Post by hifidez on Sept 5, 2016 7:55:36 GMT
What older CD players do you stilll own? And how do they compare with modern digital sources?
In the 'CD Rot' thread I mentioned mt first CD player, the Philips CD471. An excellent player which compared well to my vinyl playback at that time which was SME3009 II Improved with AKG P8E cartridge. I went on to buy a number of CD reissues of LPs I already had. A-B switching between the two showed the 471 to be a fine player.
Problem with the Philips was that it was not remote controlled, unlike the next model up, the '472. So I 'upgraded' to an Aiwa CD XC-700 after selling the Philps on to a friend at work. The Aiwa had mostly Sony ICs along with the then new Philips Bitstream DAC chip. It had a positive review in Hi-Fi News so I bought it without audition. However, although very detailed, it didn't have the more natural, organcic, feel of the Philips. The Aiwa is a bit 'clangy' I always thought. Couldn't afford another change so used the Aiwa riight up until c. 2000 when I bought a Sony SCD-XE670. The Sony '670 was, and is, a fabulous 'budget' SACD machine. Still have one though not my original, which I traded in for something some time time back; bought a 2nd hand one off ebay for sentimental reasons.
So, my old Aiwa XC-700 is still here in my office-cum-studio and I think I'll have a play with it later today. It had/has interesting facilities. It will read a CD and then shuffle the track order to best fit a C90 tape cassette. It can also fast-scan a CD looking for the loudest peak so you can set a level correctly on your recorder. Dubbing CD to tape was so important in those days. It has a headphone socket too. But without a volume control! What on earth was the point of that? Toslink output too... no doubt it would work just fine in to my Benchmark DAC2.
My current system (Benchmark DAC/power amp into Spendor D7 speakers) is VERY revealing... so will the Aiwa sound any good in this context? We'll see.
In the 'CD Rot' thread I mentioned mt first CD player, the Philips CD471. An excellent player which compared well to my vinyl playback at that time which was SME3009 II Improved with AKG P8E cartridge. I went on to buy a number of CD reissues of LPs I already had. A-B switching between the two showed the 471 to be a fine player.
Problem with the Philips was that it was not remote controlled, unlike the next model up, the '472. So I 'upgraded' to an Aiwa CD XC-700 after selling the Philps on to a friend at work. The Aiwa had mostly Sony ICs along with the then new Philips Bitstream DAC chip. It had a positive review in Hi-Fi News so I bought it without audition. However, although very detailed, it didn't have the more natural, organcic, feel of the Philips. The Aiwa is a bit 'clangy' I always thought. Couldn't afford another change so used the Aiwa riight up until c. 2000 when I bought a Sony SCD-XE670. The Sony '670 was, and is, a fabulous 'budget' SACD machine. Still have one though not my original, which I traded in for something some time time back; bought a 2nd hand one off ebay for sentimental reasons.
So, my old Aiwa XC-700 is still here in my office-cum-studio and I think I'll have a play with it later today. It had/has interesting facilities. It will read a CD and then shuffle the track order to best fit a C90 tape cassette. It can also fast-scan a CD looking for the loudest peak so you can set a level correctly on your recorder. Dubbing CD to tape was so important in those days. It has a headphone socket too. But without a volume control! What on earth was the point of that? Toslink output too... no doubt it would work just fine in to my Benchmark DAC2.
My current system (Benchmark DAC/power amp into Spendor D7 speakers) is VERY revealing... so will the Aiwa sound any good in this context? We'll see.
