Seems like this player has been out for a while now in England. I'm surprised there aren't any pro reviews yet.
George are you thinking of giving this player a shot? I know you have tried quite a few in this price range.
I had my eye on it, but I saw today that it uses a ESS Sabre 9038 DAC. My amplifier (Yamaha A-S801) uses a ESS Sabre 9010K2M chip and I don't like the sound of it. Luckily, I didn't buy the amp for its internal DAC, as I am a CD only guy. When I got my current amp, I waited a few months for it to fully burn in and then compared some burned WAV files played from my laptop through the ESS DAC in my amp to the CD the files were ripped from in my Yamaha CD-S300. I compared tracks from a dozen different albums and each time I preferred the sound through my Yamaha CD-S300, which was smoother and more analog to me. The ESS had more detail, but more treble. One CD I have compared many, many times, Aja Steely Dan, Japan for USA, sounded much better on my Yamaha, which uses a Burr Brown chip.
Surprised Arcam came out with a CD Player again (I thought they gave up the ghost years back). For the same price it's main competition is the Marantz ND8006 (doesn't have SACD support but it appears to offer more on the streaming side).
Hmmm - I just tried this and it doesn't fix the issue for me - has been slightly annoying me since I first got the player but it's really only apparent for some tracks so it's bearable. But it's obvious on something like Black Cow from Aja so that's what I used to see if the update fixed it. It didn't. Anyone else finding the same thing??
Hmmm, that’s strange. I would contact Arcam customer support. How are you finding the player otherwise?
Yes - I will contact them to see what I can do now. Apart from that I really like the player. I bought it as a media streamer for trying out the 24 bit service from Qobuz. I already have Sonos and use that quite extensively with the streaming services from Tidal (Lossless) and Spotify (Lossy) but I was curious to see if there really was anything to be gained from the premium services. To my ears the 24 bit stuff sounds great - but then so does the standard 16-bit so I'm not sure yet if there's anything to be gained. I have the premium service for a year so plenty of time to try out different genres etc. I've also used it quite a bit as a CD player and it's definitely an upgrade on the Marantz player I had before - although I was pretty happy with that too! I'm probably not that demanding a listener - missing a second at the beginning of a song notwithstanding But maybe the best thing to come out of my purchase is exposure to the Arcam MusicLife app which is excellent. Provides access to the streaming services and also allows me to play my digital collection ( on a NAS ) through either the CDS50 or any of my Sonos speakers. They key thing here for me is that you can therefore bypass the limit that Sonos has on the number of tracks it will scan in your collection - something that has annoyed me ever since I got my first Sonos speaker.
Good luck! Which Marantz did you have before? Can I ask you (and others who have heard the CDS50) if it sounds a bit on the bright side?
I bought it primarily to use as a CD player, to match the SA20 amp which I also bought. I want to investigate the streaming side of things, though, especially hi res. However, I don’t want to pay £20 plus a month. I may dip into it, but like you, 16 bit sounds fine to me.
I had a Marantz CD6005 I've contacted Arcam support - just waiting for a response. Will post their response and hopefully a resolution when I get it. It doesn't sound bright to me compared to the other stuff I have - the main difference for me is the detail - especially at the high end. But as I said - I'm probably not the most demanding of listeners.
I am also getting the annoying split second missing from the beginning of tracks when playing a CD. Have reported to Arcam who say they are aware and am now awaiting a resolution. As others have mentioned the last software update did not rectify the problem. I have seen this same issue mentioned on other forums back in August 2018 so am a little concerned that Arcam have still not corrected 5 months down the line. I find it quite remarkable Arcam would start selling a device before being certain there are no obvious issues with playback. Fingers crossed this is resolved sooner rather than later. Will post an update as and when I receive a response. Anyone else think it takes what seems like forever to switch on once you've pressed the power button? Real shame as it's a great sounding player.
