CD Player Quandry ????

[Hoover.]

I currently have a Roksan Caspian CD player (an old one not the updated M), which does not find certain CD's (all originals not ripped) when loaded. I'm not sure of the reason behind this, weither the old electronics do not recognise certain formats (It doesn't recognise ripped/copied cd's).

This is now my quandry, I only want to spend circa £500-£600

1) Do I pay money out and get the old caspian upgraded to M spec...... approx £600 pound from what I can gather, need to speak to Roksan
2) Try and find a Roksan Kandy Mk3, albeit they are now discontinued and don't seem to be in stock anywhere.
3) Rega Apollo..... or a 35th Aniversay if I can find one

or do I say fk it and look at round the £800 mark and consider (but would i get any benifit based on my amp and speakers ?)

1) Roksan Kandy K2 or
2) Rega Saturn

My system uses a Roksan Kandy Mk3 amp, and Monitor Audio Silver 5i's speakers

[JustinP1]

Out of the box thinking:

Get a unit which you can rip all of your CDs to, store them and instantly sort them with a remote control so you can skip CDs from the comfort of your sofa.

I did this for £400 and bought a Mac Mini and it was the perfect equal to my £3000 transport.

Then invest in an external DAC.

It will probably be an equal cost for a much more flexible and upgradable future.

[johnvthe2nd]

seconded. Don't buy another expensive CD player, rip your CD's lossless and investigate the different media players, it really is the way to go.

[Maxf]

I'm really on the fence with this. I like owning CDs, like putting them into the player, then deciding which to play next etc. Streaming just lets me listen to 30 seconds then switch - i also never listen to the 'unknown' tracks as I can swap between favourites so easily. Of course, this is just my personality, rather than a problem with the format.

I'm currently deciding if to go for a top end CD player or a cheapy transport and a top end DAC. Trying to audition the two is pretty hard.

I'm not going streaming just yet, but part of me wants to be ready for when I do (with the top end DAC as opposed to the CD player).

Hi-Fi has never been so hard to get our head around as now!

[telecat]

Yep Buy an Expensive, small and virtually un-upgradable PC instead. Then you'll have the inconvenience of putting all your cd's to a drive that may well let you down. Then of course you need a monitor to access the music instead of just pressing play. I could go on playing devils advocate but you get the point.

I'd check the cost of repairing the CD Player or even purchase a "Lens cleaner" to see if that improves things. Of you other options If you were to replace it demo the ROKSAN's and other players to make sure you'd be happy with the change. I'd look around the 2nd hand market for ARCAM and Meridian CD players as well as the ROKSAN's.

[sonic_2k_uk]

johnvthe2nd said:

seconded. Don't buy another expensive CD player, rip your CD's lossless and investigate the different media players, it really is the way to go.

Thirded.

I went down this route and its transformed the way i listen to my hifi. I did have the network infrastructure in place already though which made it easy.

[Bullett]

telecat said:

Yep Buy an Expensive, small and virtually un-upgradable PC instead. Then you'll have the inconvenience of putting all your cd's to a drive that may well let you down. Then of course you need a monitor to access the music instead of just pressing play. I could go on playing devils advocate but you get the point.

I'd check the cost of repairing the CD Player or even purchase a "Lens cleaner" to see if that improves things. Of you other options If you were to replace it demo the ROKSAN's and other players to make sure you'd be happy with the change. I'd look around the 2nd hand market for ARCAM and Meridian CD players as well as the ROKSAN's.

Or small cheap PC/media server that is infinately upgradable (not that you will need it) has almost infinite storage and can supply your music all over the house in tandem with something like a Sonos or Squeezebox and you can still use the DAC in you main listening space.

[johnvthe2nd]

telecat said:

Yep Buy an Expensive, small and virtually un-upgradable PC instead. Then you'll have the inconvenience of putting all your cd's to a drive that may well let you down. Then of course you need a monitor to access the music instead of just pressing play. I could go on playing devils advocate but you get the point.

