Recommend a CD player for my 2 channel

schwarcw

SCompRacer wrote: »

No, all tube and just tube pre. Carl has it in an all SS system, but I cannot recall the components. In his system, he felt it needed a tube buffer. I'll ask to see if he wishes to explain why.:p:D

Greetings gents! I read this thread earlier in the week and I just saw the comments and link to the Quad 99. I still own the CDP and love it! I was taken back by the size of the sound stage and the added detail. It was fairly smooth on most music. But after listening to it at high volumes for a period of time it became a little fatiguing. I threw a tube buffer in the mix and it became a little smoother. The Quad 99 is a solid built piece of British electronics, very low jitter, upsampling and I found it very dynamic. I was originally using it with my Polk 2.3's. My electronics were all Parasound Halo (C2 controller pre/pro, and TWO Halo A21 horizontally biamped to the 2.3's).

I now use the Quad 99 as the digital source in my vintage tube amp collection rig. My current speakers in there are the KEF 101's which are very similar to the Roger's LS 3/5A (same tweeter and woofer, a little different crossover without the BBC dip).

The Quad won't disappoint you. A high end retailer told me if Quad would have put that player in a standard size case and priced it at $2,500, they would have sold a bunch of them. HiFi consumers were turned off buy it's small size. Quad was maybe trying to imitate the success that Musical Fidelity experienced with their "X" size series of components.

comfortablycurt

Anyone here have any experience with the Sony SCD-XA5400ES SACD player?

I was checking it out the other night, and I've been considering it for my 2 ch. rig. I was mainly considering the Marantz SA-8003 SACD player, which is a bit cheaper, but the Sony has some extra features that seem really nice, and may be worth the extra coin. It has balanced XLR outs, which is a big advantage, because the pre and the amp that I eventually plan to get(Adcom GFP-750, Adcom GFA-555SE) both have balanced inputs and outputs, so having balanced out's on the CDP is nice, and is one thing the Marantz 8003 lacks.

It will also do multi-channel SACD over HDMI, which would be nice too. I plan to eventually get a dedicated multi-channel SACD player for my HT setup too, though not for quite a while yet. If I got this Sony, I'd be able to just move it to my HT system when I upgraded my 2 ch. CDP. Having DSD over HDMI would be great, because it would eliminate a whole lot of cable clutter.

I've always had good experiences with Sony's CD players. I've had a couple of them before, and never had any complaints. From the looks of it, I could find one of these units used on Audiogon for around 1100-1200. Any thoughts on it?

BlueFox

comfortablycurt wrote: »

Anyone here have any experience with the Sony SCD-XA5400ES SACD player?

Funny you should ask. It just arrived Friday, and I am playing it right now, Lang Lang, Rachmaninov Piano Concerto #2. Sounds great in regard to SACD, but regular CDs seem to sound a bit better running the digital out into the Benchmark Dac1. Other forums state it needs a few hundred hours break-in to reach optimum playback.

It appears to be based on the Sony 9100ES DVD/SACD player, same chassis, but optimized for only SACD/CD playback. I have the 9100ES in my HT room, and it works great for DVD and SACD. Since I needed an SACD player for the living room, I knew this was what I needed. I even bought a pre-amp, Cambridge-Audio 840E, with 2 sets of XLR inputs so I could have both it and the Dac1 attached via XLR.

Since Sony just released this player in the last October/November time frame, and suppossedly the SACD market is going away, my thinking is they would not bother to sell a new SACD player unless it was worthwhile.

Since an SACD player needs SACDs, I just ordered another $400+ dollars worth of SACDs from Amazon to feed the machine. Got to help the economy, its my patriotic duty.

I found it at Digital Craze for $1049, no tax, and free shipping.

https://www.digitalcraze.com/results1.asp?Manufacturer=7&Category=20

comfortablycurt

BlueFox wrote: »

Funny you should ask. It just arrived Friday, and I am playing it right now, Lang Lang, Rachmaninov Piano Concerto #2. Sounds great in regard to SACD, but regular CDs seem to sound a bit better running the digital out into the Benchmark Dac1. Other forums state it needs a few hundred hours break-in to reach optimum playback.

It appears to be based on the Sony 9100ES DVD/SACD player, same chassis, but optimized for only SACD/CD playback. I have the 9100ES in my HT room, and it works great for DVD and SACD. Since I needed an SACD player for the living room, I knew this was what I needed. I even bought a pre-amp, Cambridge-Audio 840E, with 2 sets of XLR inputs so I could have both it and the Dac1 attached via XLR.

