Back in 1994 I spent £1500. 00 and bought a Technics SUA 900 mk2 amp, SLPS670d CD player and the RSAZ6 tape deck finished with SB-CS5 speakers. 26 years later I'm still using the above.
The main thing with listening to music is... how good your ears are.. at 71yrs old I enjoy what I can hear.. love all your video's Kalvin.. Listening to music whenever you can is what is important to the mood you are in & the time you have to listen.. but I love talking & listening to people who have their opinion but I would never put anyone down because they like what way they here their music.. It's all music & wonderful.. Paul
The Arcam is a Philps with 1541A Dac. This and similar players usually sound great but have a certain colouration combined with musicality. DACs have improved greatly since 2010. A well implemented ESS Technology ES9038PRO DAC (Oppo 205) will clearly show the limitations of the old Philips based players. They still stand up in musicality however.
I recall listening to several CD players in the late 90's, all remember was the Arcam sounded more analogue and organic than any of the others, and it did bring a smile to my face too. I'd love to hear your views of some of the old Musical Fidelity amplifiers. Thanks again, great video!
Great amps those old MFs. Alive, powerful, detailed, rich and rounded sounding, amps. Signature Brit sound. Prone to faults, too. As a technician was/is a nightmare to service them, though. Too many with preamp gain stage problems, lack of spare parts outside the UK and top panels that also act as heat sinks. You know, this typical British approach of designing things differently than all others, just for the sake of it.
I just bought a Cambridge Audio 3 piece THAT'S 7 YEARS OLD AND NEVER BEEN USED STORED IN THE ORIGINAL WRAPS AND BOXES IN A DRY LOFT COMPRISING A D300 TUNER A T100 CD AND A A500 AMP for £200! All works perfect and sounds wonderful! Bargains out there!
Brilliant compare, thanks Kelvin. I'm hoping you have some new content out soon, it's going to be a long winter ahead, need some reviews and tips to get us through!
In the last 6 months I have bought 2 Nad CD 524 players £30 and £10, the cheaper one needed a good internal clean and some lubrication along its tray rails inside. Also 2 weeks ago bought a pioneer PDR-609 CD recorder for £30 in mint condition. They all sound fantastic and function really well for their age. Try gumtree which is where all these came from. Good luck hope you find a bargain.
New to your channel and I especially like how you talk about the songs you listened to as part of the equipment review. So many YT reviewers make statements about the gear without discussing the songs they listened to. Good on ya! Keep up the good work
@@emreisiklar I haven't checked prices recently, I remember hearing a CDX2 years ago and thought it was about the best thing I had ever heard, I imagine the 555 is quite a treat. I'm slumming it with a CD3 and a Benchmark Dac V1, currently trying to figure out the were the value is with Dac/streaming. Have heard great things about the Border Patrol dac and a few of the Chinese dacs, so many choices!
Hey Kel, I do notice the diff between my NAD and Denon CD players but annoyingly, the diff seems to make them reveal different detail. Nice to see you still posting.Keep on matey. Cheers
Great review Kelvin, just bought a Marantz CD65 mk2 with the legendary Philips TDa1541 dac. Or so I've been told... its circa 1995 and looking forward to getting it all setup. Keep the reviews coming. Really enjoying the genuine nature of your videos.
I love the physical, visual side of music replay. As an artist its very important for me to engage with my music. A screen is convenient. Or so we think. It disengages us. Thanks Kelvin. Love your chanel
A friend of mine is a bit of a HiFi veteran. He had a valve based CD player that cost about 5k last time I saw him. Wonderful piece of equipment that sounds very realistic. He gave me a mint Arcam Alpha 7se to get me started on my HiFi journey. There was definitely a large difference between the two players.
Still playing my Marantz CD 12 transport and CD12a DAC , that’s about 30 years old I suppose now, and streaming from an Apple Airport express via the optical out through the same DAC , all sounds great to me
@@leemartin2978 it could have but adding a separate modern dac thinking it would sound better didn't work as there's lots of talk about adding modern dacs to old players
Had a similar Arcam with the upgraded DAC given to me as a repair. Replaced a blown fuse but it skipped too. Transport, a common Sony model, was worn. I already had a nice CD player so gave it to another hobbyist repair person. They got a replacement transport.
I'm a CD guy myself. They are VERY cheap to buy in used shops.... the quality is superior and YES having a physical object that you can see, touch and read the info from is nice. I have a new NAD CD player and amp. Love the combination.
I have a Cambridge CXC transport, bought recently on sale, run it through the Burr Brown dac on my preamp, sounds great, only thing, you Brits not only drive on the wrong side of the road, the power plug on my CXC is on the wrong side, the eject button is on the wrong side, etc. Worth the trouble tho
I own two CD players and enjoy the heck out of both. And like the CD format as well. The players are a Emotiva ERC-3 and a Denon DCD-1500, which I believe is from the mid 1980s. I paid 6.99 for it at a Goodwill store and while the display is inoperative/dark, it sounds wonderful.
Good video. I always liked the weight and detail of Marantz players from the early 90s. Be nice to hear what you think of those compared to a Pioneer stable platter cd player
I recently bought a Sony cdp-750 for fun, only 50 euro, just because it has that chip, Im going to have a guy do some modifications, some people even put tubes on them, its a very involving analogue sound, just perfect, not bright or clinical like more modern players.
I have the Sony CDP 750 I bough it in eBay modified with a valve output,I also got a Marantz 500 also modified toba valve output,both sound absolutely superb
I've got an old Cyrus dad 3Q, it's very good most of the time. CD'S at there best are excellent, I find it's all in the recording. CD using 1972 recording and not remastered sounds flat like digital record. Record recorded at the same time usually excellent and more 3d sound.
I use an outboard dac on an Onkyo cdp and the improvement is obvious. Nice way to update an older player. It's the c7030 using coax into Schiit modi multibit.
Pioneer PDS703 still cuts it today, I'm yet to find a CD player that sounds better, really full bodied, has optical out too if you want to use a different DAC
I replaced my DENON DCD-900, that died after 37 years of use, with a DENON DCD-900NE. So I was anxious to see, or should I say hear, what those two letters, NE, had added to the performance, and how much things had changed after 37 years. Well I was shocked to hear instruments and parts of music being played that i had never heard before. It seemed strange to not have been able to hear them before.
lol me too, I even bought some older gear to make my older systems complete, it's such fun to buy a component for 30 euro second hand, and unpack it like a christmas present.
Great observations, totaly agree that CD is far from dead, the physical medium has so much going for it, picking a CD loading it up, seeing its TOC displayed, might seem like tosh to youngsters nowadays but it has its virtues, like you said about vinyl, iam convinced CD will be around for a long time. I have had the Arcam 70.3 player and its very very good, recently upgraded to a Sony battleship 338ESD 12 kgs of japanese late 80,s quality, warm, smooth sounding and a pride in ownership is very very high. This machine is over 30 years old but still holds its own to modern players IMHO......
