Audiophile CD players on a budget! (Old High End DVD Players)

While doing a basic repair on my new to me used Sony NS999ES DVD/CD player I thought I'd do a quick video on this and the last high end player I purchased for cheap. These once quite expensive elite players are pretty affordable these days on ebay and still make for good transports to a modern DAC or even as is. Most older high end DVD players were very good in the day but without Bluray support they are nearly worthless to most humans but still make very good CD players.

Players in this video:
Sony DVP-NS999ES
Sony DVP-S7700

[iowaudioreviews]

Looking for a pretty darn good CD player? Start looking for older high end DVD players. These were highly respected players in their day but since they aren't capable of blue ray playback they're completely useless for video playback. BUT they still make for excellent CD/SACD players that can usually be had for under $100. Both Sony DVD players in the video were over $1000 new and I got then both for $75. There were many brands making these high end dvd players so there's usually plenty available on the used market.

[domosautomotive]

I have a Pioneer Elite DVD/SACD player that I picked up at a thrift store for $10 with remote. New it was $1200 and as a CD player it sounds awesome.

[anthonyvaughn]

Got to love the Audiophile fly in the video

[deegnardski]

One of my favorite cd players is the Marantz DV9600. Top of the line DVD player of 2006, sold for 2100 bucks. Got it at Goodwill for $20. A little warm for my tastes, but great imaging and dynamics, Yesterday, I scored an Oppo BDP 103 and a Sony NS999ES, for $40 a piece at the same yard sale. Can't wait to listen. Cheers

[andygee]

The Sony 7700 is not just an awesome CD player but an awesome cd transport when hooked up to a decent DAC.
Solid copper chassis and shielding with special vibration absorbing feet. I still have my gold finish multi region version which I won't ever sell as it cost £900 brand new with the multi-region conversion back in 1998! Build quality is phenomenal and that drop-down front is a conversation starter.

[Sih]

I have a Denon DVD-A1XV, those are still fetching a few hundred dollars/pounds, but what you get for that is an insanely good machine, real battleship build and superb sound quality.

[mondoenterprises]

This is the path I am on in my audiophile journey. I have a number of hdcd/sacd/dvd universal players for my Grateful Dead, Cars, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Roxy Music, Bryan Ferry, Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen hdcds. Burr Brown dac. Sound very sweet to my ears. But I have like 4, 000 cds so...

[DAROBIKE]

Good night.! Greetings from Patagonia Argentina... you don't know how much I regret not being able to understand all your excellent review of these two great teams since unfortunately I do not understand the English language... A great shame really... but let me tell you that yours is also excellent video.! From today I am a new subscriber to your channel. Congratulations and a big hug!

[Sonnell]

On the contrary. The ES looks a lot higher end than the other. Look at the most important audio stage, the other does not even have a separate audio stage board as it looks like. The ES have everything separate, as only the high end devices. Separate analogue and digital power supply, separate digital processing board, and separate audio amplification board. That copper plating has no audible effect on the other.

[Pootycat]

About the copper... In lab-grade RF test equipment, steel compartments are often plated with silver, which has the highest conductivity of any metal. Because of the "skin effect, " silver plating is just as good as making the enclosure out of solid silver. Somewhat lesser grade instruments employ copper plating for this purpose. It's almost as good as silver. My Heathkit "Lab" RF generator is like that. But in a CD or DVD player? The skin effect does not come into play at audio frequencies. But DIGITAL signals have fast rise-times, and therefore, contain harmonics in the RF spectrum. If radiated inside an audio device, they can produce "hash" noise. So, I think that's why there's copper plating in your DVD/CD player.

[paulorobertoelias]

Hi, I appreciate your effort to find affordable players. From an audiophile point of view, older players may not worth that effort, on account that many older players have outdated DACs, some not even reaching 16 dB of resolution.

CD players that sport a digital output MAY be better, but currently any player fitted with an HDMI output will easily connect to an external, state of the art, decoder. I am sure you know this, but it is advisable to say it to you anyway.

[milojenikolovski]

I agree with You, top models of DVD or BR players are excellent AudioCD players, for small amount of money... In any case to pay 5000 dollars for new so called HighEnd CD player is madness.

[FernandoGastelo]

5his is exactly what I do. I use a vintage Sony DVD/SACD player and it sounds amazing

[Max-Current]

B&O neogram cd 7000. Amazing build and sound. €150, -.

[Poraqui]

The 999es is a real gem when it comes to to play SACDs as they should. Meaning that at no point there's DSD to PCM conversion prior to digital-to-analog conversion. This is particularly evident when it comes to speaker setup for multichannel SACD, where there's a dedicated chip, the 1-bit Digital Signal Processor
LSI named CXD9722, that does time alignment in DSD in order to correct speaker positionings that don't conform to international multichannel speaker positioning that were applied during DSD recorded material. The same chip has separate settings for SACD and DVD. Get a "pure" DSD recording (ex. Telarc offerings) SACD, use this players analog out after set up and you'll be be hearing unadulterated DSD content in stereo\MChannel.

[estoyaqui]

I bought a faulty Harman/Kardon DVD-player for 5 bucks. Just out of boredom, wanted to see if I can fix it. I was lucky, a faulty cap in the power supply. Only after I listened to it I looked up what that thing actually is because I was surprised by the sound of it. Apparently in 2012 some reviewers even gave it a 10/10 for sound quality, the msrp was 300 bucks. It´s true what they say about the plastic-front, ugh, but the sound is good.

btw the content this channel provides is what I look for. Not "Here´s the newest 5.000$ unit" but rather how to give a good, old, but undervalued unit a new life :) subscribed.

[sehnzeleid]

The S7700 is identical internally to their S500D, only difference being the R-core transformer for the audio section (and the copper plating).

[carminedesanto]

I’m still running my Denon 3520 …THE BEAST!

[JohnSmith-zlrz]

$15? scalpers and resellers sell that shit for $250 on evilbay

[gregorypatton]

I have one of those 7700s. Its pretty damn nice.