Which CD Player?

to be honest, the nad 521i/521bee or the 542 cdp's are very decent. I use the 521i and find it a very good entry level cdp.

There is rega, arcam, denon, marantz, audio analogue, quad, etc etc...

There are others which are good too but whats your budget like ?

The teac would probably leave you wanting .......dont know if you can do much with your teac except maybe try some damping tricks lke mass loading, isolation pods.

what cables are you using with your teac ?

manek.

I have a Nad C542. It's a good machine...with greater resolution and depth but has a reliability problem. My player refused to play within 15 days of the purchase. I had to send it back to Mumbai for repairs. Further, had a tough time with La Kozy guys (distributors of NAD). I got the player back after 3 months. But it still has some problem with reading and tracking the discs. I will refer Marantz (i still have Marantz 6000 OSE) or Arcam over Nad.

Hi !

My dealer who gave me Teac is willing to take it back and give Denon instead (at of course extra cost). Which model of Denon do you reccomend? Or may be Marantz?

Can you tell me something abuot the built-in DAC, its bit rate, etc. and how it afects the performance?

Last but not the least, how to protect expensive CDP from biting the dust?

Regards

Sanjay

Marantz cd 7300 has got rave reviews from press. I would favour Marantz over Denon or if you could stretch a little you can go for Arcam 73T.
To be frank i have never got much into technicalities. Manek has a vast knowledge of Hi fi. He is the right guy to answer about rates and bits.

Hi,

I have a Marantz CD 6000 OSE LE which is a really good CDP for it's value.( Probably this model has been discontinued in Europe.)
You can also add Marantz CD 5400 , Marantz CD 7300 and Cambridge Audio 640 C to Manek's list.

Aniruddha.

Hi guys....marantz over denon ? Marantz! ofcourse you will pay a bit more. What players are available with your dealer ? Give us the model numbers please.

Myriad, I'm no expert on DAC's but a very simple explanation follows :
Every CD player had DAC's built in except if it is only a dedicated transport.

The DAC's in todays CDP's are the regular 20bit/24bit. Burr Brown seems to be very popular today. To be honest these are just numbers and one can't really judge a DAC's performance buy just figures alone. Remember CD encoding is 16 bit at 44.1khz. Today since processor speeds and silicon chips are getting cheaper and faster you will see dac's rated at 20/24 bit and 96khz/192khz etc, etc , etc but higher numbers dont mean better perfomance though the manufacturer may want you to believe that. I have heard DAC's which convert at only 16bit and 44.1khz play much better than the so called better dac's of today. People will also tell you that digital technology chnages and gets better every day but DAC's are more than silicon chips.

Dac's have many stages in them, buffer and re-clocking stage, a D to A conversion stage, a filter stage, an analogue output stage and a short cut in either one of them or more will kill the sound which often happens today in cheaper cd players. Then there is oversampling, upsampling jargon vendors throw art you. It all depends on how technology is implemented in the DAC. The proof of the pudding is not in the ingredients but in the eating....listen to it, like what you hear, pick it up !

Manek.

Manek,s absolutely right.

the technology does not matter..it is the Implementation which matters. eg Audionote DACs use 0 upsampling and have a minimalistic design..but sound better than many upsampled designs.

In the end the quality of the components used, the design as well as the quality of the casing makes the most difference in cdp's.

marantz 6000 is definitely a better choice than most entry level Denons.

(Denons do have great universal players and high end cdps, but thay cost USD2000 and upwards !)

Doc,
IMO NAD cd players and amps have a synergy between them.
MY Nad C542 sounds beautiful with C370 amp. The highs are open and the basslines taut. Whereas Marantz 6000 OSE sounds little slow with a top rolloff with Nad amp. It's a different matter that i have a reliability problem with Nad cd player. I haven't heard new generation Marantz players so cannot comment on that. Better you go and audition both the players and decide.