I have the Arcam Alpha 3 amplifier in my second system that appear to match the cd player here. Must say I love the sound from the amp, may have to seek this cd player out, cheers 👍
I only have experience with the Adcom GCD-570. I purchased it at a thrift store (called a charity shop in the UK, I think) for $5 a few years ago. The disc wouldn't spin, but when I looked inside, the rubber belt was simply too loose. I got a replacement out of my desk drawer, put it on, and started it up again. I was greeted with an incredibly warm and detailed player, thanks to its very nice DAC (TDA1541). I think most people have no idea what a CD player is SUPPOSED to sound like, or CAN sound like. Unfortunately, a lot of black plastic junk was purchased in the 90s and played a lot of compressed and inappropriately amplified music.
Kyle thanks for that Yes I’m always hearing about the thrift shops and they don’t do that in the UK sell electrical stuff in charity shops when I come America I wanna just do a tour of thrift shops
I was a tad wrong... it was a GCD-575... Thrift stores are hit and miss here. Sometimes you hit the mother load. Other times you come up empty. I have personally scored a set of A/D/S L470 speakers for $20, and an ADC 16/2R cd player for $5 (it, too, needed a new belt. Easy). One of the major national thrift store chains is now picking its best and posting them for online auctions, which make the prices insane. Cheers to you. I have subscribed and enjoy the channel...
Can't wait to hear your streamer comparison since that's the bottleneck in my system right now. Hopefully it's stuff available in the US. btw I've enjoyed the Sansui 331 so much that I bought two more to give to my teenage nephews for xmas. I like the to think its a gift that could last another 50 years
I use universal players for CD duties, and always loved the smooth Arcam sound. I had a Cambridge BD651 universal player for a while on loan (the one based on the same Mediatek chipset as the Oppo's and Primary decks), and whilst it had the exact same Wolfson DAC as my Arcam DV139 player of the time it sounded horrible in comparison (to my ears). I can only put it down to the built in DAC filter settings that Cambridge chose.... Weird it should sound so different though.
The Arcam is a sweet sounding player from the late eighties based on Philips hardware (CDM-4 drive,DAC TDA1541 & Filter chips etc.) with some enhancements like - for its time - better output stages than usual with dual mono OP27 and NE5534 opamps. The alpha wasnt exactly nice price back then but the build quality is not very good and if you get a fully functional model on the used market is a hit and miss game. However if you get a working model its a earpleaser,thats for sure. However,back then many players came with TDA1541 Multibit-DACs and they all share the same basic sound-genes. Very similar sounding are for example the Philips CD473 or the Sony CDP-950. Both very good player,and the Sony comes additional with big comfort package.
@@vox9841 I have a Denon DCD 860 which was my first one ca 35 years ago. Works, but really sounds bad these days. Then I have my second player, which is a Musical Fidelity CD1, their first CD player. A Pioneer PD 8700 with the little turntable for the CDs inside, a Musical Fidelity X Ray, which is also pretty old but still sounds good, an Onix SACD 15 and a Musical Fidelity kW DM 25 DAC + transport. I think I am a bit heavy on Musical Fidelity, looking at it right now :) I have a dozen beer can style X components in the attic, still need a few more and a new home, then I can set them up one day as an X only system... Edit: lol I forgot I also have top loader Musical Fidelity A1 CD Pro :) ... still looking for a top loading "frog", but mot of them are really run down these days.
I have a Rotel receiver and cd player. I bought it in 1982. Still going strong. I highly recommend Video Electronics in N.Reading, Mass they repair anything!
The thing with ANY cd player is that you will not be able to find a replacement laser in the future. So an old, used player will probably be dead soon. Chinese laser replacements DO NOT work. So an external dac seems to be the only solution.
Great video. I have Arcam alpha complete system, 9 amp, 7 radio,CD, and Sony mini disc player. The CD player broke 10 years ago and Arcam replaced it with a new upgrade for a nominal sum. It’s always been great. I don’t see the point in more expense. I’ve always thought reviewing pop music for hi fi is a bit silly, as a lot of what is recorded is electronic in the first place and then modified. For me I want acoustic instruments to sound like a live performance. I agree the weak point in hi fi is the speakers. I made my own for half the price of the commercial products. My neighbour had electrostatic speakers and they are the best I have ever heard. He played jazz on vinyl through them. A bit of a waste! Hi fi should just put through the speakers what comes off the input. Anything else is negative. No distortion of frequency or volume is all it should be about.
I did a comparison with a bunch of hifi buddies some years ago of external DACs and players. The oldest unit being my late 80s Denon DCD 810. 16bit older DACs could sound really bad... Toshiba players sounding recessed and flat and my Denon sounding harsh and synthetic. Burr-Brown based units, like higher end Pioneers and my Adcom external DAC sounded excellent. Once you got to 24bit though in the mid 2000s we had a hard time telling a difference. All DACs now sound good in mid fi gear.
Owned an Arcam CD23T for 8 years, sold it for £200 less than I paid for it new, still have the Musical Fidelity CD 5.5 that replaced it in 2010, if you can find either 2nd hand grab it.
Enjoyed the player comparisons and your opinion on CD media. It is rather ironic that of all vintage HiFi, CD player’s are the most likely to be beyond repair. If the laser mechanism fails then many of them are not available anymore. It’s a shame but true. It will be interesting to see how you find using the streamer. My experience has shown that digital has only in the last few years delivered its promise. We’re in a golden age of audio. A £500 Dac made in China (Topping, denefripps, smsl etc) on the end of something like a Bluesound node would embarrass a CD player costing many thousands in the 90s and 2000’s.
Great job. One review where it's not all figures and stats etc. much easier to understand. Out of interest do you have any experience and thoughts of Rega cd players?
Still have ,and play my Marantz cd5000 .tda 1549 dac chip.Lovely sound with my Sony ta f670es amp.Maybe a little bit foward with my Croft amplifier,unless the volume is lower.
Good reviews, I would like to hear your thoughts on the Audiolab 8000A as that is what I still use, together with an Arcam CD92 and Tannoy 605 speakers, I wondered if it was worth upgrading the speakers to something more modern
I have a Marantz CD-63 hooked up to a California Audio Labs Phase 1 DAC. It sounded sweet until the the DAC died from dirty power in Atlanta. It’s now hooked up to Audio Alchemy DAC. It’s ok. I like to hook up my electronics from roughly the same era. Right on the money on NAD description, I had a NAD 5 disc cd.
