Shanling CD300

[tourmaline]

I heard some good things about the original 9II. It has a very analogue sound.

 

[spacecoyote]

My Shanling CD-300 (CD-3000) from Pacific Valve is scheduled for delivery this Monday. The player is stock with the exception being the tubes. I bought Electro Harmonix 6922's to replace the Sino Chinese ones that come with it. If anyone else decides to buy this player we should do a group-buy on some Russian ex-military 6922's, there is an eBay seller in the Ukraine whom I have bought from in the past who has awesome prices on NOS/NIB Russian tubes and he usually sells in small bulk quantities.

 

[spacecoyote]

So today is Monday and no player, just this huge army tank sitting on my porch

JK, the Shanling CD-300 is uge (so big the "h" wouldn't fit). the front, back and sides of the player are solid 7/8" thick brushed aluminum. This thing is a beast, a beautiful beast. One of the first things I did was open it up to switch out the Chinese tubes for the Electro Harmonix 6922's I bought. But the tubes inside are EH 6922's

, so I got that goin for me.
My initial impression will be brief, because I want to go listen s'more! However I will say this, that the new player has given me a greater understanding of two phrases: 3-D imaging and seperation.
My new rig is now:
Shanling CD-300 | ALO Super 8 | Cotdtech 6210 | Grado SR225 & AKG K701
More impressions to come in a few days...

 

[klenkar]

I red somewhere that the the tubes only work with the line-outputs.
The Balanced are solid state.
don dom

 

[DarkAngel]

Quote:

Originally Posted by spacecoyote /img/forum/go_quote.gif So today is Monday and no player, just this huge army tank sitting on my porch JK, the Shanling CD-300 is uge (so big the "h" wouldn't fit). the front, back and sides of the player are solid 7/8" thick brushed aluminum. This thing is a beast, a beautiful beast. One of the first things I did was open it up to switch out the Chinese tubes for the Electro Harmonix 6922's I bought. But the tubes inside are EH 6922's , so I got that goin for me. My initial impression will be brief, because I want to go listen s'more! However I will say this, that the new player has given me a greater understanding of two phrases: 3-D imaging and seperation. My new rig is now: Shanling CD-300 | ALO Super 8 | Cotdtech 6210 | Grado SR225 & AKG K701 More impressions to come in a few days...

If you read the "tube righteousness" section for Shanling CD300 at Pacific Valve they like using the JJ Tesla 6922 in place of the stock EH 6922, although they say stock tubes are pretty good sounding.

I just got a Shengya CD10 with one 6922 tube and one 12ax7, I ordered some 6922 JAN Phillips low noise (BUGLE BOY) from Tubestore.com
Tubes

 

[Black Stuart]

spacecoyote,
don't dismiss the Chinese tubes. If they are Shuguang they could be very good indeed. In a straight dogfight the Shuguang 6SN7s kick the s##'t out of the Eh 6SN7s. If there is a 'house' sound to these valves, then you will find them very clear indeed, taking you right 'into' the music

I, like a lot of others who are bottleheads have heard different things about valve/tube output CDPs, so will be very interested in how you view the sound after a couple of weeks.

 

[spacecoyote]

I didn't mean to dismiss them, it's just that when I checked out the mods at Underwood for the CD300 Walt has the "stock Chinese" tubes replaced with "vintage Russian" tubes. And I am of the impression that Electro Harmonix are some of the best curent production tubes available.
And since the major qualifiers for this player are, among other things, it's high-end clock, dedicated analog and digital power supplies and superior chip I didn't think the tube rolling would play a huge part in fine tuning the CD300. FWIW, when buying these tubes after the fact the EH and JJ cost about the same, and I've had better success with more EH tubes than I have had with JJ tubes in other applications.
Just my 1.998 cents.

 

[palchiu]

I found another tube cdp from China.
Why I interesting them? Because I saw some Avantgarde Uno's user used in their systems.

