Affordable audiophile quality "Giant Killer" type CD players?

Indeed, it absolutely blows my mind when I see people spending 10,000+ on a system and deciding to stick it in a room with tiles, wood, windows and no soft furnishings. I know that my reasonably priced system will blow any Expencive system out of the water if that Expencive system is in a room void off soft furnishings.

 

You're welcome.

 

You have no windows?

 

Ax?

>>>>>>Well, perhaps there is something wrong with your hearing in that case, because Stereophile Magazine gave the PS1 SCPH-1001 an EXCELLENT review, and lists it as a "C" piece of equipment in its "Best Equipment" ratings. I think I'll take their advice and not yours.

 

i don't know if dry, understated comedy was your intent, but this made me laugh out loud.

 

I have no windows. Windows let in light. Why would you want that?

That would ruin the sound!

j/k.

No, but seriously I actually don't have any windows. It's a dedicated theater room.

And shhhh, don't tell anyone, because when we did the remodel it had to be legally permitted as 'storage space' because living space needs windows or egress, and it would have been a colossal waste of money to dig and cut window wells into the basement walls just to cover them up again.

 

damned "dedicated room" people lording it over everyone else!

just kidding. i couldn't resist.

 

And I always keep a dedicated phone booth close at hand to change clothing...

 

I concur with the recommendations for a Rega. Pre-owned Apollo or Saturn will give you the sound to boogie, as they say.

I've never heard a Musical Fidelity player. But those Rega's really impressed me - esp for the price, although at $700.00 new, isn't what I'd call a bargain or in your price range.

Find a pre-owned Rega for less.

 

Light may ruin the sound, but direct sunlight improves the sound.

Ive proven that to myself many times over. The power of good sunlight increased brain activity and allows one to hear deeper into a recording AND to enjoy the experience even more so.


Crank up a tune in your car while in the garage with door shut, then crank up the same tune going down the road on a nice sunny day. Its a fact jack!

 

1) A cheap laptop. You don't need that much processor power to play digital audio but you'll need a decently sized hard drive to store all those FLAC's. I assume you'll want lossless coding so that means FLAC or ALAC or raw WAV or thereabouts.

2) Something like a Musical Fidelity V-DAC (about $300-400). There are a lot of good USB DACs coming out now at that sort of price or less.

3) Some software to play it with. I like Foobar2000 (free) the most. It has excellent performance ... it's the recommended Windows player at Benchmark Media tech support.

4) With a Windows 7 system you should install the WASAPI audio driver, which is a Microsoft free DL. You won't get optimum audio quality otherwise since Windows has a bad habit of wanting to resample your audio. Wasapi fixes this. For Vista or earlier systems, install an ASIO driver, which does the same thing. Actually WASAPI is Microsoft`s version of ASIO for Win7. I believe you can install ASIO through Foobar2000 but I'm not 100% on that.

Whatever player you want to try, make sure it has ASIO or WASAPI support for Windows. For example, VLC Media Player is an excellent audio player on Linux or Mac as well as a video player, but it doesn`t support ASIO. If it did I`d probably use it for audio but I don`t.

 

I'm no computer software Systems Analyst. Just a music freak.
Thanks for all the replies. My decision to go with a Rega Apollo CDP was made about 3 pages ago.

 

I think that post was intended for another thread.

 

Hmmm... must be why i'm so easily satisfied
with my Crap-tastic "PIE-IN-THE-EAR" system...

 

Um very good, but I kinda mean people who have a system surrounded by windows. Which really negates spending that much money on HIfi.

I do have one very nice window, I look out of it, sometimes at the rain as I live in England.

 

Holy of Holies!! Just got my brand new, out of the box Rega Apollo CDP amplified with THE FISHER 800-C and driven with Bob Crites modded Klipsch Cornwall II loudspeakers up and running this morning. Thought putting Oscar Brown Jr.-Between Heaven and Hell CD on first would be an apropos start. Horn blasts BLAST, the timber of finger snaps feel like they are in the room, i can almost feel the heavy stand up bass strings vibrate live in the corner, congas crack and pop vibrantly like never before & i even think i hear spit on Oscar's lips as he belts out those swanky cool lyrics. Wow, very impressed so far.....

 

You've stepped up a level. Congratulations.

 

Sounds great!

Congratulations, and enjoy

 

So this is what this audio stuff is about. Very nice.

 

You have a very nice system there; great speakers, amp, CDP. Congrats & enjoy the heck out of it!

 

Me too. I have this CDP and have heard a few CD players over the years. It has a really nice, musical sound, no fatigue and if I could get the damn thing to work right and play my CD's I could be very happy with it for quite a long time.

I would actually call it's sound quite "vinyl like" and if it's because I'm sensitive to highs then so be it.

 

Wow. WOW! WOW!! It's a lot like spinning vinyl, this thing. Me like!

 

Not entirely convinced by that wholly; some perhaps, but others, well, the name, the big empty box with one-quarter of the interior filled and the rest: empty. And the air costs how much?

I get your point and I apologise for my flippant response, though it's only partly tongue-in-cheek.

 

When someone says they hear lots of air around the instruments...there you go!

 

on the previous two posts!!

I'll put my Onix CD-2 up against the big boys, built like a tank too, 22lbs of high quality parts, even though some are older, now my Onix CD-3 is getting hot rodded in Wyoming as we speak, a beefed up power supply and some new Burr-Brown chips plus it has switchable on the fly upsampling up to 192k.

They cost around $1,000 when they were new, very thin on the ground now, but worth seeking out, if anyone has the 1lb aluminum remote they'd like to part with, PM me please.