[nofarewell]

Hey All,

So here's the drill, there is one near, I can collect them for a little bit more than $100. Pristine quality.
I already have a Philips SBC890 for home purposes which I love.
Do you know the CD2000? Is it worth buying?
I know, the CD3000 is good, the R10 is the best, but I read relatively poor opinions so far about the 2000.
Please advise.
Cheers

 

[Roderick]

Hey All,

So here's the drill, there is one near, I can collect them for a little bit more than $100. Pristine quality.
I already have a Philips SBC890 for home purposes which I love.
Do you know the CD2000? Is it worth buying?
I know, the CD3000 is good, the R10 is the best, but I read relatively poor opinions so far about the 2000.
Please advise.
Cheers

I don't know If it is a good headphone but it is a collectors item to a degree. If it is on good condition with original box I think you could get 200 for it. Maybe More. There is a huge cap between cd2000 and cd3000 but I think cd2000 is still worth something. At very least u would get Back your investment so give it a shot

Edit: I used to own sbc890. I think it was pretty Bad pair of headphones. Everyones taste on sound is different but I'm quite confident that cd2000 would be ab upgrade.

Philips has made some great headphones in The past years. Shp9500 and X1/x2. All three should be miles better than sbc890.

 

[MDR30]

The MDR-CD2000 (semi open) was ahead of its time, brighter and airier than the CD3000 (closed), but not less coloured. Uninformed people at the time (on Head-Fi) did not understand its potential, performing with good sources of acoustical music and modern amps very good. Bio cellulose membranes, memory foam pads (first ever?) and high efficiency.

Well worth a couple of hundreds. Not as smooth as present day Staxen or orthos but rarer by the moment and something of a maverick.

 

[tabness]

I finally got a proper cable (5 meter lol but whatever it was the only cable I could find) to actually listen to my new old stock CD2000 yesterday (didn't come with a cable and it was tough as hell to find a non SONY designed cable that fit (one got in part way but clearly didn't go all the way in so the sound was completely messed up).

Haven't yet compared it with the CD3000 or R10 directly in earnest but I'm impressed so far. It has the mid focused sound like the related phones. Going just by audio memory, the midrange doesn't seem to sound as sweet as the CD3000 or R10 but still nice. At this point I think I'd say it also is more like the R10 than the CD3000 in that the latter has better extension in the highs and lows.

Very comfortable, more like an on ear than an over ear but quite a bit easier to wear for long than either the CD3000 or R10. SONY obviously took the headband design from the CD1700 and F1 and it's a wonderful design.

Will come back to this thread after I've listened and compared more, but yeah head fi seemed to sleep on this one, so far I think it plays close to or in the same league as the CD3000/R10 and I adore the CD3000 sound the most of all phones I have listened to.

 

[nofarewell]

I finally got a proper cable (5 meter lol but whatever it was the only cable I could find) to actually listen to my new old stock CD2000 yesterday (didn't come with a cable and it was tough as hell to find a non SONY designed cable that fit (one got in part way but clearly didn't go all the way in so the sound was completely messed up).

Haven't yet compared it with the CD3000 or R10 directly in earnest but I'm impressed so far. It has the mid focused sound like the related phones. Going just by audio memory, the midrange doesn't seem to sound as sweet as the CD3000 or R10 but still nice. At this point I think I'd say it also is more like the R10 than the CD3000 in that the latter has better extension in the highs and lows.

Very comfortable, more like an on ear than an over ear but quite a bit easier to wear for long than either the CD3000 or R10. SONY obviously took the headband design from the CD1700 and F1 and it's a wonderful design.

Will come back to this thread after I've listened and compared more, but yeah head fi seemed to sleep on this one, so far I think it plays close to or in the same league as the CD3000/R10 and I adore the CD3000 sound the most of all phones I have listened to.

