DEar all, i am a noob audiophile just starting out...thinking about setting up a soundsystem for my living rooom. currently i am looking at buying a good CD player with a budget of around 10k USD...anyone has any good recommendation or sites i can go to to read and learn more?
So, is your budget for a CD player 10K or is it for the entire system? If it's just for the CD player, what makes you want to buy a CD player worth 10K?
You're a noob and want to spend ten grand on a CD player?
I think what you want is to find a good dealer and spend some time going through some options. Do some complete system demos so you understand which components work best together to provide your ideal system at the end of it. Then go for whatever components you can afford.
i am acutlaly thinking of spending aroudn 10k usd to get a really good cd player cause heard from some friends that its really important to get a good cd player to start of with...anyone has differing views?
Johnny, do your friends have 10K cd players in 100K systems? Have you heard 10K rigs vs 100K rigs? You may not even be able to hear the difference between a 10K cdp and a 1K cdp. Sounds like you need to start auditioning some audio equipment, and stop listening to your friends. You sound like a person with a whole lot of money, and no idea what to do with it. I'm sure there are some good hifi shops in your area that can help you. Get out there and have a listen.
I commend your friends for being source first in your hi-fi set up. How did they arrive at $10K for a target price? Steve is correct in you may not be able to tell the difference in a $1K CD player to a $10K CD player. I will offer that you can but it will not sound 10 times better, maybe not even twice as good.
I would find a dealer, Audiophile, not a big box store, and have a dialog with he or she defining what about music captivates you. Then go about listening to various set ups in an effort to find it. Dealers are invaluable in providing you with a synergistic system which is darned hard to do on your own.
I assume you know there are laws of diminishing returns. A $10,000 CD player will be marginally better than on in the $1000 to $2000 range and will take a trained ear to hear the difference. Unless you're a musician who can pick out the difference in the sound of one expensive violin vs. another or for that much one grand piano to another, you may just be paying money for nothing. Source is very important but should be relative to the cost of the other components in your system. What pre amplifier are you running, what amplifier, what speakers????
My advice for someone who's willing to spend 10K on a cd player is to spend about 3 to 4K (USD) and feed a few hundred starving kids in a third world country with the rest. The satisfaction factor will skyrocket.
All joking aside, heed the advice of the folks on the forum. Find some high end audio spots, talk to dealers and listen, listen, listen to as much gear as you can.
If you can get a home demo together that may be your best bet. Good luck and enjoy the hunt for some new gear.
My statement was tongue-in-cheek as really - it would most likely take a very experienced and good ear to make spending 10K over 3or 4K (and even a lot less) to warrant the extra money. All of us here know how good CD players can be now without going overboard on the finances. I know there are some very nice high end players we may drool over, but as long as someone is buying for their ears and not their ego is what really matters. And I make no assumption that anyone is.
So J.W. listen to the advice here and go out listen to various brands in various price ranges, But be fair and consider the whole set up and listening room for true comparisons. You may save a bundle, yet again, perhaps your ears won't let you.
As a sales person, I can tell you that in a suitable system it's a piece of cake to sell a $10k CD player over a $3k player. The difference between players at those price levels is very easy to grasp for even relatively new ears.
But the rest of the system has to be matched appropriately so a demo of $3k vs $10k CD players should have as a minimum a $3k - $6k amp and $3k - $6k speakers with appropriate cabling.
If you try to hear the difference with a $1000 amp and speakers, the system will make the CD players appear closer than they are.
Fact is, one doesn't just buy HiFi at that price for its performance only. One has to bear in mind its performance first, but also things like longevity, manufacturer backup, retailer after-sales service. Johnny needs to find out what brands are in his area, who the retailers are and then establish a rapport with them. He needs an introduction to HiFi with demonstrations using his own music. This should allow him to evaluate what flavour of system he's really interested in that also has the backup and longevity he's looking for in his area. Only then can he make conclusions on what he would really like. The dealer will also be able to help Johnny build the system over time with a decent plan of attack. Fact is, he can't think of the CD player on its own. He wants to build a synergistic solution, and for that he needs the help of a dealer who's done this before.
We can help only so much. Personally my system solution would be a Naim CDX2 CD player (around $5000), NAC202 preamp (~$2400), NAPSC2 power supply (~$500), NAP200 power amp (~$2400) and a pair of Naim Allaes (~$4000). That's a very well balanced system (and I'm a Naim dealer) which will compete with anything at the price. However, others will say to go to Bryston. Their BCD-1 is inexpensive but punches well above its weight. Yet others will point at Audio Research whose CD players start at around this kind of money. Or there's Simaudio, Classe, conrad-johnson, Jeff Rowland etc.
There are too many brands to be able to make clear direction when we don't even know his locality...
There you have it. I once listened to a $40,000+ Krell system (cdp, amp and preamp) with either Grand Piano or Grand Utopias and quite honestly it left me with the idea that spending that sort of money on hifi was an absolute waste.
I haven't listend to an expensive Naim system and many other high end brands so I defer to Frank's experience. However I still believe that, for an inexperienced 'audiophile' (for want of a better word), a very good but lesser priced cdp could be more beneficial - he might just think it was the ant's pants and save a heap for towards the rest of the setup. One can still pay a heck of a lot of money for small increments in sound quality imo.
