Which CD player to buy - Marantz / Others ?

elangoas

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Hello All,

I have a Marantz 6.1 Receiver which i have connected to a Sonodyne Stereo power amplifier with Wharfedale Diamond 9.2 speakers. I like the sound very much. I have been using my Philips DVD player as the source with coaxial - digital out. I also have an used Sony 5 CD changer which has analogue out. When i connect the Sony thru Analog out to my receiver, the sound output is not as good as i get from Philips DVD's Digital Co-axial connection. So i realised that Marantz receiver has better DAC (Previous generation 192/24 bit DAC that is used on Marantz CD 6003) and prefer to use the digital connection than the analogue connection.

I am considering buying an used CD player with Digital outputs. I like the Marantz sound signature. Should i consider a Marantz CD player with Digital Ouputs (Coaxial/Optical) {or} should i consider any CD player which has Digital Outputs. Could someone please help to differentitate the difference.

Thank You
Elango
 
I am considering buying an used CD player with Digital outputs. I like the Marantz sound signature. Should i consider a Marantz CD player with Digital Ouputs (Coaxial/Optical) {or} should i consider any CD player which has Digital Outputs. Could someone please help to differentitate the difference.

Thank You
Elango


Since you already like the DAC of the Marantz AVR, continue to use it. Why do you need another CDP? Unless you absolutely need another one, the 18K to 21K or so you you will pay will waste the DAC on the AVR.

I suggest you get a cheap but weighty DVDP that has a very heavy damped chassis that is likely to have a better transport mechanism than a flimsy lightweight DVDP and use co-ax out to the AVR.

The CDP should sound slightly better than the AVR but that improvement may NOT be worth an extra 20K spent for a still somewhat similar sound - just because you fancy it. Unless you absolutely need a player anyways for another room.

HTH
 
Absolutely agree to what Gobble has suggested. It is better to go a 'heavier' DVDp like .... Pioneer 410 / 610 with digi out than a new CDp in 'your' case.

My recent acquisition of a new CDp has transformed the MP3 playback drastically, but, can't say that much for the CDs ... maybe, a modest increase of 5 to max. 10% on sound quality over a pretty old Philips DVDp. Obviously, in both cases I have been using the analogue out of the players. The older DVDp did not have the digi /optical out, but had the required 192/24 DAC conversion. The new CDp also has the same DAC configuration, no doubt, the inbuilt DAC here is of superior built.

So, the very slight increase in sound quality does not justify spending big bucks for a new CDp.
 
Ok. The reason i ask is because, i had used a very Old Sanyo CD player with Optical Out to Marantz receiver. it was even better in retrieving details than the the Philips DVD Player. Infact very good.

Hence thought to get an used CDP with digital Outputs to make the best of both the proper CD player & Good DAC on Marantz receiver.
 
Now, this is the toughest part .... usually, never available.

Hi avidyarthy,
I think a CDP having digital out is pretty common /readily available (even entry level marantz 5004 and others in that series have it)

It's the CDP with digital in, that isn't readily available (among medium-budget CDP I know of, only CA 740C has a digi in, hence can act as DAC for external digital source).

Hi elangoas,
I too believe a CDP will give you better digital out than a DVDP (due to better transport and better electronics of CDP). For this you don't need to shell out 15k upwards... a Teac 650 CDP @9k (duty extra) approx should be able to do decent digital out job (though I haven't checked this myself... just an educated guess).

Regds,
 
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If you are going to do a digital output from a CD player, then a DVD/BD player will do the job. There is NOT going to be any difference in audio quality. Just buy a good DVD/BD player and it will a decent drive and mechanism. All it matters is how good the player is at reading the discs if output is digital.
 
If you are going to do a digital output from a CD player, then a DVD/BD player will do the job. There is NOT going to be any difference in audio quality. Just buy a good DVD/BD player and it will a decent drive and mechanism. All it matters is how good the player is at reading the discs if output is digital.

I have not done a A/B comparison with DVD/CDP with digital Out. But i have listened to them for months independently. There is difference. The details are good in CDP & overall sound quality is genuinely good over DVDP Digital out.

I haven't had a chance to listen to Marantz CD player with Digital Out connected to my receiver. Hence seeking Opinion if there would a difference in Digital Out of Marantz CDP/ Other CD Player.

My guess is that the amount of detail retrieved is more important in any CDP as the signal sent to the receiver is Digital.

