Dear all, I have a slight dilemma.
I'm tentatively searching for a cheap-ish CD spinner to replace the irritating Sony CD Walkman that I'm using to feed my Videologic Siroccos. I'm perfectly happy with the Siroccos, but I want something better for the CD player. My budget would be in the region of £150 which seems to nicely coincide with the NAD C521BEE. From reading around on the web, this seems to be one of the best options at the price point, but I'm trying to find out what other options there are.
Other players in roughly the same price range:
Sony SACD SCD-XE597
Denon DCD-685
Marantz CD5400
Some particulars:
1. I presume the drive noise will be minimal, but well and truly the lower the better. One of the reasons I didn't get on with the Denon M31 was the slight high pitched whine from driving the CD which I could hear during quiet spells of the music.
2. I prefer a fairly neutral and accurate presentation, not after anything too "exciting". I listen to a very wide variety of music, but on the CD player it would be mostly classical and some soundtrack-type music (the rest live as MP3 on the hard drive)
3. I'd prefer to stick to buying new, mostly because I want to be able to evaluate it and return it if I'm not happy with the performance. I can go 2nd hand if I must, but it'd better be a compelling proposition...
4. Finally, if you were me, would you give this price bracket a miss (grunt it out with the CD drive on the computer - I have the Revo 5.1) and wait till I have more budget? From what I can see, £250-300-ish does give you a much wider variety...
So... I call upon the expertise of those who are willing to help out - basically, any opinions, experiences and reviews of the mentioned players and maybe other notable alternatives would be most gratefully received.
I'm tentatively searching for a cheap-ish CD spinner to replace the irritating Sony CD Walkman that I'm using to feed my Videologic Siroccos. I'm perfectly happy with the Siroccos, but I want something better for the CD player. My budget would be in the region of £150 which seems to nicely coincide with the NAD C521BEE. From reading around on the web, this seems to be one of the best options at the price point, but I'm trying to find out what other options there are.
Other players in roughly the same price range:
Sony SACD SCD-XE597
Denon DCD-685
Marantz CD5400
Some particulars:
1. I presume the drive noise will be minimal, but well and truly the lower the better. One of the reasons I didn't get on with the Denon M31 was the slight high pitched whine from driving the CD which I could hear during quiet spells of the music.
2. I prefer a fairly neutral and accurate presentation, not after anything too "exciting". I listen to a very wide variety of music, but on the CD player it would be mostly classical and some soundtrack-type music (the rest live as MP3 on the hard drive)
3. I'd prefer to stick to buying new, mostly because I want to be able to evaluate it and return it if I'm not happy with the performance. I can go 2nd hand if I must, but it'd better be a compelling proposition...
4. Finally, if you were me, would you give this price bracket a miss (grunt it out with the CD drive on the computer - I have the Revo 5.1) and wait till I have more budget? From what I can see, £250-300-ish does give you a much wider variety...
So... I call upon the expertise of those who are willing to help out - basically, any opinions, experiences and reviews of the mentioned players and maybe other notable alternatives would be most gratefully received.