Any chance you can up your volume in future video. you sound soft compare to the the commercials which means people have to constantly adjusting their volume
Hi Kelvin, I do enjoy watching your videos and always make a point of seeing a new one as soon as practical after it lands. I too have always enjoyed CDs since they came out but treated the “perfect sound forever” bit with a heavy dose of salt even at the time. In a mad “decluttering” phase I got rid of my vinyl - some 400 or so lps and a roksan xerxes deck. Something I regretted almost straight away but there you go, the impetuous nature of youth (actually early middle age but I’m trying to make excuses). Did keep my CDs though and British CD source, amplification and speakers. Having compared vinyl and CDs, album for album, I think the differences (which are readily apparent) are dwarfed by the quality of the recordings, some just sound better than others. You’ve mentioned Steely Dan but Dire Straits, Pink Floyd, The Who, Led Zeppelin and numerous other artists who have cared about sound quality should all get honourable mentions. Some CDs and Lps for that matter just sound crap and that’s the end of it. Musings over, keep up the good work, I for one am a fan!
Hi Kelvin, nice video again. I completely agree with you on CD as a format, it's much maligned by the high res brigade but this is largely irrelevant I believe. I've just upgraded the opamps inside my Musical Fidelity A3.2 CD player to Burson Audio V6 Vivids. The difference is simply staggering and the quality of playback is fantastic and it was already excellent before! A couple of items in vintage CD players are serviceable, being the laser and the belt. If you're buying on a certain auction site, my advice is to look out for machines that have had these parts replaced.
Andrew Battersby , I agree, I've recapped all of my equipment that has a permanent home with me, plus some vintage pieces that will soon find a new home. The cheaper gear also benefits from swapping other components, such as speaker posts, which are generally horrible.
@@markcarrington8565 bet that music fidelity sound mint now! good player solid built back in the day with them opamps in.ive got old marantz cd 67 se would love to have a go at but think mechanism has gone in it.
Mark Clancy , yep it sounds fantastic! Your Marantz is a well respected player but I have to say I'm not a fan of the Philips mech. It may be slightly more solid and quieter than the Sony mech, but the latter is very easy to work on and functionally fine. I can have the lid off, new laser and belt fitted, all three micro switches cleaned and everything nicely greased up in 45 minutes flat! I recommend a NAD C541i or C542 to replace it, with a new laser and belt fitted at the least.
@@markcarrington8565 I'm using a decent Sony bluray as transport into a sabre dac. I'm was curious to see what difference with say a better player as transport.i would probably never get round to it with not being fully competent at it.and I've got some drivers to build some floorstanding speaker so that's my next project.
I have a yamaha natural sound cd player from a $10 thrift sale. And two denon universals both around $50 that play cd, sacd, and hdcd. They all seem to have excellent dacs. I run rca plugs with them to a sony avr and klipsch r820 f's and get a nice detailed sound from them. Am I doing something wrong? I'd love to try a high end cd player thru my system and see how it sounds though.
Just discover your channel with this comparison, and I am very pleased you compare old equipment vs new ones. As you said, it is sold to us "newer is better" and I never bite into it. BUT, I have this Arcam CD player and I thought that may be a new generation DAC would do better. This idea came to my mind when I bought few years ago an all in one Onkyo C-N7050 (cd & streamer DLNA internet radio). The Onkyo player was sharper, clearer and I concluded it could be the dac difference. Then a friend of mine lended me his three thousand € dac so I could bypass the Onkyo dac and the difference was "may be very slightly" clearer. But you really need to have an instant A to B comparison and that is absolutely not worth a penny. Sadly I didn't thought of doing the same with the Arcam and that's where it could have been useful. So all this story to tell that may be you can improve old CD player with new DAC if you have the good outlet.
Finally, an audiophile guy that listens to good music. Most a-philes are so caught up in the subtleties of the sound, they aren't even aware of what they are listening to. They might as well just listen to sound affects discs/records.
Back in the 1990s when I finally got enough dosh for serious system building, I find that NAD CD players in the £350 price range often face stiff competition with similarly priced players from Marantz and Musical Fidelity. The latter two are the brands that I gravitate to at the time. Musical Fidelity players at this price range are more musical (excuse the pun) sounding than the NAD.
about 15 years ago I went through a phase of wanting to upgrade and I went to a dealer in Warrington where they demonstrated to me a pair of Sonus Faber Auditor running off a Naim Nait 5 with a Gyrodec front end. It was punchy musical .. just fantastic..I even remember what I was listening to Simply Red (picture book). It was my LP which I had brought with me. I then asked him to hook up a CD player and he brought out a Meridian 506.2 Player and to be honest it didn't really bowl me over. I think that player was about 2000 pounds at the time. I have to say though that technology had come on a bit since then.. For example I have a dac magic from Cambridge audio which is also about 10 years old and I have done some back to back comparisons with that and a IFI Blue Zen which is brand new. The newer DAC is really better than that old Cambridge DAC... but is isn't night and day for sure..
@@stereoreviewx One little thing - I know the Cambridge Audio CD players are easy to mend, with spare parts readily available. Do you think it will it be so easy to mend an Arcam?
Nice review kelvin I had the Arcam years ago with a creek cas4040 amplifier nice warm airy sound, I now have a mint refurbished Denon DCD 1420, its built like a tank and performs and sounds wonderful through my Musical fidelity A1, and three way open baffles. One question kelvin i recently purchased a Sansui 441 Reciever in near mint condition which i use solely for vinyl replay mainly Jazz and mono recordings. On switch on there is a loud thump through my speakers, is this normal with older Sansui products and would a suppressor cap solve this problem. regards Tony.
I spent ages trying different vintage CD players and finally settled on a small Philips that came out a couple of years after CD players were launched! I found that, for me, the perfect player was one with great detail but had enough roll-off to soften the high-end harshness that often comes very detailed players.
Would’ve been interesting to hear the two with an expensive DAC to see if that made a difference. Since the three to sounded different, a new expensive integrated CD player might’ve sounded much better
I was evidently asleep for twenty years and awoke when my cheap old Sanyo CD player finally faded out after only 28 years. I found a world where CD players are rare and expensive, only sold at special audio stores, and just hard to find during the "chip shortage" during the Pandemic. NOTHING available, even on the Internet, for less than $350 American Dollars and ONLY good brands like NAD and Cambridge; not ANY cheaper brands seem to be made anymore. So on July 17, 2021 I bought the cheapest and latest Cambridge. It looks almost exactly like the one shown, except the buttons are slightly different, and are nice and simple like I wanted. THE SOUND IS GLORIOUS! I NEVER KNEW WHAT WAS POSSIBLE! And the tray and tracks are evidently smoothed metal and SOLID AND SILENT! No plastic "clunking" noises! I am VERY HAPPY........................elsullo
It's very difficult to compare NAD CD players as the numbers seem to be all over the place. The first 5 means it's a CD player, as opposed to a 3 for an amp and a 4 for a tuner. The 501 and the 502 were made at the same time, and the 501 was the budget of the two. The 502 RRP was £280. I had a 502, which I bought new for £185. It never had particularly good reviews at the time. I bought it because I bought the amp and figured the CD player would go well with it. It sounded great, especially at high volume with a fantastic room to play it in and a NAD 302 and Mission 706SE speakers, but I always wondered if I wasn't missing something with it, if a 5 star reviewed CD player like the Marantz 52SE would have sounded miles better. But as a youth with too little thought for my neighbours I did think it sounded great.
