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Are "Redbook Only " CD players Obsolete?

With the advent of Universal Players ;ones that play DVD..CD..SACD..and DVD-A; Are standard "cd only" players OBSOLETE.......The "NEW BREED", like the MARANTZ DV 9500 can play ALL these formats and do it Better than most of the cd only and dvd-cd players at ANY PRICE...and all for under $2000.....why would anyone want to limit themselves......SACD and DVD-A are awsome for us audiophiles..and how much better can the "video" get?...Combine this State of The Art technology with the Fact that the Redbook CD playback is totally natural sounding..very analog like....and better than CD only players I've heard costing much more.... IS This is a NO-BRAINER........
dennish
prpixel
876 posts
 
I just wish that they would release more worth listening too on SACD. I'm tired of re-issues of the stones.

Kira,
That audiorevolution article sounds like an ad for dualdisc. I played around with one of these a few months ago. It would only play in an old sony dvd player; not in the car, universal player, or 4 different computer drives.
xiekitchen
821 posts
 
One thing not discussed here: build quality. Higher end Cd players (should) pay much closer attention to electronic components such as caps, resistors, transformers, transistors, circuit board material, wire, etc. They should have substantial housing materials and connector terminals.
Your all-format machines such as the Marantz probably do not aspire to such build quality.
metralla
945 posts
 
Pardales writes:

Prior to owning the Exemplar 2900 I owned the Sony XA777ES. SACD's on the Sony sounded very, very good to me. Way better than my redbook versions of the same discs. But after spending several months with the Exemplar I began to notice no significant difference, on many quality recordings, between the SACD and the redbook.
Let's face it - the stock Sony is not a great Redbook player. It does have potential though, and CDs on my modified Sony sound fabulous. I hate to generalize, as there are exceptions to every rule, but on the whole SACDs sound better than CDs on my rig. The modifications that were done to the XA777ES by Ric Schultz (EVS) made a dramatic improvement to the sound of CDs; but they also improved SACDs. The margin on many discs is as wide as before.

Regards,
fatparrot
1,314 posts
 
Hi-Rez format STILL called analog vinyl :-)
danlib1
819 posts
 
Gunbei-

You know I'm a Figure-4 guy!
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