I have an old Yamaha CDX396 1-bit Natural Sound CD player and am looking to upgrade but I can't afford to spend a lot. As I have the Sansui WLD201 Network Player/Radio it seems to make sense to get the Sansui CDD201 which uses the same remote and can be got for around £100. But is it going to be any better sounding than the Yamaha? Any advice would be appreciated. It is all connected to a Sony TAF248E amplifier and MS20i Pearl Edition speakers.
CD player upgrade
- Thread starter michaelmoravian
- Start date
Groundhog Day..
Keep what you've got, CD players are CD players they're transparent. You could add a streamer, buy some more music or save your money for something else.
Keep what you've got, CD players are CD players they're transparent. You could add a streamer, buy some more music or save your money for something else.
Surely they are only transparent if outputting digital signal. Won't the analogue output be affected by things like the internal DAC?
There can be differences between CD players, but they should all read the same 1's&0's. Some differences will be due to the DAC, choice of filters, up sampling and quality of output stages plus other things. I have definitely heard differences between CD player I've owned.
The most expensive one was not necessarily better than the others, just different.
For £100.00 it's probably not worth it, unless the convenience of using the same remote is worth £100.00?
Even £1000.00 might only give a different but not better presentation than what you have.
Maybe demo a few to hear for your self, but £100.00 for a CD upgrade?
Maybe spend it on a genre of music that you wouldn't have bought otherwise.
The most expensive one was not necessarily better than the others, just different.
For £100.00 it's probably not worth it, unless the convenience of using the same remote is worth £100.00?
Even £1000.00 might only give a different but not better presentation than what you have.
Maybe demo a few to hear for your self, but £100.00 for a CD upgrade?
Maybe spend it on a genre of music that you wouldn't have bought otherwise.
The things to spend your money on are the speakers and to a lesser extent the amp. Speakers you should put nearly all your money into, followed by amp then source (if digital). I don't know anything about vinyl so you'll have to be excuse what I say on that front.
As the gentleman above alluded to your better spending your money somewhere else in the chain. Also note I was carful not to say that you wouldn't hear a difference, you probably will.. But is it real?
As the gentleman above alluded to your better spending your money somewhere else in the chain. Also note I was carful not to say that you wouldn't hear a difference, you probably will.. But is it real?
I don't think you'll get much of an upgrade if you go for the Sansui. It would just be a sideways move at best. You'll have to try the likes of Marantz's CD6005 or similar to get a proper jump in quality, but they're closer to the £300 mark.
Thanks for all the advice. I think I shall stick with the Yamaha for now. And I think I would also struggle to get better speakers without spending a lot either.
SteveR750
Well-known member
Ketan Bharadia said:
Ketan, how good is transport part of the Sansui? Better than a panasonic blu ray player for example? I suspect the onboard DACs have a lot to do with the relative SQ of cheaper CDPs. What, for example does a £1ks worth of Cyrus CDXT offer over the budget transport only products?
think about trying to source a 2nd hand Cambridge Audio DacMagic 100 or similar? Looking at the rear panel of the Yamaha CDX396 it has an optical out. Would using it as a transport improve things? I'm probably talking nonsense...
SteveR750
Well-known member
luckylion100 said:
Far from it, that's pretty much the question I am asking. The CA dacmagic is better than most of those in budget CDPs (not all of them, but probably most). The issue with a transport is accuracy in reading the data, but it would have to be a pretty cruddy mechanism to invoke serious error correction sufficient to adversely affect SQ if I've understoon the reed-solomon code properly)
It would make sense that DACs have improved in the last 15 years or so since I bought the Yamaha so it might be worth seeing what I can get on a budget. Thanks.
bigfish786
Moderator
I picked one of these up on eBay for around 30 quid. It performed way better than newer arcam DVD players costing around a grand.
there are musical bargains out there. Give one a go, if you can drop on one.
there are musical bargains out there. Give one a go, if you can drop on one.
so, I bought a Tom Evans 'tweaked' CDP to match the Tom Evans 'tweaked' amp that I own .... I paid a fair price for the CDP....
have I wasted my money?
have I wasted my money?
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