THE most important item in a CD player is the clock....look for one with a discrete build up with separate power and regulators. This is the main difference between Cambridge Audio 340c vs 640c. Most CD players only have the crystal as an after thought.
Great review im in the market for a new cd player, i have an old Technics SL-p670D 1998 and is just starting to skip and have been told parts no longer available. What do people think of the Denon 600NE ? I would buy second hand but think i might start to fall in the trap of lazy Sensor or poor motor again after a few months !!
I was in the market for a new player, and was wary of buying used also. I picked up the Cambridge ACX35 on Ebay, from Cambridge for $229 refurbished. Cambridge sells some of their refurbished models on Ebay, which I believe may be some stock that is returned due to their 60 day return policy. When I got mine, it looked pretty much like new, no dents or scratches, and plays my discs perfectly. I was having an issue with discs freezing for no reason on DVD players, but when I tested them all on the Cambridge they played perfectly. As for sound quality, I don't hear much difference between different CD players, so can't really comment. I was looking for something reliable that would play all my discs, and so far it's perfect. I was looking at Marantz and a few other players, but they have some horrible 1 star reviews on Amazon, with people complaining about skipping discs.
Don't know what your budget is, but after trying a 'second' Cambridge from Ritcher Sounds, dead out of the box, swapped for a Tangent loved it, not gap less! Sent it back. Now havea Teac p650 and a Schitt Modi 3. It's fantastic. I'd reckon that combo will give any CD player up to twice the price a good run. Also I use a Nobsound switch to compare the internal DAC on the Teac against the Modi... 😁🐉🐙🏴
@@paznewis107 I was looking at that Teac player, but was turned-off by the dozens and dozens of 1 star reviews on Amazon U.S. The 1 star reviews on that model account for 18% of the total ratings. Hope yours lasts longer than the ones people are complaining about.
I think people will regret getting rid of their CD collections at some point. Electronic collections can be lost due to hardware failure or accidental deletion. Streaming services are great, but you never really own anything and they can remove music arbitrarily. But in the meantime, those of us who want them can get great deals on second hand CD's for the moment.
People who are old enough and were Hifi aware in those days know that CD players from that era had problems with the analog filtering. Plenty of Sony, Philips filter upgrades. My Yamaha still hits the nail.
Just to comment on the comparison between people getting rid of CDs and getting rid of vinyl, I have to say that all the nostalgic connections people usually cite with vinyl are all with the CD format for me. I was born in the early 80s with parents who didn't really encourage an interest in vinyl so all the singles and albums I bought were on audio tape to begin with and then CD. I only started buying records a couple of years ago and all the music that influenced me while growing up was mostly played on the cheapest and most convenient equipment with no thought given to sound fidelity. There was a similar boom in the mid-00s of people getting rid of their VHS tapes which I took full advantage of. I bought videos for as little as 20p a time and amassed a collection of over a thousand tapes. VHS was a much bigger part of my youth than vinyl.
I was born in the 70s and I probably listen to vinyl for the reasons you set out above. I remember in my teens (and younger) putting on my favorite records and I still have my record collection from back then. I now buy quite a lot of new vinyl after first listening to the album on streaming. With that combination you get the best of both worlds. My CD player is pretty much redundant. Just to note though it isn't really my age group driving the vinyl revival more the younger generation.
@@Yiannis2112 I'll definitely be looking into doing that. Just not many repair places here (hawaii) and even worse now with places having closed down due to the pandemic. I'll be looking for after the holidays.
@@CuttoothsRoom Same here in Greece mate...Too many cases in the last 4 weeks and going out after 21:00-5:00 is forbidden. Like we have marshall law...I thought the fault appeared ages ago and you left it like that. If it's recent, I guess you'll have to be patient for a while, but not for long. Damn it I could make a fortune over there as a technician...lol!
Got the Arcam as a 21st gift from Mum & Dad in 91. Still sounds great today and has never let me down. Cost £420 at the time, worth every penny.
Bought an Arcam Alpha 7, back in 1997 or 1998 and I still adore it. It is still hooked up to my Arcam Alpha 6+ integrated.
I have the 7se and it's superb, even by today's standards.
Back in 1994 I spent £1500. 00 and bought a Technics SUA 900 mk2 amp, SLPS670d CD player and the RSAZ6 tape deck finished with SB-CS5 speakers. 26 years later I'm still using the above.
dont you find the 900 a little flat ?
I still buy CDs so this is a great comparison
The main thing with listening to music is... how good your ears are.. at 71yrs old I enjoy what I can hear.. love all your video's Kalvin.. Listening to music whenever you can is what is important to the mood you are in & the time you have to listen.. but I love talking & listening to people who have their opinion but I would never put anyone down because they like what way they here their music.. It's all music & wonderful.. Paul
The Arcam is a Philps with 1541A Dac. This and similar players usually sound great but have a certain colouration combined with musicality. DACs have improved greatly since 2010. A well implemented ESS Technology ES9038PRO DAC (Oppo 205) will clearly show the limitations of the old Philips based players. They still stand up in musicality however.
Accuracy or this false sense of "musicality ",
I recall listening to several CD players in the late 90's, all remember was the Arcam sounded more analogue and organic than any of the others, and it did bring a smile to my face too. I'd love to hear your views of some of the old Musical Fidelity amplifiers. Thanks again, great video!
Great amps those old MFs. Alive, powerful, detailed, rich and rounded sounding, amps. Signature Brit sound. Prone to faults, too. As a technician was/is a nightmare to service them, though. Too many with preamp gain stage problems, lack of spare parts outside the UK and top panels that also act as heat sinks. You know, this typical British approach of designing things differently than all others, just for the sake of it.
I just bought a Cambridge Audio 3 piece THAT'S 7 YEARS OLD AND NEVER BEEN USED STORED IN THE ORIGINAL WRAPS AND BOXES IN A DRY LOFT COMPRISING A D300 TUNER A T100 CD AND A A500 AMP for £200! All works perfect and sounds wonderful! Bargains out there!
Brilliant compare, thanks Kelvin. I'm hoping you have some new content out soon, it's going to be a long winter ahead, need some reviews and tips to get us through!
Hi Kelvin I bought a Marantz cd5003 about 3 years old for £50 , 6years later it still sounds fantastic best money I ever spent.
In the last 6 months I have bought 2 Nad CD 524 players £30 and £10, the cheaper one needed a good internal clean and some lubrication along its tray rails inside. Also 2 weeks ago bought a pioneer PDR-609 CD recorder for £30 in mint condition. They all sound fantastic and function really well for their age. Try gumtree which is where all these came from. Good luck hope you find a bargain.
