I was checking out your gear. Your speakers are very interesting to me. I’ve never hear them but I love the look and the technology. Perhaps it’s not a good fit. I have ribbon super tweeters on my speakers but not the same style. I believe your speaker have DSP room correction. Maybe you can boost the bass a bit to tweak the balance and counter the highs. Have you tried playing around with tow in and some room treatment? I don’t know how much you want to play around with it before you throw in the towel. I have room treatments on my sidewalls to eliminate early reflections. I also altered my tow-in so the speakers were not aimed directly at my listening seat. I then moved the speakers back about half a foot closer to the wall behind them. My speakers have “balance” switches on the back. A crude precursor to DSP. I played around with them and tried shelving everything over 400 hz by 2 db. I didn’t like the sound that way, so I tried just reducing the lower treble by a couple of db. All those moves made it sound worse so I reset it back to flat frequency response. Maybe it coincided with my burn in but it started sounding really good to me on both formats. Hey I’m a stereo geek so I enjoyed all that fine tuning. How do you like those speakers? I’ve read great things about them and I would love to hear them.
Thanks, I love, love the speakers. Can't be them, since the NAD sounds very, very good with them. Many of my sacds sound fantastic on the Yamaha, but the NAD redbook still bests it on some. The AP Ella Here Comes Charlie, for instance.
Yes, but the redbook was smooth a lot sooner. One thing I found with my Denon was playing only SACD 24/7 burned in the SACD playback, so maybe if you play only CD on repeat 24/7 it will smooth things out sooner (assuming you aren't already doing this.) You asked earlier about Marantz. I tried the SA8005 twice and both times it was defective, so I haven't ventured further with them. I also read this morning in a few reviews that the new 30N isn't a neutral player, which is what I want. When my current Denon dies, I will likely buy the Yamaha CD-S1000, as I have always loved my Yamaha gear (2 amps, 2 CD players) but never bought one of their CD players. By the way, did you consider the CD-S2100? Personally, I like the Burr Brown sound, so I would be going for the CD-S1000. The CD-S2100 has Sabre DACs, which I have in my A-S801. I have compared the same mastering on multiple CD/SACD players and I always preferred the sound on the player (all Burr Brown) to the Sabre DAC in my amplifier.
I was trying not to spend over $1500. I probably should run it on repeat for a while and see what happens. Frustrating about the Marantz players.
What do you think was changing in the audio chain which caused the high end to smooth out. I'd like to buy some of that. My OPPO-205 has about a half dozen filters I've been playing with; but, I'm hard pressed to hear a difference between them. They all sound "smooth" to me. That's to say, not hard or harsh. Of course, my loss of hearing over 10,000 Hz might be making me think all of my source components and DACs pretty much sound smooth.
I ran a burn in disc for about three days before any serious listening. I wasn’t implying something was wrong with the speakers just that it’s not a synergistic match. It’s part art and part science putting a system together
The burn in track (track 9) on this CD is excellent! I find the frequency sweep tracks to be especially useful, even post-burn in.
I understood, but the rest of the system just sounds so "right", it's hard to comprehend it's a synergy issue. Otoh, I could be wrong....
I suspect your speakers are more revealing than mine, especially in the upper midrange. Those Heil motion transformer style drivers are very detailed. I have silk dome tweeters with ribbon super tweeters. What I’m hearing now is more air and detail in the highs. My old player is warmer and more forgiving, but the top end now sounds a little closed or shut. in by comparison. Cymbals, bells, and triangles are more realistic sounding on the Yamaha. That might be overkill with your speakers. One interesting thing I noticed is that the deep bass on organ recordings is also more revealing. On the Harry Connick Jr. album 20 he duets with Dr John on Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans. Dr John comes in on the organ and hits some low notes. I thought my CEC really captured those notes, but the organ timbre is more distinct with the Yamaha. The texture of the sound is more accurate. That surprised me. I’m sure your set up would reveal those differences too.
I had my Yamaha CD-S1000 since 2010, bought it new. So you can have my opinion, if you want. It has been much in use. Never any issues with it, it plays all my CDs, SACDs and hybrid CD/SACDs without any hick-ups. This was not the case with my previous Sony player. But I replaced the optical laser after 8 years in use. Sound quality before modifications: I agree with you that it is very good on SACD playback, but less good on CDs, . After mods; Very good on CD playback and even better on SACD than before. Mods done on my player are Bybee Music Rails on all 7 electrical voltages on analogue and digital boards. Also Vacuumstate Terra Firma Bit clock added, and a few caps replaced on the analogue board. At least 70% of all my music played thru this unit are SACDs. I love DSD/SACD. And I find the Yamaha as an overall neutral playing machine.
Hey Pete, I finally decided to order a Yamaha CD-S1000 for myself and it arrives Monday! I'm heading out soon to pick up some deeper shelves to accommodate this deep (for me, at least) player.
