The S10 was the best CD player Denon made for the European market, but I would have loved to own their reference player, the S1, which was only sold in Japan 
3 Likes
Marantz cd74
Marantz cd40
Marantz cd 63
Arcam 74(i think!)
Marantz cd 6005
Audiolab 6300cd
1 Like
Arcam Alpha - which was stolen however the Insurance money allowed me to purchase a CD3. Finally I traded that in for a CDS3 and I could not be happier.
I dread the day when it goes Tonto and I have to replace it. Not interested in streaming at all. I was a very reluctant convert to CD in the first place but the convenience and the lack of pops, crackles and clicks convinced me that I should make the move. I can honestly say I have never looked back and if by some lucky chance I won the Lottery I would not be tempted to buy a record deck no matter how good it sounded.
3 Likes
1991 Garrard
2000 CD5
2004 CDX2 still
Well my history is extremely short; in terms of stand alone players it comprises:
a Philips CD618 in 1993 (Dixons special price) - thin & dodgy sound (& build) but virtually no new vinyl was available at the time.
a Linn Karik III in 1996, joined by a Numerik in early 2000s - absolutely superb in every respect.
No CD player as such now but I still use an Olive 04HD server which has ripping facilities: it’s going strong despite being about 10 years old. All my music is now on the Olive & also a Synology NAS; CDs in storage & LP still my first choice every time (3000+ still growing).
I did use 2 generations of Arcam’s Solo which were very good (but obviously not stand alone players) & had a Myryad all in one as well.
What a long strange trip - so far!
There is a much higher end Audiolab CD transport due to be released any day now, as a product the 6000 CDT turns up in a lot of systems . In fact I wonder if it isn’t the top selling CD player.
My Naim dealer tells me quite a few high end Naim systems have it
Still have my Naim Olive CD3 or 3.5 , I had it out last year , been in the box for twenty years, within three hours it was sounding really good .
1 Like
Denon cd player
Rega Apollo
Rega Saturn
Naim Cd5x / flatcap then Hicap
Audiomeca Mephisto 2x
Naim Cdx2 then Cdx2 / Xps2.
2 Likes
That looks like serious business!
1 Like
Sony CDP70
Rega Planet
Naim CD3.5 with HiCap
Naim CD5XS sold when I bought my NDX2
Naim CD5XS (again) regretted selling so I bought another last year for my second system
1 Like
My first CD player was the Madrigal (Mark Levinson) Proceed. Then I added a Bel Canto DAC. Then I got a CDS2. Then the CD555. Now an ND555. I have ripped a bunch of the CD’s and stream them to the ND555 via Roon, which works pretty well. Naim CD players just sound so right, and I wish I could have accommodated both the CD555 and the ND555.
I also had a CD5X and a Flat Cap upstairs. I should have added a digital out to the CD5X and kept it as a transport into the ND555. We grow too soon old and too late smart.
2 Likes
My best player was a Naim CD5X that I kept for 12 years 12 . Possibly the worst for me was a Linn Karik which frequently wouldn’t read discs with 20 or more tracks.
1986–Hmm “Perfect sound forever” spouted the scribes–well after two down the gurgler marriages I sorta knew nothing lasts forever unless a bee excretes it.
Being young and dumb the silver disc might just offer something --well as I’ve discovered just something NOT everything!
Boots and all in I dived–
in Wallet draining order–
Cal labs Tempest
Esoteric P10 with Theta Basic
Theta Basic Drive with Theta Gen III and V.
Theta Laser disc player with Jadis JS1
Jadis JD1 with JS II Dac
Jadis JD3
dCS Elgar / Purcell /etc Full stack
CEC TL0 with Audio Note Dac 4x1 Bal
TLO with Audio Note Dac 5 SP
Linn Sondek Cd12
Naim CDX2
Naim CD555 ( currently with broken wing awaiting Vet service)
I must add of all the above units the Cd555 offers the most involving and musically pleasing listening experiences-it beat out some serious adversaries so Kudos to Naim on that one!
Good listening,
D41
6 Likes
Having built a nice system around a Planar 3 the next objective was to get the LP12, but money was tight, and Linn kept increasing the price. CD was appealing as a concept because the ritual of storing, caring for, cleaning, handling, and playing LPs was tedious and being a mostly rock music fan, the quality of the pressings was more often dire than acceptable, let alone good.
The best way through the obstacle course for me was to get Japanese pressings of my favourite albums, play them occasionally, and mostly use a recording of the album on a good 3 head tape deck with no noise reduction and metal tape. The CD appeared to offer another way which was potentially simpler and more cost effective. Then the labels started jacking up the price of LPs with no concomitant hike in quality.
