O/T

[Stuart]

My old NAD Cd player is slowly giving up the ghost so just wondered if anyone has bought a decent home CD player recently?

Considering the Marantz CD5004 but it's pretty new so not many reviews yet.

Stuart

[Norman Verona]

I have a Marantz and it's very good.

But it's 18 years old now.

[pistonbroke]

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm Marantz

my kits 15 yrs old still a great sound .

dunno about the new stuff  

[peterg]

Arcam Alpha  their CD players (and amps) can be upgraded and fixed when they go wrong (rare anyway) and sound very good  

I bought one off eBay years and years ago, had it upgraded by a place in Guildford and it's been spot on all this time.  

[ljsanders]

I had a Marantz CD63MkII for a few years which I then gave to my parents and its still going strong.

Marantz is just posh-Philips if I remember rightly.

I sounded a little too bright for me, so I upgraded to a Musical Fidelity X-Ray... 10 years later and it still sounds awesome,

especially through the Arcam AVR300/FMJ-P25 combo I just bought for peanuts off ebay.

[Man On The Clapham Omnibus]

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm Marantz

my kits 15 yrs old still a great sound .

dunno about the new stuff  

I can beat that, I have a twenty three year old Philips CD player that still works. All the more amazing as it's that brand.

[bhouse]

I've got a Philips CD150/65 that I bought in 1983 - eek! 27 years old. I share MoTCO's astonishment that it still works reliably.

As to a replacement for your NAD, it'd worth looking at Cambridge Audio. Richer Sounds have this one for less than £70. It sounds very good...

[Hammy]

You really need to go listen to one , preferably with your kit.

I'm heading towards streaming from the PC . I use an Xtreamer plus  a Cambridge DAC Magic -for the money very good result . I stream lossless audio from the PC but it will also do MP3 . It's the future .... . Just select you music from the menu on the telly , no need to get up ! Setup rivals a £600-£700 Cd player.

BTW my 10 yo Arcam Alpha 6 could not be repaired by Arcam when the laser failed ! Now have Creek Destiny

[Hammy]

Or.... If you find MP3 ok how about going for a MP3 player and docking station connected to your amp ?

CD players are a bit last year

[Stuart]

My lad's got my old Philips which is also 1983 vintage and going strong.  The NAD which is dying was its replacement about 8 years ago!

Hammy the problem is the 400 or so CDs I have - to rip all those is a retirement project ain't got time now.

bhouse lot's of mixed reviews on Cambridge, especially at the cheap end.  

Marantz's 6003 won best budget CD player 2010 - hence the thinking that the new 5004 might be as good or better (and it's cheaper).   Arcam a possibility though.

Any more thoughts anyone?

[pistonbroke]

Marantz originated and manufactured in USA , the originals used "tubes" ( thermionic valve technology in english speak ) Manufacture moved to Japan , then was bought out by Phillips (Dutch) , Think there now owned by Marantz Inc. (Japan )  

[Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman]

Hammy the problem is the 400 or so CDs I have - to rip all those is a retirement project ain't got time now.

Honestly, don't let that put you off, a system with good ripping software will go through a collection like a dose of salts.    

With discs in reasonable condition, we usually see an average of six/seven minutes. Cataloguing of the contents is normally automatic, and is Pretty good these days at finding all but the most obscure. Most systems eject the disc when finished, so it's usually a case of dropping a disc in every time you see the tray open. Everything else ought to be unattended on something decent.

We've found customers able to get a collection of similar sorts of sizes ripped in a few weeks or so, without it feeling like a chore.

(though for the truly lazy, or extremely busy, there are ripping services - you just pack your discs up, send them away, and then you get them back, typically with a hard drive/caddy containing the material in the format of your choice).

I use a Linn streaming player these days at home, so much easier than messing about with actual discs!

Will sync with iTunes too, so can carry the same music on iPods/iPhones etc.  

[Stuart]

OK guys I'm listening here but I need a lot of educating.  Questions:

So what kit exactly do I need, where do I get it from and what will it cost me for quality?  Forget amp and speakers they're sorted.

How can it compare to a £600-700 CD player when (I assume) it's been even more digitally compressed?

How do I select from a list on my telly when my telly and hifi are 15ft from each other - means one of 'em has to have long cables and it can't be the hifi cos that's where all me singles and albums and turntable are (yes, vinyl - might be able to rip CDs in reasonable times but ripping vinyl is in real time and I've got about 400 LPs as well)  

What else do I need to know?

Prob won't be about until tomorrow night now - on the road tomorrow with 4am start and 9pm finish - but appreciate whatever you can tell me.

Stuart

[Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman]

Tell me about it; just be rescuing some boxes from the loft; had to crawl past my old record collection to get to them; been years since I got rid of my LP12, (in fact that's what paid for my starter Westfield kit   ) but I did stop to wonder how on Earth I could ever digitize quite a few thousand albums. But then, I won't get rid of them either, so there they sit, in the loft   Stopping the house from blowing away.  

Anyway, streaming music. Most decent set ups can you can pick the default settings you encode music at. I use FLAC a lossless format, so there is zero quality loss in the recording process. I'm using one of the "cheaper"   Linn DS players, but even that substantially outperforms high end CD players I've owned in the past.    

But even some of the less audiophile priced players I've heard have been damned good.

[Gromit]

Cant be of much help only to say i`ve got an originl Cambridge Audio CD3 (when they where made in Scotland) and I aint letting it out of my site. Well worth tracking one down if you fancy something a bit different.