I just replaced my venerable old Denon DCD1520 20 bit player in my main system with a JVC 1 bit player. There is no doubt that despite the nearly identical published analog specifications for performance they sound different. Their frequency responses are different. I am hardly surprised. This audible difference between one component and another to critical listeners for many types of components is inevitable. Fortunately, it is easily and cheaply compensated for with an equalizer. It takes time and patience but the results are worth the effort and when it is done, the sound will be indistinguishable from what the older unit produced.

You can chase your tail for the rest of your life listening to people who will tell you this unit or that blows the other away. The truth is that for most electrical components within their operating parameters (the real ones, not the phonied ones) there are differences but they are far more subtle and usually correctable to where one can be made to perform pretty much like another. The exceptions are transducers where other factors besides frequency response can be important. No amount of frequency response alteration can correct for a phonograph cartridge which can't track well. And no amount of equalization can make a direct firing loudspeaker sound like a bipolar speaker or correct for poor high frequency dispersion.

It is rediculous therefore to spend much more than about $300 or $400 on a cd player. The selection should be based on features you want and need such as the number of discs it can handle at one time, the ease of using the controls, features like 4 way repeat (very valuable for musicians who like to practice along with the disc) and remote controlable volume control with a variable output (useful for people like me with old preamps, amps,and receivers which don't have a remotely controlled volume control of their own.)

We've been down the cd versus vinyl disc arguement a million times here. rb repored that he made a cd at home from a vinyl that was just about indistinguishable from the source. Many re-releases of old vinyl recordings on cd are poorly made because of sloppy production techniques where getting product out the door fast to maximize profits was the only concern or because deteriorated old analog master tapes are used as the source. Many times, what audiophiles think is dynamic compression is actually lack of dynamic compression. If some parts of a recording seem soft and "bland", it's because other parts will get much louder, much much louder by comparison, something often not possible within the limitations of analog tapes and discs. There is also far less tendency to tweak and twirl the equalization and sound effects knobs in reissuing old recordings and when they do, it isn't done by the same people in the same way as the vinyl was so they sound different. If you don't like that, you will have to settle for vinyl and tape recordings instead. However, the reality no matter what some lovers of vinyl phonograph records say, and I am one of them, is that from a performance capability point of view, cds when properly recorded can far outperform in every conceivable way, anything possible on a vinyl analog phonograph record.