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What are the advantages of tubes in a CD Player?

.....and are they better than solid state CD Players? I have had a few players. Rega Apollo, NAD 542, and a Cambridge Audio (actually a DVD Player). I loved the Apollo, but thought I wanted to go to a complete Computer Audio system so I sold it. Now I am contemplating buying another player. I hear the tube sound is so warm and non-digital sounding, which is why I bought the Apollo, well that and the look of it. So, should I go tubes this time? I was looking at that Raysonic 128 and the Shanling and maybe even the Consonance Droplet
restless_times
trelja
3,223 posts
 
Grant, if I may ask, what were your impressions of the Droplet?

Thanks in advance!
Joe
reb1208
518 posts
 
One of the potential advantages are life like dynamics. Often, tube output stages will make the drums sound more like what you hear from vinyl.
tripper
223 posts
 
An MHZS CD66 player weighs over 30#, has two 12AX7 tubes w/ LED status indicators and a window to see them without pulling the cover, balanced outputs, upsampling on the solid metal remote, and is a top loader to boot. I'm not sure how the tubes affect the output but the whole package makes for one musically satisfying experience. I found mine for less than the dac mentioned above, and have a few dollars left over for tube-rolling, although I'm not really tempted to do so yet as teh stock tubes play just fine for now. Nice to have the option down the road.
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itsalldark
182 posts
 
I have had a number of CDP over the last two or three years. Started with an Electrocompaniet, then went to a Wadia 861, then to a Audio Aero Capitole mk2 and I just bought an Einstein-The Last Record Player, CDP--which, like the Capitole uses tubes, but not the mini's. It uses 6922's. For me, the odd man out so to speak was the Wadia--in my system it had a lot of glare. The Electrocompaniet was very nice, smooth yet detailed. The Capitole did everything well and the new player is really a nice unit. Like the Capitole in gets you involved, very detailed but no edge. what I really noticed is this player seems to be able to put all the instuments in the correct place. I have played around with the tubes a little and you can notice the difference different tubes can make in the way this player makes music. I really like that you can fine tune the player to suit your music and your system.
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