Is a cd player necessary?

[willland]

Thanks again for the Onkyo link because it gave me a good idea. I just purchased their new model of this CD player which also has SACD. I couldn't resist the discount Amazon price of $359 with free shipping. Plus I get 30 days to return it if I don't like the unit. This is actually cheaper than the total price for the used unit (unless I could have gotten about $100 off) because of shipping costs, the cost of joining AudiogoN to make a bid and the 3% the seller wants to cover his PayPal fee.

Gagelle,

What model did you buy? Is it the Onkyo C-S5VL?

If so, I have heard nothing but good things about this player.

Let me know your impressions after you get it.

Bill

[gagelle]

Yes, that's the model. Retails for $699 on the Onkyo web site. If you pay about $40 a year for the Amazon shipping plan, you get free second day shipping on almost anything.

[gagelle]

Hi Willand,

I'm about to pick up my new CD player and was wondering whether to use an optical or component input on my receiver?

[chisoxpurdue]

I would use the optical if you do not need to bend the wire. A very short run will not have much of a difference, but the Optical works better.

[gagelle]

Thanks
chisoxpurdue. I appreciate the feedback.

Best,

Seth

[chisoxpurdue]

It is just my opinion, but It really does not matter on a short run. If I have just been brainwashed into optical is better, someone here will probably jump in and let us know.

[gagelle]

I've been reading pros and cons of both connections. ie. I read somewhere that optical cable shouldn't be too long--not anything I'm concerned about.

On another topic, I keep learning new things about my Harman Kardon receiver almost every day. I had an incorrect setting on my receiver for my subwoffer. It was actually cutting off low frequencies from my from front speakers and passing them to my sub. This was the default setting and I never bothered to read that section of the manual.

[sebrof]

Thanks--confirms what I was thinking.

Depending on the level of the rest of your equipment and your oppo, it may be a noticable upgrade. That said, you have to figure out if the sound is worth the dollars but it doesn't mean a new cd player won't be a revelation. .

Agree. I can only comment on my experience comparing CDPs, and there is a lot of difference between dedicated CD players even within the same pricepoint ($1K range in my case). So I assume that there are huge differences between a DVD player and a CDP in similar pricepoints.

I compared my Sony 5-disc DVD playing the SACD layer to a CDP playing the Redbook layer of the same CD. No contest, the CDP sounded much better.

Sony DVD @$250 vs Jolida CDP @ $1K.

So there are big differences. Whether you'll hear them vs. your current player in your system or whether you think it's worth the cost falls into the YMMV category.

[SWL]

To throw in my 2 cents.......of all the cd players, dvd players and audio from my laptop, none of them could come close to the Jolida tube cd player for strickly two-channel playback. It was $950 brand new but can be had on the used market for roughly $400-$500.

I originally got it to add some tube flavor in an all solid state system......and it backfired on me. However, now that it is mated with a tube amplifier the compatibility is admirable. It's the ONLY way to go for two-channel listening as far as I'm concerned. Of course, my room with my equipment with my ears. YMMV. []

[gagelle]

Hi Willand,

I just hooked up the Onkyo today, using an optical cable. It's a beautiful machine with very nice sound, but frankly, I don't think the sound is any better than playing Cds on my Oppo Blu-Ray machine. I'm going to do some more comparisons tomorrow. I still really like the Onkyo player. If I don't hear a sound difference after further testing, I'll keep it to replace my son's Yamaha CD player that is slowly disintegrating.

His system uses my Epic Cf3s, which I swear are some of the best sounding speakers I've ever owned. Some people may think I'm crazy, but they have a balanced, neutral sound with bass that shakes the floor. I'm happy he convinced me not to sell them.

[pzannucci]

Hi Willand,

I just hooked up the Onkyo today, using an optical cable. I

As pointed out earlier, if you use a digital connection, it is likely almost all players, DVD or CD, will sound almost the same ($39-$3000). Where you look to take advantage of the higher end CD players is their analog outputs not digital.

Using the Analog outputs, you use the internal DAC and power output of the CD player and this is where the difference is. That is why I stated earlier in this thread that you could change the DAC and make a big difference, even with an inexpensive player.

Using a digital connection, be it toslink, digital cable, or hdmi will yield close to identical results because you use same internal DAC in the receiver.

[chisoxpurdue]

I want to state, that when using an external DAC (separate or a Preamp) I would use the digital coax. I earlier stated the optical is better. I retract that statement. I have done a new side by side comparison with two CD players. One had no difference. The other, there was a little "jitter" with the optical connection. I have heard this before but did not experience it.

I used to prefer the optical connection. This was because with optical, there is no ground connection between components and therefor no chance for coupling noise. That was an issue in the past for me, but no more. So, as I said, if using digital connection, coax is the way to go. To use the DAC in the player though, use the analog connections and make sure the preamp is set to direct or through mode so it is not taking the Analog signal, converting it to digital, and back to analog.

[artto]

Thanks--confirms what I was thinking.

Depending on the level of the rest of your equipment and your oppo, it may be a noticable upgrade. That said, you have to figure out if the sound is worth the dollars but it doesn't mean a new cd player won't be a revelation. Also, if you have the oppo, you probably have digital outputs, a good outboard DAC may make a fair amount of difference if you don't want another player around. The DacMagic is inexpensive and the Wyred4sound's new DAC got excellent reviews for the ~$1500 category.

True ~ it kind of depends on the quality of the rest of your setup ~ including the quality of your listening environment.

Just for the record, a Forum Member and his girlfriend were over at my place for a visit, specifically to compare his OPPO player with my Shanling SACD player which was intermittently having some skipping issues at the time (which has since been fixed). This comparison came about because I needed to know if it was the SACD discs themselves that were having problems or if it was the player.

The interesting thing was (if I remember correctly) there wasn't much difference with regular CD. However with SACD the Shanling was better sounding. One thing I noticed in particular having demo'd my system many times for visitors is the attention people pay to simply "listening" (as opposed to talking when the music is playing). One disc we listened to was Tony Bennett and K.D. Lang "A Wonderful World". When it was playing on the OPPO there was a lot of conversation, almost as if it were just background music. When it was played on the Shanling all of a sudden we were all paying attention to the music.

Bottom line: there's no substitute for using it in your own system, listening with your own ears, and finding out for yourself!