Wow, somehow I've just discovered this. Please continue if you have anything to add now

 

[tabness]

Wow, somehow I've just discovered this. Please continue if you have anything to add now

I was a bit too enthusiastic about my initial impressions. Having listened more to the CD2000, it bears more resemblance to those old H•AIR SONY phones like the MDR 51 and the MDR 62 (except that it brings a larger sense of space) than the CD3000/R10, mainly because it lacks those magic mids the latter have. That being said, I loved the MDR 51 (it was the phone that surprised me so much and made me both wonder what the heck I'm doing chasing overpriced modern headphones in the first place instead of looking at the vintage stuff) and my recently procured MDR 62 is very similar to that - they are very good headphones and so is the CD2000.

 

[nofarewell]

I was a bit too enthusiastic about my initial impressions. Having listened more to the CD2000, it bears more resemblance to those old H•AIR SONY phones like the MDR 51 and the MDR 62 (except that it brings a larger sense of space) than the CD3000/R10, mainly because it lacks those magic mids the latter have. That being said, I loved the MDR 51 (it was the phone that surprised me so much and made me both wonder what the heck I'm doing chasing overpriced modern headphones in the first place instead of looking at the vintage stuff) and my recently procured MDR 62 is very similar to that - they are very good headphones and so is the CD2000.

Great! The 51 and athe 62 are absolutely awesome headphones. The 62 has more lows for sure compared to the 51. If the CD2000 is a resemblence to a bigger H•AIR type set, that's fine with me, although there are even greater pieces from there - like the Sony MDR-M66. The M66 sounds so great it is really hard to imagine any recent overpriced headphone might be better from the same category. Anyways, your review brought me closer to get a 2000 sometime. I'd be after the R10, but it is very rare and expensive.

 

[tabness]

Great! The 51 and athe 62 are absolutely awesome headphones. The 62 has more lows for sure compared to the 51. If the CD2000 is a resemblence to a bigger H•AIR type set, that's fine with me, although there are even greater pieces from there - like the Sony MDR-M66. The M66 sounds so great it is really hard to imagine any recent overpriced headphone might be better from the same category. Anyways, your review brought me closer to get a 2000 sometime. I'd be after the R10, but it is very rare and expensive.

Yeah I actually picked up a MDR M77 as well recently (no pads on that one though). I'll actually try to spend some time listening the M77/62 and comparing with the CD2000. My guess is that the sound space of the CD2000 will be the major difference, because some of these top end H•AIR headphones really hold their own, always wondered what the top of line H•AIR Monitor MDR CD6 sounded like.

 

[nofarewell]

Yeah I actually picked up a MDR M77 as well recently (no pads on that one though). I'll actually try to spend some time listening the M77/62 and comparing with the CD2000. My guess is that the sound space of the CD2000 will be the major difference, because some of these top end H•AIR headphones really hold their own, always wondered what the top of line H•AIR Monitor MDR CD6 sounded like.

Cool! Although the M77 is not a big deal - of course according to my experiences. The CD6 - well, I bought one a few years back, and I was so stoked to finally hear the legend - but tbh, it didn't hold a light next to the MDR-62. Maybe if you have a really nice, high output hifi at home, but the CD6 was a disappointment for me personally. The M66 is where the magic happens - imho of course. I'll sure search for a CD2000.

 

[tabness]

Very interesting, I need to try out a M66 it seems. I know the M66 came out after the M77.

To be honest I don't even much like the look of the CD6, I prefer the consumer orientated industrial design of the general H•AIR series.

 

[nofarewell]

Very interesting, I need to try out a M66 it seems. I know the M66 came out after the M77.

To be honest I don't even much like the look of the CD6, I prefer the consumer orientated industrial design of the general H•AIR series.

Yeah, we agree on that. And the fact that the articles used to put the CD6 next to the Senn HD600 back in the day...I smell salesforce behind that
It's rather the M66 is a smaller Senn HD 6** series set imho, but I'll have to be sure as I listened to the Senn HD600 a long time ago.