Why are old portable CD players valuable
Mar 5, 2007 at 4:21 PM Thread Starter Post #1 of 24
pretzelb

pretzelb

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I was cleaning this weekend and found one of my old portable CD players which actually appears to still work. I then remembered that it seems like I've read several posts where people try to find these "vintage" cd players whenever they can. Which led me to this question ...

Why are the old portable CD players valuable?

I haven't bought a portable CD player in years so I'm really not sure what is so special about the older ones (if anything). I'm pretty sure you can get a new portable CD player for around $15 (US) so I'm not sure what would be wrong with a new CD player.
 
Mar 5, 2007 at 4:44 PM Post #2 of 24
Sound quality. New CD players are more anemic because they're designed to have long battery lifes. Older discmans (pre-1994) had an average of only 2 hour battery life. Many even had their own proprietary rechargable battery. That and no anti-skip buffer protection makes their portability limited. But using a wall-art, they still offer great SQ in a small size for the office environment. Many also have good enough HP outs to not need a headphone amp.
 
Mar 5, 2007 at 5:13 PM Post #3 of 24
Build quality and nostalgia. They don't make them like they used to. They used to be high quality aluminum boxes rather than the plastic of today. I think the sound quality is a trade off, because the older PCDPs DACs were not as advanced as they are today.
 
Mar 5, 2007 at 5:27 PM Post #4 of 24
Like all mass produced electronics they go through a phase where they are originally built well and very expensive. Then the more they make the more corners they cut and eventually the overall quality suffers even though some of the electronics may actually get better. You can see this now with Ipods.

There is a peak of development where they throw all their R&D resources at the product and then formularise it and just go on making it as cheap as possible from then on. I think this happened with PCDP around 1990-5 and the best of breed is the Sony D(z)555.
 
Mar 5, 2007 at 5:46 PM Post #5 of 24
OMG, trew away my 10 year old discman a few months ago. The batterylife sucked, always had to take some full batteries with me. But I can't imagine that the siscman sounded better than the newer ones.
 
Mar 5, 2007 at 6:49 PM Post #6 of 24
Quote:

Originally Posted by meat01 /img/forum/go_quote.gif
Build quality and nostalgia. They don't make them like they used to. They used to be high quality aluminum boxes rather than the plastic of today. I think the sound quality is a trade off, because the older PCDPs DACs were not as advanced as they are today.


That's news
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Could you provide examples of why new, cheap pcdps sound better then old Sony Discmans that are considered the pinicle of pcdps? The D-555 is considered the best Discman of all time. It has a dual 16 bit D/A converter, as well as 5 different DSP settings. Some include virtual surround, a graphic EQ, and DDS. It sounds many times better then any DAP I've heard. The cheap Discmans that Sony produces now are 1 bit, mp3 capable. Maybe you meant they're more advanced because they dropped SQ in favor of longer battery life?
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Mar 5, 2007 at 6:52 PM Post #7 of 24
Mar 5, 2007 at 8:41 PM Post #8 of 24
Aha, what you've said on sound quality makes sense. I never thought about it that way. But now that I read the replies I do recall how all the various CD players were putting a lot of features into the portable players back in the day. I certainly recall how some were built a lot better.

But this makes me want to cry. I'm not sure but I think I threw away my old Denon portable CD player. I'm not sure about it's quality but it was built just absolutely beautifully. I think I remember finding it one day and thinking that I hate playing just a single CD and will never use it again (and had not used it for about 10 years).

I did find my old Sanyo player that I think I used to use in the car. I have the car charger but not the wall charger. It seems to run on recharable AA batteries though. It sounded decent with my old receiver though, and was an improvement from my iPod.

Oh well.
 
Mar 5, 2007 at 8:53 PM Post #9 of 24
I've collected a few older Discmans, but the first plastic ones that still touted graphic EQs and DSPs. Runs on 4 batteries that last for maybe more then an hour
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I actually don't use them much because I work from home and can listen to my main rig for CDs. Otherwise, I would try buying a used D-555. My dad got one when it originally came out, and seems to have held up quite nicely. But since used they go for $250-300, I'd rather just get a nice component CDP. My SACD player is a single disc player that's like 25lbs. Needless to say I can't lug it around much
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But, meh....my whole rig is sounding great and making me go out and buy CDs and vinyl. It's also high enough quality that I can hear a big difference with downloaded 128kbps songs from iTunes
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Maybe that means I'm turning into a 20 something year old fart, but I'm turning into an audio snob
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Mar 5, 2007 at 8:53 PM Post #10 of 24
Quote:

Originally Posted by pretzelb /img/forum/go_quote.gif
But this makes me want to cry. I'm not sure but I think I threw away my old Denon portable CD player. I'm not sure about it's quality but it was built just absolutely beautifully. I think I remember finding it one day and thinking that I hate playing just a single CD and will never use it again (and had not used it for about 10 years).


So you threw away a Denon portable CD player

Did it look like this ?
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Mar 5, 2007 at 9:05 PM Post #14 of 24
Quote:

Originally Posted by *645-k701 /img/forum/go_quote.gif
pfff gonna be on ebay for a while now tryna hunt down a D-555 at a 2k7 price..

should be a laff.


That Denon one is insane!!! $250 is reaching the upper limits of what I'd ever spend for a used Discman, including the D-555. I mean the old pcdps sound good, but they're over 15 years old: likely to break down and not be servicable. But if you want to get the D-555....here's a completely broken one for $1 so far. It's got a couple days. Probably by the end it will go for like $170: for a broken cd player!
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http://cgi.ebay.com/RARE-SONY-Discma...QQcmdZViewItem
 
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