I think i have a couple of options to look at.
For pre-owned:
Meridian 500 series (bit old now but I do like the idea of having one of these)
Cyrus (a few fall within the £500 budget, a little concerned that some people have had disc reading issues with them. Its also a slot loader would prefer a tray)
Naim 5si (unlikely to see one for £500, but you never no)
Rega (looks like the older ones are in budget, top loader probably a good option as there is no tray mech to break but that means it would have to sit on top somewhere I can open it)
New options: (probably the most sensible one as I can demo them easily and they have warranty)
Audiolab 7000cdt (6000 is well within budget but it is a slot loader and that bothers me)
Marantz 6007 (everyone says its great so should put my previous experience of marantz behind and give it a chance)
Now onto connecting a player to the Nami system:
Is it best to use a digital coax or optical??
Is the NDS5 XS2 DAC any good? I assume its better that the second hand options I have been looking at due to it being newer, but what about the Marantz 6007?
Tbh, I would be reluctant to buy a s/h cd player now, as it seems price inflation has really impacted hifi gear.
I have an old Sony CDP761E with remote control which I bought in 2009, for which I paid £10.51: 15 years later, they seem to average £100-ish.
There aren’t many cheapish cd transports, and they all seem to be slot-loaders. (I could be wrong here, of course).
My suggestion would be either a Marantz 6007,or Audiolab 7000, use the DAC in the Naim, buy it from Richer Sounds*, and get their 6 year extended warranty, which is fully refundable after 6 years if no claim is made.
Needless to say I have no relationship with RS other than as a" VIP customer" etc etc lol.
Re: SPDIF and Toslink, I would probably err on the side of SPDIF without any empirical evidence here
They shouldn’t sound different however I too use a vdh one between Teac CDT and Chord Qutest, it certainly was an improvement over others I had and tried.
I have a AudioLab 9000 CDT (tray loading transport) and find it to be very good. If the 9000 is out of your budget, then the 7000 is I believe, very similar. As to coax or optical, you can use either, but optical is not able to move (or at any rate, very unreliable with) signals of 96 kHz and over. That is not a problem for a CD transport of course. If you go optical then get a good quality cable that fits snugly at each end, if you go coaxial then be sure to get a good quality 75 Ohm cable. Good quality here does not mean that you need to spend silly amounts of money, just avoid the really cheap stuff.
I’m in the same boat as the OP. I have a 300dr/282/scdr/NDX2/XPSDR. Am I best going for a Rotel CD11 tribute cd player or an Audiolab 9000cdt? Is the dac in the NDX2 better? What would produce a better sound?
Get a decent transport like you have suggested, and pipe it into the ndx2. If you have money still burning a hole, replace the xpsdr with a 555dr. Job done.
I’d go down the route of Roksan Attessa CD transport and feed it into the ND5. The DAC In the ND5 is much better than any you’d find in a £500 CD player
Why do you want to know? The DAC chip itself it implementation dependent. Two devices can use the same chip and be $5k apart in price and performance. The processing stage prior to the DAC and the analogue output stage after the DAC as well as the feature flags used on conversion will massively affect performance.
If you are trying to ascertain whether two devices might sound or perform similar based on the DAC chip used, it seems like a logical line of investigation but unfortunately is a fool’s errand.
I prioritize system integration above total life expectancy. I bought a used c. 2009 CD555 non-DR 10 years ago and am informed by both of my dealers there is little market to trade one now - “better keep and enjoy” (which I am doing as I type). That sounds like an opportunity on the buyer side, to me, if you can find a seller.
Not only do the old Naim CD players sound great, the NARCOM remotes control them.
If I did not think the Naim package pro/con was worth the downsides, I would buy the Marantz new, based on the demo I had. Great player.
But I would prefer a clean used Naim CD every time, if I had a Nait or NAC, at this time. CD5X/XS is a particularly sweet performer for the money. I owned both.
I have owned five CD players since 1983-4. Not one of them had to be scrapped or even repaired while I owned it.
