Is a cd player necessary in your set up anymore?

[admin_exported]

For me, im really not sure. I own fewer cds and time goes on and the large majority of music is on my hard drive.

In an age where the majority of music is now downloaded, do we really need a cd player? Can we survive with an computer, amp, and speaker set up?

 

[professorhat]

Still buy all my music on CD since the majority of downloads aren't of high enough quality for me. And since I don't yet have a decent external DAC, music played through my CD player still sounds significantly better than streamed through my Airport Express.

However, I love the fact I can now stream music from my Mac into my kitchen, my office and my living room all at the same time with three Airport Express units and control it all using my iPod Touch.

So both systems have a place in my heart at the moment.

 

[John Duncan]

nnnnnnggggggghhhhhhhh

 

[Anonymous]

Nope.

 

[idc]

CDP not necessary, CDs still necessary, till downloads commonly available at CD or better bit rates, then CDs will no longer be necessary. But the option to get CDPs and CDs is still going to be a perfectly reasonable one with certain advantages.

 

[Anonymous]

Agreeing with the general CD as a carrier sentiment, until lossless is the download format, I'm not really that interested in downloading.

I did buy the Brian Eno / David Bryne recent album, but only because there was a FLAC file.

Backup and lossless in one, CDs are hard to beat

I do have a CDP, but only as it was a freebie

 

[nads]

maybe i am strange, Ok i have been told i am but that is a different story, but if i want to listen to an Album i tend to use the CDP. Even though all my CDs are on the hard drive.

 

[Alec]

idc:CDP not necessary, CDs still necessary...

Had to contribute, as John is enjoying this thread so.

 

[Anonymous]

It's funny, I've been giving this exact issue a lot of thought recently. I am planning on upgrading the amp soon to go along with my nice new speakers and DAC's (strangely bought two of those in the last year). I've noticed though that I am playing so few CD's now that it hardly seems worth it to upgrade to a new CD player when I buy a new amp. If anything, I am thinking of replacing my very expensive but long in the tooth CD player with a cheaper model. As the vast majority of my music is now played from the NAS through the fantastic Benchmark DAC and it apparently makes very little difference what CD player you are using when using the Benchmark so long as its able to get the bits off the CD accurately, it seems a waste of money to buy a very capable CD player.

As other's have pointed out though, I still do get the vast majority of my music on CD for the quality since Linn/HD Tracks etc have a very limited selection. Perhaps I'm odd (actually, very little debate on that I'm sure) but I'm going the other way. I bought my first turntable in years not too long ago and am really enjoying buying records. Not that vinyl is ever going to be my primary means of buying music, but regardless a CD player has dropped to the bottom of my list of where I want to devote resources when buying new equipment.

 

[DIB]

I'm firmly in the YES camp. I run an old Marantz CD6000OSE which has been a great servant. I was considering upgrading but bought a Beresford DAC instead and run it through that now. Superb upgrade and saved me a fortune. If I want to listen to a specific album then its the CD everytime.

My entire CD collection of 800+ CD's is on my hard drive and a lot of times I like to just put Media MOnkey on shuffle and just see what comes along on. Thats great too but I started copying my CD's years ago and unfortunately copied lots of them at low bitrates (128/192). Now in this era of massive hard drives I've started archving everything again in Lossless format. Bit geeky I know but its great fun.

.

 

[the record spot]

Yep. And given that there isn't a DAC out there yet (that doesn't cost a fortune) that will handle SACD, it will continue to be.

In short, an offboard DAC has its' place. Where it comes up against a CD player also with an excellent onboard DAC, then that's where the picture clouds a little.

As for streaming/downloads/hard drive based music sourcing; fine. If you like that and are happy to - for example - run your laptop all day long with the attendant costs for that, that's fine. There is a level of convenience that comes with HDD based (and the like) that makes it very attractive. That convenience works against it for many though, esp where - for those of a certain vintage - they like to be able to hold the product, see the lyrics, album cover, etc., and sorry, it isn't the same as being able to Google it!

 

[idc]

Considering some of the responses above the question is maybe not just whether to CDP or not. It is whether to DAC or not.

