Many CDs - not all - sound better now ...

[Feanor]

That I've upgraded my amplifier. Curious, but many CDs I considered to have mediocre sound -- relative to others in my collection -- now sound excellent. So here's a caution.

Most of these used to sound harsh and/or veiled especially in the upper frequency ranges. I took this to indicate a typical CD or "digital" sound. But I was wrong. Now they are revealed to have more detail, transparency, and spatial information than I ever suspected. On the other hand other CDs that sounded "smooth" are now obviously lacking in detail and the aforementioned qualities.

So if you are suffering listening fatigue from "CD sound" you first move might not necessarily be a CDP upgrade. In my case an amp upgrade did more to improve my CDs than -- I suspect -- any player upgrade could have done.

By the way, my upgrade was to a Bel Canto eV0 2i from a NAD C270 & Apt Holman combo (of which the NAD was the weaker link).

[hifitommy]

i got it cheeeeep and upon swapping out the adcom gfp565 i was floored. i didnt think tubes could sound like this. very fast, very wide bandwidth, very flat top to bottom, tonal colors that were spot on, imaging/sounstaging and dynamics to match. i still feel incredous from this experience.

typical tube stereotyped sound? NOT. now after i had it for a long while, i got the sony ns500v dvd/sacd/cdp which is now the best rbcdp i have EVER had in the house soundwise. and it was cheeeeeep. yeah, i felt the improved sound in all my sources when the sp3c went into the system but the sony surprised me almost as much as the arc.

[Feanor]

A CDP upgrade is still somewhere on my agenda, but my recent experience, above, has reinforced my long-held opinion that amplification is more important to one's over-all sound than the digital source.

The British press, (What Hifi?, Hifi Choice, et al.), typically recommends spending equal amounts on digital source, amplification, and speakers. In general this formula isn't going to provide optimal results. At the entry level one definitely ought to look first at, and usually spend the most on, speakers. As you go up the ladder, amplification becomes more relatively important, but I suspect digital source still lags well behind.

By the way I recently auditioned the new, highly-lauded Cambridge Azur C640 CDP agains my own Sony SCD-CE775 (un-modded). The latter won handily have significantly better detail and transparency, IMO.