To finish off my budget hi-fi, I am looking to upgrade my rather old 1 bit cd player lol. I am a college student on a budget, however, and my price cap is $300. I have narrowed it down to these two players, the NAD C515BEE and the Cambridge 540C v2. i wanted to know if anyone had any input on these? I love my NAD integrated, but heard Cambridge also makes great players. Both have an equal price of $299.99 so that is irrelevant. Anyone own either of these? Thanks.
I havn't heard the 315, JO, but I first heard the 542 cdp. and most of what I have read compares very favorably between the two. I would try the 315Bee with the other NAD stuff before anything else for such a reasonable price.
Well this seems pretty unanimous lol. Works for me; I was leaning towards the NAD from what I've heard and from the fact that I'm so impressed with my NAD integrated. Since soemone mentioned it, does matching brands of CDP/amp/preamp etc make a difference? I'm new to all this lol.
Certainly does, especially when you work within the same time frame. Some stuff fits into the synergy, but sometimes the componant goes awry, or 'new', but NAD is safe and predictable.
Well, I actually am not getting the new NAD. Since I am a college student and thus inherently cheap lol, I searched Ebay and found a used, but still in great shape, NAD C 520 CDP and picked it up for $61. Can't complain there; I'm sure it will be a great improvement over my 1-bit 17 year old Kenwood lol. Now I just have to wait for it to get here...all the way from Canada lol.
Haha, thanks. I want to go to Canada! I'll let you know how the CDP turns out. I took your advice and stuck with NAD, as I found 2 other great deals, but one was a Cambridge and the other a mass-market Yamaha. I just had some Audioquest Viper interconnect given to me for free, too, which I want to test out as before I only had some cheap Wal-Mart interconnect.
Haha, I will let you know if you want them, but I have a feeling I'll keep them. My fiancée's dad gave them to me; he's huge into hifi and started building his system at 12; his first piece was a NAD 3020. His system is built around LP's though, and it sounds FANTASTIC. He doesn't listen to CD's much, but when he does he has an Arcam CD23 and man does that player sound good through those Audio Physic towers.