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At what price point are cd players overpriced and not worth it

post #1 of 73
1/23/13 at 12:54pm
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Is it 2 thousand? Is it higher?
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post #2 of 73
1/23/13 at 1:23pm
$100.
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post #3 of 73
1/23/13 at 2:29pm

What's "worth" something to someone may not be for another.

 

For many it depends on the features, along with things like build quality, reliability, support, etc.

 

I probably wouldn't have to pay more than $150-$200 to get everything I'd want.


Edited by Rammitinski - 1/23/13 at 4:12pm
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post #4 of 73
1/23/13 at 4:06pm
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good points ramm.
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post #5 of 73
1/23/13 at 4:07pm
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mdnarus how much was the cd player that you got? does it have certain features on it that you like a lot?
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post #6 of 73
1/23/13 at 4:08pm
I spent a little under 150 for my current player....I only paid that much because I wanted a multi disk changer. I can now load up 300 disks at a time.biggrin.gif
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post #7 of 73
1/23/13 at 4:08pm
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once I saw a used krell cd player for over two thousand dollars on audiogon. It had problems reading cds sometimes, but was fixed.
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post #8 of 73
1/23/13 at 4:10pm
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300 disc wow. that is pretty impressive. the most that I ever had were 5 and 6 disc changers.
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post #9 of 73
1/23/13 at 4:28pm
I don't own a CD player anymore. When I want to spin an actual disk, I use a DVD player. Mostly, I stream.
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post #10 of 73
1/23/13 at 4:46pm
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but what cd player did you used to have?
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post #11 of 73
1/23/13 at 4:48pm
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my first cd player that I bought was a rca 5 disc changer for a $125.00 at lowes. I miss lowes not selling stereo stuff anymore.
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post #12 of 73
1/23/13 at 11:04pm
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mcnarus do you stream from iphone or from the receiver? I use the aux input on receiver and iphone. I use jango, addicted to radio, tune in, I heart Radio, pandora, shoutcast, live365. I never had a expensive cd player. I have a jvc single cd player, fisher single cd player, technics 5 disc changer, and rca 5 disc changer.
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post #13 of 73
1/24/13 at 5:17am
Quote:
Originally Posted by keyboardcat View Post

Is it 2 thousand? Is it higher?

Depending on the features, spending more than $200 seems generally unwise.
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post #14 of 73
1/24/13 at 7:30am
Quote:
Originally Posted by mcnarus View Post

$100.

^^^^^^ +1

If it works, you're getting the same 1s and 0s from a $100 deck that you would from a $2K deck. Anything more should be for extra features unrelated to sound quality, like style and build quality. I have a 20 year old Yamaha that was built like a tank and is still kicking, and even that was only $200. Nothing wrong with spending a little extra for something that looks nice, either, but I suspect you're not willing to spend $1900 extra for a pretty faceplate and a slightly sturdier mechanism and case.

Another feature you may want is optical out, which just lets your AVR do the analog conversion instead of the CD player, but it's not necessary - the DAC in the CD player will likely be just as good as the DAC in the receiver. The only other thing that may push it higher is multi disc capability, anywhere from 5 to 400. Sony has made a 400 disc CD changer since the early 2000s at least, and they also make a 400 disc DVD player for basically the same price ($300-400) that's the same form factor and will play CDs just as well.
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post #15 of 73
1/24/13 at 1:59pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by JD NC View Post

Quote:
Originally Posted by mcnarus View Post

$100.

^^^^^^ +1

If it works, you're getting the same 1s and 0s from a $100 deck that you would from a $2K deck. Anything more should be for extra features unrelated to sound quality, like style and build quality. I have a 20 year old Yamaha that was built like a tank and is still kicking, and even that was only $200. Nothing wrong with spending a little extra for something that looks nice, either, but I suspect you're not willing to spend $1900 extra for a pretty faceplate and a slightly sturdier mechanism and case.

Another feature you may want is optical out, which just lets your AVR do the analog conversion instead of the CD player, but it's not necessary - the DAC in the CD player will likely be just as good as the DAC in the receiver. The only other thing that may push it higher is multi disc capability, anywhere from 5 to 400. Sony has made a 400 disc CD changer since the early 2000s at least, and they also make a 400 disc DVD player for basically the same price ($300-400) that's the same form factor and will play CDs just as well.

IME it is actually hard to buy a home audio optical player that lacks digital outs. They almost always have coax and optical outputs.
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post #16 of 73
1/24/13 at 2:43pm
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do any of you ever use a playstation 1 to play cds? I heard that a lot of audiophiles praised the good quality laser on it.
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post #17 of 73
1/24/13 at 2:55pm
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jd and Arny would I be able to tell much of a difference with this over my older jvc and technics cd player? http://www.hideflifestyle.com/all-products/music-hall-cd15-2-cd-player.html
Even though my fisher cd player is old, I think that it sounds pretty good. what about the http://www.hideflifestyle.com/all-products/nad-c515bee-cd-player.html
or http://www.hideflifestyle.com/all-products/nad-c545bee-cd-player.html
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post #18 of 73
1/24/13 at 2:56pm
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maybe it's not worth me paying more to have a smoother mechanism if the sound isn't much better. I don't know if these are much better then what I already have though.
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post #19 of 73
1/24/13 at 4:58pm
$0

Just rip the discs to FLAC with the CD drive you almost certainly already have in your computer.

Spend the cash on a media server / streaming device.
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post #20 of 73
1/24/13 at 5:29pm
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I hear a lot of negative things about flac though. people try to say that it isn't good quality and say that a lot of media players don't like them.
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post #21 of 73
1/24/13 at 5:30pm
If you listen to stupid people, you will remain become stupid.
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post #22 of 73
1/24/13 at 5:37pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by keyboardcat View Post

I hear a lot of negative things about flac though. people try to say that it isn't good quality

flac is lossless. Its an exact copy of the data on the disc.
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post #23 of 73
1/24/13 at 5:51pm
Thread Starter 
why do people bash it a lot on here then xian? I have seen a lot of love hate debate on flac.
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post #24 of 73
1/24/13 at 5:53pm
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if you say that is a regular copy of the disc then I will take your word for it. I never used flac before.
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post #25 of 73
1/24/13 at 6:34pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by keyboardcat View Post

why do people bash it a lot on here then xian? I have seen a lot of love hate debate on flac.

Beats me, never noticed anyone bashing it, have a link to the relevant discussion?
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post #26 of 73
1/24/13 at 8:13pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by keyboardcat View Post

why do people bash it a lot on here then xian? I have seen a lot of love hate debate on flac.

People bash a lot of things. Few albums in FLAC with 24/196 resolution are best sounding than everything else I heard. I also started to convert SACDs into 22/88 FLAC to store them on my NAS, and didn't notice real difference from physical disk playback.
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post #27 of 73
1/24/13 at 8:45pm
Keyboardcat-

I would say that it depends on one's collection. For those of us, who own several thousand CD/SACD(s), the choice is easy. Recently, I had a wonderful listening experience w/ a NAIM cd player ($2K).
Additionally, it is really great to see companies producing more state-of-th-art disc spinners w/ each passing year. Whatever the budget, there has never been a better time to buy new, old, vintage cd players!
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post #28 of 73
1/24/13 at 9:16pm
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Maybe I will give flax a chance someday since you all say that it is good.
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post #29 of 73
1/24/13 at 9:18pm
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Is it true that they don't make sacd anymore or they still make it?
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post #30 of 73
1/24/13 at 9:21pm
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Speaking of the same audio quality with flack are blank cdr the same way? Even the cheaper brand cdr like memorix maybe? It will sound the same as the regular cd?
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