In this, my latest experiment, I decided to buy as many pre-owned / low cost CD players as I could afford for the investigation and NONE over £40 each from the major auction site.
Part #1: I wanted to determine if via my reference £100 system, I could (a) here and worthwhile improvement and (b0 if so, were these improvements consistent?
Part #2: As above BUT via my reference system circa £5k. The system details are irrelevant in this context.
What I had no interest in was:
Facilities, speed of access, what these machines looked like and other distractions.
My purchases all under £40 listed in alphabetical order:
- Akai CD A7
- Hitachi DA800
- Marantz CD63B
- Meridian MCD
- Mission DA7000R
- NAD 5200
- Philips CD101
- Sony CDP 101775601Toshiba XR 270
- Yamaha CD2
Background info:
- The only variable in the £100 system were the machines themselves
- Every comparison was played at precisely the same volume as determined by a tripod mounted sound pressure level meter at head height
- Discs included: Blues, Jazz, Classical and Soul.
- None of the machines failed to operate during the process.
Results / Conclusions
I will publish these in the next day or so. All i’ll say for now is that via the £100 system, the results were surprising in one way and via the £5k reference system, surprising in a different way. Hmm …
Part two HERE
