Is anyone still using a CD Player

Last week my constant nagging to a DAC manufacturer resulted in them adding DoP on SPDIF. What that means is that I can now play CD/SACD on this DAC. I will be sending my DAC in for the upgrade on Monday.

The reason to do this is because my disks ALWAYS sound better than streaming. I think I have very good fibre optic based streaming, but the disks seem to sound a bit denser (in a good way). I know this because I was able to hear these disks with the excellent Meitner MA3i DAC which does support DoP on SPDIF. I like my DAC more than the MA3i, so I am excited to hear these disks again on this DAC.

My transport at the moment is a used $200 Oppo. I will be upgrading that to the following transport in the future.

Shanling Onix Zenith XST20 Premium SACD CD... For Sale | Audiogon

BTW - last week I picked up a used Sonore OpticalRendu for $500. I am using it with a RME ADI-2 DAC in my lesser system. This streamer is running SonicOrbiter v2.9. My older Sonore OpticalRendu cannot be upgraded from v2.8. The v2.9 sounds better than the v2.8 which is on my best system. I did some research and Sonore has a new version called OpticalRendu Deluxe. This is supposed to sound much better than both of my older variants. That will be a future upgrade, maybe it will close the gap with the SACD disks.

@kennyc 

i think so. Here is what ChatGPT says:

Here’s a rough sense of coverage:

• 1960s: ~90–98% of major U.S. and U.K. Top 100 hits.
• 1970s: ~95–99%.
• 1980s: ~97–99%.
• 1990s: ~98–99%.

They have 8 to 10 million albums and half a million at high resolution. I seldom Can’t find something I’m looking for. Typically I go looking for an album and I find six others from the same group. I’ve never heard end up listening to those. Overtime I find what I listen to changes radically because there is so much good music out there I’ve never heard.

The folks that sometimes come up short are the ones that have 12 different versions of a symphony and they happened to like one in particular made in 1960s by one particular orchestra stuff like that.

I have two methods to replay my CD's. One being an olden design CDP with all of its risks present and well documented for the mechanical function, and the other a CDT, which is a design that has a Buffer Memory that removes the need for a replay to occur directly from the CD.  

I use both and get great joy from both in use, even though their differences as an influence on the end sound are quite discernible. 

Very recently, I had another design for a CDT loaned to me for use in my system.

Along with this CDT was a loaned DAC, to be an alternative to the one I use. The outcome of this loaned CDT used with my own DAC was that I was extremely impressed and sensed after a short-term demo' that there was a betterment to my owned devices, where the CD Mechanical replay is a subject of scrutiny.

DAC differences as an end sound evaluation during the short-term demo's were not as discernible for making selection for where betterment was being noticed.

For traditional designs of a CDP, I now have a selection of BS CD2 Discs added to my collection of CD's. These are designed by Sony and are a design claimed to improve the CD/CDP-CDT mechanical interface, by having much tighter tolerance to the read pits formed on the disc.

When extensive listening to BS CD2 is carried out on a selection of systems with a CD Source that takes a read directly from the disc as a replay. I may report back on what the assessments are of a BD CD2 used on this type of mechanical design for a CD replay device.         

a

I've had a CD player or transport since they came out with CD's in the 80's and constantly use them; my transports play DVD's/Blu-Rays as well.... 

While I stream music about 90% of the time,  I still use turntables (SYSTEMDEK IIX and Fluance RT 3) and CD players (Naim CDi and Onkyo C7030/AVA Insight Dac)  to play physical media.  I like the tactile feel of handling physical media. 👍