When the data is sent as digital to the receiver from CDP, is it influenced by the sound signature of that brand ?
 
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Hi Elangoas,
You may be aware that best option for digi out is that of digi output of a soundcard (any SC from medium range /USD100 upwards should do) playing flac ripped from CD (ripped preferable by "accurate" ripper like EAC). Search on this forum will throw up lot of info on this.

Regds,
 
When the data is sent as digital to the receiver from CDP, is it influenced by the sound signature of that brand ?

This is exactly what I am talking about. You answered it yourself.
The data on the disc is digital, 1s and 0s. The player reads its and passes out through the digital out. There is no processing done inside the player. None of the decoding/DAC is happening in the player. Also, since the data is digital, there is no influence whatsover inside the player. The only thing thats important in this case is how good the drive is for error correction. Again, that will not change the quality of sound but its ability to read dirty discs etc.

Many people prefer CD player vs DVD player is because the error correction on DVDp is mostly geared towards DVD's and not CD's. If the DVD player has good drive mechanism then it will work equally good.

If there is ever an blind test and CD/DVD were A/B compared, I am sure there will be no difference in the audio quality. It's just the same way how a car drives smoothly after oil change. ;)
 
Many people prefer CD player vs DVD player is because the error correction on DVDp is mostly geared towards DVD's and not CD's. If the DVD player has good drive mechanism then it will work equally good
.

True. I think it is also because a CDP can retrieve details that a DVDP cannot.

If there is ever an blind test and CD/DVD were A/B compared, I am sure there will be no difference in the audio quality. It's just the same way how a car drives smoothly after oil change. ;)

Ok. I like to differ in this regard. There is difference. The digital output from CDP is rich & has more punch than the digital output from DVDP. I have witnessed this myself and of-course the details.

So what is clearer is that the Digital Ouput from CDP is not influenced by the Sound signature of that brand which means i can look for any used CD player which can retrieve fair/good amount of detail and send it thru Co-axial / Optical Output.

Any recommendations here for the CDP brand.
 
I've a Denon 510AE, and audiosector nos dac, While the DAC clearly beats/improves the output from soundcard or a mediaplayer, the CDP and DAC are almost equal in my setup except maybe for some subtle difference, which anyway is not audible to me. And clearly the CDP is better than my DVDP.(But i'm contemplating selling my cdp to get a monitor for use with my Asus media player and DAC)
 
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.

True. I think it is also because a CDP can retrieve details that a DVDP cannot.

Ok. I like to differ in this regard. There is difference. The digital output from CDP is rich & has more punch than the digital output from DVDP. I have witnessed this myself and of-course the details.

So what is clearer is that the Digital Ouput from CDP is not influenced by the Sound signature of that brand which means i can look for any used CD player which can retrieve fair/good amount of detail and send it thru Co-axial / Optical Output.

Any recommendations here for the CDP brand.


Let me describe in very laymans and approximate terms without worrying about absolute accuracy, why Quality of transport is critical -

The Digital transmission is influenced by jitter. In a Redbook format audio CD imagine that the data is stored in a continuous spiral groove like in an LP. Data retrieval is not in data/packet format like 1024 bytes buffered in memory somewhere with time to re-read if there is error or the ability to read forward and buffer multiple data packets. That is only for Data CDs not audio CDs. So when there is error in reading, there is only a few nanosecs of time to apply error correction before it has to be played by the audio system. The error correction algorithm guesses what the error'ed bit might have been but it is only an approximation. And imagine that the poor quality transport may be having a few read errors every 1024 or 2048 bits unknown to you!! Then the bits might arrive a few nanosecs too late in the DAC for it to catch the leading edge of the rise and fall in the square waves (also because of the clock accuracy and design). So what is played in the analog domain after digital to analog conversion, loses in pristine quality and you may notice differences like lack of slam, dynamics and punch etc. Hence on poorly damped CDP or DVDP the SQ can be poorer than on a more expensive CDP with 3 laser pickups and heavy vibration free chassis. Remember the CD rotates at an extremely high speed.

Think about it - if you ask three friends to communicate loudly to you only in ones and zero's a pattern like "1101101011010101010" the chap with the best voice will sound better. This results in the "audiophool" notion that digital is not just digital. The Kawaality can vary due to quality of delivery (transport) mechanism... :D :eek:hyeah:

The easiest proof of this is to switch from co-axial to optical cable - the SQ will turn grainy and harsh.

HTH
-G0bble
 
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