About to sell my CD player--will SB3 be enough??

[sc53]

Hi, after a year or so with my 3 SB3's running quite reliably at home on both PC and Mac, I have decided to part with my precious and wonderful Ayre CD player (the CX-7e). I use the SB3's with DACs and cannot identify the differences when the music is from the Ayre or from the SB3 into an Electrocompaniet ECD-1 or a Benchmark DAC-1. So I have decided to part with the Ayre--but I feel I need an emergency backup to use in case of network meltdown, modem failure or whatever. Is there any inexpensive player I could buy to use as a backup if my network is down, that won't be horribly inadequate given what I am used to listening to? I was thinking of the Oppo but have never heard it; similarly thought of the cambridge player but again never heard it. Any thoughts?

[Phil Leigh]

Hi, after a year or so with my 3 SB3's running quite reliably at home on both PC and Mac, I have decided to part with my precious and wonderful Ayre CD player (the CX-7e). I use the SB3's with DACs and cannot identify the differences when the music is from the Ayre or from the SB3 into an Electrocompaniet ECD-1 or a Benchmark DAC-1. So I have decided to part with the Ayre--but I feel I need an emergency backup to use in case of network meltdown, modem failure or whatever. Is there any inexpensive player I could buy to use as a backup if my network is down, that won't be horribly inadequate given what I am used to listening to? I was thinking of the Oppo but have never heard it; similarly thought of the cambridge player but again never heard it. Any thoughts?

If you are running it into your DAC(s), pretty much anything will do...

[SuperQ]

If you're going into an outboard DAC, it doesn't really matter.

[pfarrell]

Phil Leigh wrote:
>If you are running it into your DAC(s), pretty much anything will do...


SuperQ wrote:
> If you're going into an outboard DAC, it doesn't really matter.

What, you two guys don't believe that the CD transport is important? How
can you claim to be audiophiles?

Next you will claim that bits are bits and that there is no such thing
as a digital cable.

--
Pat Farrell
http://www.pfarrell.com/

[nicholasg]

Hi, after a year or so with my 3 SB3's running quite reliably at home on both PC and Mac, I have decided to part with my precious and wonderful Ayre CD player (the CX-7e). I use the SB3's with DACs and cannot identify the differences when the music is from the Ayre or from the SB3 into an Electrocompaniet ECD-1 or a Benchmark DAC-1. So I have decided to part with the Ayre--but I feel I need an emergency backup to use in case of network meltdown, modem failure or whatever. Is there any inexpensive player I could buy to use as a backup if my network is down, that won't be horribly inadequate given what I am used to listening to? I was thinking of the Oppo but have never heard it; similarly thought of the cambridge player but again never heard it. Any thoughts?

I would not recommend an Oppo. When playing the first track on a CD I've found my receiver (Denon 3806) takes around a second to "sync up" and you lose that music. This does not happen with my Panasonic Blu-Ray disc player or my Cyrus CD player used as a transport. On another forum (avsforum.com) this was acknowledged as a design "feature" of the Oppo (DV-981HD).

I've always read great things about the Ayre CD player - its incredible that SB3 + DAC1 can sound as good.

[Nonreality]

I would not recommend an Oppo. When playing the first track on a CD I've found my receiver (Denon 3806) takes around a second to "sync up" and you lose that music. This does not happen with my Panasonic Blu-Ray disc player or my Cyrus CD player used as a transport. On another forum (avsforum.com) this was acknowledged as a design "feature" of the Oppo (DV-981HD).

I've always read great things about the Ayre CD player - its incredible that SB3 + DAC1 can sound as good.

I've got the older 971 and don't have any problems. Very good player for the money. You probably weren't using the new Denon cable. Might want to look into that.

[JJZolx]

I'd definitely recommend having a CD player on hand for the times when your SqueezeCenter server, or your network isn't available for whatever reason. Or even just for when someone comes by with a CD that you want to play on your stereo without having to rip it first. I lost my server's boot disk early last week, so I was without my SqueezeCenter server until the weekend when I had the chance to rebuild it. During that time it was back to good old CDs and FM.

If you're going to be playing it through an outboard DAC, and if it's only occasionally used, then I wouldn't worry too much about the merits of the CDP as a transport.

(An aside: During the week of going "back" to CDs I was reminded once again of how much nicer it is to browse through a wall full of actual CDs instead of using one of the Squeeze interfaces. There are a lot of wonderful advantages to PC based music systems, but browsing and selecting something to listen to from a large music library is _not_ one of them. For this reason alone, I'd be tempted to hang on to a really good CD player instead of selling it. If you haven't played CDs recently, you should try shutting down the SqueezeCenter server and going back to CDs for a week or two. You might be surprised to find that your listening habits, even (dare I say it) your satisfaction level, may be different.)

[nicholasg]

I've got the older 971 and don't have any problems. Very good player for the money. You probably weren't using the new Denon cable. Might want to look into that.

That must be it :-)

I did try optical and coax and had the same issue (as did someothers on AVSFORUM). You only notice the issue if the music on the first track on the CD starts at zero seconds. I also think Oppos are not very well built and look cheap.

[andynormancx]

(An aside: During the week of going "back" to CDs I was reminded once again of how much nicer it is to browse through a wall full of actual CDs instead of using one of the Squeeze interfaces. There are a lot of wonderful advantages to PC based music systems, but browsing and selecting something to listen to from a large music library is _not_ one of them. For this reason alone, I'd be tempted to hang on to a really good CD player instead of selling it. If you haven't played CDs recently, you should try shutting down the SqueezeCenter server and going back to CDs for a week or two. You might be surprised to find that your listening habits, even (dare I say it) your satisfaction level, may be different.)

Nothing that a bar code scanner + database + a quick bit of code couldn't fix

[JJZolx]

Nothing that a bar code scanner + database + a quick bit of code couldn't fix

Not hardly. You're talking the opposite.