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Topic: CD Player recommendations (Read 5191 times) previous topic - next topic
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CD Player recommendations

Just for sheer nostalgia, I am interested in buying a CD player from the 80s.  I'm obviously looking for something that's 25-30 years old that I can hook up to a vintage receiver of that era.

Again, this is pure nostalgia on my part.  There is no objective reason for me wanting this.

Are there any model recommendations that would still be in good working order and might continue to function for quite a while?

Re: CD Player recommendations

Reply #2 –
I can't imagine the shipping on a CD player would be even close to reasonable.  I'm looking at getting something used locally, and am looking for things to watch out for.

Re: CD Player recommendations

Reply #4 –
Wasn't sure if there were models with known bad power supplies or anything like that.

But I guess anything with a power supply problem would be long dead by now.

Re: CD Player recommendations

Reply #5 –
I just found that probably some of the ELKOs have died in my player: display stays off, when playing a CD there is only garbage coming from the headphone jack ...
 ::)

Re: CD Player recommendations

Reply #6 –
Quote from: apastuszak on
Just for sheer nostalgia, I am interested in buying a CD player from the 80s.  I'm obviously looking for something that's 25-30 years old that I can hook up to a vintage receiver of that era.

Again, this is pure nostalgia on my part.  There is no objective reason for me wanting this.

Are there any model recommendations that would still be in good working order and might continue to function for quite a while?

Realize it or not, the above is a request for someone to accurately predict the future based on virtually no evidence at all - in short total insanity. 

The idea of obtaining a classic legacy CD player has some charm, but if you don't have the resources for the whole project to totally fail now or any time in the future. this is too much of a risk for you to take.

Re: CD Player recommendations

Reply #7 –
Quote from: Arnold B. Krueger on
Quote from: apastuszak on
Just for sheer nostalgia, I am interested in buying a CD player from the 80s.  I'm obviously looking for something that's 25-30 years old that I can hook up to a vintage receiver of that era.

Again, this is pure nostalgia on my part.  There is no objective reason for me wanting this.

Are there any model recommendations that would still be in good working order and might continue to function for quite a while?

Realize it or not, the above is a request for someone to accurately predict the future based on virtually no evidence at all - in short total insanity. 

The idea of obtaining a classic legacy CD player has some charm, but if you don't have the resources for the whole project to totally fail now or any time in the future. this is too much of a risk for you to take.

You are correct.  Predicting the future is impossible.  I guess all I am looking for is knowing models that have had reliability issues in the past\ that I should avoid if I see them on Craigslist or used in stores.

Re: CD Player recommendations

Reply #8 –
Kinda depends on the budget, I would go for something that has broadcast in the name, maybe studer 7 xx series, but the prices for this on ebay are mostly ridiculous (Seriously I would not give more than 20$ for something like that).
PANIC: CPU 1: Cache Error (unrecoverable - dcache data) Eframe = 0x90000000208cf3b8
NOTICE - cpu 0 didn't dump TLB, may be hung

Re: CD Player recommendations

Reply #9 –
I have learned that there is a demand for older CD Players in the audiophile market.  There all sorts of nonsense about the DACs making the music sound more "analog" or "warm" on older CD players vs more modern ones from the 2000s.

I'm sure placebophile beliefs in the superiority of mulltibit DACs play into this.

Re: CD Player recommendations

Reply #10 –
Be careful what you buy from the early era of CD players. I have a 1986(?) Philips CD150 14-bit player that's still in occasional use. Some of the 14-bit players of this era outperformed similarly priced 16-bit players both on paper (in some respects) and according to a few 'golden ears' audiophiles of the day.

PS I'm making no personal claims here as I have no desire to violate TOS#8. ;)

Re: CD Player recommendations

Reply #11 –
Quote from: Slipstreem on
Be careful what you buy from the early era of CD players. I have a 1986(?) Philips CD150 14-bit player that's still in occasional use. Some of the 14-bit players of this era outperformed similarly priced 16-bit players both on paper (in some respects) and according to a few 'golden ears' audiophiles of the day.

PS I'm making no personal claims here as I have no desire to violate TOS#8. ;)

From some research I did, Phillips used 14 bit DACs and Sony used 16 bit DACs.  How that factors into anything I don't know.

I believe that Phillips wanted the bit depth of the CD to be 14, and Sony fought for it to be 16.

I wonder if Sony and Phillips knew they were making music media that would last an insanely long time and one day would be able to lossless copies made from it to another format.

Once the CD came out, the days of re-buying your music because it wore out was gone.  And when the 90s hit, the days of re-buying your music because you needed it in a new format also went away.

And when the CD-R came out, you could actually make a perfect lossless copy of your data and restore from backup in case of a catastrophic disaster.

I wonder if the labels knew how much CDs were going to kill their ability to sell you the same music you own in different formats, if they still would have gotten on board with it.

Re: CD Player recommendations

Reply #12 –
No, it's much simpler than that.  16-bit DACs like Sony used were more expensive at that time, and in addition, unless you picked the highest quality ones, most only had approximately 14 bits accuracy/linearity anyway (this improved over time with chip design and fabrication).  So the fact that they were advertised as 16 bits was mostly a marketing gimmick.  Philips' 14-bit DACs were very linear to the full 14 bits, perhaps better than some of the 16-bit DACs.

