hifi cd player under 300?

[funnyhat]

Any tips on a hifi source for paradigm studio 20's under 300? If not, under 400 or 500?
Thanks for any advice!

[NickWH]

http://www.cambridgeaudio.com/categories.php?CID=3

[funnyhat]

Thanks for the tip on the cambridge models. I have also considered NAD or Adcom, thoughts on any of those?

[Pat D]

Any tips on a hifi source for paradigm studio 20's under 300? If not, under 400 or 500?
Thanks for any advice!
Rotel, Sony, Yamaha and others make excellent CDPs that don't cost too much. Actually, you could get a DVD player for the same money which will also play DVDs for you. Any decently performing CDP or DVD player is high fidelity.

[funnyhat]

regarding the last post, is the sound between a sony and a rotel or NAD the same? I have gotten conflicting reports on the importance of the source to the sound of a system, is it as important speakers or amps, or not as much of a factor? Any ideas from anyone are much appreciated.

[topspeed]

I have gotten conflicting reports on the importance of the source to the sound of a system, is it as important speakers or amps, or not as much of a factor?Which is better, tubes or ss? Analog or digital? CD or SACD? SACD or DVD-A? The chicken or the egg?

Congratulations, you've just stumbled upon one of the oldest debates in all of audiodom: What is more important: The source or the playback?

Proponents for the front end will rightfully state that if you don't get the music right in the first place, no speaker, regardless of how good it is, will make it right.

Proponents for speakers will rightfully state that you can have the purest, most accurate signal in the world but if you try to play it back through inaccurate, crappy speakers you will still get, well...inaccurate crap.

Which side of the fence do you sit on?

[royphil345]

I find that if you hook your CD up digitally using the DAC built into a home theater receiver, there is little difference in the sound between players and the results are usually quite good.

If you use the analog outputs on the CD player, I find there is a big difference in the quality of DACs / audio output circuitry built into CD players. I have a Sony 5-disk player and combo DVD /VCR unit. If I hook up the 5-disk player up to the analog outputs the sound is terrible (severe rolloff in the frequency extremes). The DVD / VCR combo unit actually sounds quite good through the analog outs. I've heard alot lately about people getting very good CD sound out of DVD players. Maybe the DAC has to be of higher quality for playing DVDs? As far as stand-alone CD players, you probably get what you pay for. Have heard many good things about the Cambridge players.

[RGA]

CD players can make significant differences / improvements but it depends on which ones -- and which systems they're in.

Yes people who support DBT's (a highly problematic tool to base a conclusion on) infer that you won't hear a difference between working cd playback systems. Be careful that one trying to persuade you to this conclusion is not a clnclusion that DBTs can ever conclude in any way shape or form...a DBT cannot prove that A = B ever. What it shows is that in a test environment (which is different than your regular listening environment which immediately changes the listening and your brain activity while listening) people have a difficult time determining a difference between different cd players to statistical significance. The DBT was first used for medical science and still has its problems in that field -- in audio they are more suspect because they use very few trials making them unreliable and they lack validity.

If you're looking at a pile of $300.00 cd players...you may find many sound no different to your ears, you may find all in one players sound no different, you may find 300 disc players to sound no different or better. I had a Pioneer 100 disc player that I felt sounded better or at least no worse than a marantz flagship CD17 single disc player for $1k.

Personally for this money I would probably lean to mega changer - AND a dvd player if you don;t own them...For $300.00US you could buy a 300 disc changer from Sony and a Pioneer DVD player which also plays CD's and SACD and DVD Audio. The reason i like two machines in this price is because if the cd player breaks you have a back-up player.

And while $300.00Single cd players may in fact be better sounding it may not be and probably not enough better that it's reallyy going to matter. My Cambridge is better sounding than the 300 disc player --- but given what both do and the money spent the Sony does an ok job for music --- I recently upgraded my speakers and so the gap widened a fair bit...also depends how anal you are about this stuff.

Also the 300 disc player has a digital out which allows one to purchase an External DAC. The designers know that their players could use upgrading and they know that any designer can deliberately make units sound different and DO do this(so much for a test that can't detect dileberately made differences).

[BillB]

AudioAdvisor is closing out Cambridge Audio's entry-level Azur Series model for $279. I've had CA's older D300 in a second system for almost 5 years and it sounds fantastic and has proven much more reliable than NAD CD Players.

http://www.audioadvisor.com/store/productdetail.asp?sku=CAMB340C&product_name=340C%20CD%20Player%20in%20Black

Bill

[46minaudio]

Any tips on a hifi source for paradigm studio 20's under 300? If not, under 400 or 500?
Thanks for any advice!
Best bet is to look at the new players from Yamaha,And Toshiba.Both make 5 Disk players in your buget that play DVDa,SACD,CD,,and DVDv...With BM,and distance settings.Trust me under proper conditions U will not hear a difference between these and others that cost xxxxtimes more..Unless you buy buy a cd only player(they refuse to play these other formats "bad thing" )

[ckeemery1]

I only have Stereo, ie. 2 speakers. Will SACD sound better than a CD, if only using 2 speakers, provided I'm using an SACD player.

Thanks for your responses.

[Stu-r]

Pioneer 576 that does great. Current model should be even better.

[vr6ofpain]

300 disc changer from Sony and a Pioneer DVD player which also plays CD's and SACD and DVD Audio. The reason i like two machines in this price is because if the cd player breaks you have a back-up player.

And while $300.00Single cd players may in fact be better sounding it may not be and probably not enough better that it's reallyy going to matter. My Cambridge is better sounding than the 300 disc player

Sony is so lame. Since they are all about SACD, they do not make any players that are compatible with both DVD-Audio and SACD. I am not even sure if Sony makes any player that does DVD-Audio.

What Cambridge plater do you have a Azur 540, 640?

I just picked up a ~1990's Harman Kardon single disk player off ebay for $40. It has a headphone jack and seems reasonable. I hope it sounds better. Right now I listen on a POS Sony discman (1 bit DAC) with my Grado SR-80's. I know the source can be better. Unfortunately my preamp doesn't have a headphone jack and I am not sure about a headphone amp yet. I dont know the specs on this HK unit, but I am sure it will sound better than an old discman.

How obvious is the difference between a CD player with an old 1 bit DAC and the new ones with 24 bit DAC's (192khz)?