(You can find in Avantgarde's website)

Here it is. http://www.opera-consonance.com/products/refcd22.htm

CD2.3 MK2 Inside(This is re-cap one, not original. From HongKong DIYer. CD2.3 MK2 should same as CD2.2 MK2)

 

[diogenes]

Quote:

Originally Posted by spacecoyote /img/forum/go_quote.gif So today is Monday and no player, just this huge army tank sitting on my porch JK, the Shanling CD-300 is uge (so big the "h" wouldn't fit). the front, back and sides of the player are solid 7/8" thick brushed aluminum. This thing is a beast, a beautiful beast. One of the first things I did was open it up to switch out the Chinese tubes for the Electro Harmonix 6922's I bought. But the tubes inside are EH 6922's , so I got that goin for me. My initial impression will be brief, because I want to go listen s'more! However I will say this, that the new player has given me a greater understanding of two phrases: 3-D imaging and seperation. My new rig is now: Shanling CD-300 | ALO Super 8 | Cotdtech 6210 | Grado SR225 & AKG K701 More impressions to come in a few days...

Excellent: I look forward to reading more of your thoughts on this player.

 

[jaspert]

Hello,

First post here and a noob to headphone goodness to boot.

I received my Shanling CD300 this week and it's a very impressive machine considering the price. 13 kg of solid mass, feels like it's built to last and the industrial styling is very appealing to me.It's still improving after 60 hours while i'm getting used to the quirk of a top loader.

I'm not usually into headphone but i do have a cheap Grado SR80 and Little Dot II+ tube headphone amp at hand so i hooked them up to the CD 300 for the first time tonight and boy, i'm very impressed . The mid range is fullsome, high is not overly bright, giving good separation and spatial rendition. It's been a few hours of straight listening where as the previous longest stretch of headphone listening is less then 3/4 hour. I never knew my affordable Grado SR80 could sound this good.

However,from a quick comparison to the other RBCD setup earlier,

( DPA T1 transport- Glass toslink - Lavry DA10 DAC -Kimber KCAG - Musical Fidelity X10 V3 tube buffer- Kimber Silver streak to Musical Fidelity A300 integrated amp - Speltz Anti-cables - Dynadio Focus 140 )

I feel the Shanling CDA300 straight to MF integrated Amp combination (via a cheaper ebay interconnect) is still a touch behind in term ultimate resolution, soundstage depth and air around instrument but there are a few obvious variables in the quick comparison and i think the Shanling is not fully run in yet.

Nevertheless, the combination with the tube headphone amp + Grado SR80 is bringing a big smile to my face tonight and it's a keeper.
I will try to compare with the other setup again when i get my shelfing sorted to allow for the top loading so i can compared them again with the same Kimber interconnect and a few more hours on the Shanling.

Some quick pics

.

 

[diogenes]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jaspert /img/forum/go_quote.gif Hello, First post here and a noob to headphone goodness to boot. I received my Shanling CD300 this week ...(snip)

Jaspert, welcome to head-fi and sorry about your wallet.

Anyway, thanks for posting your thoughts on the Shanling and pictures are always nice, too.

 

[jaspert]

Quote:

Originally Posted by diogenes /img/forum/go_quote.gif Jaspert, welcome to head-fi and sorry about your wallet. Anyway, thanks for posting your thoughts on the Shanling and pictures are always nice, too.

Thanks and my wallet is on a crash diet at the moment.

 

[DarkAngel]

Any updates for this palyer?
How are things going for owners?

 

[diogenes]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DarkAngel /img/forum/go_quote.gif Any updates for this palyer? How are things going for owners?

x 2.

 

[laxx]

I received one last night and I must say... it's HUGE. It's one of the most solid piece of electronics I've ever had the pleasure to touch. I like the top loader and I enjoy the upsampling (well, the option to upsample or bypass). I don't have to associated gear to use it balanced, but I gave it a good hard listen last night with unbalanced RCAs.

It has a beautiful midrange. It's definitely the strongest aspect going for the Shanling CD3000. Voices sound so so so sweeeeet. =] With upsampling on, it gets a little bass heavy. I enjoy most of my recordings with upsampling off, though some sound much better with it on. The biggest problem I have with the player is that it has rolled off highs, no matter the sampling rate. I don't notice it too much with general music that I listen to, but it's blatant when listening to any form of classical music. It might be that the player's not completely burned in yet, so I'll give it some play time over the next few days and check back into this thread.

BTW, it's quite a loud player at 2.2v output.

My setup was Shanling CD-3000 -> Darkvoice 332 -> K701.