[davidcotton]

Has anyone had any experience of the musical fidelity x-ray cd player? I have seen one for £400 in my local dealer, and was wondering how it would perform with basic recorded rock cds. I fully intend to audition it next month (bit short this month, still whats new eh!)and just wanted a few pointers as to whether anyone has the machine and what they think of it. It would be used with a Marantz KI signature amp and mission 780 speakers. Fwiw I am currently using the 63 ki signature as a cdp.

 

[eeyssjr]

Well, i had this player on demo when i was looking to buy a new CD player.

First things first, overall this is a fine CD Player. But i didn't like it.

The loading drawer was slightly wonkiy on mine. You could actually click it straight but after a qhile it would go down at the right side about 1 mm more than the left. They all did this, a generic "characteristic".

Also, the drawer was just a standard one with a pice of thin silver metal stuck on the end. it looked really cheap if you ask me. A bit amateurish.

As for the sound, i found it a bit bright really. There was quite alot of detail if i remember, but not as much as my meridian 506.20 which beat it in every respect, and i finally bought for good.

For £400 pounds. Hmmm, try and knock it down to £350 and you cant go wrong. You could sell it on the SH market and get all your money back. i think it has a high level of appeal to people. But for me it was bright. I like smoother sound. BTW it was being used with audiolab 8000S and i think at the time my B&W CDM1SE speakers. The latter are a bit metallic in the treble though. But with the meridian this didn't show as much. Now i have martin logans, i still think the x-ray would sound a tab bright with these.

If i was you, i would try and get a merdian 506.20 (or 24) on the second hand market. They are beautiful sounding, and i think you could pick one up for £500.