I've had mine about 5 months now. I really enjoy it. Listening to solo classical guitar (Liona Boyd) right now through a Musical Fidelity M6si into a pair of Harbeth P3ESR's and it sounds really beautiful.
It's a good player, but mine sounds dramatically better when I use it with my Teac UD-H01 DAC rather than the stock DAC. There's a bit too much hype on this player frankly. But at bottom line price you certainly can't go wrong in this day and age.
I bought one of the Onkyos as well at $139, think highly of it, and would recommend it. You're quite right, not only does the Onkyo sound much better with an external DAC (Schiit Bitfrost Uber), but so does the Rega Apollo I just upgraded to. Funny how even a $1200 player (which I got for $325) benefits from an outboard DAC. I wonder what price point you need for a CD player that it would sound best on it's own? As for me I'm satisfied now, on to other sonic issues!
Anyone have any idea what the going rate for the 7030 is. I see it's about $179 on Amazon. Is that a decent price?
I think that's the price point it's been at for a while and I think it's certainly worth $179 for such a solid player.
New guy here, just bought this player last week to replace a Harmon Kardon of 2002 vintage. Have played it for a week and it sounds great and played everything....til last night. Got to a point in the middle of a cd when I heard crackling sounds and then it just quit. This cd worked in other players previously, so I put it in the cd-rom of my computer and it worked fine. Not sure what to make of this as other cd's have not exhibited this behaviour. What do you think, try it for awhile and see if other cd's do this? Or back to seller? I really like this player and bought it based on recommendations here. Thanks edit: just to be clear, the player is working fine on other cd's as of right this minute.
New guy here also, purchased a 7030 last week and it skipped on every cd put in. Sound quality was ok, however this unit was produced in Jan of this year and does not have the wolfson dac. At some time they changed to a budget AK4482vt chip. Had a Cambridge 640c v2 years ago and the Onkyo sounded nothing like it. I see many retailers still advertise the Wolfson dac in the 7030. Onkyo doesnt list in on their website either. Just an F.Y.I.
Sounds like you got a dud. I've been running mine constantly for 2 weeks without issues. Where did you get it? I'd return that unit.
Amazon, I was dissapointed when i heard about it not having the Wolfson Dac also. I have been using my Denon dvd2800 as a cd player for a few years now and after reading all of the hype on the Onkyo and the Wolfson Dacs I made the purchase. Im sure its a good player, but with the skipping and not the dac I expected, returning it was my only option. Back to my trusty old Denon.
There were reports of a bad batch at Amazon US, which is why we didn't buy it there. This is a case where buying a refurbished model is a safer option I think. That's what we did. However, I didn't open mine to check the dac chip. Was yours made in Malaysia or elsewhere?
Mine has been on 24/7 for almost 3 years now without a single issue. The spare refurb I bought I let run for 2 weeks 24/7, did not exhibit any issues. Luck of the draw I guess.
Wrong, Onkyo's web site still lists the Wolfson DAC in the C7030. Direct off their web site: Overview Features Specs Downloads Dealers Connectivity Shuffle/Random Play ✓ Direct Track Access by remote Digital Output (Optical/Coaxial) 1 Optical/1 Coaxial Analog Output (Fixed) ✓ RI Remote Control ✓ Plays MP3 CDs, CD-R/CD-RWs ✓ Vector Linear Shaping Circuitry (VLSC) ✓ Wolfson® 192 kHz/24-bit DAC ✓ Repeat and Random Modes ✓ 2 digital outputs (optical/coaxial) ✓ Headphone Jack w/ Volume Control ✓ High-rigidity, anti-resonant chassis ✓
Depends on what part of the Onkyo website you are looking at. Newer product catalogs and spec sheets on the site don't mention a specific brand of internal DAC. The manual is from 2011 and never updated. Some sections on the site might also be not updated.
It will be black chip and have some numbers on it. Those numbers will correspond to a brand/model of DAC chip.
