hi guys,for the last 10 years ive been using a sony s248 amp and a sony xe 900e cd player,for christmas i was given a yamaha rxv-359 av amp and was shocked when i put the cd player through it how much better it was,when i tried the cd through my old sherwood av amp the sound was not as good as the sony amp,ive been told its because my system is so old, i was just wondering if i get a new cd player will it be better than my sony,i was thinking of having the Cambridge Audio AZUR 340C or the marantz cd5400.any help would be great,thanks
Congrats on the new receiver. I checked it out and it seems like a very nice unit.
Now, Steve, you need to give us a little more information in order to get some real help. First, when you connected your cd player, did you use a digital connection (toslink or digital coax) or did you use common rca-type stereo interconnects? You see, if you used a digital interconnect, then the digital info was being processed and converted by the Yamaha receiver. In essence, you have converted your cd player into just a transport as the receiver itself is processing the digital info to create an analog signal useful for the amp. Thus, some or all of the improvement in sound was coming from the DACs in your new receiver. However, if you used stereo interconnects, then the improvement in sound was solely from the new amplifier.
Now, there have been some real improvements in the building of DACs in the past 10 years, but I will tell you honestly that it is very unlikely that a new CD player will make any difference to your ears if you used a digital interconnect. The only improvement will be of a higher quality transport providing a more stable digital stream, an improvement that 98% or more of all people would not hear, IMHO. But I would suggest that it is also unlikely that the CA Azur 340C or marantz CD5400 is any better transport than your old Sony (a pretty good unit for its day), assuming that your Sony is working properly (it would be very unlikely to me that there would be any problem with the sony's transport mechanism that you wouldn't hear).
Now, if you used stereo interconnects, a new cd player may well show some improvement in the sound. In that case, the Azur and the Marantz are worthy candidates. I would also recommend the NAD cd player, also in the same price range, which I think is bit better sounding. However, if you used stereo interconnects, I would recommend a cheaper solution that will tell you a bit about your system. Buy a digital interconnect (toslink or coax, it should run about $15-20) and run it off of you cd player into a digital input on your receiver, and leave the cd player connected to the receiver with the stereo interconnects, as well. You will have to go through the receiver's manual on how to assign a digital input. Call it Aux, or something like that. That way, you have the cd player connected twice with the receiver. Then play a cd or two that you really like and toggle back and forth between the two inputs. That way, you can test how the newer DACs in the receiver sound compared to your older Sony's DACs. It will give you a flavor of what a newer cd player will sound like, but only to a point. You will still need to connect a new cd player with your system to see if there is enough improvement that would justify a purchase of a new player. Often times the DACs of the dedicated cd players are much better than the DACs within a new receiver, but you cannot know until you actually try them out. People post results all the time, sometimes they like the receiver better and other times they like the sound of the cd player better.
Sorry to be so long winded, but there it is. I hope this helps.
The Tandy interconnects are at least better than the ones usually supplied with cdp's, but you can do much better. Though that's for another time. As Hawk suggested try the optical cable from your cdp to your receiver and let that do the processing. If the sound doesn't improve then a new player may be in order (I can recommend the NAD C542 for sound quality at a decent price) as the source is the best place to start for decent hi-fi reproduction.
no im a brit,tandy has long gone in the uk,shame i used to get all my bits n bobs from there,again thanks for the info il get an optical cable and try it.
Make sure your Sony cd player will accept an optical cable. My older Kyocera only accepts digital coax, not the optical, which is what made me think of this. Either way, use a digital connection to compare with the analog output.