Sherwood Newcastle CD-980T CD player

Danny Tse

I don't personally have this CD player but I am seriously consider getting it. According to the Sherwood Newcastle website, this player's MSRP is $500.00. However, for today (04/29/2005) only, J&R is offering it for only $170.00 + shipping. That's quite a deal!! I saw some great feedback (from a Polk SDA owner) on this CD player on a thread on head-fi.org, so despite having just purchased a Sony SACD/DVD player, I am very tempted. This player share the same DAC as some Naim and Wadia CD players!!

Just a "heads up", I have no affiliation w/ Sherwood or J&R.

dragon1952

I have the Sherwood CD-980 in a second system. I believe the 'T' just refers to the titanium finish on this one. This model's been around for a few years I believe. I bought mine used from Audiogon about a year and a half ago for $180 shipped I think. It's a sweet sounding player and very hefty in weight. My only problem is that the output jacks came loose at the solder connection on the PCB and I had to resolder. Also, it developed some kind of mechanical problem and makes a loud, fast 'rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat' noise for around 10 seconds or so on certain CD's before it displays the track information. Don't know if this was common though. It plays fine though. I replaced it in my main system with a NAD C541i which I think is a slight improvement in detail but not quite as warm sounding maybe. I haven't really A/B'ed them, but the Sherwood sounds sa-weet with my vintage Marantz and Advents. Really the only reason I replaced it was because of that noise though. It also has variable as well as fixed outputs (with a volume pot for the variable outputs), and both optical and digital coax outputs.