New to your channel and I especially like how you talk about the songs you listened to as part of the equipment review. So many YT reviewers make statements about the gear without discussing the songs they listened to. Good on ya! Keep up the good work
I bought a second hand very lightly used Naim cd555, it is the perfect machine!
You're an Lucky Guy - I have an Exposure 3010 S2CD Player - even a fine machine too
That’s quite a CD player!
@@JohnVander70 already has the PS so it was not very very expensive :)) it is a good value if you consider todays streamer Prices
@@emreisiklar I haven't checked prices recently, I remember hearing a CDX2 years ago and thought it was about the best thing I had ever heard, I imagine the 555 is quite a treat. I'm slumming it with a CD3 and a Benchmark Dac V1, currently trying to figure out the were the value is with Dac/streaming. Have heard great things about the Border Patrol dac and a few of the Chinese dacs, so many choices!
Hey Kel, I do notice the diff between my NAD and Denon CD players but annoyingly, the diff seems to make them reveal different detail. Nice to see you still posting.Keep on matey. Cheers
I would like that you show us what YOUR personal system consists of and why you choose those components.
Great review Kelvin, just bought a Marantz CD65 mk2 with the legendary Philips TDa1541 dac. Or so I've been told... its circa 1995 and looking forward to getting it all setup. Keep the reviews coming. Really enjoying the genuine nature of your videos.
I love the physical, visual side of music replay. As an artist its very important for me to engage with my music. A screen is convenient. Or so we think. It disengages us. Thanks Kelvin. Love your chanel
Thanks Kelvin, nice review and also nice to hear a Blondie Track used for comparison, big Blondie fan here
I have an old Rotel RCD-965BX.
The best CD player I have tested. Very analogue sounding.
A friend of mine is a bit of a HiFi veteran. He had a valve based CD player that cost about 5k last time I saw him. Wonderful piece of equipment that sounds very realistic. He gave me a mint Arcam Alpha 7se to get me started on my HiFi journey. There was definitely a large difference between the two players.
Still playing my Marantz CD 12 transport and CD12a DAC , that’s about 30 years old I suppose now, and streaming from an Apple Airport express via the optical out through the same DAC , all sounds great to me
A dac in a 30 yr old pionner pd91 cd sounds better than a separate rega dac just goes to show that not all modern technology is better .
@@justinparkman3585 do you think it has anything to do with power supplies ?
@@leemartin2978 it could have but adding a separate modern dac thinking it would sound better didn't work as there's lots of talk about adding modern dacs to old players
@@justinparkman3585 yes , it seems each new release is apparently “better” . Until mine gives up the ghost I’ll keep it playing .
@@leemartin2978 it's just a manufacturers way of still making money just it's repackaged if you know what I mean.
Had a similar Arcam with the upgraded DAC given to me as a repair. Replaced a blown fuse but it skipped too. Transport, a common Sony model, was worn. I already had a nice CD player so gave it to another hobbyist repair person. They got a replacement transport.
I'm a CD guy myself. They are VERY cheap to buy in used shops.... the quality is superior and YES having a physical object that you can see, touch and read the info from is nice. I have a new NAD CD player and amp. Love the combination.
I have a Cambridge CXC transport, bought recently on sale, run it through the Burr Brown dac on my preamp, sounds great, only thing, you Brits not only drive on the wrong side of the road, the power plug on my CXC is on the wrong side, the eject button is on the wrong side, etc. Worth the trouble tho
Forget price, end of the day its what sound you like.
Buy McIntosh since it doesn’t matter huh?
I got a 90s Rotel player and fell back in love with Cd again
Yes a good source can change your whole collection
Hey Calv , this was the review I asked u last month , thanks a lot , bless ya
I was it okay then no problem I’m actually amazed how popular this video has been cheers mate
'Dub be good to me' by Beats International was the track that lifted the bassline of Guns of Brixton ;-)
it was fatboy slim the mind of that project
I own two CD players and enjoy the heck out of both. And like the CD format as well. The players are a Emotiva ERC-3 and a Denon DCD-1500, which I believe is from the mid 1980s. I paid 6.99 for it at a Goodwill store and while the display is inoperative/dark, it sounds wonderful.
Nice work K
Good video. I always liked the weight and detail of Marantz players from the early 90s. Be nice to hear what you think of those compared to a Pioneer stable platter cd player
The Arcam is powered by the famous TDA1541A. Fantastic bit of kit! You can also perform some simple modifications that will make it sound even better!
I recently bought a Sony cdp-750 for fun, only 50 euro, just because it has that chip, Im going to have a guy do some modifications, some people even put tubes on them, its a very involving analogue sound, just perfect, not bright or clinical like more modern players.
I have the Sony CDP 750 I bough it in eBay modified with a valve output,I also got a Marantz 500 also modified toba valve output,both sound absolutely superb
I've got an old Cyrus dad 3Q, it's very good most of the time. CD'S at there best are excellent, I find it's all in the recording. CD using 1972 recording and not remastered sounds flat like digital record. Record recorded at the same time usually excellent and more 3d sound.
I'm in the market for player myself. It's that balance between a couple 100 for a second half 80s or 90s deck vs a new 400 deck.
I use an outboard dac on an Onkyo cdp and the improvement is obvious. Nice way to update an older player. It's the c7030 using coax into Schiit modi multibit.
Pioneer PDS703 still cuts it today, I'm yet to find a CD player that sounds better, really full bodied, has optical out too if you want to use a different DAC
To this day my fav CD player...that I regret selling when I moved house.
I have Cambridge CD1, CD2 and CD3. They’re all fab! And I hv bunch of CDP still with me so I know a bit abt the old Cambridge CDP’s.
Great review..finally an audio review I can understand....VERY helpful thank you!
This is a good channel. Nice reviews.
I replaced my DENON DCD-900, that died after 37 years of use, with a DENON DCD-900NE. So I was anxious to see, or should I say hear, what those two letters, NE, had added to the performance, and how much things had changed after 37 years. Well I was shocked to hear instruments and parts of music being played that i had never heard before. It seemed strange to not have been able to hear them before.
My 1997 Sony CDP-XE510 is still going strong and sounds great.
I have an XE370, great machine.
I love hifi so much even when I upgrade components I keep my older ones. Good for a second or third system.
lol me too, I even bought some older gear to make my older systems complete, it's such fun to buy a component for 30 euro second hand, and unpack it like a christmas present.
Roksan gear downstairs.... Laid on bed with old technics/monitor audio blasting megadeath 🔉🔊📢💪
Great observations, totaly agree that CD is far from dead, the physical medium has so much going for it, picking a CD loading it up, seeing its TOC displayed, might seem like tosh to youngsters nowadays but it has its virtues, like you said about vinyl, iam convinced CD will be around for a long time. I have had the Arcam 70.3 player and its very very good, recently upgraded to a Sony battleship 338ESD 12 kgs of japanese late 80,s quality, warm, smooth sounding and a pride in ownership is very very high. This machine is over 30 years old but still holds its own to modern players IMHO......