The choice seems to be, do you not bother to upgrade your CDP anymore and just use it or a cheap one as a transport for a DAC, or run a PC/hard drive to feed the DAC.

The cloudy picture you mention Record Spot is where the CDP and DAC have the same DAC. On another thread it has just been mentioned that the DacMagic has the same DAC as one of the Arcam CDPs.

 

[chebby]

I have mellowed on this question a lot lately.

I finally decided at my last upgrade to retain traditional CD replay as a source.

However the Beresford TC-7520 'raised the bar' quite alarmingly high when I heard it with Apple Lossless into a Naim Nait XS and Rega RS1 and RS3 speakers.

The minimum match for quality would have been a Rega Apollo but this pushed my budget a little too much (with a Nait XS).

Then the b***** dealers let me listen to a Nait XS and CD5X and although it did not blow the Bereford completely away it certainly stamped it's very large authoritative foot on the proceedings.

The cost of THAT combination was now into the realms of double what I could afford so I heard the CD5i with the XS. Also superb.

Eventually I walked away with the Nait 5i and CD5i (recent ex-dem models for a very good price) and have resolved to upgrade to the XS next year.

The CD5i comfortably exceeds the performance of the Beresford TC-7520 and the wife loves the sound of both and is glad we still have a CD player. (Suprised how quickly she became a Naim fan. Quicker than me I think!)

I have eased right off with ripping lossless duplicates of my CDs and I am hearing them properly (properly via a CDP player I mean) for the first time ever. (My previous CDPs from Denon, NAD and the Arcam Solo-Mini just don't compare.)

The DAC is doing sterling work with Freeview radio, sound from DVD, internet radio, iTunes downloads and BBC iPlayer etc. and I have re-jigged all the stuff I ripped into 'jukebox' style playlists and use them with shuffle play for when I can't be bothered to keep changing CD. I also have a lot of archive stuff on iTunes (old radio plays from the early 1990s onwards mostly) and the DAC excels with these too.

Before trying the various Naim combinations this year I had heard Marantz, Nad, Arcam FMJ and Rega CD players and the only one that came close to the Beresford was the Rega Apollo.

I think this verifies what a lot of people have confirmed, that to match - or exceed - the performance of lossless files through a £200 (ish) DAC you need to use a £600 - £800 CD player at least.

My response to that - eventually - was to buy a £600 - £800 CD player, whereas others have (quite rightly for them) decided to save the money.

 

[Anonymous]

chebby:
I think this verifies what a lot of people have confirmed, that to match - or exceed - the performance of lossless files through a £200 (ish) DAC you need to use a £600 - £800 CD player at least.

My response to that - eventually - was to buy a £600 - £800 CD player, whereas others have (quite rightly for them) decided to save the money.

I think that says it all. Being cash limited, I took the PC/TC-7520(lm4562) route for a desktop setup. But I don't rip everytihing. Shock horror, I use my humble ATAPI drive to play CDs. Didn't Creek build a CPD around an ATAPI ?

Being a Linux user, the Amarok audio player appears to be reading the drive in bursts with some kind of buffering going on. I have a Rotel RA-01 amp and AVI neutron 3 speakers. No high end, but not too shabby. On my system I can't hear any real difference between a ripped audio CD stored as FLAC, or it being played on my DVD drive which happens to be a HL-DT-STDVD-ROM GDR8163B.

So I'm either deaf , or the humble ATAPI used in the right way is much maligned.

 

[Alec]

chebby:I think this verifies what a lot of people have confirmed, that to match - or exceed - the performance of lossless files through a £200 (ish) DAC you need to use a £600 - £800 CD player at least.

But does it? Im being a bit devils advocate as it doesnt matter to me - i dont see myself changing to a CDP any time soon.

What i mean is, the other day, someone asked if a dAC woudl improve their CDP. They were told, by most who replied, i think, "no, theyre just for people with rubbish DACs in their HDD sources".

This might imply, to some, that the level of CDP budget DACs are equal to has been somewhat exaggerated...

But it might not.