Has anyone tried this with an 2.5 external hard drive like the WD Elements (2TB) with a very large of music files and folders? Are you able to navigate through the folders? Thanks
I got this player when it first came out and updated the software to get rid of that 2 sec gap (won’t go into how this should have been picked up) On audio terms it’s a great player to be fair I use CD sporadically and use this mainly as a streamer - this is now in cheaper system as compared to my £4K streamer it isn’t as good (but that is obvious but it is 97% as good) and this is through a croft / ATC amps into Tannoy Legacy which reveals very small details. I have spun CD and SACD through this but it’s my only player so can’t compare to others in this price but what I’ve heard sounds very good. Streaming wise it doesn’t quite reveal as much as LINN Klimax but is a nice dark presentationand foot tapping in terms of musicality. For it price and what it does as a player / streamer / DAC I think it’s an absolute bargain
Was thinking of picking the Arcam cds50 up from an online retailer in England. I live in Canada and I know the UK has 220 v and Canada uses 120v? Does anyone that has this amp know if it can support both volts and also the mains plug is it a 3 prong North American plug type or the UK sideways plug type? The vendor said to me that the sacd player has 2 cords in the box but I am doubting that. Thanks
Hello gfong. I live in the Seattle USA area and I just pulled the trigger on this deck yesterday, buying it from a U.K. dealer, which saved me almost $500. I emailed the dealer to ask them about the voltage issue and he said there was a switch on the back of the unit to pick either 120 v or 230 v. The picture of the back shows no switch, what it does show is the range of voltage under the power plug socket. “120-230v” I believe it says, which to means that it has a self sensing power supply. All you need to do is get the right ac cord for your country and when you plug it in it should sense what your voltage is and make the adjustment automatically. And the socket uses, according to the picture, a 2 conductor cord, not a three conductor cord. I haven’t been no tiffed about shipping yet but I’ll keep the thread updated when I get it and do some playing around. Beave
I find it astonishing that a company like Arcam, that's been around for years, released a £700 player with this degree of error on it. That's rather poor QA.
Unfortunately it seems to be par of the course nowadays. A few years ago I had a Marantz ud7007 and the thing was RIDDLED with bugs! Had to almost call an exterminator!! Ended up reselling it after it was ‘fixed’ by Marantz. So this doesn’t surprise me. I’m getting a fresh CDS50 but we’ll see what the manufacturer date is and go from there. It has a 5 year warranty, which is fantastic so I’m not concerned. But you’d think they’d be beta testing their products like OPPO used to do before introducing them to the public! But even OPPO’s Had issues when released out to the public, it’s to oppo’s credit that their engineers were on top of fixes like no other company. Just talked to my friend yesterday about his buddy who, 6 years ago bought a Macintosh SACD/CD player for......wait for it.....$7000.00, It lasted 3 years before taking a dump. It took Macintosh OVER 2 YEARS to repair it properly and get it back to him....Two Years! And that’s on a Macintosh........???.?? So unfortunately we’re living in that era where these things happen but that’s why I ALWAYS prefer to buy refurbished gear when available. But again, it will be interesting to see what my units ‘Birthday’ is. And it might be helpful for the other owners here to post their units manufacturing date and maybe also the serial number. I know these cds 50’s are made in China so we might have an issue with some kind of manufacturing flaw. Beave
I had the UD7007 too. Great spec, good build, no HDCD, and useless UI which was laggy beyond belief. Bought the Cambridge 752BD a few months later and sold the Marantz. It left the 7007 standing.
The change of ownership is significant. Arcam was bought by Harman, a division of Samsung, 20 months ago. Everything that I have bought from Samsung (from tv to computers to microwaves) has failed within two years. I would never buy anything from a Samsung company ever again.
Totally understood. Unfortunately we’re living in that era aren’t we, hense my story about my friends friend with the McIntosh, and that’s MCINTOSH! So it doesn’t matter what price point we’re dealing with, the cancer has spread and one of the extremely few companies that had real integrity is gone, OPPO. But two things, first is a 5 year warranty on the Arcam, second, if there was any real major issue the two reviews I’ve read so far would have brought that to light. A boutique Audio/Video store isn’t going to carry a piece that’s going to give them headaches and possibly ruin their rep with a customer. So I do understand the feeling. But OPPO and Emotiva proved to me that not only is it possible to get premium quality electronic’s that are made in China, but also get gear that performs way beyond it’s price point. Beave
Well I’ve been reading up on the sale a bit and two things come to mind. 1 is Arcam was doing poorly money wise, which seems to make sense as their traditional market continues to shrink, and not just for them, the phones have taken over and the hi fi market as we’ve known it to be is quickly changing into only God knows what. 2 it seems that Samsung is primarily interested in Arcams engineering team rather than taking over its product line and whoring it until it dies. This I see as a good thing! The three new products have good price points and the technology seems to be there, moving forward and not being stale or going backwards. Now if these products don’t take off then Arcam might be in trouble, but I’m confident that the CDS50 will be a solid deck. And again it fits what I’m looking for which is a more basic version of the audio parts of the oppo’s. Beave
