CD Player Match for Stereomour

[ptlud]

I am waiting for my Stereomour kit to arrive.  Any recommondations on a CD player that would be a good match?  Not too expensive.  I am looking for a large and well-defined sound stage.

Thanks!

[Big Al 954]

If you can find one with a Philips TDA1541 chipset, e.g. Marantz,Revox etc  I find them quite good as a compliment to the Stereomour. Very Musical and un-harsh. There is much written about the early DACs and in in my opinion they sound better than the later bitstream offerings on 16 bit sources. But that's just my opinion.

[Doc B.]

Not sure what the budget range is, but the Oppo BDP-103 at around $500 is really nice for the money. It can also play SACDs and DVD-As.  For older CD only type players, +1 on Marantz, in particular the CD63SE. One caveat of older players is that they do wear out, particularly the laser.

[jtice]

I have the Rega Apollo R CD player and love it. It's a little pricy, depending on your reference point but it's very detailed and analog sounding. It retails for about a grand, but I had an older Rega Planet that the dealer took in on trade against an already discounted price, so the out-of-pocket wasn't bad at all.

[Strikkflypilot]

I went for a Sony Playstation 1, thoroughly modified.
Fantastic audio quality.
Lots to read about this on the net, some claim it sounds like a 6000$ player.
Haven't heard many of those, though...
I submit that it does indeed have some vinyl-like character.

Got mine from a mod guy on ebay, called blink, great modder.
There's a couple of howto pages, google dogbreath ps1 for example.
If I have time someday, I might mod it and put it in a wooden enclosure

[kevner21]

if you can afford it get the Oppo 103 cdp . this player is 499.00. and honestly you have to pay thousands more to surpass it. Its that good. as Doc B has suggested

[Mordicai]

Don't mean to hijack this thread but I have question about my cd player and my Stereomour. I just use a OWC Blueray disc player that I bought from OWC for about $ 69. I feed this to my Macbook Pro and rip it in JRiver. Then play it in JRiver through a Evotive Dac 1 to the Stereomour and my Orcas. Am I giving up lot compared to an Oppo?

[mhardyman]

I use the Oppo and it is very nice indeed.  I also use an iMac with iTunes and PureMusic feeding a Maverick Audio DAC feeding the Stereomour using the JJ 2A3-40 bottles.  I rip everything using Apple Lossless or FLAC.  No difference to my ears.

I have done an A-B comparison and I can't honestly tell the difference between setups.  They both are very good at what they do.

Net result is I use the iMac as source since it is point and click and the disks are kept in boxes in the closet.

If one was going to just rely on disks then I would opt for the Oppo.  SACD's are amazing on it.  I also burn my own DVD's for hi-res FLAC files.  Fleetwood Mac's Rumours comes in at about 1.5 gigs.

[Mordicai]

So it would seem that for CD's and Blueray discs the OWC would play as well as the Oppo, but if I want to get into SACD's then the Oppo is the way to go. That about right or is the Oppo going to always going to give me a superior sound?

[Grainger49]

   .  .  .    I just use a OWC Blueray disc player that I bought from OWC for about $ 69. I feed this to my Macbook Pro and rip it in JRiver. Then play it in JRiver through a Evotive Dac 1 to the Stereomour and my Orcas. Am I giving up lot compared to an Oppo?

What I'm reading above is you take the $69 OWC analog out, rip (A to D), play back through a DAC to the Stereomour.  Versus the Oppo 103 ($500 at Amazon) which does all the D to I internally. 

What makes this comparison bad is that you use a $69 CDP's D/A converter to do the ripping.  I don't know the quality of the Macbook Pro's A/D converter either.  Or are you taking the digital signal to the Macbook Pro?

But, I think you can see that there are a lot of steps in your current method.

[Mordicai]

 The out on the OWC is usb digital. Its just an external USB Rom Dive.  JRiver rips this to a digital file. When JRiver plays it the DA conversion takes place the Emotive DAC and the Analog signal goes to the Stereomour. I've only been at this for short time Grainger, so its very possible I have this all wrong, but everything I read tell me that I'm not going to see a big sound upgrade by going to a Oppo, unless I want to start with SACD's and video. 99% of my music these days comes from 96 or higher downloads, but there is a lot of stuff that's only available on SACD that I may want to set up for.

[Grainger49]

Ok, I should know better than answering any digital questions.  You stay digital till you feed the Emotive DAC. 

So the question comes down to whether the Emotive DAC is better sounding than the Oppo 103 DAC.  I think every thing else in the chain to that point will not affect your sound.  I can not help you there.

SACD players seem, to me, to all be higher end units these days.  I have looked into getting a new old stock sled for my old Philips and they are not to be had.  So some day I'll have to get an expensive unit.

[kevner21]

I could reply to this saying that in the last 10 year ive had the Marantz sa8001 , 2 rega apollos , the Decware zen cd player and now the oppo 103. I have not heard any player in my price range to beat the oppo 103 . I'll say you likely have to spend several thousand dollars to beat it. and its worth the price of admission just to see how its packed. and hooked to the internet I guess you can stream anything . I have this player only for cd playing.  500.00 may be the best buy in audio, since the NAD 3020................

[Mordicai]

True, a Oppo at $500 is a lot cheaper then my CDROM ( 69), mac (2,200),JRiver(50) Emotive DAC1( 500 )= $ 3250. Wether it sounds better or not I have no idea. For audio only, I sincerely doubt it, but that was the answer I was after in my original post.