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I'm asked from time to time if I have any suggestions with regards to less expensive playback sources for digital music- usually along the lines of what cheap DVD player sounds fairly decent, or if there's a low buck universal player I would recommend. Hardly anyone ever asks what's a good inexpensive CD player, and if you go to the mass market emporiums, you can't even find CD players these days- a rather discouraging state of affairs for an old luddite and music lover like myself. Low buck DVD players for music generally make me ill- don't even get me started about things like the Toshiba craze on Audio Asylum last year.
Fortunately the rest of the world doesn't seem to be as narrowly focused on video capable disk players as we are, and companies cater to the Europeans, for example, with a fairly wide range of CD player offerings. More's the pity that relatively few are available on this side of the pond.
OTOH, the Marantz CD5400 is one of those few CD only players that have made it over to our shores in small quantities, albeit you have to look around a bit to find a bloke that carries it- forget the mass market merchants. Marantz has built an interesting reputation of late in Europe with products like the CD5400 and PM7200 integrated amplifier as being willing to build modest price products for which sound quality is actually a primary consideration (the PM7200 is a 95 watt/channel @ 8 ohms, 150 watts/ch @ 4 ohms integrated amplifer, discrete power amplifiers running in class A for the first 25 watts).
My daughter's Onkyo CD player finally died, so we decided to do a little looking around, see what we could dig up, and how it might stack up against the typical $100 Sony DVD player, for example. Besides, it might make a good bedroom player or transport for a Benchmark DAC1, who knows?
It showed up today, from Music Direct, a few days earlier than I expected- hadn't even gotten the tracking numbers yet. It's got pretty decent specs, uses a CS4392 24/192 DAC with a nice oversampling filter; it DOES have a linear power supply with analog regulators; non of the SMPS stuff found in the low buck DVD players. The front panel looks like a heavy aluminum one, but it's actually a thin layer over plastic; still, the controls are fast and responsive, much nicer than the $100 Sony DVD player I picked up from CostCo over the holidays (don't ask, don't tell). It IS only a $329 list player, so one can't expect miracles, but it's really fairly decent; even has a nice quality headphone output jack with a volume control.
How's it sound? Hooked it up to a Sony reciever I have, through the M8 Mk2s (Eton 8-800 woofer, Accuton C23-6 tweeters); Haven't had a lot of time with it yet, but with some Emily Remmler and Al Dimeola, it's obviously got a different level of balance and clarity than the Sony DVD player I put it up against. A lot more solid low end, more depth in the midrange and image, better mico and macro dynamics, good seperation of instruments, and cleaner, more crystaline highs. The overall tonal balance is pretty similar to CD playback on my SCD777ES, though probably not as much sound stage depth. Still, after hearing it a bit, I can understand the review in the British magazine "What HiFi" which praised it highly, comparing it to players up to three times the price. Comparing it with a $3500 SACD player IS a bit outlandish, but hey, this little guy's got legs.
I'm going to listen to it a bit more this weekend, perhaps try it as a transport.
Above all else, what I must resist doing is taking the cover off and seeing if there's a chance to have some fun underneath the hood....
Fortunately the rest of the world doesn't seem to be as narrowly focused on video capable disk players as we are, and companies cater to the Europeans, for example, with a fairly wide range of CD player offerings. More's the pity that relatively few are available on this side of the pond.
OTOH, the Marantz CD5400 is one of those few CD only players that have made it over to our shores in small quantities, albeit you have to look around a bit to find a bloke that carries it- forget the mass market merchants. Marantz has built an interesting reputation of late in Europe with products like the CD5400 and PM7200 integrated amplifier as being willing to build modest price products for which sound quality is actually a primary consideration (the PM7200 is a 95 watt/channel @ 8 ohms, 150 watts/ch @ 4 ohms integrated amplifer, discrete power amplifiers running in class A for the first 25 watts).
My daughter's Onkyo CD player finally died, so we decided to do a little looking around, see what we could dig up, and how it might stack up against the typical $100 Sony DVD player, for example. Besides, it might make a good bedroom player or transport for a Benchmark DAC1, who knows?
It showed up today, from Music Direct, a few days earlier than I expected- hadn't even gotten the tracking numbers yet. It's got pretty decent specs, uses a CS4392 24/192 DAC with a nice oversampling filter; it DOES have a linear power supply with analog regulators; non of the SMPS stuff found in the low buck DVD players. The front panel looks like a heavy aluminum one, but it's actually a thin layer over plastic; still, the controls are fast and responsive, much nicer than the $100 Sony DVD player I picked up from CostCo over the holidays (don't ask, don't tell). It IS only a $329 list player, so one can't expect miracles, but it's really fairly decent; even has a nice quality headphone output jack with a volume control.
How's it sound? Hooked it up to a Sony reciever I have, through the M8 Mk2s (Eton 8-800 woofer, Accuton C23-6 tweeters); Haven't had a lot of time with it yet, but with some Emily Remmler and Al Dimeola, it's obviously got a different level of balance and clarity than the Sony DVD player I put it up against. A lot more solid low end, more depth in the midrange and image, better mico and macro dynamics, good seperation of instruments, and cleaner, more crystaline highs. The overall tonal balance is pretty similar to CD playback on my SCD777ES, though probably not as much sound stage depth. Still, after hearing it a bit, I can understand the review in the British magazine "What HiFi" which praised it highly, comparing it to players up to three times the price. Comparing it with a $3500 SACD player IS a bit outlandish, but hey, this little guy's got legs.
I'm going to listen to it a bit more this weekend, perhaps try it as a transport.
Above all else, what I must resist doing is taking the cover off and seeing if there's a chance to have some fun underneath the hood....
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