Just ordered the brandnew Yamaha CDN 500

Finally I found a dealer who got the brand new CD Player& Network Player by yamaha on stock in silver. Before I could only find them in black. The silver models are expected to arrive in larger quantities end of next month. Really looking forward to have a decent CD Player in my living room again plus of course a good network player easy to handle with 20 thousand Internet radio stations on board - USB and WiFi connection gapless and apple lossles files naive support. Reads HD tracks with 24/192 .. all that in a nice package slim line ! 569.00 Euro - hope it arrives this week - wednesday is a holiday , so it might take a few days till I can actually try it out ...
I did a lot of research but this new item is the bomb at this price level.


More when the player arrives !

 

What a pity - Talked to the seller and they made a mistake They only got them in black like everybody else..
He offered me a 50 euro price drop if I wait till the silver unit arrives - end of november/early december and I agreed on that.
For the mean time I ordered a new external DVD Burner from amazon for my failing mac mini's CD/DVD player...at least I can play some CD'S in the living room. (My PRIMARE CD-RECEIVER is in the bedroom doing good works there..)
plus an extra 2 TB HD from SAMSUNG. same model I use atm with 1 TB. It is full and a good moment to save it to another HD, so i can hook up 1 externl HD via USB to the network Player's USB input...

 

Slightly off topic, but I recently purchased a Denon AVR-3313 Receiver. I really, really wanted the silver model but alas, only the black faced models are sold to the U.S. I thought the silver face looked much classier than the black.

So, I feel your pain.

 

Hmm sounds intriguing.

I keep wondering why there is no S/PDIF input in modern CD players to utilise their DAC for other digital sources (music computer).

I've been nothing but impressed with the CD-S and A-S 700 CD and Amp. Such a great vocal portrail, with plenty of body. None of the annoying high frequency that comes from similar priced, better reviewed, alternatives.

I personally prefer these things in black, never did like silver, except the the Sony CRT TV which is such a bulky lump, silver hides it a bit.

If we hadn't just been screwed by a furniture company going bust and not fulfilling our order, we might have been putting one of these on our shopping list.

 

These CD Network Players look tasty, very slim with a good LED to showcase whatever sources you are listening to or scrolling down. I need a silveryy CD Player to go along with the nice silver aluminium face plate of my Musical Fidelity amp. Together they are a striking combination. The review challenged the CDN 500 with the CD 700 and the 500 won on Cd replay - the real audiophile fun begiuns with lossless files and of course HD tracks. Then it is said to be very natural sweet, dynamic and flawless nearly as good as the M1 CLIC from musical fidelity, that sells for 1500 Euro (without a CD Player another 700 €uro if you want the transport). Very close just with a different character.
So i am pretty excited - was searching for the perfect combi of a CD Player and a decent streamer or network player, that could actually handle all of my iTunes media in m4.a
There are so very few that handle these. Most stick to FLAC and mp3 or WMA files.
No way I could use one of those.
So it always was either the M1 CLIC (too costly) or the PROJECT DS Stream Box with the same sofzware/hardware done by Viennese Stream Unlimited.
Yamaha alreadypaid their development dues with the NP 2000.
This is a model based on their top Cd player - the AS 2000 but to get that sound right it took them another 6 months of finetuning till the product was ready for sale 2 years ago.
Now you get the benefits of that Player with a decent solid Yamaha CD Player plus a new app from yamaha that lets you use IOS devices via Blue Tooth and 20.000 Internet radio stations available on the fly.
Best of all it still is a CD Player first and easy to handle. All you gotta do to use the streaming part is hook up an external HD or a USB stick directly or hook it up to your WiFi with a Cat6 cable.
Outputs are reduced as well. optical and coaxial to an outboard DAC or simple via Cinch to your Pre-amp.
All in all the solution that fits my wants + needs best from all the gear on the market.
Being able to play my iTunes folders 35.000 trax without the Mac up and running is a blessing and time flies by.. hopefully the wait will be over soon. now it is more in touch with a christmas gift...

Here are a few more infos and pix..http://www.listeningpost.co.nz/Bran...500-Media-Player--__I.44141__N.27183__C.27268

Below is a review of the Yamaha NP 2000 I was mentioning before. A very cool device for more discerning audiophiles with bigger a budget..