I have the Arcam Alpha 3 amplifier in my second system that appear to match the cd player here. Must say I love the sound from the amp, may have to seek this cd player out, cheers 👍
I only have experience with the Adcom GCD-570. I purchased it at a thrift store (called a charity shop in the UK, I think) for $5 a few years ago. The disc wouldn't spin, but when I looked inside, the rubber belt was simply too loose. I got a replacement out of my desk drawer, put it on, and started it up again. I was greeted with an incredibly warm and detailed player, thanks to its very nice DAC (TDA1541).
I think most people have no idea what a CD player is SUPPOSED to sound like, or CAN sound like. Unfortunately, a lot of black plastic junk was purchased in the 90s and played a lot of compressed and inappropriately amplified music.
Kyle thanks for that Yes I’m always hearing about the thrift shops and they don’t do that in the UK sell electrical stuff in charity shops when I come America I wanna just do a tour of thrift shops
I was a tad wrong... it was a GCD-575...
Thrift stores are hit and miss here. Sometimes you hit the mother load. Other times you come up empty. I have personally scored a set of A/D/S L470 speakers for $20, and an ADC 16/2R cd player for $5 (it, too, needed a new belt. Easy).
One of the major national thrift store chains is now picking its best and posting them for online auctions, which make the prices insane.
Cheers to you. I have subscribed and enjoy the channel...
Can't wait to hear your streamer comparison since that's the bottleneck in my system right now. Hopefully it's stuff available in the US. btw I've enjoyed the Sansui 331 so much that I bought two more to give to my teenage nephews for xmas. I like the to think its a gift that could last another 50 years
I use universal players for CD duties, and always loved the smooth Arcam sound. I had a Cambridge BD651 universal player for a while on loan (the one based on the same Mediatek chipset as the Oppo's and Primary decks), and whilst it had the exact same Wolfson DAC as my Arcam DV139 player of the time it sounded horrible in comparison (to my ears). I can only put it down to the built in DAC filter settings that Cambridge chose.... Weird it should sound so different though.
Really miss you doing videos. Hope you get your enthusiasm back to do some more soon🤞
The Arcam is a sweet sounding player from the late eighties based on Philips hardware (CDM-4 drive,DAC TDA1541 & Filter chips etc.)
with some enhancements like - for its time - better output stages than usual with dual mono OP27 and NE5534 opamps.
The alpha wasnt exactly nice price back then but the build quality is not very good and if you get a fully functional model on the used market is
a hit and miss game. However if you get a working model its a earpleaser,thats for sure.
However,back then many players came with TDA1541 Multibit-DACs and they all share the same basic sound-genes. Very similar sounding
are for example the Philips CD473 or the Sony CDP-950. Both very good player,and the Sony comes additional with big comfort package.
Should I feel bad about wanting more cheap vintage CD players? :) I only have 5 so far ;) I still would like a Naim with the weird swing-out tray...
Keep going for it. What do you have so far?
@@vox9841 I have a Denon DCD 860 which was my first one ca 35 years ago. Works, but really sounds bad these days. Then I have my second player, which is a Musical Fidelity CD1, their first CD player. A Pioneer PD 8700 with the little turntable for the CDs inside, a Musical Fidelity X Ray, which is also pretty old but still sounds good, an Onix SACD 15 and a Musical Fidelity kW DM 25 DAC + transport. I think I am a bit heavy on Musical Fidelity, looking at it right now :) I have a dozen beer can style X components in the attic, still need a few more and a new home, then I can set them up one day as an X only system...
Edit: lol I forgot I also have top loader Musical Fidelity A1 CD Pro :) ... still looking for a top loading "frog", but mot of them are really run down these days.
Im running a Denon dvd player with a Cambridge dac magic 100 and that cleans up the sound pretty well.
Love your reviews Kelvin🤩
Since these are old units, couldn't the difference be that the laser is dusty?
Amazing review keep up the good work !
i would love to get my hands on any one of these units they all look great too! Cheers!
I have a Rotel receiver and cd player. I bought it in 1982. Still going strong. I highly recommend Video Electronics in N.Reading, Mass they repair anything!
Still using a French YBA Lecture Special from about 20 years ago. The disk mechanism can be a bit iffy. Sounds very much like my Roksan K2.
Very interesting to discover those subtils high quality cd players!
The thing with ANY cd player is that you will not be able to find a replacement laser in the future. So an old, used player will probably be dead soon. Chinese laser replacements DO NOT work. So an external dac seems to be the only solution.
Great video. I have Arcam alpha complete system, 9 amp, 7 radio,CD, and Sony mini disc player. The CD player broke 10 years ago and Arcam replaced it with a new upgrade for a nominal sum. It’s always been great. I don’t see the point in more expense. I’ve always thought reviewing pop music for hi fi is a bit silly, as a lot of what is recorded is electronic in the first place and then modified. For me I want acoustic instruments to sound like a live performance. I agree the weak point in hi fi is the speakers. I made my own for half the price of the commercial products. My neighbour had electrostatic speakers and they are the best I have ever heard. He played jazz on vinyl through them. A bit of a waste! Hi fi should just put through the speakers what comes off the input. Anything else is negative. No distortion of frequency or volume is all it should be about.
Well said
I did a comparison with a bunch of hifi buddies some years ago of external DACs and players. The oldest unit being my late 80s Denon DCD 810. 16bit older DACs could sound really bad... Toshiba players sounding recessed and flat and my Denon sounding harsh and synthetic. Burr-Brown based units, like higher end Pioneers and my Adcom external DAC sounded excellent. Once you got to 24bit though in the mid 2000s we had a hard time telling a difference. All DACs now sound good in mid fi gear.
Owned an Arcam CD23T for 8 years, sold it for £200 less than I paid for it new, still have the Musical Fidelity CD 5.5 that replaced it in 2010, if you can find either 2nd hand grab it.
Bottom line: CD is lossless audio. And you can hear it. Greatest music medium ever.
That’s an argument suitable for 2001.
Enjoyed the player comparisons and your opinion on CD media.
It is rather ironic that of all vintage HiFi, CD player’s are the most likely to be beyond repair. If the laser mechanism fails then many of them are not available anymore. It’s a shame but true.
It will be interesting to see how you find using the streamer. My experience has shown that digital has only in the last few years delivered its promise. We’re in a golden age of audio. A £500 Dac made in China (Topping, denefripps, smsl etc) on the end of something like a Bluesound node would embarrass a CD player costing many thousands in the 90s and 2000’s.
Great job. One review where it's not all figures and stats etc. much easier to understand.
Out of interest do you have any experience and thoughts of Rega cd players?
Still have ,and play my Marantz cd5000 .tda 1549 dac chip.Lovely sound with my Sony ta f670es amp.Maybe a little bit foward with my Croft amplifier,unless the volume is lower.
