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tmidgett wrote:ARISE!Any suggestions? NAD 546 is up next, pending any other ideas.i recently got a 546. i like it, though i upgraded from a sony 5 disc so not much of a basis of comparison, and i'm listening to vinyl 90% of the time. i got it when i got my new amp and speakers, and the amp was NAD, so i just sort of had them throw in the CD player, too. no complaints. i think it looks cool.

I've been after a replacement player recently - the're getting expensive these days, and there are less models around at the sub 100 mark. Figured I'd buy a DVD player instead, as they're cheap - a dick move as they don't have a display. Sometimes you want to listen to music without a screen/computer around (well I do, anyrate). I've settled on using an old marantz 631 which is solid.. ..shame the remote is brokenIt's true, older models seem better built, and seem to be keeping high inprice. Arcam look good

MatthewK wrote:I use mostly Apple gear and I acknowledge its limitations in terms of expense and restriction of access. That said, it was cheap and pretty easy to switch to lossless rips.I used my dad's old Mac Mini G4 (you can pick one up for about $50 these days) with a library stored on an external drive (mine was network attached but it could be plugged into the Mini). I set up iTunes on OS X 10.5 to start up automatically. In the prefs I set it to automatically rip then eject any disc placed in the drive, to lossless quality (ALAC in this case but it can be converted to FLAC obviously), and to keep all media organised in the iTunes library. After migrating all the MP3 stuff etc to that iTunes setup, I started piling discs beside the computer and taking one out, putting one in, whenever I passed. You can do this with the computer set up on a desk or whatever for this phase. I have like 2000 CDs so it took me a month or so to work through them all. It looks up track names and artwork as you go and keeps it all foldered, each day I checked the new imports for any weirdness or errors, took 15 minutes some days.This issue of both digitizing and MANAGING music collections has become a thorn in my side. I don't do Apple, I currently have 3 Windows machines in the house, plus a few external backup drives, and I can't manage all my music, getting it all into one good, decent quality useful format, and then being able to play whatever I want, at will. Instead, I've got multiple copies, in multiple file formats, scattered across multiple machines, drives and portable devices. How the hell do you make sense of all that? I really really dislike iTunes, but haven't found a robust enough alternative. And yes, I'm sure some of these other issues are probably kerbled. But CD players? Yeah, I feel yer pain.

tmidgett wrote:Marantz...I think I'll give Marantz a shot.I've a CD 5001 and have had zero problems with it after ~9 years. Sounds great to me. No longer in production but others in the '5000 Series' may be if a used machine is a no go...

catwoman wrote:Instead, I've got multiple copies, in multiple file formats, scattered across multiple machines, drives and portable devices. How the hell do you make sense of all that? I really really dislike iTunes, but haven't found a robust enough alternative.My process was driven by that frustration. And now, having migrated everything into one library, I make that the One Thing to Rule Them All and I just copy subsets, using file converter tools like XLD, to (for example) the computer I take to work. But any new CD or download goes into the main library first, from which I copy / compress it for other devices as needed. It was a horrible amount of work to set up, but very easy to maintain.Also, FM tmidgett, I value silence a lot too, and I don't use streaming audio ever. The most stream-y thing I do is load up a couple of albums into a playlist if we're having people over, so I can just let it run without hopping back and forth to the stereo. Helps with marital harmony.

This PS1 thing must be wind-up surely? A 20-year-old console can't really sound THAT amazing?

The Marantz CD6005 is a great player that also has the usb ports and stuff I would never use, and it's under 500 bucks.http://www.musicdirect.com/p-153492-mar ... layer.aspxSince we finally have a good tv, I'm pretty sure the next cd player I buy will be a Blu Ray player. http://www.musicdirect.com/p-178526-opp ... aQodgR8GjA

>a Sony PS1 (one of the "audiophile" ones, certain serial numbers or something)This is what I use.

Yeah, I understand the appeal of networking all your stuff off a hard drive. But I'm not a streaming kind of person. I value silence, so being able to play stuff endlessly isn't a plus for me. Plus I don't like CDs all that much and am therefore unlikely to spend much time dumping them to a hard drive etc. etc.Marantz...I think I'll give Marantz a shot. This NAD is a bit clinical sounding. Very likely this is my last CD player, so I might as well get something about which I am not totally ambivalent.I did have an Arcam once--sounded good, broke eventually.

I have an Oppo BDP-83 universal player with 7.1 outputs as well as HDMI de-embed of TrueHD audio. I've been happy with it, for as often as I actually get to sit down and listen to multichannel source material.