upgrade my cd player for a match to my Plinius intergrated

[admin_exported]

I'm abroad at the moment, so I'm kind of pick and choose whatever comes along, I bought this unknown CD player "vincent" as a package deal with PSE lll intergrated, later I bought a pair of Elac speakers(another rare brand from Germany), recently I upgraded my amp to Plinius 8200 mkll, and i got a taste of the real hi-end sound! First time I got to hear real quality sound which is so detailed, smooth and very musical, as I was warned before I bought the Plinius, some said it doesn't like non-acoustic stuff, which was quite true when I put on rock and electronic stuffs.

I'm now reading a lot more about CD player and I found a few all rounders like Rega apollo, Arcam diva192, Roksan Kandy MKll and cyrus se8, Naim 5i?

Since my plinius is a bit on the soft side, is it a good idea to balance with something that's has more attack and fast pace CD player?

andy

 

[Anonymous]

Hi andy - It may seem strange as you have asked about 'high end' CD players, but I would strongly recommend that you try a Beresford TC-7510 DAC. They are only about £150 but in my experience they punch well above their weight.

A couple of audiophiles have come to my place for a listening session - as a direct result, one replaced his £2,2k Linn Ikemi with a cheap CD player transport and a Beresford DAC, the other uses a Beresford with his £1500 Primare CD player, in preference to the on-board DAC. It really is that good, in my opinion, and recently won Five Stars in a What HiFi DAC 'shoot-out'.

Try one - Beresford refunds your money in the unlikely event that you don't like it! He sells on eBay and direct via his website - http://www.beresford.me/others/main.html

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the reply. Funny my friend suggested the same thing, getting a DAC to upgrade the sound, but he mentioned a much more expensive brand like "chord" and "musical fidelity", I was thinking maybe I should upgrade the CD player first until i'm ready to get a DAC, now this Bereford thing does look promising with a good price, cheers for that.

andy

 

[Anonymous]

karmatogdral:

Thanks for the reply.& ..... now this Bereford thing does look promising with a good price, cheers for that.

andy

That's fine, andy.

I do think that a DAC is the way to go. IMO DACs have a much greater impact on the sound than the transport section of a CD player. If you do try the Beresford it does benefit from a day or so's running in before it gives of its best - I look forward to your comments.

 

[the record spot]

I think for the kit you've bought, the Beresford - if you go down the DAC route - is money wasted. There is a money back deal admittedly, but I think you need something that is more in line with your Plinius. Likewise with a lot of the CD players you mention.

DAC options: Stello SA100 Signature (£650), Cyrus DAC (Itihnk this is in the £800 region?)

CD players: Eastern Electric Minimax (valve £900), Cyrus 8SE (£1100), Moon CD-1, Exposure 3010 (£900), Roksan Caspian M-series (£1200?)

A handful of choices; the EE might be a bit soft for your liking, but it's such a well rated player, it's almost a staple for me to list it! This might be abit over what you want to spend, but shop around - there's deals aplenty out there just now and don't forget the used route. Some of this stuff pops up for a very good price (e.g. Shadow Audio in Glentrothes, Vickers hi-fi in York, both of whom offer 0% interest free payment options).

Lucky guy - Plinius eh? Very nice kit...

 

[John Duncan]

See I know I bang on about the DACMagic and everything, but I'm yet to be convinced that just adding a DAC turns any manky old disc spinner into a Scarlatti. Granted, I'm as happy as a...er...happy thing with the DM, but I think what you feed the DAC is the key, and an old transport may or may not cut it.

It really depends on two things - how much you want to spend, and whether you must have a disc player and only a disc player (ie do you want to add computer-served music to your setup as well, which suggests going down a DAC route, though again I'd say DACMagic minimum, especially if your Plinius has balanced inputs - I don't know it).

 

[Anonymous]

Keep the Vincent.

 

[John Duncan]

Yeah, hang on - done some digging and that Vincent may be unknown but it's not exactly an Alba. Do you have a particular issue with your sound that you want to resolve? You say that it has problems with acoustic music, but is that the CD player or those Elacs, which can be a bit hard-edge, I thought.....?

 

[Anonymous]

I've always been impressed by Vincent at shows.

It's a nice rich sound.

 

[Anonymous]

My vincent cds2 is working fine, I'm happy with rock and pop stuffs(and some Jazz) it does have a full midrange, I think Plinius has in a way smoothen out the sound a lot, when I put on Diana krall, her voice is very warm at the same time transparent, the treble is average and the bass IMO the weakest, it may be to do the set up of my speakers, there's no consistency in the bass, don't get me wrong I can hear it, but with most of the recordings it lacked of attacks and definition. What happened after I upgraded with the Plinius was the noise floor has gone down so much, the sound is smoother, cleaner, and more dimentional too, but the sound stage hasn't improved much, i mean it sounds a little distant.

With classical music, my system struggles slightly when playing things like orchestral recordings, I can hear everything and yet the details are average(I could tell that there were more than one violin, but I could't tell you if there were 5-10 violins or 10-20 violins), so I think it's the CD player in the chain, afterall it's only an entry level vincent.

I was reading up reviews about benchmark DAC and Arcam diva 192, i read that the DAC in Arcam's pretty good, the area I like to improve is the sound detail and stage really, I hate to wrestle with volume control just because the sound's distant.

andy

 

[Thaiman]

Vincent made pretty decent stuffs but I agree on upgrading. Sugden Masterclass or McIntosh MCD 201 should do the trick if you like a life like sound. both are good on details too however I would consider a better pair of speakers first before change the source.