What high-end cdp for low-end quality CD's ?


I need advice, in some foreseeable future I’m going to upgrade my cdp. My budget is going to be about $4000 top $5000. I was thinking about used Wadia 861, Accuphase 75V. But I had heard that they are true performers only on high quality audiophile grade CD’s. I heard that the more expensive SS cdp playback the worst it will sound with awful quality CD’s.
Unfortunately most of my CD’s is mean quality from BMG, SONY etc. buying CD’s from only audiophile companies or import them from Hon Kong, Taiwan, Japan (they are the best to me) is not a valid solution. I have heard rumor that some tube CD’s like Audio Areo, Lector (maybe Audiomeca ??-it is solid state though) can be more forgiving to mean CD’s, so you can actually listen to them. It is really hard for me to listen to them on my budget Arcam cdp, I cannot imagine it sounding worse with high-end player. So I’m looking for forgiving high-resolution, very dynamic, live, analog sounding cdp. So what would you recommend, I’m listening to soft rock, pop, classic.
Rest of equipment is Clayton monoblocks, Thiel 3.6 speakers by the end of summer I will have Supratek pre (I hope at least).
sorlowski

Showing 2 responses by onhwy61

It's only in the audiophile world that people are trying to make digital sound like vinyl. Real progress in audio reproduction is being made by those who are trying to make digital (and to a lesser extent analog tape) sound like the signal coming from the microphone feed. It's important to note that absolutely nobody says vinyl is accurate when using this rigorous standard of comparison.
Get the absolute best sounding CD player for your system. If your system is reasonably well balanced, then badly recorded CDs will sound like badly recorded albums, but only in rare cases will they be unlistenable. If this sounds like too many "ifs", then an outboard parametric equalizer is very effective at reducing high frequency harshness and/or tubby bass.