Good reviews, I would like to hear your thoughts on the Audiolab 8000A as that is what I still use, together with an Arcam CD92 and Tannoy 605 speakers, I wondered if it was worth upgrading the speakers to something more modern
I have a Marantz CD-63 hooked up to a California Audio Labs Phase 1 DAC. It sounded sweet until the the DAC died from dirty power in Atlanta. It’s now hooked up to Audio Alchemy DAC. It’s ok. I like to hook up my electronics from roughly the same era. Right on the money on NAD description, I had a NAD 5 disc cd.
Any chance you can up your volume in future video. you sound soft compare to the the commercials which means people have to constantly adjusting their volume
Okay I’ll work on that thanks K
I'm still using my Arcam Alpha+. No complaints
Hi Kelvin, I do enjoy watching your videos and always make a point of seeing a new one as soon as practical after it lands. I too have always enjoyed CDs since they came out but treated the “perfect sound forever” bit with a heavy dose of salt even at the time. In a mad “decluttering” phase I got rid of my vinyl - some 400 or so lps and a roksan xerxes deck. Something I regretted almost straight away but there you go, the impetuous nature of youth (actually early middle age but I’m trying to make excuses). Did keep my CDs though and British CD source, amplification and speakers.
Having compared vinyl and CDs, album for album, I think the differences (which are readily apparent) are dwarfed by the quality of the recordings, some just sound better than others. You’ve mentioned Steely Dan but Dire Straits, Pink Floyd, The Who, Led Zeppelin and numerous other artists who have cared about sound quality should all get honourable mentions. Some CDs and Lps for that matter just sound crap and that’s the end of it.
Musings over, keep up the good work, I for one am a fan!
Yes I agree with a lot of your comments
K
Hi Kelvin, nice video again. I completely agree with you on CD as a format, it's much maligned by the high res brigade but this is largely irrelevant I believe. I've just upgraded the opamps inside my Musical Fidelity A3.2 CD player to Burson Audio V6 Vivids. The difference is simply staggering and the quality of playback is fantastic and it was already excellent before!
A couple of items in vintage CD players are serviceable, being the laser and the belt. If you're buying on a certain auction site, my advice is to look out for machines that have had these parts replaced.
Thanks for that info cheers from London K
Andrew Battersby , I agree, I've recapped all of my equipment that has a permanent home with me, plus some vintage pieces that will soon find a new home. The cheaper gear also benefits from swapping other components, such as speaker posts, which are generally horrible.
@@markcarrington8565 bet that music fidelity sound mint now! good player solid built back in the day with them opamps in.ive got old marantz cd 67 se would love to have a go at but think mechanism has gone in it.
Mark Clancy , yep it sounds fantastic! Your Marantz is a well respected player but I have to say I'm not a fan of the Philips mech. It may be slightly more solid and quieter than the Sony mech, but the latter is very easy to work on and functionally fine. I can have the lid off, new laser and belt fitted, all three micro switches cleaned and everything nicely greased up in 45 minutes flat! I recommend a NAD C541i or C542 to replace it, with a new laser and belt fitted at the least.
@@markcarrington8565 I'm using a decent Sony bluray as transport into a sabre dac. I'm was curious to see what difference with say a better player as transport.i would probably never get round to it with not being fully competent at it.and I've got some drivers to build some floorstanding speaker so that's my next project.
I have a yamaha natural sound cd player from a $10 thrift sale. And two denon universals both around $50 that play cd, sacd, and hdcd. They all seem to have excellent dacs. I run rca plugs with them to a sony avr and klipsch r820 f's and get a nice detailed sound from them. Am I doing something wrong? I'd love to try a high end cd player thru my system and see how it sounds though.
Serious bargain was marantz cd52iiSE , ive heard mid range gear that doesnt sound as good.Arcam were famous for that warm,full,analogue sound.
Just discover your channel with this comparison, and I am very pleased you compare old equipment vs new ones. As you said, it is sold to us "newer is better" and I never bite into it.
BUT, I have this Arcam CD player and I thought that may be a new generation DAC would do better. This idea came to my mind when I bought few years ago an all in one Onkyo C-N7050 (cd & streamer DLNA internet radio). The Onkyo player was sharper, clearer and I concluded it could be the dac difference. Then a friend of mine lended me his three thousand € dac so I could bypass the Onkyo dac and the difference was "may be very slightly" clearer. But you really need to have an instant A to B comparison and that is absolutely not worth a penny. Sadly I didn't thought of doing the same with the Arcam and that's where it could have been useful.
So all this story to tell that may be you can improve old CD player with new DAC if you have the good outlet.
Good info thanks
K
Finally, an audiophile guy that listens to good music. Most a-philes are so caught up in the subtleties of the sound, they aren't even aware of what they are listening to. They might as well just listen to sound affects discs/records.
Agreed
Best channel on RUclips
Back in the 1990s when I finally got enough dosh for serious system building, I find that NAD CD players in the £350 price range often face stiff competition with similarly priced players from Marantz and Musical Fidelity. The latter two are the brands that I gravitate to at the time. Musical Fidelity players at this price range are more musical (excuse the pun) sounding than the NAD.
about 15 years ago I went through a phase of wanting to upgrade and I went to a dealer in Warrington where they demonstrated to me a pair of Sonus Faber Auditor running off a Naim Nait 5 with a Gyrodec front end. It was punchy musical .. just fantastic..I even remember what I was listening to Simply Red (picture book). It was my LP which I had brought with me. I then asked him to hook up a CD player and he brought out a Meridian 506.2 Player and to be honest it didn't really bowl me over. I think that player was about 2000 pounds at the time. I have to say though that technology had come on a bit since then.. For example I have a dac magic from Cambridge audio which is also about 10 years old and I have done some back to back comparisons with that and a IFI Blue Zen which is brand new. The newer DAC is really better than that old Cambridge DAC... but is isn't night and day for sure..
Thanks for that Kelvin - was going to buy a CA - now I'll look for an Arcam.
i would
@@stereoreviewx One little thing - I know the Cambridge Audio CD players are easy to mend, with spare parts readily available. Do you think it will it be so easy to mend an Arcam?
I love that black background / silent space sound. Cambridge sounds good to me in that case. Does this comparison apply to their amps also?
Nice review kelvin I had the Arcam years ago with a creek cas4040 amplifier nice warm airy sound, I now have a mint refurbished Denon DCD 1420, its built like a tank and performs and sounds wonderful through my Musical fidelity A1, and three way open baffles. One question kelvin i recently purchased a Sansui 441 Reciever in near mint condition which i use solely for vinyl replay mainly Jazz and mono recordings. On switch on there is a loud thump through my speakers, is this normal with older Sansui products and would a suppressor cap solve this problem. regards Tony.
