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The CD Player Lie?

Okay...the title is sensational, I know and it's NOT a lie of course, but read on.

Quite recently I had a chance to seriously compare a Jolida 100A, Rega Apollo and a low end modified Oppo. The oppo cost under 300 bucks. The Jolida was also modified and cost over 1500. We also tossed a Sony BD-320 Blu-Ray player into the mix.
Speakers were Magnepan 1.6 driven with a Odyssey Stratos, but we also had a one year old pair of Merlin TSM MMe's on hand along with Creek, Music Hall 25 and Rotel power. The Rotel 1080 was fed through a Rogue Metis (no mods) as was the Odyssey.

While none of this is ULTRA high end electronics, it's good stuff and the speakers are very much world class in transparency.

Here's what we found:

The best sounding player in the group was the least expensive in the Oppo. It had a shallow soundstage, but it's leaner mid-bass was truer to vocals, especially male. The Jolida sounded too thick by comparison, though it was smoother in the highs. The Rega Apollo came in second or first depending on what you wanted. It had a deeper soundstage, but also seemed a bit bright and overly crisp. It was a subtle issue and perhaps different interconnects would help. The Sony Blu-Ray player was a complete surprise. While it was bright like the Rega, it also seemed to extract more articulate bass info, to the point where we checked it's menu for any bass enhancement settings. In the end the Sony, which costs under 200 dollars, produced a viable and enjoyable sound that we certainly found livable, and downright fun.

After several hours of messing around we decided that ALL of the CD players had subtle differences, and all had weaknesses and advantages, especially switching to different systems. It was much like good speaker wires and MUCH less of a difference we had heard 10 years ago with various players. The rapidly improving technology has certainly shrunk the disparity between high end and mid fi by a large margin and you get an ever smaller set of diminishing returns when you step up to costlier CD players.
I had found this exact same result with my system last year, but this was a better test with more variety. My new system will be getting all new components, but I consider the new CD player the least important link in the chain, even compared to cables.

This is what we heard and agreed on. Certainly the "sense" of this hobby will generally not agree, especially if you just spent a fortune on a CD player. It probably DOES have different characteristics, but that's not always going to make it synergistic with the rest of your system. A Oppo beat the Jolida hands down with the Magnepans. There was no doubt. And the Sony did very well.

And that's the truth, at least according to our ears!

Cheers,

Robert B
NY
robbob

Showing 2 responses by robbob

robbob OP
273 posts
 
Dave, none of the players sounded the same. My point is that the lowest priced of the lot really came quite close to what the "better" and far more expensive player was doing. The Jolida cost 7 times more than the Sony and I think the Sony was worse in some respects and clearly better in others. But the Jolida, a well respected machine, did not walk all over Sony.
I've also auditioned much more expensive CD players and I've generally come away underwhelmed. This has not been the case with speakers and amps where I think most higher end gear does sound better across the board.
But CD players have come a long way and the biggest strides in the format as we know have already been made, and trickled down to mid-fi. I'd never "expect" a 3000 dollar player to beat a 300 dollar one without hearing the evidence 1st. As I like to say, "The high end is not about price."

Cheers,

Robert B
NY
robbob OP
273 posts
 
Thanks for all of the comments.

I've owned a LOT of gear over the years and often found that the high end doesn't always provide the best quality sound, especially with electronics and cables.

For the record I've never owned a boring system. Music makes that impossible and no system is ideal for every mood I may experience. Sometimes I want a BIG sound, dynamic and room filling. I want the CLUB experience, which sure is not about imaging! And at other times I want to listen to a solo vocalist or trio of strings. Enter Merlins or Magnepans. The speakers are the leading man in the creation of great stereo sound. The amp/pre is the romantic lead. And the CD player, cables and associated gear are bit players.

10 years ago, or perhaps 6-7, I would have said the CD player was higher up the chain. But the truth, at least to my ears and many fellow audiophiles, is that the CD player has hit a plateau of excellence, where even modest players do great things with music. Yes, you MIGHT find a better player, but you're also likely to make a lateral move at best as well. Or worse, find you older player was better at certain things.

Some of this could be said for the entire hi-fi business. Heck, I have a Definitive Technology system for my large home theater. I don't use it for music much, but it can do surprisingly good things when I do. Great audio continues to trickle down into the lower end and mid fi.

These are my thoughts and experiences based on a lot of years of messing with gear and owning it. When a friend let me know he had just spent over 4K on a player he called me over and we listened and compared. We were not impressed! But we may have never known what was up without a "cheap" 1000 dollar Marantz to compare it to.

As I and others have said, system synergy is key. But my point here in the end is that if you have great speakers matched to a great amp, a CD player is lower in the food chain than in previous years because they've made such huge strides even with 300 dollar machines. I was 100% honest in saying that I hear more dramatic differences with cables than with CD players these days!

Cheers,

Robert
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