BEST CDP headphone jack sound quality
Mar 31, 2004 at 2:55 AM Thread Starter Post #1 of 12

dandi

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I would like to get some impressions from those who listen to their headphones directly through the headphone jack of the CDP.What player make and model gives the best results. Is there a manufacture who puts more attention on the headphone out?
Are the vintage players better sounding, which ones....
 
Mar 31, 2004 at 3:22 AM Post #2 of 12
Mar 31, 2004 at 11:23 AM Post #3 of 12
Not really, with the exception of Tom there was no reply in this thread from anyone who actually listens to the headphone out- put on a CDP. Only opinions based on " I heard this and that". If any one out there has some experience with headphone out jacks on CDP's I would love to hear from you.
Yes I did read the post on this subject, I should have pointed this out sorry.
I think you will agree that the whole post was of no value, except for Tom's remark.
I am looking for "real world" discussion based on other's experience please. It's about the music, not the dream of the ultimate dream system.
Thanks
 
Mar 31, 2004 at 7:20 PM Post #6 of 12
The headphone jack on my relatively recent Sony SACD changer is crap. The headphone jack on my dad's very old Sony CD player is crap. Both give thin, irratating output to my HD600's.

-dd3mon
 
Apr 2, 2004 at 3:52 AM Post #8 of 12
I like the headphone outputs on my Denon CD players. They sound very good. They can't deliver loud volumes with my high impedance Beyerdynamic DT-880 but at the low volumes that I can get, they sound very good. I suppose if one doesn’t mind low volumes and wanted to save a few hundred by not buying a headphone amplifier he/she could get by with just the headphone output on a Denon or better CD player.

I compared the headphone output of my cheap Denon CD changer to some other amplification methods in this thread:
http://www5.head-fi.org/forums/showt...threadid=60360
I used various headphones with varying results.
280smile.gif
 
Apr 2, 2004 at 7:20 AM Post #9 of 12
Flying the European flag, I elect Philips players (well, the CD850 at least)

Its a bit lumpy in the bass (uses a pretty hum-drum JRC op-amp) but overall a pretty clean sound from what is otherwise a useless commodity on most players ever made.
 
Apr 2, 2004 at 7:45 AM Post #10 of 12
Currently using the headphone out on my 1991 Sony CDP-K1 CD player with a pair of Grado SR60. Plently of power....never have the headphone volume knob past the 11 o'clock position. As for sound quality, certainly better than any of my PCDP. I haven't listen to a headphone amp before, so can't tell you. But it's not bad at all.
 
Apr 4, 2004 at 12:11 PM Post #11 of 12
soundboy, i had the same thought like you too before. (as you already read my thread, hehe...)

as you know, decent cd players nowadays they dont come with headphone jack.
i dont know about shanling one, but all i know is, they are wayyy out of my budget...

the closest answer i can give you is,
i tried MARANTZ 5400's headphone jack, and i wasnt impressed at all, not a single bit.
my humble discman can outperform that marantz headphone jack anytime of the day.

strangely, when i tried my cans with the headphone jack from Denon M31 micro system, it sounded quite good... but the problem is, that M31 is a micro system, the sound is not comparable to separate decent cd player.

but i have come to conclusion that i am not going to look for a decent cd player with great headphone jack.
im afraid i have to say that its probably non existent, since the headphone jack is only sort of "another feature" that the company throw in for you.
they wont really concentrate on that department, since basically people with good cd player will have a good amp to go with it anyway..

you might be able to find a good CDP with good headphone jack in some real high end system, i dont know.

but my personal suggestion (this is probably my next upgrade)

NAD 521BEE + NAD 320BEE combo

should sound decent enough i reckon. (both speaker wise and headphone wise)
 
Apr 4, 2004 at 1:33 PM Post #12 of 12
The best player that I've heard that is still in current production is the Jolida JD-100. One could almost justify not getting an amp with that one (I did say ALMOST).

On other players, having heard roughly 15 or so over the years, the best non-current production is the Adcom GCD-575. I'm pretty sure that the same cirucit that makes the headphone out so good is shared by the variable output jacks (it has two pair - fixed and variable), so it would stand to reason that the circuitry would be good.

Most of the Pioneer and Elite models I've heard were very so-so. Ditto NAD.
 

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