I don't feel like opening my CD player, so I contacted the dealer and Onkyo by email. The dealer couldn't answer the question and referred me to Onkyo via a phone number. He suggested I call rather than email, so I did. The rep I spoke to by phone said they can tell you what year your CD player is made if you give them the serial number. Mine was made this year. He then went on to say that all these should still have Wolfson chips. Now, it is possible that he was misinformed and simply wouldn't know that much about production/specs. This would not surprise me. It is entirely possible that whatever factory is making these in Malaysia is allowed to substitute certain parts in the units per their instructions or contract, e.g. "Wolfson XXXX DAC or functional equivalent". The only way to know with 100% certainty is to simply open the hood of your unit and look for yourself. The phone rep I spoke to said this would void the warranty, which may or may not be true. Just putting that out there in case anyone cares. @John Saunders, the only reference to the AK4482 chip I could find was on a Japanese website (in Japanese, I used Google Translate) where it seemed like a DIY tinkerer bought one in Japan and wanted to mod it. That person noted the AK4482 DAC and various things about the transformer and capacitors inside. My advice would be not to buy one of these if you have your heart set on a player with a Wolfson chip inside. I don't know what chip mine has (I'm not opening it), but I have no issue with the sound. I would also suggest staying away from Amazon for this player as they appear to still have units from a bad batch. I'd look at refurbs from Accessories 4 Less or maybe from Onkyo direct. One more thing: as noted in other threads, the instructions state that you are not supposed to stack other components on top of the CD player. If you've got anything resting on top at all, it could cause skipping. I have my DAC and Phono Pre on top of the CD player but they are very light weight and have not affected the performance of the CD player in any way I can tell.
Thanks for all of the responses. I never stack equipment, have a custom made stand with plenty of room and a double top with heat channels. I was really looking forward to this unit performing based on the Wolfson dac. Possibly the Wolfson units sound
Hit the reply button accidently, ooops. The unit I had was an underperformer. Didnt have a Wolfson based unit to do a side by side comparison. Not sure if there any sound differences. Was hoping to get a bargain cd player based on all of the great reviews! It would be interesting to see if someone has both units, one with WM dac and one with AK dac to compare and see if sound quality has suffered.
You should send that pic to Onkyo and ask them to remove all references on their site and dealers' sites to the Wolfson chip.
You spent more time on the phone then it would take to open that sucker up Is there one of those security stickers/tags on the unit? How would they know if you opened it?
Possibly. Re: security tag/sticker, not sure but I didn't want to chance it. People with units of older manufacture dates said there was none.
I don't doubt manufacturers are shady but this seems a bit far fetched. I just bought one of these used at a local shop, it has the manufacturing date on the back along with the serial number. I would gladly open mine up but it's under a int. Amp and a dac stacked directly on top of it at the moment. It hasn't skipped a beat yet and it's definely seen some use in its day. If anything stacking only serves to provide transformer feedback problems, which I don't have, and heat problems. Putting mass on the chassis should probably help with physical dampening but even that seems unlikely.
If the player was skipping even when set up properly (which it sounds like it was) then you got a dud, pure and simple. It wouldn't matter what DAC chip it had, still a dud. I'd return that too. And yeah, a comparison of the two different "versions" of the players would be interesting to read. I know at least one person here bought more than a couple of these units to put them in different systems. Maybe that person has more than one "version" in their collection.
You are correct! When I decided to purchase a new cd player, my search criteria was cd players with WM dacs. I read about the 7030 here and numerous other sites. Hence my purchase. There is a following on the WM chips similar to the now obsolete TDA1541 used in so many players years ago. I researched both chips and there is significant differences in these chips. One has 20 legs (WM chip) and the AK has 16. It took a new board revision to implement this chip. In my opinion Onkyo sells a lot of these players based on people liking the WM chips. I am shopping for a new Integrated amp and the Onkyo 7050 was on my short list, however I'm not confident that that uses the WM chip as advertised either. My intent was not to put the 7030 down whatsoever, just wasnt as airy in the highs as the WM chip I had for years. Thanks for the replys and I hope this helps anyone make an informed decision about the current 7030's on the market. Cheers!
Two different manual excerpts here. One from 2016, another from 2011. The 2016 does not mention Wolfson. The 2011 does mention Wolfson. The 2016 manual page came from the Onkyo EU site, the other from the USA site.