Best CD player under £700 and under £1300?

Hi-Fi Corner
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Time to upgrade my aged Marantz Cd5001 CD player and trying to decide how much i spend on it. I spent a long time contemplating whether to actually buy a CD player or not since a lot of people have argued that FLAC on a hard drive through the Nova would be just as good. However there seems to be conflicting information and I think I’m not ready to give up on the format yet.
Not sure how much to spend on it either hence the two categories.
What would you guys recommend for below £700 and between £700-£1300 please?

I have been looking at the likes of Marantz, Denon, Rotel and Quad so far.

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For £1,100 you can get a nice used Naim CDX2. But with a Nova why bother? You could get a nas and an awful lot of music for that. Why not rip the albums to a Nas and keep the Marantz for the occasional CD play?

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If you like the marantz signiture sound
Then just get a newer marantz model and save a good deal of money too

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I have long given up on CD players. I still buy CD’s but everything gets ripped to NAS and played back via ND5-XS and Qutest.

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Since you’re on the Naim forum I’m surprised no one suggested the CD5 Si. MSRP 1299.

I know the Marantz ones are good value for money and the new CD6007 has had good reviews. I have in the past always liked NAD, so would definitely audition those myself. But I have not listened to any CD Players recently other than the one in my Star. And even that one gets used very sporadically.

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Ex demo Rega Saturn. (1,6 k new). Would be my choice. Still in production.

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if you have a DAC, you could even go for old Sony ES, Linn etc. and connect it with SPDIF.

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Probably nearer £1300 for a good one but even at that it’s a good solution to the question :grinning:

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Doesn’t the Nova digitise incoming analogue signals? Therefore, wouldn’t the best way to listen to CDs be via a transport into a digital input on the Nova? I agree with the OP, there is something enjoyable about the process of listening to a CD, as opposed to streaming a digital file.

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I had the same Marantz CD player last year. Got rid of it and bought a Naim CD5 and then stuck a Hicap 2 on it and to me is sounds excellent. So you should be able to pick both of them up somewhere between your £700 to £1300 budget.

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Yes, I use an Olive HiCap on my CD5SX and it sounds great,

The entry level CD5si is a very good player, but cannot be powered from a HiCap

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700-1300: 2nd hand CD5XS used as transport? Still spin mine occasionally, mainly to stop it feeling neglected.

<700: Meridian CD transport? Eg. 200 or 500 series.

Roger

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I would go CDX2. Although I have all my CDs ripped to NAS I still think that a CD player as an additional main source has alot to offer.

Having lived with the NDS and 555PS, I decided to add a CDS3 and XPS2. I missed my CDS2 and XPS when I sold it to fund the NDS 555PS combo.

So I can see where the OP is at.

If the quality doesn’t match then the CDP won’t get used!

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The CD5Si is good but simply not in the same league as a CDX2. Looking at £1300 vs £4500 player new.

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Just out of interest, as all your CDs are ripped, why do you feel the need to actually play them? The cost of the CDP would buy a lot of music or a better system. I can understand wanting to play records, but horrid CDs with their horrid cases, not so much.

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I was brought up with CDs and always liked them. I haven’t moved on from them as a format.

I like playing them in a similar way to vinyl.

Plus I like lots of Naim boxes!

And to upgrade my system I would need to go 552 and 500. So the CDS3 and XPS2 keeps me happy for now!

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Can’t really see why CDs are any more contemptible than vinyl. Both are ‘legacy’ formats with compromises…

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If he prefers classical music, the cd5si might well be the better choice though. That was my finding at least.

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I had the CD5Si but found the sound quality was not as good as an ND5XS. And then the CDS2 with XPS was in a different league which can be bought from around £1800.

I don’t really listen to classical music.

I found that the CD5Si matched the Nait 5Si beautifully. When I moved to a 250 and 82 with hicap it didn’t sound as good as the LP12 and ND5XS.

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Another reason to go CD5 Si IMO is that you get it new. If there’s a single component I think is worth getting new it’s a CD transport. But maybe my experiences with lasers going bad/finicky/picky have just been bad.

So essentially it’s also a choice between going new vs 2nd hand.

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