Need help and advice to get a high-end CD player at the price range $500-600 USD

[nolan]

Originally Posted by fastbike

Get an Oppo DV-980H. www.oppodigital.com. A universal player with great sound. Dare to spend less money.

That looks like a quality rig,at a great price.

[djnagle]

I just looked at the Oppo site and they say the 980 is unavailable.

[nolan]

Originally Posted by djnagle

I just looked at the Oppo site and they say the 980 is unavailable.

If you Google it,there are plenty out there.

[avionic]

One word...........Cambridge nuf said.

[Cornbread]

Originally Posted by djnagle

I just looked at the Oppo site and they say the 980 is unavailable.

Unfortunately, Oppo has discontinued the 980 and other DVD players to concentrate on Blu-ray. The 980 is an excellent sub $500 CD, SACD, DVD-Audio, and DVD player. I have A/B'd it with several first gen players and would say it is more refined and dynamic. Others who have both the 980 and "better" $500-$1,000 CDPs say the Oppo gets within 5% of what they offer, all for under $200. There are plenty that will be available on the used market.

That said, Oppo does offer the BDP-83 for $499. It does all that the 980 does and more including Blu-ray. According to many, the audio is even better than the 980 which was Oppo's top audio performer.

[Tinman]

Everyone has their opinions, and all are valid. Here's mine:

Combo players that play DVD, Bluray, etc. have a generally short (in some cases VERY short) laser life span. If you want to spend a lot of money on a CD player, do research and buy one you can get a spare optical block for. Otherwise it's a $500 throw-away.
This goes for ANY player. Find the best possible that uses an available laser assembly, and buy a spare. You'll be happier for many years.

Google is the best tool for discovering which player uses what laser and if it's "buyable".

Example: Original Rega Planet CD player. Laser is still available almost everywhere for $20. Good investment.

The Oppo decks are great, but you cannot get a laser for them. Throw-away machines. The exception to the chinese players are those that use a plain IDE PC drive as a transport. Can be fixed forever.

Take this thought with you when shopping. It's a valid one.

[tommydoan84]

wow, thanks for a lot of useful advices and recommendations for my CD player system. I just got back from a business trip so couldn't reply to all of you in time.

Yes, you're right, it's impossible to find a REAL "high-end" CD player in this price range. I totally know this fact. What i'm looking for is just another big bang of our my bucks.

After doing a little research on the recommended players in this thread, I spot out 3 of my fav systems:

1) Jolida 100A Tube CD player(My new found favourite)
2) Cambridge Audio 640 C v2 (Higly in the target)
3) TASCAM CD-01U (Still considering and compared to #2)

I really love the Jolida, but the price is roughly $950 for a used one and this is way over my current budget. This leaves me with Cambridge and Tascam.

Do you have any ideas or recommendation for me b/w these 2 choices? I kinda lean toward more to the Cambridge since i read all the good reviews about it plus it has 2 DACS for 2 channels.

For Tascam, i barely found any reviews online on this unit so i'm still a bit skeptical and put it into consideration.
Have anyone ever had experience with the TASCAM CD-01U player ?

Thanks

[Panotaker]

Since you like to play CD's, you should consider using an old computer and ripping your CD's into lossless Flac files and using the computer as a music server. That is what I do. I have my whole CD collection on a tera bite hard drive and can play any song without having to get up. I started off with a Squeezebox 3, which will sound better than most $500 CD players. I now upgraded to a Logitech Transporter which is their top of the line model. I use my Iphone as the remote running Ipeng software. That has all the album artwork on the display, and you can play whatever you want. I never even use my CD player any more.

[Extra Big Al]

Tommy,

You will likely get maximum bang per buck by buying a separate DAC and any mass market CD player with digital output that will work with your DAC. Several years back I bought a Pioneer PD-F906 100 disk player on ebay for $100. I figured it would sound crummy, but I knew it had optical digital output. It didn’t really sound crummy, just ordinary. I called the MSB Company and asked if they had any returned, sampled, scratch and dent, or "B" stock DACs that would work with the Pioneer. They sold me a "used" (looked brand new) MSB LINK DAC for $200 and they paid the freight. To my ears the MSB/Pioneer combo sounded as good through my Audio Technica Electrostatic headphones as anything I've ever heard. To my surprise, I've now put over 1,000 hours on the old Pioneer Juke Box player and it is still working good as new.

I figured since a DAC has no moving parts it will probably last a couple of decades and it will work with hundreds of CD player models. If my cheap Pioneer craps out, I'll just go to Craig's List and buy another cheap ordinary used CD player with digital output for $100, hook it up to my MSB DAC, and have great sound again. My experience with the CD players, mainly Denon, Magnavox, Pioneer, JVC, and Philips models is that they break a lot.

The main thing that makes a CD player sound good or not is the DAC section. Any really great sounding CD player must have a very good internal DAC section; hence it will probably be priced above your price range. If the mechanical CD player section fails you also lose your internal DAC. You need to first be shopping for a great DAC in the $400 or less range. If you shop carefully you can probably find a used MSB LINK for $200 or less. There may be better deals on DACs, but I'm not up to speed on what the best deal on DACs would be. I've seen new DAC's from China advertised on ebay for less than $200. You should post again and ask the Forum what the best deal on DACs might be. If you get a good DAC then you will love the sound of nearly any cheap mass market CD player even if it's dirt-cheap. You just need to be sure your DAC and CD player are compatible.

[W9TR]

Sony Playstation One, the older one withthe L,R audio jacks on the case. $30 at a thrift.

I second what everybody is saying about a DAC and computer. The Benchmark DAC-1 used is 'in the hunt' on price and is a high end performer.

[aldoallen]

I second the DAC + DVD/CD player. I have a DAC and bought a couple of Sony DVP-S7700's off e-bay for $100+/- each. One for playing and another for backup. These were $1,200.00 machines new that I understand actually have two lasers, one for DVD and one for CD. Most people selling them do so to get a better (newer) DVD player and probably rarely used it as a cd player. They make an excellent transport for the money and are very well built. Of course if you have a DAC, you could always go the DAC + computer route in the future also.

Al

[Tinman]

The Tascam is a good choice because it uses an off the shelf (usually sony KSS) pickup.
Then throw an external dac on it and enjoy.

But pretty much ANY DCP will sound exactly the same using an external DAC.

[Boonaroo]

Originally Posted by Art K.

Used Rega Apollo. They go pretty reasonable on Audiogon. Also a trade in deal presently on them brings them down to $845 brand new. Nothing at it's price can touch it IMO.

I second Rega. I have both the Planet and Jupiter and they are rock solid. You can get one of them for a few bills and buy you a few extra cds with the life over change.