"Stewart Pinkerton" wrote in message
...
On 15 Jan 2005 16:17:41 GMT, B&D wrote:
On 1/14/05 3:28 PM, in article , "Stewart
Pinkerton" wrote:
On 14 Jan 2005 00:31:28 GMT, B&D wrote:
If you cannot give an example of a $5k player that sounds "as good" as
a
$500 one, then it would be good to just say so.
Try the Meridian 800 series. Many would regard it as sheer engineering
overkill, but it *is* designed to be utterly linear, without any 'high
end' trickery to make it sound 'better' than mainstream units.
OK, that is your $5000 player.
More like $10,000, but whatever.
What about the $500 one?
Why mess about with a mere CD player at that price? Go for the Pioneer
'universal' DV-565, and get great sound from almost any variety of
silver disc - plus all the films you can watch! If you insist on a
'pure' CD player, then the Arcam CD-73 is probably as good as it gets
technically.
I'm sorry, but I have that machine (568 here in the USA) as well as a Sony
C222ES. On SACD in particular, there is a substantial difference between
the two in the amount of transparency/ambience retrieval. I have never once
put a SACD on, gone elsewhere and gotten busy and walked back into the room
without being able to identify which machine is playing before I enter the
room. I can do that with some other equipment.
That doesn't mean the 568 does anything terribly wrong...it is actually a
fine-sounding player....it just doesn't quite match the Sony in
transparency. That's one of the things extra design money can buy you. The
222 uses Elna caps (second only to Black Gates in transparency) and separate
power supplies for the digital and analog stages. Those are also the
primary differences between it and the less expensive 775CE it is based
upon...and side by side you can hear the difference.