CD Player Review

Rating the CD player reviewers

Standalone CD players are an endangered species. High-end players at equally high-end prices are still produced for the audiophile who demands the very best and has a budget to match. For the rest of us, however, the pickings are getting slim.

Budget standalone CD players have been largely usurped by the plethora of low-cost DVD players that do an adequate -- and sometimes outstanding -- job in playing audio CD discs as well as DVDs. Additionally, it's no secret that music downloads have seriously eaten into the popularity of physical media, including CDs. Most current audio/video receivers have some type of digital music player input, making it as easy to enjoy your iPod or other MP3 player at home as it is on the go. While audiophiles might cringe at using an iPod or a DVD player as a music source, the cold, hard truth is that for the many people, standalone CD players are becoming an afterthought -- or even a relic.

Still, some very good standalone CD players at relatively budget-friendly prices continue to be introduced and produced. To find the very best options, we looked for professional and user reviews for guidance and were happy to find some excellent information. The breezy reports in Britain's What Hi-Fi? Sound and Vision are among the best for learning about CD players. That magazine looks at lots of CD players, including more moderate- and budget-priced options than any other reviewer. Some of the players are only available overseas, but many are also available in versions for the U.S. market. CD player reviews from The Absolute Sound and Playback magazines can be found at AVGuide.com; while the reviews themselves are excellent, the site is a chore to use. GoodSound! and Stereophile magazines also have some great and highly detailed reviews, though the focus is more on high-end CD players.

Consumer Reports does not have CD player reviews or ratings, but their latest overview article is at least free to read. Amazon.com and Crutchfield.com top our list of places to read owner feedback.

Do more expensive players sound better?

When selecting a CD player, reviews tell us that there are a number of good choices available for $600 and less. At the same time, we came across lots of audiophile-grade CD players with price tags of $2,000 and more; one, the Burmester 069 CD player, carries a suggested price of just under $50,000.

The natural question is, what do you get for the money with those high-end players. You certainly get bragging rights, for those who take pride in such things. You also get more features, higher-quality electronics and better build quality. But whether or not you get better sound is subject to debate.

In researching this report, we found lots of purple prose extolling the sonic virtues of high-end CD players, but not every expert or user is convinced that there is that much of a difference in sound quality between high-end CD players and mid-priced or even budget choices. You can count Clarke Robinson of EnjoyTheMusic.com as a skeptic. "Truth be told, I've never found anything but minute differences between any two digital source components," Robinson writes in his review of the now-discontinued Marantz CD5001. He adds, "While sonic differences between digital source components do exist, they don't make as much impact on the overall enjoyment of my audio system as factors like price or ergonomics."

Perhaps nothing illustrates the fact that CD player sound quality may reside mostly in the ear of the listener as an apparently dead-serious review of the Sony PlayStation 1 as a CD player in Stereophile magazine. Despite "pretty poor" test bench measurements, John Atkinson says that when he listened to music on the PS1, "it sounded relaxed and informative in a manner I would not have expected from this measured performance." Reviewer Art Dudley is more impressed. "If I owned any of a number of other digital source components, and if my daughter owned a PlayStation 1, I would offer her a trade -- although I don't know what possible use she could have for the former, and I don't know if I could shake the guilt that comes from getting the better part of the deal," he writes. Given that Stereophile typically reviews high-end CD players, rather than used devices purchased at online auction for $15 (as was the case with the "evaluation unit" procured for this article), such conclusions are certainly food for thought.