my old SLPG-580A (made in Germany) plays great music until today. Not as tight as my other Caimanised-Marantz, but is still sweet sounding and devoid of digital harshness nevertheless.