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Why does my old CD player sound so much better than my new streamer?

Earlier this year I upgraded my system. Briefly, new Prima Luna Dialogue Premium HP integrated, new Lumin D2 streamer/DAC, kept my Tekton speakers, bought a 10 year old Muse Erato CD player, new Nordost Red Dawn cables all around.  After plenty of break in, the Lumin D2 streaming Tidal, even 24/96, does not sound close to as good as the Muse Erato.  I understand the Muse was about $10k new years ago, I paid $650 for it on Audiogon, is that the difference? It replaced my Naim I had for 20+ years and I bought it on the chance I want to listen to something not on Tidal, but now I'm going to CDs when I want to sit and listen instead of streaming. I considered upgrading to the Lumin T2, but will that be more of the same Lumin sound, which is accurate but thin and a little cold compared to the Muse.  I like the Lumin when just letting Tidal shuffle music as I move around the house, but from the opening note in an A/B test the Muse just sounds so much warmer, live and simply more enjoyable. Any thoughts or suggestions?
fsgattuso
kaufman's avatar
kaufman
39 posts
 
Meridian 508.24 (upgrade) sounds better than my neighbor’s streaming $8000 system—we A-Bed it and now he doesn’t want to talk to me anymore. We were going to compare again and bring some more of my CDPs, but he shut me down after the first comparison sound more natural and lifelike. 
millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon
12,531 posts
 
the Muse was about $10k new years ago, I paid $650 for it on Audiogon
Things that make you go hmmmmm...
ferrox
86 posts
 
I used to own Micromega + a DIY DAC..it sounded pretty awesome..I then retired for 3 years and got my inch back starting with Oppo BDP-105..as time goes by, I have used Auralic Aries + Lampizator Golden Gate, followed with Aqua La Diva + Lampizator Pacific. Now I have Forsell Air Reference CDT + Lampizator Pacific and one server called LDM.

I should say, this LDM is at least equal to or sometimes, even better than my Forsell CDT. 
fleschler
1,911 posts
 
I hope that the Muse Erato II is vastly superior to an earlier CD player Muse built, the Signature 9.  I purchased that junk for $2300 back in the 90s.  It cut off the beginning and ending of a note, round, bloated sound.  Yuk!  My old Kyocera 310 and 410 from 1985 blew it away.  For the past 13 years, I  have greatly enjoyed CDs through my EAR Acute which uses Wolfson chips.  It is very rich sounding and not at all a resolution fiend.  I may purchase a COS Engineering H1 DAC after audition as it sounds incredibly more detailed/higher resolution than my EAR Acute.

As to cheap cassette players trouncing high end CD players, ha ha.  I own a Nakamichi zx7 cassette deck, second only to the Dragon and no cassettes come close to 1000s of my well mastered CDs.  Am I to assume that only a cheap cassette player can be used and not a top quality one?  No, someone got a screw loose.  I used to transfer CDs in the 1980s to cassettes (100s of them).   Prerecorded cassettes were generally awful.  Only a few I recorded live using a Tandberg 310 cassette deck rivaled a good CD or RR tape.
wsrrsw's avatar
wsrrsw
879 posts
 
f917025

“streamer users are fashion victims just like the first transistor users.”

Respectfully disagree, that’s a polite way of saying it....it’s all so subjective (room, system, etc.)...a few of us did a blind test where we listened to the same tunes from a CD and a streamer. We all picked the steamer.  Files were the same size. The high res files to me are Nirvana..  The tube system used was excellent stuff but not the penultimate. 

I have been giving away Cd’s after ripping then. I now listen to music files from what was on CDs on a fashionable Streamer in my uber fashionable cloths.

We can all love our music any way it’s piped in. 
 




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