 

where did you find a review of it?

We actually bought the A-S700 on a review, as no one had it in stock to demo. It was a review by Austrialian Hi-Fi magazine. They made the Waht Hi-Fi et al look rather silly by comparison. A few images of oscilloscope data and a fine review.

Similar story with the CD-S700, read a German magazine's review of it and a couple of others (weren't many reviewing it) and took a punt.


The CD-S700 is a wonderful sounding machine. It's effortless, natural and smooth and makes decent recordings really shine, and they say the CDN-500 is better at CD playback than the CD-S700?

Very, very tempting...

 

Ah just found one review here:

It's in German. They compare to the CD-S700.
http://www.audio.de/testbericht/yamaha-cd-n500-test-netzwerk-player-1370601.html

Roughly translated:
"In comparison with the Yamaha CDS 700 painted the CD-N500 one accurate image and sounded more detailed via KEF Reference 207/2. The Denon DCD-720 AE, however demonstrated a quantum more depth and atmosphere, which in turn parried by Yamaha with an openness and almost graspable light-footedness: a tie.

To me this reads like the CD-N500 maybe a little lighter, and slightly more detailed (perhaps at the expense of a little treble). Though it doesn't seem that there is much between them. Compared with that Denon CD, Yamaha is likely more natural, but less dynamic.

 

Right I read about the Yamaha CDN 500 in that AUDIO magazine of last month. The comparism was on CD playback - the network performance was 2 steps higher - 1 step being 5 points.
Verdict CD 90 points , which is pretty good and 100 points for network, which is already in a higher category - 95 - 105 points is High End - 106 to 140 reference class - starting in the 2 grand plus region usually - the Linn Sneaky and M1CLIC both got 105 poins for streaming - the very good sounding NAD C 515 CD player got 95 points.
The AS 700 I owned for a while (amplifier) got 85 points.
In my opinion 85 points is where satisfying hifi performance is established .. I am sceptic of stuff below that mark, so 90 for CD is okay but the point , that made me order this machine was the 100 points for network, which is my main way of using it.. 90% I listen to files, most new and classic albums are in lossless m4a.
The fact it accepts these apple files (and gapless / 24/192) did the rest...Price for 2 good devices is awesome as usual with YAMAHA. very fond of that brand. My 15 year old receiver with 90 watts is still running and sounding amazingly realistic, 3d like spacious and fabulous natural..

 

Yeah, well ~£500 is a steal with what is on offer. I was looking at the NP2000 (like a kid does with through a toy store window), and that has dropped a lot over here down to around £750.

It doesn't have an S/PDIF in, which is kinda irritating in a way. Perhaps actually building a decent S/PDIF receiver costs more than implementing the computational system for file streaming.

I am wanting a listen and compare for myself though, doubt I;ll get the chance unless I buy one. The UK sucks for this kind of thing, no one stocks Yamaha, or they don't stock much of it. Everyone here shoves Marantz at ya, and before that Technics.

Hope it comes to you soon, let me know how you get on with it and how well implemented the system is to use.
The CD-S700 USB is a bit lame (excuse the pun) as it does MP3 (get it, Lame) and WMA only, no lossless. WMA 320Kbs CBR is a hint not as good as CD playback, but it's very very slightly inferior.

 

audio affair in Birmingham stocks Yamaha and you could demo there.
Will let you know how it sounds when I finally got it.

 

Black is by far the most popular finish in the USA, for whatever reason, so that's why you see so few silver or champagne finishes available here. The other finishes seem to have more popularity in other parts of the world and that's likely why those finishes are mostly only marketed outside of this country.

As someone who keeps his equipment behind a frosted glass door cabinet, I prefer black. The equipment disappears, which gives a much cleaner look. However, if I were to have my equipment visible, out on display, then silver would be my clear choice. In part because I like it better but also, the dust doesn't show nearly as quickly as it does with black. And I'm much too lazy to dust everyday.

 

Yamaha Amps have been very good in this regard. All of the ones I've known about never get even warm. Their cases are cooler than skin temperature, even after running for several hours. The A-S700 is no different to the old AX-470 we had in this regard.


Thanks for the tip on that place in Birmingham Baron, I'll check them out if I fancy a day trip out . It's 163 miles from me.