Yamaha CD S300. Has anyone heard it?

Not anymore ! Most people on a budget today buy small mini monitors and add a subwoofer to make up for rthe missing last two octaves. Any amp that does not support subwoofer use (and even if it is via a Pre-OUT) has a handicap and won't sell to more than half of the customers it adresses.

What hiFi got it's ratings froma bunch of listeners that rate the product without seeing what is playing and yes the majority is impressed with detail and volume sparkle and stuff like that on first contact....
Long time listening is a whole other bag.
I take those what hiFi reviews with a grain of salt anyway.

If you listen to those yamaha items try them with the Yamaha 700 3 way speakers and subwoofer, sounds like inside a cathedral. Really good with a large and natural stage around you.
A perfect match imo.
Even thou the speakers hardly get mentioned anywhere ..

 

Ah, that was one assumption I came to, but didn't wan't to say it in case I sounded foolish. Nice to have a confirmation.
It's one reason why we have never liked (or should I say 'favoured') 2 driver speakers. They had to have 3 drivers, tweeter, mids and bass. We have a nice pair of Mordaunt-Short MS5.40 hooked up, don't see any reason to ditch them any time soon.

The easiest way to see if we like what the new Yam CD players are doing, is to drag our Marantz 6000ose down there, and just switch between the two. That way the speakers and amp stay the same, and the difference is the source. OK, there'as always going to some masking of the difference, as some equipment may show a bigger difference between the two source components that another, but I ain't dragging the who'll lot into a shop, and doubtful they'd let us!

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I looked a bit deeper, there are too many conflicting sources for that chips are in what. An Australian forum mentioning a mod to another product, mentioned these Yamaha's, well the 1000 and 2000. Apparently they say its the PCM1796 for the 1000 and the PCM1792 for the 2000.
I also read that the 700 has a DSD1792, and the 300 has a PCM1780.

Seemingly there is no difference between the PCM/DSD DAC chips, other than pin layout which natively supports SACD. They (1000 and 2000) both do support SACD playback. It's seem wierd then, that if a chip capable of SACD was installed on the 700 that it doesn't play SACD. Maybe, that above info is complete tripe!

 

Yamaha as a rule though is not in better dealers. Their good gear is lumped in with their common gear sold in the big box stores. That is why for gear like what's under discussion, Yamaha needs a luxury high end brand to get sold in the better high end dealers. With Sony, they have had ES because of this and Pioneer has had Elite and Onkyo, Integra. With big brands like Yamaha, the low end gear hurts the reputation of the high end lines due to the better dealers passing on the line. Not dissing the new Yamaha line here, I'd love to hear some of this gear for myself. It fills a need for affordable, well made, better than average gear at sensible prices for music lovers and audiophiles who don't want AV gear. I would love to see Yamaha get this gear into a lineup which has a chance getting into the right stores.

 

I see your point McLover, that Yamaha, if they had a premium line denotion, would appeal to the higher-end stockist, and thus would sell to the people who visit those stores. Yamaha are missing a sales opportunity.

However, I think what Yamaha are actually saying is, here's a product range. What's your budget? Select the appropriate product, go listen and let your ears be the judge. If you like shiny badges, some Japanese blokes signature, neat innovative designs with no musicality, or to 'fit in with the trend', then look elsewhere.
That probably does make an impact on profit though, but obviously Yamaha can afford it.

There's always going to be the people who shop with their ears, and buy what's right for them (within their budget), and there's the others who shop deaf, buying based purely on badly biased reviews, or based on a products brand name, despite a unanimous verdict by anyone with ears saying it sounding like trash.
I think Yamaha market themselves to a sub group of people in the group who shop with their ears, the sub group being the one's who like Yamaha's sound.

I shouldn't comment on marketing and such, it really is a lot more complicated than it may first seem. There was whole discussion once about someone selling a tutorial DVD for photography, and the feeling was that if the price was reduced, more would sell. Somehow it was explained it doesn't work in the maths department quite so easily as 'half the price, sell twice as many', and so I got confused.....

