My CD player turned out to be absolute crap and i need a replacement!

[Kaboom]

I dumped my reciever in favour of a T-amp, and it turns out that the reciever was making my CDp's (sony CDP-XE330) very pathetic trebble. since listening to CDs has now become quite irritating, and i can't dump digital in favour of vinyl altogether because a lot of the new music isnt issued on vinyl, i'm going to need a replacement for my digital front-end.
Now i was considering the NAD521BEE, which seems to get good reviews at an affordable price. what do u people think of this unit? Is there sth else at this price point that offers more bang for the buck?
The other option is using my current CDp as a transport (it has an optical out) and getting an external DAC. Do you think this is worth it? better than gettinga dedicated CDp? if so, what DACs would i be looking at?
Cheers!

[Shwamdoo]

Rotel makes the RCD-02 and Cambridge Audio makes the Azure 540C and the slightly more expensive Azure 640C in that price range. NAD's C542 sounds sugnificantly better than the less expensive C521BEE, but there is, of course, the price factor. Music Hall makes the MMF 25 which is an amazing player but it may be difficult for you to find a dealer near you. Arcam makes the CD 73, which I personally own, and I found it to be the most impresive player in its price range. Rega and Creek are two brands which may be out of your price range, but that you should consider as well.

If I had to make a single recommendation in that immediate price range, I would choose the Rotel RCD-02. If I was going to recommend a player that was slightly more expensive, I would choose the Arcam CD73.

Goodluck.

[Diego]

Now i was considering the NAD521BEE, which seems to get good reviews at an affordable price. what do u people think of this unit? Is there sth else at this price point that offers more bang for the buck?

Marantz makes a couple of units that I liked in that price range, 4300 and 5400. The salesman switched between the NAD players and I could not develop a preference for the C 542 or the C 521BEE, but I really liked the detail and overall sound of them. So I bought the C521BEE.

[royphil345]

I'd probably go for a new player. Only because the Sony probably only has an optical out and I find a coaxial hookup usually sounds better.

Some Sony CD players do sound horrible through the analog outs. I have a CDP-CE375 5-disk player (not too old). If I didn't have it hooked up digitally, I couldn't even use it (very compressed and harsh, makes my towers sound like bookshelves). I only use it when I want to make use of the 5-disk feature for background music (sounds MUCH better with an optical connection, a tad bit thin though). Otherwise, I use my Sony DVD player to play CDs. Strangely enough, the Sony DVD player sounds fine through the analog or digital outs (best with coax digital connection).

Lots of good suggestions already. Don't think you'll have to spend too much to top the Sony if it sounds anything like my 5-disk player. Almost seems like they're making CD players that sound crappy on purpose so people buy the ES models. If they can make a $100.00 DVD player that makes CDs sound good, why can't they make a $100.00 CD player that sounds good? I've definitely heard cheap CD players that sounded better in the past.

....oh yeah.... just remembered.... Compressed and harsh was the best I could come up with after turning the digital volume output control on the player down a bit. With the control at the default setting all I got was very bright (but not detailed) and harsh!!!

This was the second player I bought with a digital volume control that sounded bad. I will probably avoid buying another player with a digital volume control (if you can these days).

[JohnMichael]

I own a Sony ES cd player and one thing I have learned is some interconnects can mess up the treble. I hear all kinds of distortion and high frequency garbage using Micro-purls. They are a high capacitance cable and when I switched to a lower capcitance cable the high end sweetened up. The Micro-purls sound good in other applications but not with the Sony cdp. Even a $25 AR interconnect sounds much better than the more expensive Micro-purl with the Sony.