using DVD player for quality CD sound...

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97tbird

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are there any of you who're particluar about how your CD's sound, but still use a DVD player to listen to music CD's as well?

the problem is: Nobody seem to make (except VERY highend) single CD players anymore (full-size), and I don't like CD changers with huge carousal trays...looks flimsy.
so the option is to buy an affordable single DVD player which also has excellent CD play back quality, good enough to connect to a serious amp/receiver...(?)

Those who use DVD players also for music, pls chime in, and let me know what brands you guys have..
thanks.
 
I use it but it's a 5 disk DVD player.

It's a Panasonic and has heavy use for the a year now and still plays the disks fine.
 
We used to have an RCA 5-CD changer that we used alot, until we got a DVD player that had MP3 capability. A single disk full of MP3 files holds between 8 and 12 CD's worth of music.

So the DVD player gets lots of use for multiple purposes. Ironically, we purchased the cheapest APEX DVD player years ago. It works great!

Aside...
I can't wait for DVD-based systems to become the norm and CD's to go by the wayside. This way, a single DVD disc utilizing MP3-based media can hold about 75 CD's worth of music on a single disc. A great thing for those of us with large audio collections.
 
There isn't anything that says that a DVD player can't have as good sound as any CD player. It just seems like the competition in the marketplace these days is not for quality, but for ultra-low price.

I haven't looked at DVD or CD players lately, but check some of the magazines for test reports. Sure, most of the great ones won't be affordable. But, I'll bet there are still one or two DVD models in the mid-fi category.

Just off the top of my head, check offerings from NAD or Pioneer to see what they offer that is above the ultra-low-price point but not too high above. I'm sure there are others.
 
I'm replacing my old Rotel cd player/ Theta DAC combo with an Arcam CD36 cd player. It's expensive, but cheaper units just don't reproduce the music as well. If you want good sound at a reasonable price, find a decent cd player and buy a used DAC to go with it. Theta's Cobalt DAC is pretty cheap. Check audiogon.com for used equipment.
 
Although I personally use a dedicated CD player to play CDs (Yamaha CDC-905), I kind of agree with keith's suggestion. If you have a high-end receiver with a good DAC, then all you need is a transport, which any DVD player can do just fine. Then just connect it with a digital cable (coax or optical) to your receiver and let your receiver do the DAC'ing.

My receiver is not really high-end (Denon AVR-2801), so I prefer to use the Yamaha's DAC in this case.
 
I use a DVD player digital output to my Panasonic XR-55 digital class D receiver, so don't really care about how good the DAC's are in the CD or DVD player because I don't use them.

The DVD player I use is the Toshiba SD-5980, with upsampling HDMI that I use for testing some prototype products with HDMI interfaces but otherwise have no use for.

Here's the rub - a DVD drive costs about the same as a CD drive. The decode electronics are slightly cheaper for a CD player, but the cost differential is small. As you've noticed, why buy a CD only player when a DVD player costs about the same?
 
from all the research done, Marantz, cambridge audio and NAD don't have dvd changers right now..

If I go for a single DVD player, then NAD seems to have the best audio cd quality for the price, according to reviews, although cambr-audio is not far behind.

from brands making changers, there's Yamaha, Onkyo and Denon, none of which make an affordable dvd changer which are noted for good audio cd quality...
 
DVD players, in addition to playing audio CDs, will also play home burned CD-R disks with MP3 files on them.

I have a couple of old CD players around here that cost close to $500 way back in the early 1990s, and while they are still excellent on CDs, an under $100 DVD player does just as well and will play the MP3 encoded disks.
 
quote:
DVD players, in addition to playing audio CDs, will also play home burned CD-R disks with MP3 files on them.
Click to expand...
Seriously now, an audiophile looking for a high-end CD player is not likely to be interested in playing MP3 files for quality reasons.
 
MP3 files are available in many places on the internet other than peer to peer file sharing. They are encoded in various encode rates, with some pretty good results at the higher rip rates. But you can get lots of MP3 files other than music too, such as old time radio shows, spoken books, etc. where super high fidelity is not all that important.

I burn these disks to listen to in the car, but the DVD player allows me to listen to them in the house as well.
 
I understand all that. I have quite a lot of material in mp3 and other compressed formats as well. I was saying that for a true audiophile, even a high bit rate mp3 is not going to sound anywhere as good as an original CD. Most audiophiles (which I'm not) consider mp3 format a blasphemy for those reasons.
 
Maybe some people are willing to compromise their standards if the price is right.
grin.gif
 
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