[Billheiser]

If I count up the CD players I've had since my first one in 1984, and counting "component" type full size ones, portable "disc man", one in the alarm clock, one under cabinet type in the kitchen, ones in a car, ones in DVD or bluray players, ones in computers, have NEVER had a optical drive fail.

 

[kid vic]

+1

The motor that controls the tray in a somewhat expensive Marantz DVD player my brother and I bought our mom five years ago just died. It's junk now.

Yeah but then when the transport develops a few issues down the road the whole thing is rendered useless. At the very least, he'll have to spend around $800 (I think) on a CDP with SPDIF inputs, like the Cambridge 750C. Or, well, a good DAC and a cheap optical disc player as transport, plus some other device like a computer.

I said the OP SHOULDN'T get a transport and dac combo and instead get a single high end unit.

 

[ProtegeManiac]

I said the OP SHOULDN'T get a transport and dac combo and instead get a single high end unit.

 

And what I said was that if or when his "single high end unit" develops any issues with the transport, then the DAC section of it can't be used anymore.

 

By transport, I wasn't referring to this:

 
Rather, I was referring to this, which is something that you can find in the above picture and every other player, whether it has a DAC or not in the same box:

 

 

 

If I count up the CD players I've had since my first one in 1984, and counting "component" type full size ones, portable "disc man", one in the alarm clock, one under cabinet type in the kitchen, ones in a car, ones in DVD or bluray players, ones in computers, have NEVER had a optical drive fail.

 

Lucky you, and you've never had to deal with a dealer and distributor who will accuse you of using pirated CDs despite how you've stumbled on an international forum post complaining about the same problem with the same CDP. What we did back then was email NAD's head office, and they had to slam the hammer down for the local dealer to deal with the warranty claims for the C520s that had the faulty Sanyo transports. By the following year, we had a different NAD distributor.

 

That said I'm not totally against using optical disc transports, but again that depends on dealer support. IF I'll get another one it will likely be a Cayin or Xindak, but that's because a local dealer stocks at least the most commonly replaced bits of each transport of everything they sell (and can order whole transports if necessary). Plus I wouldn't mind spending $250 on a new transport for a Cayin CDT23 (given how I love the sound from that one, not to mention how much it is to begin with), so long as 

 

 

[lamode]

I think it's better to rip the CDs to lossless and never have to worry about the CD player again!

 
+1
 
Disk players are now dinosaurs. You couldn't give me one for free now. Especially if you only like 1 or 2 tracks per CD and then have to change. What a drag. Audio servers are the way to go. The good news is that even a laptop which you might already have is most of what you need. You may need to add a network drive to add capacity.

 

[ProtegeManiac]

 
Disk players are now dinosaurs. You couldn't give me one for free now. Especially if you only like 1 or 2 tracks per CD and then have to change. What a drag. 

 

That was never the problem in my case as I always listen to one album as a whole, not just one or two tracks. With me it was always the reliability issue - damn transports fail every few years, and the most frustrating part, when NAD's local distro tried to screw us all over a manufacturing defect or when my Sony SACD player stopped reading SACDs after only a year (curiously enough, it had no trouble reading the PCM layer on Hybrid SACDs).

 

[KarlD]

I am not asking for specific recommendations and $500 is not my budget, only a point of reference. I am basically asking if its better to pour my money into a CD player or into a DAC with a minimal CD player.

I think for the money, if you can be bothered with multiple boxes then I would spend $450 on the best DAC you can find that has plenty of inputs and then just keep your eye out for cheap spinners with digital outputs.

I have recently been given a Philips CD850 which generally sell for sub £50 and is regarded as a very good CD player to use as a transport. It has an optical output and the whole thing has a very nice feel about it.

If I was using it in my main system through a DAC and the laser suddenly gave up it wouldn't be the end of the world to find another at that price. I wouldn't even think about having the laser replaced.

I am just using it stand alone using the front headphone out through a pair of Grado SR80s as a bedroom 'system'. My main CDp is a Musical Fidelity M6CD which has DAC inputs so when I get a chance I intend to plug the Philips into it and see just how good a transport it is with my own ears.

I personally love using physical media and couldn't live with using digital files etc. It's nice to be able to chill out to some tunes without the intrusion of computer devices. It's fun to flip through my 1000+ CDs and my few hundred records.