I was switching back and forth from my Onkyo cd player and my denon 1910 dvd player and noticed that the sound coming out of the denon was much cleaner, accurate and pleasing to my ears. I used the same types of coax cables and the same cds to test out both on a vsx-52tx. I was wondering if it would be worth it to look into the denon cd players or if I should look into marantz. Either way, the onkyo just doenst sound very good. I'm curious as to why.
The best reasonably priced cd player either of them make is the Marantz CC4300. Unfortunately it's a changer but IMO it outperforms anything by Denon under 1k. I have the Marantz CC4300, Denon DVD2910 and NAD C542. For redbook cd performance the NAD outperforms the other two by a very wide margin. Between the CC4300 and the Denon I like the sound of the Marantz better. I had a chance yesterday to go A/B the NAD and Denon and it didn't even sound like they were playing the same music they were so different. The NAD was more natural and lifelike in it's presentation. Anyway to back to the original question, the CC4300 is the only CD player by either manufacturer that sounds good for music with redbook playback until you get way high in price.
I haven't heard the Denon but I did compare the c542 and the 4300 at a shop, preferred the 4300 surprisingly enough...it had more bass and more of a dynamic, lively energy. The NAD did have a smoother midrange though.
Now I'm almost tempted to ask for a home demo of the NAD since the 4300 sounds 10 times better at home on my Ascends than it did on the shop's Monitor Audio towers. Would feel bad though since I ended up buying the Marantz online and if I went nuts over the NAD would probably buy it refurbed online too! : )
good points guys...im going to look into the cc4300 by marantz.
It's tough getting these fluance speakers to sound great for everything. Im just not use to warm and detailed sounds. I listend to Athena and Yamaha way tooooo long and now everything else sounds funny to me.