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I need to buy a new CD player for my office, to go with my trusty Marantz pm44se amp and Mission 760i speakers.
I've always had Marantz CD players for some reason so had my eye on this...
http://www.richersounds.com/product/cd-players/marantz/cd5005/mara-cd5005-blk
Any better suggestions? Can I spend less? Are any other brands more reliable?
TIA
Buy 2nd hand. Ebay/gumtree. I picked up a sony cd player which was top of the range qs series for £10
I've had a couple of secondhand CD players over the years but they've not lasted well.
Suppose I could have a cheap punt on ebay but I'd be happier with something new TBH.
I think your following the same path I would go down, that is - find the cheapest Marantz on Richer Sounds website. I would agree with your choice!
I won't be popular for saying this but... Just buy any secondhand player made in the last ten years or so.
15/20 years ago there was a noticeable difference between players, these days they all use one of about 3/4 DAC's which have most of the analogue and digital filters built in. What this translates to is in actual fact most CD players sound incredibly similar!
Hifi buffs don't like to do it but if you double blind test these things there's usually naff all difference or at least naff all discernible difference. And before I get Mr What HiFi giving me grief, audio is one of the few things I know about (4yrs at Uni anyway) 🙂
I know next to FA about hi-fi but I wouldn't have expected much sound quality difference, was thinking more from a durability POV I suppose.
CD players seem to be the one separates component that fails on me.
- they're one of the few separates with moving parts in that can wear or break - when you think about it what the transport/laser mechanism is doing is actually quite clever, and to get a mechanism that works to such fine tolerances at such low cost is something that is easily overlooked. My £35 would go on a Sony DVD player from Richer Sounds - plays audio CDs (as well as doing lots of other things).CD players seem to be the one separates component that fails on me.
I've a Marantz CD-63, not had much use as CD's get played through the console, or I use spotify. £offer?
I'd go for a multiformat DVD player, one that can play SACD/DVD-A discs will perform as well, if not a lot better, than a vanilla CD player, and quite possibly will be cheaper.
Just had a hunt around the interwebz, and it appears that there's bugger-all available by way of budget multiformat DVD/cd players, the rather brilliant Cambridge Audio DVD99 is no longer available, but you might track one down second-hand, they were only £99 new. The replacement Azure 752bd isn't by any stretch a budget player, it's around £7-800, there's an Oppo one, around £500-ish, but that ain't cheap either!
Shame, really; if you can track down a CA DVD99, go for it, it's a fine sounding player. Mine suffered a problem earlier this year when the drawer motor went on the fritz, the player was nearly five years old, fortunately, I'd taken out an extended warranty, cost peanuts at the time, ran for five years, it had one month left to go!
Imagine my relief at being able to get it fixed for free. 😀
Thanks for your suggestions and thoughts guys.
I'll mull over whether to go cheap 2ndhand and disposable or new
CDs? 😕
What about an MP3 player?
If quality is important (in an office? !), a NAS and stream Flac to a Squeezebox or something hooked up to the amp. Fancy NAS will do all kinds of other stuff you might find useful in the office, or just a cheap NAS or even USB drive if you can find a player that will work with it.
Can still use CDs, but rip them and store on NAS. No fiddling with CDs to play then 🙂
What are cd's?
Spotify or Pandora for me
Late to the party but you can pick up a Cambridge Audio Azur for less than a ton, my 540C V2 was a replacement but that was about 9 years ago, the V1 I had before that fell on its arse quick enough to tell me that whatever was wrong with that will have reared its head before now.
A 6xx will be better specced, IIRC the 600's had a twin DAC and the revisions were just for things like Sonos compatibility, still well within your budget on eBay and plenty available so you can afford to try before you buy if need be.
Hunt down a Rotel 965BX LE Discrete on eBay, wonderful players or a Rega Planet.