Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Stereo CD Player

I am in need of a CD player. I auditioned the NAD C521i not long ago. I suppose it did well. To be honest, I could tell no difference between the NAD and the Arcam at the local hi-fi shop. I listened to both through a pair of Wharfedale Evo's. Anyway, I was just curious if any of you own a NAD CD player; especially the C521i.

In its price range ($300), are there any other CD players I should consider?

Mike, I'd suggest that the reason you could tell no difference was that there isn't any. You don't mention how large your CD collection is, but I would never consider a single disc player; the convenience of a changer is just too great and there's no difference in the sound quality. Consider at least the five disc players such as the Denon and HK, but my suggestion for a large collection would be a 300-400 disc changer such as the Sony.

Mike, you fail to mention whether you will be using the analogue outputs on the cd player or the digital output. This can make a difference. When using analogue, my 15yr old Hitachi cd player outperforms my 2 year old DVD player hands down. When using the digital outputs, you CAN'T tell the difference because all the DA conversion and line level amplification is done by the amp/receiver.

If you will be using the digital outputs, I would focus more on access times and features. My Hitachi has lightning fast spin up and track access. I tend to get frustrated at friends houses waiting for their cd players to "catch up". BTW, I hate changers for the exact same reason.

Your 15 year old cd player has better DAC's than your current receiver? Perhaps it's time to upgrade. I have a cheap Pioneer 656A dvd/dvd-a player and it's plugged into my Rotel 1066 processor. To tell you the truth, I can't hear the difference between using the Rotel's DAC's or the DAC's built into the dvd player. (I can easily swith on the fly between optical out or analog out of my dvd player with my Rotel's on-screen setup) Both sound equally good.

This tells me that either

1) I'm deaf
2) My Rotel DAC's suck
3) My dvd player's DAC's are great
4) Most current generation DAC's sound the same

I'm leaning towards the answer being #4. So unless DAC's have evolved backwards over the past 15 years, you may want to look into an inexpensive upgrade, no?

Anybody else have any thoughts?

Yeah, I second John's opinion in that if it were me to spend a few $100 on a new CD player, I would go with one of those 400 CD changers. You will lose NOTHING in sound quality, and gain A LOT in functionality.

I must say that I dont like the way big CD changers look. a nice slim one disc player would be my preference.

Mike:

I've had a NAD C540 (bought new) for about 10 months. I THINK the quality problems has been addressed, BUT occasionally my player skips when playing a brand new CD (that means no scratches), and the tray doesn't always want to open, after only a few months of use.

Make sure you get full warranty on your player if you do get NAD.

So, does NAD still have the notorious reliability problems???

Well, now you've gone and got me thinking...

(off topic aside - doesn't it make your stomach turn when your spouse walks into the room and begins "I was thinking..."?)

Anyhoo, I'm using a 5 disk carousel changer. I've always liked the very fast access times between disks on random play. Being able to queue 5 disks on random was a great revelation and good lifestyle change for me.

I've not shopped for megachangers in many years. They used to change disks slowly and noisily. Is that still true?

Does anyone have recommendations on models or manufacturers?

Are there better/worse interfaces for telling the player what it has in it so that you can find things easily?

Sorry for the dumb questions. tia.

Our present 5 disc Panasonic CP72 takes 12 seconds to change discs and begin play.