Budget CD Player Wanted

Hi - I'm looking for CD player recommendations in the 'up to £150-£200' range.

In terms of equipment I've currently got a pair of Klipsch ksb 1.1 speakers (gift from my old man due to an upgrade) and a Temple Audio Bantam Gold amp. No sources really apart from my Creative Zen mp3 player and a faulty old Sony CD Walkman. So yeah, a full size CD player would be useful!

Any suggestions (new or possible second hand options) welcome. Thanks.

 

Hi and welcome.

Cambridge Audio have things sorted at this budget level.
Have a look at the CD10 which should do all you require.

http://www.richersounds.com/product...ecks/cambridge-audio/topaz-cd10/camb-cd10-blk

 

Is a CD player the best option for you? A lot of people play music from a computer so maybe a small external sound interface would be good?

Otherwise you can't go wrong with any of the current crop of Cambridge Audio CD players.

 

Lol!

 

Thanks for the replies

Hi again - sorry I've been rather slow to get back to this thread. Been a little busy the last day or two.
Cambridge Audio and Marantz are the two options I keep running into so if I end up buying new I may well go with one of those. As for the computer option, I'm not quite ready for that yet. I'm a bit old fashioned and still rely largely on CDs so a dedicated player is still a must for me.

I do have a computer (er.. as you probably figured ) and have most of my music ripped on it but it was done some years ago when I had a 4GB mp3 player so the files are only 128k WMAs (wanted to get more on it so sacrificed sound quality).
I'm not up to ripping them all again yet and the PC isn't ideal anyway as it's a noisy old desktop I tend to use for gaming.

I was really wondering if anyone had any thoughts as to (probably second-hand) alternatives to the Cambridge Audio/Marantz usual suspects.

 

The older Cambridge 640C/2 is still superb and you can probably find one for <£100. Likely no worse than the new players.

Otherwise, Rega Planets are well liked by many and look distinctive with the top loading mech.

Be careful with older units as obtaining new lasers can be expensive and this defeats the whole point of a value used product.

 

To be honest I'd say get a new one. Like computers, digital sources have come down and down in price and performance is the equal of many of yester-years top machines.

I have a Cyrus CD7Q which is great, but I doubt it is really any better than a new CA player. The nice thing about the CA players is that I've seen the circuits for a lot of them and they are very well designed in all respects, not just using good chips but implementing the analog side well too.

If you can find a CA 740C in your budget then that would probably be the best thing.

 

Toshiba SD900E...... I know it's a DVD player

Hi,

How about one of these, I know it's a DVD player, but it's also a great CD player IMHO, I've got TWO & whilst my cd player was away being modded I used one to play cd's on..........................I was very impressed.

There's one on Fleabay thats just gone unsold, the starting price was £100 & there were no bids, so send him an email & make him an offer, it's a heavy item so postage is high.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/TOSHIBA-S...ideo_DVDPlayers_Recorders&hash=item3a68b8689f

Just a thought to bear in mind.

Hope you eventually get sorted.

AN

 

Tenson suggested I consider an external sound interface. You mean a DAC I assume? Sorry if I sound a bit dense. Not quite up to date with all things hifi!

I've asked in other forums and a poster in one suggested just using a DVD player as a transport (along with a DAC) but I actually have a disc-spinner already - an old Denon UDM-31 micro system.
This is the system I'm currently replacing with the Bantam and as-yet-unbought CD player but the only reason I'm upgrading is that the sound from the Denon has been cutting out on the left speaker for a while now. The UDM-31 is an all-in-one type thing but it has an optical digital-out on the back so I assume I could link this to a DAC and get sound from the Denon even if its internal amp is shot?

If this works then I might be tempted to go with this as I like my old Denon and having a DAC would be useful for future upgrades (ie. when I finally get around to re-ripping all my CDs as FLACs).

 

Belated followup..

Well since I started this thread I find myself with a bit less cash to play with than I thought. Dad came to the rescue again though and I'm now running his vintage Pioneer PD-S601 - a definite improvement on a ropey old Sony Walkman!

The Pioneer is around 20 years old so I don't know how long it'll last or how heavily it has been used in the past (at least 2 previous owners) but it'll do the job for the foreseeable future.

Thanks for the recommendations. Once I'm a bit more solvent I'll look into things again.

Regards,
Withnail

 

Those old Pioneer 'stable platter' CD players are pretty good IMHO. I'd be inclined to stick with it for as long as it keeps working - I think you'd need to spend a fair bit for a noticeable improvement. Can't remember if the 601 has co-ax digital out, but if so you might at some point want to try it with a DAC.

 

Sorry I didn't answer before. An 'audio interface' generally means a audio input / output box for the computer. Something like this - http://www.dv247.com/computer-hardware/audio-interfaces/

A DAC is a bit different because it doesn't need to connect to a computer to run. Some DACs do now have USB connections to link it to the computer, but it will only play sound out. A full audio interface will have multiple output channels, inputs, microphone inputs, headphones etc..

The Pioneer should be a good bit of kit, and I'd suggest adding a Cambridge DacMagic if you have the cash.