 

...well, although I'm still waffling about the CD-S700, it's still sortof relevant to the 300...well, it's near enough.

We've got the 700, and WOW, it's awesome. Exactly what Ponkine said earlier about the first impressions of the 300, that's just what we heard with the 700. It's real, involving, and silky smooth and warm. Detailed, but musical. It's not analytical, but there's plenty in the music to listen to. The depth of the sound is not like I've heard before.

It really does wonders with vocals, it makes them real and human sounding, and also clarifies multiple vocalists in a harmony. Take Fleetwood Mac "The Chain" from Rumours (Warner 7599273132, Made in Germany), where Lindsey and Stevie sing alternate lines "If you don't love me now" "You will never love me again", the two cross over, and merge, every time I have heard this before, it's just sounded garbled, but on this CDP I can actually make out the two distinctive voices and their lines. It's like that for a lot of the Abba stuff, there really are four people, two guys and two gals, singing and they can be made out, as well as acoustic guitar strumming and keyboard wash, and the cymblas.
I don't like Barbra Streisand, but her "Guilty" album with Barry Gibb (Bee Gee's) sounded soo sweet and silky, I just wanted to hear every track...

This is just soo frickin' enjoyable!

Still can't fix the absolute lack of anything below 200Hz on Cher "Heart of Stone". I've gotta get my hands dirty with some dynamic compression, and see what can be done to tastefully attenuate the treble and form some bass frequencies.


I shoved a USB pen drive from yester-year (512MB!) in, and had a couple of 16/44.1 WAV's and a 128Kbs WMA, the WAV's were not found at all. That just strikes me as rediculous that it won't play loss less. Unless I'm missing something? I've emailed Yamaha waiting their response, as every international page states that USB does allow playback of PCM only WAV files - the manuals don't mention WAV though.

Hck it's a wonderful CDP either way. Just if the USB doesn't support lossless, they shouldn't have put it on there, just leaving the CD-S300 with the USB socket and iPOD docking. Looks like Marantz got that bit right on the 6003 (but pitch control? wtf?).

 

That's my point, gear like this needs to be sold where it can be demonstrated by knowledgeable dealers and their staff. It sounds like it can compete with many higher end products so deserves better dealers who can demo it like it needs and sell it's fine sound and capabilities. In the USA, it'd be sold at some discount mart. And they're normally going to carry only the cheaper to middle surround lines. With no Yamaha deluxe audiophile line, this better new Yamaha gear won't get a chance in some markets. In Japan, people buy better gear and in the UK.

 

Yeah, it's a real shame and Yamaha just don't get it. It's probably not the best way to stay in business in this climate, especially.

I know these units have been around a couple of years now, but the price of the CD-S700 has sky rocketed. They could have been had for less than £300 last year or 18 months ago, but now we had to struggle to get it for a bit more £300, and had to have it shipped in specially. A lot of retailers want £400 or upwards now, and that's even if anyone will get it in. Seems like no one wants them. The CD-S300, yeah, loads of 'em, everywhere still, selling like hotcakes - I guess they would if it sounds as good as Pokine said.

I've found that a lot of places in UK, anyways, don't have listening opportunities. It seems the HiFi shop of the past is just that. It's now had to share it's space with A/V, and TV's Blu-Ray, and Receivers take up the space, leaving very little room, or even staff time to be spent on 2 channel gear. It's really disappointing. There maybe a couple of good shops, but they are soo far away (200 miles/4 hours). I shouldn't be surprised, the UK is crap at most things like this, they just bugger the customer over, and then watch as we come back time and time again for more.

If the USA is how you say, that's even worse than the UK. Yamaha will certainly not be making much profit at all there. A real shame, because a couple of online reviews really do hit the nail on the head. It's a really mature and sophisticated sound. Shame people won't get to hear it for themselves.

 

Well, I am still waiting on Yamaha's answer as to why the CD-S700 doesn't seem to support WAV.