In 1985 Radio Rentals hired me a Goodmans CD01 for 12 months so that I could try out the format at £9.99 a month and buy a few CDs to play around with. The advantages of the format were more or less cancelled out by the disadvantages which were mainly sonic: hard edged, bright, difficult at times to listen to. But there was more detail and less of the distortions associated with vinyl. After 6 months and for no additional cost I swapped to a Goodmans CD02, which was a much more agreeable player on the sound quality front and did enough to convince me to buy a CDP when the rental ended.
16X4 was appearing by this time and the comics were going wild over it. I bought a Philips CD160 on spec and learned an expensive lesson which I have lived long enough to profit from since. Happily for me I was transitioning to a new career with better pay and prospects and three months after my CD160 disaster I treated myself to a Marantz CD63 which Sevenoaks HiFi has on offer in a sale. It was astonishingly good and was the switch that threw me off vinyl and into serious CD collecting.
In a never ending quest to find what CDs were capable of, I progressed to a Marantz CD94 two years later and quickly added the off board CDA94 DAC. This supported my expanding music collection over the subsequent 13 years until the mechanism failed for the third time and I decided to replace it. This was around late 2001 to early 2002. I bounced into my local dealer with high hopes that the technology had progressed in leaps and bounds, what with Bitstream and everything. All the serious brands were now selling CDPs and they all sounded rather dull and pedestrian, with two exceptions which not surprisingly, were from Rega and Naim.
I was surprised to the point of being dumbfounded that CD playback had seemingly parked itself in such a bland, unappealing siding by 2001, but that gave a small number of really good players a distinct edge and in my price range the CD5 walked it. It’s convincing portrayal of real musicians actually playing their instruments, their timing and their interplay, made all the hours spent trying to stay awake while listening to the competition well worth the effort.
A refurbished Olive HiCap gave the expected performance lift the following year. I had long since stopped buying without audition but I made an exception for the HiCap and have bought nothing since without an audition, preferably a home one.
After that it was, perhaps predictably, CDX2, CDX2/XPS2 and money going into a fund to buy the CDS3 which was and still is my most favourtist CDP in the whole world, the CD555 having impressed but not engaged me. The CDS3 turned out to be the best CDP I never had. LAN streaming had arrived, I had seen the future and after running HDX-SSD and modified CDX2 with digital out, side by side, into the DAC/PS555 for a year, the CDX2 left the building. I have bought hundreds of CDs since and ripped them. CDs aren’t dead in this house, but CD replay is.
1 Like
1980s - Sony CD player (halfwidth)
1980s - Sony Discman
Early 1990s - Denon entry-level CD player
… used DVD / muli-disc players for playback after DVD / blurays came out …
Naim CD5si - back to using CDs for playback. I stream too but prefer listening to physical for entire albums.
1 Like
There are some seriously good CD Players mentioned in the lists above, my very separates CD Player was a 25 Disc Pioneer, followed by an 110 Disc Technics player, both were essentially jukeboxes. Things improved drastically with a Marantz CD63 KI Signature, Naim came onto the scene next with a CD5 and then a Flatcap 2, this just sounded so much better than anything else I had heard and remained a mainstay for about 12 years without any problems, replaced the flatcap for a highcap, sounded better still but go the upgrade bug again. Traded it all in for a CDS3 with an Olive XPS, then a new XPS2DR and most recently CDPS555DR got to say, CDS3 taken on a whole new level again. Hoping this player keeps going for many years yet, had Mechanism replaced shortly before I purchased. Gutted to think I will eventually have to remove away from /Naim as not changing source Rega & Audio note seem to be best bet in terms of longer term servicing support.
2 Likes
Very short list.
Meridian 506
Meridian 808
Both outstanding at their time of release, both still functioning, but rarely used.
Yes I remember in the mid 90’s Denon had a two box CD player that even in 1994 cost GBP13K. In today’s money that is certainly an eye watering sum. Bear in mind the CDS at the time was about 3.6K. Every now and then I see them crop up in high end vintage hifi shops.
2 Likes
Thinking back, Sony CDP 101 , Denon DCD 3500 , 3502 they both broke, Micromega stage 2 , Sony 777es, Phillips CD80, Meridian 504 and a G08. Audio Research CDT 1 , Theta Miles, Mark Levinson no.390s
1 Like
Onkyo Integra model unknown -First half of the 1990’s
Rotel model unknown
Naim CD5 Si
Luxman CD 3X - March 2020 till now
Maranz CD54 and then CD85. COUPLE of Philips I don’t recall and then a CD10 which was was superb. Then nothing for a long time until a Project tbox last year mainly for my partner to play CDs which gave me the bug again leading to my very recent Cyrus CDT which I’m really really enjoying
1 Like