Great I hope you enjoy it. Let me know how you like it. I do think mine has gotten sweeter as it has burned in. I don’t think ggjjr was that happy with the CD playback feeling it was too bright when compared to his NAD. I do think he loves the SACD playback. For me the CDs sound great too. It’s not as forgiving on CD playback as my old player but it’s more lively and dynamic. I’m loving both formats.
It's odd. Some cds sound fine, and others do not. It seems the newer the CD, the better it sounds. I do like it better now, than before, but there are certain cds that still just do not sound as good as on the nad. I'm going to continue to run both.
Yes, your positive reports were a big factor in me taking the plunge. I bought it through amazon, so I'll have 30 days to make sure I like it. Spent some time yesterday buying new shelves and today moving the Denon up and back, to use as a backup. I'm fully ready to plug and play the CD-S1000 tomorrow when it arrives:
It arrived! My girlfriend is working from home until tonight, so I'll have to wait to hear it. I did sample it a little when I first plugged it and it already sounds nice. It has that smooth, rich sound that I recall from my Yamaha CD-S300, only more refined. The player is built incredibly well. My elevator was broken when it arrived, so I had to carry the 40 pound box up 8 flights of stairs. Power cord is very small, but I had already planned to use my hospital grade 14 AWG power cord and my Nordost White Lightning interconnects. I'll get a few hours to listen tonight., but until then will be playing the burn in track on the XLO Test and Burn in CD.
Yes, the player deserves a good power cord! Remember to report back on SACD playback too. This player deserves to be feeded with SACDs!
A few questions for owners of the CD-S1000: 1. When you put a disc in and close the tray, does the display read "1," rather than the usual total number of tracks, followed by the total time of the disc? 2. Whether it has a disc in it or not, when the tray slides open, do you hear a slight mechanical, clunk-like noise? I get this and find it surprising, especially since I get absolutely no noise when closing the tray. 3. When skipping ahead to the next track, or back to an earlier one, do you get a slight static pop/click sound through the speakers when the track starts?
@Espen R - can you please describe what you feel is lacking in CD playback sound on the CD-S1000, before modifications? Thanks.
I can try Before the Yamaha, I had an europen only SACD player from Sony. That also had some modifications, done by Vacuumstate in Germany. Right out of the box, my new Yamaha sounded better on SACD than my modified Sony, but my Sony was a bit better on CD replay. The sound was a bit richer and full bodied on my Sony. The Yamaha had a very slight feeling of a «mechanical» presentation of the music. After the mods on my Yamaha, CD sounded a bit better on my Yamaha compared to my Sony. But what do you hear?
Thanks. I will preface what I am saying that my player is still brand new, with only 69 hours on it, so I am not expecting to have a clear picture. I will also say that I am a huge Yamaha fan, my first CD player was the CD-S600 changer. It lasted a very long time, with hours of daily use, and even then I only let it go because the display had faded so much I could no longer read it. I replaced it with the CD-S300, which I loved even more and thought it sounded a touch better than the CD-S600. A great, economical, super reliable player. Then, when I upgraded my speakers I wanted to get something better, I tried the CD-S700. As I had hoped, the sound was more refined, more dynamic and more powerful than the CD-S300. Unfortunately, after trying 4 different units, I gave up, as they all were defective, either making a lot of noise when the disc spinned, or unable to read the disc at all. So, I gave up on Yamaha and went with the Denon DCD1600NE, since by now I had a lot of SACDs. My first try with this player didn't go well. I found it to be bright and analytical. So I went back to my CD-S300 for awhile and then tried the Denon again. This time, it seemed better. Still pretty analytical, but less bright with a lot of burn in. However, it too had trouble reading discs after awhile, so I got a new one under warranty. Over time, it seemed to lack bass, too fatiguing at louder volumes and often not very musical. So I decided to replace it. I read a lot of reviews of different players and decided to come back to Yamaha with the CD-S1000. I didn't consider the CD-S2100 because I read reports of it being unreliable. So, what do I hear on the CD-S1000? I hear a nice bottom end, full and strong. Mids and highs still seem a bit edgy, but I expect this will smooth out in time. Comparing layers from a few hybrid SACDs, I found that the CD sounds better. Although reverb trails on the SACD layers were longer, the CD was smoother, more analog, more laid back. I suspect that this is because I have been playing CDs on repeat over the last few days, rather than SACDs. I'll need to remedy that and get some SACDs on repeat today.
I am curious, in your quest did you consider either the Marantz 30n, or Denon DCD-A110? I ask because you mentioned the Yamaha CD-S2100 which is in the same price range. It seems that these three players would offer a true upgrade, while the Yamaha S-1000 seems like a lateral move for you.