I'd check the cost of repairing the CD Player or even purchase a "Lens cleaner" to see if that improves things. Of you other options If you were to replace it demo the ROKSAN's and other players to make sure you'd be happy with the change. I'd look around the 2nd hand market for ARCAM and Meridian CD players as well as the ROKSAN's.

As mentioned a NAS (network attached server) is the way to go, they're not expensive, and they're really just a hard disk with media serving s/w, so the upgrade question does not really apply (until it's all solid state, and if you've got all your music on hard disk, the transition will be easy ..). I still buy all my music on CD's anyway as they're cheap, legal, easy to rip lossless (ie not MP3) and act as the ultimate backup, though with disk space so cheap I very much doubt if you would ever need to.
I use my ipod to control the music .. there are a hundred ways to do this.

As telecat says, there are plenty of second hand high end CD players on the market ....

[JustinP1]

johnvthe2nd said:

telecat said:

Yep Buy an Expensive, small and virtually un-upgradable PC instead. Then you'll have the inconvenience of putting all your cd's to a drive that may well let you down. Then of course you need a monitor to access the music instead of just pressing play. I could go on playing devils advocate but you get the point.

I'd check the cost of repairing the CD Player or even purchase a "Lens cleaner" to see if that improves things. Of you other options If you were to replace it demo the ROKSAN's and other players to make sure you'd be happy with the change. I'd look around the 2nd hand market for ARCAM and Meridian CD players as well as the ROKSAN's.

As mentioned a NAS (network attached server) is the way to go, they're not expensive, and they're really just a hard disk with media serving s/w, so the upgrade question does not really apply (until it's all solid state, and if you've got all your music on hard disk, the transition will be easy ..). I still buy all my music on CD's anyway as they're cheap, legal, easy to rip lossless (ie not MP3) and act as the ultimate backup, though with disk space so cheap I very much doubt if you would ever need to.
I use my ipod to control the music .. there are a hundred ways to do this.

As telecat says, there are plenty of second hand high end CD players on the market ....

Exactly.

I have all of my CDs ripped losslessly on an external hard disk which is connected to my router.

This means that I can have CD quality music on my hi-fi, or indeed any other room of the house, and the wife can even listen to the same library simultaneously.

CDs were only designed as at the time there was no other economical way of s simple device to hold the digital audio data.

The flaws in reading the CD - which incidentally is not a 'digital media' it in an analogue one means that it had to me designed with two thirds of it used for 'back-up' tracks to ensure that there was not a catastrophic failure.

The result is to get the best stream of data from the CD in real time you do need very well engineered kit.

Or, you could just run it digitally from a hard drive and get exactly the same result if not better.

[Saintjsmythe]

Buy a Cyrus cd8se pre face lift version 2nd hand or in the sale new. Should be plenty around. Add an external dac when you want to move to digital storage. Sounds like you like discs so stick with it for now.

[Hoover.]

sorry can't get my head rund dacs etc..... give me disc's n vinyl.... want to keep my cd player, be it only mid range as soemone said I love the fact of choosing an album n listening to it (to think I am saying that as I loved vinyl and cd's were so easy to skip tracks lol)......

going to speak to Roksan latter this week with regards repair..... if not going to "down grade ???" to the Rega Apollo as I like the sound of it (reviews on Mk3 Kandy seem to say a bit wishy washy, but can't ge a demo on one ), would like another caspian or K2 but can't justify the cost (ohh life was so much simpler when single and mortgage free lol).

[Thudd]

sonic_2k_uk said:

johnvthe2nd said:

seconded. Don't buy another expensive CD player, rip your CD's lossless and investigate the different media players, it really is the way to go.

Thirded.

I went down this route and its transformed the way i listen to my hifi. I did have the network infrastructure in place already though which made it easy.

This.

I went to a NAS and a Squeezebox, and it's fantastic. Mine was only a £400 Arcam Diva CD73 tho

[Hoover.]

