[Gus B]

With some expert help from the jocks on this forum, I am attempting to upgrade my headphone system, & have HD-600s & a Corda Headamp-1 coming next week. I'm worried though that my source will be inadequate to enable me to exploit this new equipment. I use headphones primarily with my bedroom system, which has, as the source, a Sony DAV-C450 DVD player that is part of a home-theater in the box system. For under $500 for the whole thing you get a 5 disc player with SADC capability built into the receiver, 5 speakers & a woofer, so this is cheapo stuff. Fine for movies, but I always use the headphones in the bedroom for music since my current headphone rig (280 pros + AirHead) is far better than the Sony crapola speakers. Is anyone familiar with the Sony player? Will this be a weak link in my system that will undermine my upgrade effort? I ask since I fear I wont know what I'm missing due to my inexperience with good equipment. Are cheap cdps uniformly bad, or this another area like headphones where price is often not correlated with quality?

 

[darkclouds]

I would suggest you try out your new setup with the existing cdp for awhile first, say at least a couple of months. Then you can figure out what you think might be missing.

Since the corda is relatively small, you can easily take it and the HD600 with you to try auditioning other equipments at local shops. I think that would be the best way for you to figure out if you really need to upgrade.

Of course, you can always opt to purchase a higher end player like one of Sony's ES line sacd players right now, if you have the funds. More than likely, there will be definite improvements.