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New Midrange vs. Older High-End CD Transports

A have a Denon 2900 Univeral player that I had been using as a CD transport, but decided to purchase an older Krell MD-20 since I thought it would have better sound. I had been listening merrily along, when I came along a CD that had a lot of tracking errors on the Krell. I checked the CD on the Denon, and it played flawlessly. I then decided to do a serious listening comparison between the two (both using the same DA converter), and realized I could not hear any difference, which surprised me, given the much more expensive (even at today’s prices) Krell.

What are the opinions of older high-end CD transports vs. newer less expensive ones? I am amazed at how much better the newer Denon tracks problematic CD’s, but as mentioned was surprised at the lack of sonic difference.
smeyers

Showing 1 response by hklai

hklai
14 posts
 
If Krell got a lot of tracking problems, you should probably look elsewhere.

Since Denon 2900 is a universal player, most manufacturing cost is actually spent on DAC and different decoders, rather than optic and reader. I don't think it is a good idea to use it as a pure CD transport.

I have some experienced with several good old CD players (Revox, Studer, Naim, ARC). All of them sound better than the new midrange players. I recently replaced my Marantz 8260 (stereophile class A) by a 10 years old ARC CD1. The improvement is huge and substantial. Even the CD layer sounds more smooth than the SACD layer on 8260....
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