What Makes a CD Player “Audiophile Quality”

Is splurging on an audiophile-quality CD player really worth it? In this video, we cut through the marketing hype and examine whether these high-end devices deliver a listening experience that justifies their price tag.

My Video Rig:

#cdplayer #compactdisc #hifi

[delarageaz]

no matter how expensive or cheap or old or new a cd player is, the data read from the disc always go into a buffer before being decoded into pcm audio, so the "the cd must spin at a consistent rate" is a total myth, the only thing that can cause jitters and stuff in the audio is the clock that times the pcm data before sending it to the dac

[TheAgeOfAnalog]

I picked up an early 2000s Pioneer Elite DV-47A DVD player at a garage sale last year for just $10. It works great and features SACD compatibility and Brown/Burr DACs. It makes even regular CDs sound so good.

[ProjectOverseer]

Audiophile quality starts with the recording. Most recordings don't get close to whats actually possible.

[ChrisDaniel-ub]

I don't know if you are checking the comments 9 months later, but the store front is down. I tried to look at brands and models in the description. It said store front is not working 😢

[rfeldman]

I recently picked up a Denon DCD-1520 ( vintage 1988 ) not knowing anything about it. All I can tell it was heavy. When I first hooked it up my first impression was Wow. Then I compared it to my Marantz and Yamaha CD players. Both really nice decks. To my ears the Denon sounded better. Upon further research The Denon has two Burr Brown PCM64P Digital converters and a Sony KSS-151A CD Mechanism. Both top notch. Also the Denon has a case within a case. I had to remove a lot of screws to get inside. Amazing build quality. Back in 1988 it was a 750.00 deck.

[gaborozorai]

I first heard the term "audiophile" applied to hi-fi components in the early '80's in Britain. Back then it distinguished the minimalist, no-frills, sound quality-focused builds of (mostly British) small manufacturers from the mainstream products of (mostly Japanese) mass producers where features and aesthetics gobbled up a significant part of the budget. Even non-audiophile, non-music-lover households had some sort of stereo system so the distinction did make sense. Today the same people would just have a BT speaker so "audiophile" becomes a much more vague and subjective definition of sound quality.

[tonyjedioftheforest]

Excellent video. Would the “audiophile “ description change with the age of the item? I have just purchased a Marantz CD63 mkII KI edition which was definitely an audiophile product in its day but is it still? I bought this to replace a Technics which has served me well for 20+ years but I noticed some laser burn on one of my CD’s so wanted something that sounded analogue. To be honest I have fancied one for 25 years and can’t wait for it to arrive.

[samlaser]

You gave me the idea of the Transport, Mike. Thanks for that.

[wendell]

Now Mike, even I understand the technical bits & pieces from a pure technological and also measurement point of view I really follow your sense as a listener too. Very well broadly explained and communicated. I often find myself of checking graphs, THD figures, Response, Wide spectrum analysis and so forth. But pure figures become meaningless (unless there is a serioustech problem in order of magnitudes) once you really start to listen. People often forget that a top notch system irrespective of costs will never sound right in the wrong room for instance. On the other hand a well treated or naturally good sounding room will lift even a mid range system to say more than one thought. Goes analogue then with a better system in such a room. Well done what you said here.

[j.t.cooper]

The term "audiophile" needs to be taken with a grain of salt when it comes to audio gear. There's barely a grain of truth because it gets thrown around so much.

[seventyeight]

Mike, you are a God among YouTubers. Thanks for your hard work and delving into this. So helpful!

[MultiRalvarado]

I liked how you explained about the Good performance CD Player components. But the same way as cars, home appliances, cellphones, and other things for the consumer market. For the tastes the colors!, and for the Budgets the Options!. Being and audiophile is to love and enjoy Music. Having a higher audio gear is the obsession with the music reproduction. The real audiophile doesn’t depend of the audio gear grade to enjoy his music. But if you have the opportunity ($) the obsession is there. Judge others with higher value audio gear eq and accessories sometimes is envy. Priorities are priorities and everyone has them…

[broederbond]

Very informative. What is your opinion of the Yamaha CD S2100?

[davidwho]

Great video Mike, thank you! The wife and I were listening to our stereo last week and I was telling her the same things that you state around the 2 minute mark in this vid. Which were:
We can still improve on the sound, but improvements are going to start costing thousands instead of hundreds.

[wendell]

Besides, I love that T-shirt 👕. Wonder where to get that one ..

[gerlachsieders]

As of today, I am the happy and proud owner of the belt-driven TL5 transport bij the japanese CEC, just awesome! I am having it upgraded though, a stronger transformer and more accurate master-clock.. I am looking forward to enjoying my (ever expending) CD-collection to the max! Atb, Gerlach Sven.

[BICIeCOMPUTERconGabriele]

CD spinning speed has NOTHING to do with jitter... come on... it's more than 35 years than CD players can spin way faster than the standard "speed of data" (i.e. bitrate), reading more data than necessary, buffer it, and then producing the correct "paced" stream of data to the DAC (have you ever heard of ESP in discmans? or computer CD drives that spin up to 52 times the normal speed and can extract audio tracks FLAWLESSLY in few seconds?). Jitter is all about errors in the clock generator that orders and "schedules" the bytes to be send to the DAC. It has nothing to do with mechanical capabilities, that are important only to the point that a CD transport must be able to read data without errors (getting advantage of the CRC data) at a speed "at least" on par with the bitrate of data. It's then the electronic that procedes to put the digital data in order and at the precise pace to send it to the DAC. It's true by the way, that if you feed the DAC with data at the wrong pace, you'll get distorted analog output. But the wrong pace has nothing to do with the speed at which the CD spins!

[samlaser]

I just purchased a Cambridge CXCV2 transport. I have the Chord TT2 DAC/ Upscaler and TToby Amp (Oy Vey!!) These go brilliantly. I am not listening to the CD player-I am relying on the Cambridge doing its' bit in spinning those silver discs at the right tempo without jitter and enjoying my Chord family doing their bit.

[jaycoleman]

I picked up a Pioneer CLD-S201 for $130.00 because I have a few music laserdiscs still. Seems okay to me. I have a Dark Side...Moon disc as a test and it sounds great. Speakers/amp are the most important part of my setup. Everything sounds great to my ears. 😊😊

[karlosdelacruz]

Totally left hanging on the recommendations, the shops "closed". I just have trouble justifying hundreds of dollars on a CD player. Now I'm contemplating just burning/ripping all my disc's at the highest quality and be done with it. But I suppose they'll be something wrong with that too. 😅