 

[idc]

Time to start paying attention to what DAC is in what, especially if some DACs have the same DAC as some CDPs. So is Burr-Brown better than Wolfson than Texas? After all, there may be a few red faces where the CDP which was ditched in favour of the Beresford or whatever had the better DAC in it.

 

[Anonymous]

The last time I looked Texas Instruments owned the Burr-Brown corporation. In any case, what components may or may not be in a device may only be a rough guide to expected audio quality. It's the overall design that counts. But the ultimate equipment is sticking out the sides of your head, assuming of course that what's in between is functioning reasonably well. I'd rather trust my ears than any spec sheet.

 

[Anonymous]

chebby: I think this verifies what a lot of people have confirmed, that to match - or exceed - the performance of lossless files through a £200 (ish) DAC you need to use a £600 - £800 CD player at least.

chebby, you might have visted the Naim Forum now that you own some of their kit and you may have come across quite a few posts from people who have given up their CDPs worth many thousands of pounds after listening to a few DACs costing less than £900, makes very interesting reading.

 

[chebby]

AKL:chebby, you might have visted the Naim Forum now that you own some of their kit and you may have come across quite a few posts from people who have given up their CDPs worth many thousands of pounds after listening to a few DACs costing less than £900, makes very interesting reading.

I have joined the Naim Forum but to be honest it is often a bit 'rich' for my blood over there. One guy flew two people from his dealer out to Vienna for a long weekend to make some changes to his system. Entertainments included fine dining and a visit to the casino. (Last time I needed some cables made up I went across the road from my dealers for a bacon roll and a cuppa whilst they did the necessary soldering!)

That particular dealer also contributes on the forum (an outfit called UHES) and they get 50 'slots' per year allocated by the authorities for customers to land their helicopters! (Not sure how many slots get used though.)

There are endless references to acronyms I only have a faint understanding of (except that they are probably too expensive for me) and everyone seems to have at least 10 Naim boxes spread across numerous Naim 'Fraim' equipment racks that themselves probably cost more than I have spent on hifi in my lifetime.

I think any DAC costing less than £900 would be right under the 'radar' to most of them. These guys would use a couple of Hi-Caps (and another Naim Fraim of course) for an iPod docking station if Naim made one!

I will have another look for the threads you mention but the furthest up the Naim 'food-chain' I am ever likely to get is to the Nait XS (maybe) if I am lucky.

As much as I like their kit I don't necessarily want to hang out too much on a one-brand forum. Not that much to say to them really.

 

[Anonymous]

the way ive gone is to buy a dac feed it digital from a blu ray player then you have not
wasted money on cd player, innards- case- or electronics that are not needed anymore,
big savings are then made and you have a up to date system,, cd players
are dying away slowly only specialist cd makers are making them at
silly prices and only audiophiles will buy these players
computer lossless is the way to go for hi res
music ..

 

[Anonymous]

I've copied all my CD collection as FLAC. EAC and AccurateRip ensure quality of source. I will still buy CD's as a physical backup but will be playing via HTPC.

DACMagic to come in the future when funds allow.

 

[JoelSim]

Yes it is necessary. Without a CDP my front room would be very quiet indeed even if the amp and speakers were switched on.

ÿ

 

[chebby]

JoelSim:
Yes it is necessary. Without a CDP my front room would be very quiet indeed even if the amp and speakers were switched on.

Not if that DV79 in your signature still works OK. According to the review I have just read about it (from 2005).....

"...the DV79 comes fully loaded with the sort of magic that eludes all but the very best DVD and CD players on the market."

And you could listen to the radio on your T61.

 

[JoelSim]

chebby:JoelSim:
Yes it is necessary. Without a CDP my front room would be very quiet indeed even if the amp and speakers were switched on.

Not if that DV79 in your signature still works OK. According to the review I have just read about it (from 2005).....

"...the DV79 comes fully loaded with the sort of magic that eludes all but the very best DVD and CD players on the market."

And you could listen to the radio on your T61.

ÿ

It's not in the same league as the CD192, it works but nothing special.ÿ

 

[Andy Clough]

Necessary? Not necessarily. Desirable? Yes.