Philips realized that you could run the 44 KHz DAC at 192 KHz and interpolate the samples, doing a surprisingly good job of deriving 16-bit linearity from a 14-bit chip having 16-bit input.  It's not that different from the way 1-bit oversampling DACs reconstruct 16-bit data, which is probably more common today. 

I had examples of both, and really there was nothing to complain about in terms of sound quality with the 14-bit units.

Re: CD Player recommendations

Reply #13 –
Quote
Just for sheer nostalgia, I am interested in buying a CD player from the 80s.  I'm obviously looking for something that's 25-30 years old that I can hook up to a vintage receiver of that era.
Try eBay, or if you're in the U.S., try a Goodwill store.

Quote
Are there any model recommendations that would still be in good working order and might continue to function for quite a while?
If it's still working after 20 or 30 years it will probably last another 5.   If it dies, get another one.   Or buy a spare one now....  It shouldn't cost much...  Best Buy sells a (new) CD/DVD player for $30 USD and CD/DVD/Blu-Ray player for $60.
   

Re: CD Player recommendations

Reply #14 –
Quote from: DVDdoug on
Quote
Just for sheer nostalgia, I am interested in buying a CD player from the 80s.  I'm obviously looking for something that's 25-30 years old that I can hook up to a vintage receiver of that era.
Try eBay, or if you're in the U.S., try a Goodwill store.

Quote
Are there any model recommendations that would still be in good working order and might continue to function for quite a while?
If it's still working after 20 or 30 years it will probably last another 5.   If it dies, get another one.   Or buy a spare one now....  It shouldn't cost much...  Best Buy sells a (new) CD/DVD player for $30 USD and CD/DVD/Blu-Ray player for $60.
   

The Goodwill store is a great idea.  Thanks!

Re: CD Player recommendations

Reply #15 –
The one thing you need to look out for is reliability. In my experience, the first thing to fail is the drive/laser. Audiophiles crave the ES (Esprit) series by Sony. Sure, they look and feel nice but their drive is unreliable, the laser is not available anymore as a spare part and in general they are way too expensive. So I would avoid them.

The budget models are a lot easier to repair. Lasers are available and cheap.

I have had the Sony CDP-470 from 1989 (it was my husbands). It was abused and stood in a room constantly filled with cigarette smoke. Yet it still worked, playing every CD ever thrown at it, including CD-R. I finally threw it away a few months ago simply because it lacked a digital output. I wanted to have a CD player I could connect digitally to my 17 year old Sony surround receiver. So I bought the Sony CDP-XE700 which has an optical output. That unit is smoke-abused, too. But it too plays everything with ease (I took it apart and cleaned it, of course).

I wanted to have one of the CDP-9xx Sonys but I wasn't lucky (not for the price I had in mind anyway).

So, unless the unit you want to have stood on top of an amp (heat ages electronic parts), you're very likely able to get it in working order. Avoid units built for the audiophile market: spare parts are generally hard to get and expensive. Also avoid the Pioneer players with Stable Platter Mechanism, their drive isn't reliable and fragile. Technics units are good (though you might not like their looks).

Don't buy something where people claim it sounds a certain way. I bought some of those units and found that they often measure like crap, adding all kinds of distortions potentially colouring output.
marlene-d.blogspot.com

Re: CD Player recommendations

Reply #16 –
Quote from: Cavaille on
The one thing you need to look out for is reliability. In my experience, the first thing to fail is the drive/laser. Audiophiles crave the ES (Esprit) series by Sony. Sure, they look and feel nice but their drive is unreliable, the laser is not available anymore as a spare part and in general they are way too expensive. So I would avoid them.

The budget models are a lot easier to repair. Lasers are available and cheap.

I have had the Sony CDP-470 from 1989 (it was my husbands). It was abused and stood in a room constantly filled with cigarette smoke. Yet it still worked, playing every CD ever thrown at it, including CD-R. I finally threw it away a few months ago simply because it lacked a digital output. I wanted to have a CD player I could connect digitally to my 17 year old Sony surround receiver. So I bought the Sony CDP-XE700 which has an optical output. That unit is smoke-abused, too. But it too plays everything with ease (I took it apart and cleaned it, of course).

I wanted to have one of the CDP-9xx Sonys but I wasn't lucky (not for the price I had in mind anyway).

So, unless the unit you want to have stood on top of an amp (heat ages electronic parts), you're very likely able to get it in working order. Avoid units built for the audiophile market: spare parts are generally hard to get and expensive. Also avoid the Pioneer players with Stable Platter Mechanism, their drive isn't reliable and fragile. Technics units are good (though you might not like their looks).

Don't buy something where people claim it sounds a certain way. I bought some of those units and found that they often measure like crap, adding all kinds of distortions potentially colouring output.

Thank you for this.  It is extremely helpful!
 

Re: CD Player recommendations

Reply #17 –
I ended up finding a Sony CDP-690 for $7.30 at Goodwill.  Needed a new belt, which cost me $6.95 on eBay and 15 minutes of my time with a phillips screwdriver.

Thing is working great now.  Just need to hunt down a remote for it.