Since Sony just released this player in the last October/November time frame, and suppossedly the SACD market is going away, my thinking is they would not bother to sell a new SACD player unless it was worthwhile.

Since an SACD player needs SACDs, I just ordered another $400+ dollars worth of SACDs from Amazon to feed the machine. Got to help the economy, its my patriotic duty.

I found it at Digital Craze for $1049, no tax, and free shipping.

https://www.digitalcraze.com/results1.asp?Manufacturer=7&Category=20

Wow, that's the best price I've seen for one of these. That's less than some of the used ones I've seen on Audiogon...That link is bookmarked now.:)

When you say regular CD's sound better over digital, were you comparing them to HDMI, or the balanced outs? I'd be interested in hearing your review of it once it gets broken in and you get some listening time in on it.

I'm thinking this may be what I end up going with. I've been reading reviews on it all night, and it seems to be getting a lot of praise for the most part. I've got a few other upgrades to go before I get to this though...I'm hoping they still have some of them for 1049 at digitalcraze.com when I'm ready to pick one up.

Anyone else have any thoughts on it?

comfortablycurt

Keiko wrote: »

PLaSMa CeNTeR :rolleyes:

lol...I knew that was coming.:p

I'm gonna surprise you soon. I'm actually going to be back working full time pretty soon, and I'm going to be on a gear buying spree. All of this window shopping isn't for nothing ya know.;) I'm predicting that I'll spend somewhere between 2500-3000 dollars on gear this year...My wallets going to hate me. I might as well just throw the damn thing away...there won't be anything in it this year...lol

BlueFox

comfortablycurt wrote: »

Wow, that's the best price I've seen for one of these. That's less than some of the used ones I've seen on Audiogon...That link is bookmarked now.:)

Yes, it took me a while before I found that site. It seemed as if everyone was selling at list price since it is new.

When you say regular CD's sound better over digital, were you comparing them to HDMI, or the balanced outs? I'd be interested in hearing your review of it once it gets broken in and you get some listening time in on it.

XLR. One point about the HDMI is that it incorporates Sony's HATS technology for jitter free DSD over HDMI. Of course, being Sony, HATS only works with another Sony device, such as their AVRs, that supports HATS.

Otherwise, it is just regular HDMI.

jhw59

Does Jolida the company offer mods to the cd player? I've thought about modding my stock player and they are about 30 minutes from my house.

steveinaz

...another vote for the Rotel. I just don't see anything south of a grand that can beat it.....run with it? Maybe, beat it...Nahh.

Spehoks09

Hi all, sorry if this topic has been covered before. I just wanted to know if its worth the effort to DIY multi-channel audio cables, i was actually thinking about purchasing 6 x RCA - RCA for multichannel analog inputs but then i got my hands some Belden 1505A cables so i started thinking why not make my own. Or am i just wasting my time and im better off buying the cables instead??

Any advise would be great

Cheers

Praz

Dawgfish

I haven't heard the Rotel or Jolida CDPs yet, but I have recently upgraded my CDP to an Opera Audio Consonance CD120 and I'm really enjoying it. It's very musical and engaging, and detailed without being sterile. It's a winner in my book. It's nice living in the same town as RT1 and getting all of his castaways! Thanks again Ted!

madmax

Hi Norm,
I was at this point years ago. I went out and bought a Theta transport and an audionote kit dac, both pieces used with a nice cable in between for a super low price. You could probably find this same setup or similar today for way under what you are willing to spend. So why have I not moved on yet? OK, for $3K or so I could get a noticeable improvement. I'm not willing to spend that much yet even though I have the associated equipment to support it. For $800 to $2K, well, its a crap shoot. I think the audionote kit dacs are awesome and while different transports can sound better or worse there is not a huge difference. For me a cheap used combo like this is best. If I wanted to spend the money today I would buy an Ayre CX7E MP for $3K on the basis of the stereophile review alone. http://www.ayre.com/products_detail.cfm?productid=2
I've heard several single players and nothing has hit me as being worth it in this price range. Just my opinions and not putting down any particular equipment.

beardog03

jhw59 wrote: »

Does Jolida the company offer mods to the cd player? I've thought about modding my stock player and they are about 30 minutes from my house.

I do not think that Jolida does mods themselves, but as Jesse (F1) stated earlier, Underwood HiFi (parts connection), as well as others do a great job of modding the Jolida-JD100.
If you browse Audiogon, you can find a couple of ads for different places that do the mods (underwood is one) and they will explain everything that goes into a level one, or level two mod