Quote Originally Posted by Mr Peabody
We should not speak in such a wide scope, vintage versus new, it depends on the player. A good player will always be a good player within reason and entry level will always be entry level new or vintage. For instance, an Arcam Alpha 9 is getting long in the tooth but you'd still have to pay a good price to find something better. Of course, retail was $1500.00 or so. So if you can pick up any of these gems at a good price it's better than a new player up to a certain point. Another thing about vintage the lasers and certain other parts of these players only last so long, so a CDP is not like an amp or good speaker that will last for 25 years. I'd say if you have one last ten you are doing good.
That's a good point. Consumer Reports claimed that the average life of all CD players is 7 years not including DOA. So of course some players will die in 8 months and some will last 20 years. You never really know but if you are buying used I would be leary on buy a cd player over about 3-4 years unless it has a very robust transport. My Cambridge Audio CD 6 while a budget player uses the DiscMagic transport mechanism from their separates package. The player is something like 13 years old and runs perfectly. I have been through 4 dvd players in that time and an LD machine that all got less use. And I bought a closeout demo unit that was "on" all day in day out for a couple of years getting heavy use

If money is the thing - I would buy a relatively cheap cd player and spend the most money on an an external DAC. The External DAC has no moving parts should last as long or longer than amplifiers. Then if you don't spend much on a cd player then if they break down every 3 years it's not breaking the bank.

I paid something like $200 for a Sony 300 disc changer - add a DAC you get all the features under the sun and the sound quality of the DAC. While transports make a difference at these prices the money is better spent on the DAC. You can Arcam and Cambridge DAC's for dirt cheap on the used market. In fact Arcam is a bit of a goldmine on the used market. You could pick up Delta 290P power amps for about $200 and they're very nice power amps - you could buy two and run them as monoblocks. Add a 290 integrated and flip the internal switch and you can run it is a preamp. Maybe pick up an older Rega Planet cd player and use it as a transport (they were quite good) and a CA or Arcam dac and you could probably do all of this for $800-$1000 - not too shabby at all.