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Are newer cd players really worth the upgrade?

post #1 of 3
8/7/11 at 10:14pm
Thread Starter 

Hello everyone.

I have an early 90's Onkyo cd player, the DX-2800 to be specific, and I was wondering if I upgraded to a newer player would I hear a noticeable and worthwhile difference? This cd player was pretty decent in its day but technology has progressed a ton since then.

 

Here are the specs:

 

specs.png

 

I have been listening to it through the headphone out using my k702's, and they sound good, but would they sound better through a newer player, like the marantz cd-5004 or any other player under $350ish? Is it correct to assume that the advancements in D/A conversion, reading mechanisms, headphone circuitry, etc since the early 90's would have a large effect, making an upgrade worthwhile?

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post #2 of 3
8/8/11 at 12:10am
Looks good to me.

Finding a good CD player is about as tough as finding a car that does 0-30MPH in under ten minutes.

Though people who disagree are going to start a very long discussion below this post.

*ducks, runs*
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post #3 of 3
8/8/11 at 9:09am

The CD player you cite is close to the requirements for rendering perfect CD playback. If it is mechanically quiet, reliable and free of issues I would say keep it. I also own an early 90s Onkyo, this was the period where CD playback reached maturity and where genuine 16 bit rendering was acheived trivially. Real technological advances since them have improved noise and distortion figures (sometimes, not always) but noise and distortion on your player if it performs to spec are very near inaudible anyway. It is highly unlikely that geting a CD player that merely improves THD+N to say 0.002% would be audibly different unless you play music at insane volume levels.

 

Some as UE hinted above will suggest that there are some properties of a CD player that can be improved and yet will not show up in fundamental measurements of noise, distortion, linearity, crosstalk and so on. In practice the biggest single difference you are likely to hear between two competent CD players is level, pure and simple, I have 4 CD playing combos and no two of them have the same measured output volume, level differences of 0.3db easily give the impression of difference, louder (normally) sounds better.

 

As for other unmeasurable audio properties, since they are unmeasurable they are objectively unverifiable and thus open to question.

 

 

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