In the mean time, I've been enjoying spinning discs and getting soo much more from everything] I've thrown at at. It's not just the qualities I've stressed above, it's that is is soo effortless and powerful sounding. The combination between the 700 CD and Amp really does have plenty of strength, but like a gentle giant, doesn't need to tear your head off to be seen, or heard.

I decided to convert some WAV's (which I have burned to CD-R) to MP3 and WMA to test out the USB with these two lossy formats.

Using Audacity to save using LAME 3.98 @ 320kbs CBR results were not great. It seemed as though some of the body had gone and the treble was accentuated, but not in a pleasant way. Richness was lost in Fleetwood Mac "The Chain" Rumours (Warner 7599273132, Made in Germany) the guitar at the beginning lost some of chime and natural resonance. The high vocal harmonies sounded a bit airy and floaty. The bass sounded more or less the same as the CD though. It's just like the overall feel was lost, and it felt like a lesser (older) two dimensional, digitally fake sound.

I tried WMA version 9 @ 320kbs CBR, converted by dbpoweramp, and this was almost as good as the CD. It really was quite hard to tell the CD and the WMA apart. the only difference was a slight, and I mean slight, drop in overall clarity. The WMA sounded just a bit muddled. To be honest, if the CD player sounded this good, I would be happy, it's just that knowing how good it really does sound spinning a disc, I am a little disappointed that I can't have lossless files via USB, potentially removing some jitter from the transport (which I think is doing a top job).

Lastly I had to take a long winded route, but I managed to convert the WAV's into WMA version 9 VBR 98, using Windows Media Player 11.05721.5280 to rip a virtual CD, mounted from an ISO created by MagicISO. I have tested this virtual disc creation process before, but with lossless extraction with EAC, and it worked just fine.
It was a similar affair as with the 320kbs CBR WMA file, but with just a little more muddle. Maybe just too much muddle now that I am getting used to the CD players sound via CD.

I did try a VBR LAME 3.98 encoded MP3, but I could hear the difference on my PC setup, so wasn't going to bother with that route any further.

So, maybe if you want to get one of these machines for iPOD or USB stick playback, grab the manual and convert a set of compatible files and take them to a shop (if there's a machine in stock) and listen to different files. I would have liked fully lossless support, as I keep saying, but would have assumed MP3 and WMA to sound equal at that maximum level of quality for the standard codec. They sounded as good as exactly the same on my PC rig (M-Audio 24/96 and Fostex PM0.5's) but there's either more resolving power in the Yamaha, or somewhere it just favours WMA at those bit rates.

Looks like I'll have to batch convert to WMA 320kbs with dbpower amp (a quick enough process) if I want to hear my edits on files, and what the relative volumes are like between tracks on a compilation, before burning to CD-R.

 

Yes, good things to do when demoing gear like this. The biggest problem in the USA and much of the world, is there is very little sensibly priced gear for ordinary working class music lovers sold in shops which cater to the 2 channel music listener. And most of the better shops must choose good makes not available in big box stores to not compete with their steep discounting and heavy advertising. I call this type of gear, Sensible gear. Basically an emphasis on musical sound, better performance and build and easier operation for those who want music.

 

I've had the CD S300 for about 4 months now. Solid, reliable older school sort of CD player in operation. Very clear, clean and neutral sound. I bought it because of the Burr-Brown based DAC which (although only part of the story) I have had great sonic satisfaction with on other products. I would call this one "full" meaning plenty of bass, midrange and treble.
The only thing wrong with it is that it was too inexpensive.
I'll probably upgrade with something 3 times the cost only to find diminishing or subtle differences and be left with a bitch of a case of buyer's remorse.

 

Thanks very much for this. I am considering picking up this player tomorrow.

Anyone else own one? Thoughts?

 

I finally bought a CD S300 today. I called Yamaha first and after waiting 30 minutes to speak to them, the person I spoke with assured me that the 600 (the 5CD changer) and the 300 both have the same DAC. I found this hard to believe, especially because the 5CD changer was $45 less in the store I was in and nothing online specified that the 600 came with the 24 bit Burr Brown DAC found in the 300. I haggled with the manager and got another $20 off the 300, but still paid $25 more than what they were asking for the 600. However, due to the great reviews in this thread for the 300, I wanted to be sure to get the 300.

