What is the warmest, most bass-heavy cd player you have ever heard?

CEC belt driven CD players.

 

Yeah, also all people should be brothers and wealth should be distributed equally to everybody's benefit.

In the meantime, get real.

 

Krell KAV 300 CD or KAV 250 CD have fantastic bass and sound very analogue.Still accurate though.
280 transistors in the output stage!Krell know how to do SS and bass slam.

 

Sorry don't get your point, unfortunately the ability to read measurements and understand the difference between reality and marketing is not equally distributed

 

Have never heard a bass heavy CD player - possibly one or two that are lean/bass light
A personal favorite is the Bada HD23 run SS/balanced (Dislike the way tubes soften the music) .
A friend has a Bada HD 26 which from which he thoroughly enjoys the tube out put.

As a guide I often gravitate to DACs/players with "Burr Brown" chip sets.

 

The Naim CD5si is closest to what I think you're getting at. It's 'musical' and not bright, and certainly not thin-sounding. Has a nice heft and good bass. Wouldn't say warm though (personally wouldn't want it to be warmer than it is). Might be the same sonic signature for other Naims but it's the only one I've heard. Here's a quick review against my own CDP: http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threa...o-840c-quick-comparison.376608/#post-10959786

Have also listened to Cambridge 350c, Marantz 6004, Audiolab 8200CD, Cyrus CD6 SE - not many but none were fulsome as the Naim.

 

I never had a chance to listen to a CEC player, but l did listen to a couple of Burmester belt driven players. The cheaper was indeed warm and I liked it, although I never thought of this relationship before. The amplification had tubes (NAT) and speakers were Sonus faber, so I thought it ought to sound warm. The other set-up had a Burmester top-of-the-line transport/dac, but did not sound as warm, which I would blame on Nordost cabling.

 

I was referring to your use of "should sound like this or that". One thing is what gear should sound like, the other what it actually sounds like. Basically, you used a marketing department lingo.

And what's with "ability to read measurements"? How does this work in the cd world? Are you able to predict if a cd player will sound warm by reading its measurements?

 

An oldie but goodie if you roll some warmish Mullards or Amperex's for a smoother sound.

Ah! Tjoeb 4000 CD player

 

An oldie but a goodie. Check out the Ah! Tjoeb 4000 CD player.

You may have roll some tubes to find your cup of tea. My preference is Amperex or Mullards if you want warmish smooth sound.

 

An oldie but a goodie. Check out the Ah! Tjoeb 4000 CD player.

You may have roll some tubes to find your cup of tea. My preference is Amperex or Mullards if you want warmish smooth sound.

 

An oldie but a goodie. Check out the Ah! Tjoeb 4000 CD player.

You may have roll some tubes to find your cup of tea. My preference is Amperex or Mullards if you want warmish smooth sound.

 

But normally a CDP doesn´t have the frequency response and distortion that vinyl will have. So they can never really sound the same without altering those parameters on the CDP.

 

But normally a CDP doesn´t have the frequency response and distortion that vinyl will have. So they can never really sound the same without altering those parameters on the CDP.

 

But normally a CDP doesn´t have the frequency response and distortion that vinyl will have. So they can never really sound the same without altering those parameters on the CDP.

 

But normally a CDP doesn´t have the frequency response and distortion that vinyl will have. So they can never really sound the same without altering those parameters on the CDP.

 

Best bet might be something like an Arcam Alpha 5. Never heard a CD player that sounded wimpy, but if you like a warm/woolly presentation the Arcam is as near as you'll get these days I think. A Unison Unico might be better, is current (the Arcam is about 20 years old), but also way out of the budget price range if low budget is one of your mandatory requirements.

 

Try something with a Wolfson DAC - the current Cambridge 351C might be worth considering, or the Onkyo C7030 which has the same DAC I think. You'll get more mileage out of the speaker suggestion someone mentioned than via a CD player. The breadth of sound in a CD player is typically narrower than the greater diversity from one speaker to another. I can't think of anything that you'd classify as "overly warm" in terms of a CD player though.

 

To answer the original post, out of my CD players the Linn Sondek CD12 is by far the warmest, although my Ayre C5EXmp is the closest to analog that I've heard, connected to my Audio Research DAC8 it's almost indistinguishable from my S.M.E. 30/12.
A good turntable should sound neither warm nor bass heavy.

 

If you can find one the McIntosh MVP-851. For best results hook it up to the balanced outputs.

 

My present set up of Cambridge CXC through McIntosh D100 sounds quite nice indeed.
Very warm and plenty of bass.

 

I cannot speak to budget players, but, I do agree with a number of people posting above about the sound of certain players, specifically the Burmester and Linn CD12, both are beautiful sounding units with a full sound (harmonically dense and complete) and natural attack and decay (so they don't sound edgy and brittle. The player I own, a Naim CD555 shares that kind of sound (the Naim NDS server I now use in my system is a bit brighter and edgy sounding than the CD555). I have heard systems using 47 labs transport/DAC, and Ayre players that were also in this camp. I also have heard DACs from Audionote and from a very small custom builder in Italy (Aldo D'Urso) that delivers this kind of sound.

 

I prefer the terms "smooth" or even "warm" sounding instead of "bass heavy." With that in mind, the old NAD C541i or C542 would be my recommendation in the budget category. Maybe a DAC such as the PS Audio DL3 would fit the bill and cost less than $300 used.
No experience with anything newer than 10 years old as I stopped listening to new CD players years ago when I got my Resolution Audio Opus 21.

 

I love the sound of my Anthem CD1. I would not necessarily call it bass heavy or extremely warm. It provides great bass response and is not shrill like some of the cheap CD players can be. I think the best way to describe the sound is analog-like. It has a vacuum tube like the excellent Ah! Tjoeb 4000 mentioned above. (I still have one of those) I have replaced the capacitors with a combination of high quality caps using Jupiter Copper Foils in the critical spots. For a vinyl addict like me, it is an extremely close substitute for a premium turntable. They show up on the used market once in a while in the $450-$750 range and are built like tanks!

 

Edit: I'll leave this here because this was my first reaction, but I recognize it doesn't actually count as helpful. Sorry. That said, it probably is worth asking if there's something else that needs to be addressed in your system if you are looking for anything other than a neutral source.





Plus any CD player you have laying around.........