CD Player recommendations £1k budget

Bear

Bear

Bear

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My hifi is getting rather old now so I think its about time to upgrade seeing as my CD player has packed in anyway. Ive started to audition CD players today and had a very good listen to a Roksan Caspian CD and integrated amp, and also a Unison Research Unico CDP and Unico P integrated.

Out of the two I was very surprised I prefered the Unicos, it felt like they were more musical than the Roksan pairing and the Roksans always seem to get very good reviews. It may be because of the style of music I listen to suits the Unicos better.

The CD palyer for the moment will have to be paired with my Audio Analogue Puccini SE amp as I dont want to put the replacement amp on the credit card so wil need to save for a while and a pair of Celef Stratus floor standers (former company now known as Pro-ac).

Anyway, anyone have any recommendations for CD players to audition ?? Ive been out of the hifi thing for ages so I havent a clue whats worth listening to.

Thanks
 
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Well there are certainly plenty of very good options at this price point, from the likes of, Densen, Naim, Exposure, Rega, Cary Audio, Sugden, Primare, Creek, Copland and plenty more.

Ok. so now I'll stop throwing brand names around and give you some info you can actually use.

I would take a look/listen to a Sugden CD21 and/or CD21SE (the SE is over your budget), an Electrocompaniet ECC-1 (usually costs a bit more than £1k), a Primare CD21/CD31 (the 31 is over your budget) and finally I think I would take a listen to the Densen Beat 410 which I believe is exactly £1000, usually. I could go on, but I don't really want to confuse you. I've recommended players that in my humble opinion and that of many others on various forums, have a sound that I 'think' someone who likes the Unison Research Unico would tend to like. The Densen is perhaps a bit more lively and upfront that the other 3, then again it depends what you use it with of course and how your room is setup etc. Also, the Cary Audio Concept CDP1 would be worth a look if you can find it, they are about £1100ish.

If you do find you prefer a more lively, forward and 'rhythmic' sound I would be looking more towards the likes of Naim, Rega, Creek and Exposure.

Best of luck and have fun.
 
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Thanks for the suggestions. Theres quite a few names on there I have forgotten about and will have a look out for like Sugden, Cary. Cant say Ive heard anything from Densen or Primare so I'll have a look out for them aswell.

Thanks again :)
 
Look around and you might be able to find a s/h Densen 400xs for around that kind of budget. Seriously good piece of kit.
 
The 400xs is probably now superceeded. I think they cost around £2500 when new. Heard one last year. Probably the best CDP I've heard if you exclude the Esoteric X01 and X03.
 
Densen is xexy................

Or marantz cd63 and £500 worth of mods. Will bloew any cd player for andred flintoff x6 balls x6 runs
 
-Ad- said:
Densen is xexy................

Or marantz cd63 and £500 worth of mods. Will bloew any cd player for andred flintoff x6 balls x6 runs
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Funny you should say that as I have a CD63 lying about which I might just mess around with now you say it. I'll still buy a new CDP but I'll have a play with the Marantz and see if I can fix its skipping problem while Im at it.

Any place you could point me in for recommended mods ?? ;)
 
Bear said:
Funny you should say that as I have a CD63 lying about which I might just mess around with now you say it. I'll still buy a new CDP but I'll have a play with the Marantz and see if I can fix its skipping problem while Im at it.

Any place you could point me in for recommended mods ?? ;)
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O god I posted last night, runs off to check rest of the forum. At least I'm not suspended so it can't have been that bad :D


MMMMMM densen, stunning looking thing and supposd to sound it too.

You can pick one up (if one ever comes up) around the 4-500 mark.


For the mods check out diyaudio forum and lookin the digital section at the 1 million page thread. Brent (rowmeister) has an electronics business that now mods the players (sercal electronics) and helped me through most of my mods, and simonty is a grat help also. I spent about £250 on my mods, plus 3 players as I killed a few, and couldn't be happier with the sound. Some simple mods like a new psu feeding an audiocom superclock 2, a sprinkling of audicom 5V regs on a dedicated board, overhauled output section with higher tolerance parts, new op-amps and their own new 12V, new caps all over, bypassing the HDAM rubbish. That's mostly it, could try and get a pic if you want. But I would buy on to tweak, ahve some fun, enjoy it, then cmpare it to a desen or other player to see if they actually sound better at all.

The skipping problem could be down to the transport being less fluid because of age hardened grease, or maybe even the laser mech being shot. You can get a replacement mech, but what I did is use the original transport out of my first player. My 2nd skipped and the 3rd just looked really old. I essentially have the modified casing with sound deadening, steel panels bolted to the bottom from my first player along with the old mech, and a new pcb from the latest player. Once you work on it for a bit it all seems like childsplay.
 
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As it happens I have a CD63SE in the loft also, I've not used it for about 6 years now, I replaced it with the original 'Exposure CD Player' the £1000 unit from the turn of the millenium. I might get mine down and have a tinker aswell, it worked perfectly except that one of the phono connections on the back has a dry or cracked solder joint or something inside so it used to require some cable wiggling to get the right channel to come through clearly.
 
Yea it is a rather different sound to most of the stuff I was talking about. Personally I am a Naim fan myself, I like Exposure and Rega stuff too. But it's not for everyone. Some people like more 'body' and 'warmth' and 'liquidity' to the sound (which I'm guessing from what you said initially you do), I prefer a leaner faster sound with more rhythm and pace and snap to it.

Jesus, I sound like a Hi-fi Magazine reviewer now :o ...I'll shut up before I embarrass myself.

Basically Hi-Fi is an incredibly subjective thing, it's never easy to tell what someone else is going to like for sure.
 
Moeks said:
Yea it is a rather different sound to most of the stuff I was talking about. Personally I am a Naim fan myself, I like Exposure and Rega stuff too. But it's not for everyone. Some people like more 'body' and 'warmth' and 'liquidity' to the sound (which I'm guessing from what you said initially you do), I prefer a leaner faster sound with more rhythm and pace and snap to it.

Jesus, I sound like a Hi-fi Magazine reviewer now :o ...I'll shut up before I embarrass myself.

Basically Hi-Fi is an incredibly subjective thing, it's never easy to tell what someone else is going to like for sure.
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Thats pretty much it, but I think it depends on the style of music you listen to the most. I listen to jazz, classical, lounge, trip hop etc so basically funky and mellow. Where as Naim IMO would be great for faster paced stuff like rock etc. Thats why I didnt like the Roksan Capsians that much although they obviously sounded great, it just sounded rushed as they were more faster paced. The Unicos just sounded more relaxed and musical which better suited the musical style I like.

As a side note my brother has a Naim set up which sound great for the music he listens to.
 
As others have said the style of sound we all like is a personal thing, but keep an eye out for a used Linn Ikemi, is less of a "one trick pony" than a Naim, but still majors on timing and playing a dam fine tune. Should be some about as it been replaced with the Majik and Akurate CDP.

Or be really alternative, and rip all your CD's and use a NAS drive and streaming player... ala Linn Majik DS........ I have now ripped all mine to FLAC to stream to my Akurate DS, and not playing the CD's in my Unidisk anymore.
 
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