I plugged the S300 into my amp, leaving my old Yamaha CD 697 changer connected and put a copy of Aja (Japan for USA MCA pressing) in each player then hit play for both and switched back and forth between them. The S300 better bass (as reported earlier in the thread), meaning not only more bass, but clearer bass, so that you can clearly make out the bass lines. Overall, the sound was clearer and the imaging was impressive on the S300. No blurring, just clean, natural sound. I then tried about a dozen CDs that I use to check new gear and the new S300 made them all sound at least a notch better than my old player. I have used Yamaha CD players exclusively for over 15 years and while I always loved the sound on my two previous players (both 5CD changers), this one is clear step up. I also love that, like my amplifier, the 300 has a Pure Direct button that allows you to improve audio quality by turning off the front display and turning off the digital output.

While I am very glad I bought this player, I do have a few gripes. First, the drawer doesn't open all the way, so you have to slide the first bit of the CD under the lip, potentially scratching your CD. Why they couldn't just have it open all the way is beyond me. Second, the USB port not only won't play WAV or FLAC files, it won't read the flash drive at all if any WAV or FLAC files are mixed in with your MP3s. Third, the remote is a bright silver color, which doesn't match the black exterior of the 300. Fourth, when you skip ahead, the unit pauses a second or so and then plays the next track. I prefer the old Yamaha design of simply playing the next track right away. And if you skip ahead an extra track at the end, it stops playing the CD, rather than simply playing the last track (as the old players did.) Fifth, if you have the display set to show the time remaining for a track and then fast forward, the display automatically switches to elapsed time. Old units allowed you to scan and watch the time remaining. And finally, this time remaining option used to stay enabled if you switch to a new CD and now each time it switches back to elapsed time. Perhaps these last two are not a big deal to most, but in the past, Yamaha allowed you to simply set your player once for stuff like this and it would stay set.

Visually, this player is simple and classy. It looks like a high end player. And the small size makes in easy to fit with most entertainment systems.

Many thanks to those who wrote about this player and convinced me to spend the $300 today for this player. It was money well spent!

 

Just read on amazon that a lot of people have problems with their 600, so I am even more glad I went with the 300.

 

www.Sweetwater.com has the 300 for $309 and the 600 for $389 now. The site says they are rack mountable which means, I hope, that you can add the rack ears or leave them off.

 

I've had my CD-C600 for over a year and think it's great. My CDs never sounded so good (this model replaced the previous model Yamaha disc changer that finally stopped working after years of faithful service). Highly recommended #bangforthebuck.

 

Did you ever hear back from Yamaha? My 300 doesn't play WAV files either.

 

Just called Yamaha and one of their tech people told me that only WMA and MP3 are supported by the 300 and 700.

On the bright side, this means it can play lossless, right? WMA can be lossless?

 

No.

 

Ugh. Can it go higher than MP3 320?

 

I don't believe so, though through testing (you can look up the instances shootouts were attempted), it was favorably looked as being superior to MP3.

 

I got a CD-C600 for my wife, she wanted a changer a few years back and I found a refurb CD-C600 for $250, while it sounds ok, my single play Onkyo C7030 sounds much better at half the price.

 

Ok, thanks.

I really would like to use the USB to compare lossless masterings (without burning to CD-R.) It sucks that I can't.

 

I completely agree with the interface being slow. That's my biggest problem with this player. It's slow to read CDs, slow to advance tracks and if you advance beyond the last track it simply stops. All of this is very different than both of my old Yamaha 5 disc players (two different models), whose interface was really fast, as fast as you could push the button, in fact.

But yeah, the sound is excellent, very natural and never, ever harsh.

It also reads anything I throw at it. I have discs that skipped on my old player that play perfectly fine on this one.