Going to have to check that now I’ve got a feeling that thump is normal
I spent ages trying different vintage CD players and finally settled on a small Philips that came out a couple of years after CD players were launched!
I found that, for me, the perfect player was one with great detail but had enough roll-off to soften the high-end harshness that often comes very detailed players.
Would’ve been interesting to hear the two with an expensive DAC to see if that made a difference. Since the three to sounded different, a new expensive integrated CD player might’ve sounded much better
What is your feedback about Arcam Alpha 6 Plus amp
Never heard it I did a review on the arcane eight and a comparison I think with the Sansui
What exact Arcam Alpha Model number is the one in your review?
I like arcam cd23 the best of the best.
I was evidently asleep for twenty years and awoke when my cheap old Sanyo CD player finally faded out after only 28 years. I found a world where CD players are rare and expensive, only sold at special audio stores, and just hard to find during the "chip shortage" during the Pandemic. NOTHING available, even on the Internet, for less than $350 American Dollars and ONLY good brands like NAD and Cambridge; not ANY cheaper brands seem to be made anymore. So on July 17, 2021 I bought the cheapest and latest Cambridge. It looks almost exactly like the one shown, except the buttons are slightly different, and are nice and simple like I wanted. THE SOUND IS GLORIOUS! I NEVER KNEW WHAT WAS POSSIBLE! And the tray and tracks are evidently smoothed metal and SOLID AND SILENT! No plastic "clunking" noises! I am VERY HAPPY........................elsullo
It's very difficult to compare NAD CD players as the numbers seem to be all over the place. The first 5 means it's a CD player, as opposed to a 3 for an amp and a 4 for a tuner. The 501 and the 502 were made at the same time, and the 501 was the budget of the two. The 502 RRP was £280. I had a 502, which I bought new for £185. It never had particularly good reviews at the time. I bought it because I bought the amp and figured the CD player would go well with it. It sounded great, especially at high volume with a fantastic room to play it in and a NAD 302 and Mission 706SE speakers, but I always wondered if I wasn't missing something with it, if a 5 star reviewed CD player like the Marantz 52SE would have sounded miles better. But as a youth with too little thought for my neighbours I did think it sounded great.
Don't old CD players begin to malfunction much sooner than other vintage hi-fi items? How is this issue overcome? Thanks
THE most important item in a CD player is the clock....look for one with a discrete build up with separate power and regulators. This is the main difference between Cambridge Audio 340c vs 640c. Most CD players only have the crystal as an after thought.
Wonderfull knowledge man, thanks!
Great comparison. Do you know that you say “yeah?” a lot when speaking. Thank you for the analysis.
Great review im in the market for a new cd player, i have an old Technics SL-p670D 1998 and is just starting to skip and have been told parts no longer available. What do people think of the Denon 600NE ? I would buy second hand but think i might start to fall in the trap of lazy Sensor or poor motor again after a few months !!
I was in the market for a new player, and was wary of buying used also. I picked up the Cambridge ACX35 on Ebay, from Cambridge for $229 refurbished. Cambridge sells some of their refurbished models on Ebay, which I believe may be some stock that is returned due to their 60 day return policy. When I got mine, it looked pretty much like new, no dents or scratches, and plays my discs perfectly. I was having an issue with discs freezing for no reason on DVD players, but when I tested them all on the Cambridge they played perfectly. As for sound quality, I don't hear much difference between different CD players, so can't really comment. I was looking for something reliable that would play all my discs, and so far it's perfect. I was looking at Marantz and a few other players, but they have some horrible 1 star reviews on Amazon, with people complaining about skipping discs.
@@mikrophonie5633 cheers seen the reviews on Amazon,and the Marantz get some poor reviews also on RUclips!!
Don't know what your budget is, but after trying a 'second' Cambridge from Ritcher Sounds, dead out of the box, swapped for a Tangent loved it, not gap less! Sent it back. Now havea Teac p650 and a Schitt Modi 3. It's fantastic. I'd reckon that combo will give any CD player up to twice the price a good run. Also I use a Nobsound switch to compare the internal DAC on the Teac against the Modi... 😁🐉🐙🏴
@@paznewis107 I was looking at that Teac player, but was turned-off by the dozens and dozens of 1 star reviews on Amazon U.S. The 1 star reviews on that model account for 18% of the total ratings. Hope yours lasts longer than the ones people are complaining about.
Why didn't you mention the Arcam on the guns of Brixton track, just only the Nad and Cambridge?
Which old CD player you like the most?
Arcam 7se
I think people will regret getting rid of their CD collections at some point. Electronic collections can be lost due to hardware failure or accidental deletion. Streaming services are great, but you never really own anything and they can remove music arbitrarily. But in the meantime, those of us who want them can get great deals on second hand CD's for the moment.
I have the arcam on loan from my brother. Still sounds amazing.
People who are old enough and were Hifi aware in those days know that CD players from that era had problems with the analog filtering. Plenty of Sony, Philips filter upgrades. My Yamaha still hits the nail.
Just to comment on the comparison between people getting rid of CDs and getting rid of vinyl, I have to say that all the nostalgic connections people usually cite with vinyl are all with the CD format for me. I was born in the early 80s with parents who didn't really encourage an interest in vinyl so all the singles and albums I bought were on audio tape to begin with and then CD. I only started buying records a couple of years ago and all the music that influenced me while growing up was mostly played on the cheapest and most convenient equipment with no thought given to sound fidelity.
There was a similar boom in the mid-00s of people getting rid of their VHS tapes which I took full advantage of. I bought videos for as little as 20p a time and amassed a collection of over a thousand tapes. VHS was a much bigger part of my youth than vinyl.
I was born in the 70s and I probably listen to vinyl for the reasons you set out above. I remember in my teens (and younger) putting on my favorite records and I still have my record collection from back then. I now buy quite a lot of new vinyl after first listening to the album on streaming. With that combination you get the best of both worlds. My CD player is pretty much redundant. Just to note though it isn't really my age group driving the vinyl revival more the younger generation.
Apparently the maranzt ki 63 cd player is the second biggest selling hifi component ever followed by the linn 12 turntable being the biggest.
Is it not the Nad 3020 amp?
@@richardkennard8485 not according to what hifi magazine.
The cambridge audio is not the azure model its clearly the topaz?
You’re right my mistake
I have a arcam CD player and receiver. Unfortunately the CD player hisses out of one channel now, makes me very sad.
I'm pretty sure it can be serviced without spending much
@@Yiannis2112 I'll definitely be looking into doing that. Just not many repair places here (hawaii) and even worse now with places having closed down due to the pandemic. I'll be looking for after the holidays.
@@CuttoothsRoom Same here in Greece mate...Too many cases in the last 4 weeks and going out after 21:00-5:00 is forbidden. Like we have marshall law...I thought the fault appeared ages ago and you left it like that. If it's recent, I guess you'll have to be patient for a while, but not for long. Damn it I could make a fortune over there as a technician...lol!