Thudd said:

sonic_2k_uk said:

johnvthe2nd said:

seconded. Don't buy another expensive CD player, rip your CD's lossless and investigate the different media players, it really is the way to go.

Thirded.

I went down this route and its transformed the way i listen to my hifi. I did have the network infrastructure in place already though which made it easy.

This.

I went to a NAS and a Squeezebox, and it's fantastic. Mine was only a £400 Arcam Diva CD73 tho

nsh... sorry want a player..... I might only be 40, but I like something in my hand

[sonic_2k_uk]

Hoover. said:

Thudd said:

sonic_2k_uk said:

johnvthe2nd said:

seconded. Don't buy another expensive CD player, rip your CD's lossless and investigate the different media players, it really is the way to go.

Thirded.

I went down this route and its transformed the way i listen to my hifi. I did have the network infrastructure in place already though which made it easy.

This.

I went to a NAS and a Squeezebox, and it's fantastic. Mine was only a £400 Arcam Diva CD73 tho

nsh... sorry want a player..... I might only be 40, but I like something in my hand

You can have it in your hand, in fact, you can even have it in your hand after you've transferred it onto your network and whilst its playing through your hifi

[johnvthe2nd]

I think we've lost him ...

[Maxf]

I'm still reading about this all...

So, lots of forums have threads/posts saying that they can tell the difference between a squeezebox and dedicated (high end) transport - both through the same external DAC!

They also generally say they can tell the difference between different transports (at different price points) with the same DAC.

Posts/threads like that confuse me.

I'm spending decent money on a system so don't want to compromise the source, but equally don't want to aimlessly waste money (any more so than spending silly £ on a hi-fi). It seems kind of perverse pairing a £200 streaming device with a £4k DAC/Amp combo. Should it?

[sonic_2k_uk]

Maxf said:

I'm still reading about this all...

So, lots of forums have threads/posts saying that they can tell the difference between a squeezebox and dedicated (high end) transport - both through the same external DAC!

They also generally say they can tell the difference between different transports (at different price points) with the same DAC.

Posts/threads like that confuse me.

I'm spending decent money on a system so don't want to compromise the source, but equally don't want to aimlessly waste money (any more so than spending silly £ on a hi-fi). It seems kind of perverse pairing a £200 streaming device with a £4k DAC/Amp combo. Should it?

And this is where is gets "complicated" with peoples feelings and perceptions.

On the linn forum's there are threads about better sound when using gigabit switches instead of 100mbps My brother replied that this is akin to saying the food tastes better when he drives it back from the shop in his BMW rather than the golf

To compare sources, providing the source file stored on the network is ripped accurately, its all down to reading the source and the DAC. From my experience the DAC will obviously depend on how good the streaming unit is, and tcp/ip does a far better job at reading the source than directly from a CD in a cd player.

My Linn Majik DS sounds far better than any cd player i've heard, at any price range. And its more convenient. My brothers Linn Akurate DS sounded even better, a slightly crisper sound, and that can only be because of the DAC.

When we tried my other brothers PS3 we were very surprised to hear there was little difference in sound quality, although i think it was using the DAC in the Akurate Kontrol which makes it similar to the Akurate DS in terms of DAC quality, and isn't really a direct comparison.

And then you have to appreciate the actual sound that you hear goes through the preamp/processor, power amps, crossovers, cables and out the speakers - each of which shapes the sound

[Plotloss]

On a back to back test using the same amp, speakers and interconnects a SQB Transporter wiped the floor with a £4K transport/DAC combo.

[Maxf]

Plotloss said:

On a back to back test using the same amp, speakers and interconnects a SQB Transporter wiped the floor with a £4K transport/DAC combo.

Interesting. So, the internal DAC in the transporter was superior to a c.£2k DAC? Which DAC were you using?

I've got a Naim DAC on order, but on an approval basis.

[Plotloss]

The original Transporter had a Burr Brown (I think) DAC chip in it, which was/is the best commercially available DAC available.

It really is an excellent bit of kit.