I still remember the first time I heard a CD player - this was at some teenage party back in the mid-1980s and I was rather impressed how loud it played. Hey this was before I knew what being an audiophile was. It was a year later when my dad bought a Magnavox player for his system. I spent a mighty chunk of change - $22 - buying a Misfits compilation that, sadly, ended up sounding very bright, thin, and irritating to the point where a headache soon came on. Later, in college, when I got into tube gear, I owned a Theta Basic DAC. However I still thought my Thorens TD-166 turntable with a $20 Grado Black cartridge served the soul of music much better.
Years later there was a time that I was into digital. By then vinyl was getting harder to get a hold of and the CD re-issues were pumping out some excellent compilations of rarer groups. I started experimenting with several DIY modifications and designs. For example, the transformer-coupled RAKK DAC was one of the better iterations of digital I have ever heard. But in the end it was analog that won my heart. Over the years my CD collection continued to shrink while my passion for vinyl increased and became the focal point of my system.
Time marched on - CDs are now ridiculously cheap. From a purely music lovers point-of-view, they are an easy way to build a music collection, especially compared to the now high price of vinyl. I decided once again to buy a CD player, hoping that technology has improved the Red Book standard.
But what to get? I searched through Ebay and Audiogon, looking at several vintage models. Ideally I wanted something with a digital out so I could experiment with DACs in the future. Accessories 4 Less came to the rescue with a refurbished Denon DCD-600NE player that featured a 32 bit DAC and AL32 processing that - to quote their website - "expands audio data to 32 bits and uses a proprietary algorithm to interpolate the data and perform up-conversion and sampling, achieving a playback sound that is close to the original source." So, as my friend likes to joke, "Perfect Sound Forever just got MORE perfect."
The Denon DCD-600NE is a stripped down player and - shockingly - has a metal enclosure. If you want to use the full functions - random play, direct mode, track programming, etc, - this is where the rather large remote comes into play. Digital out is via Optical - not ideal - but this may point to a future Schiit Bifrost 2 DAC upgrade.
So how does this little beast sound? Initial impressions weren't the best. There was a forwardness to the sound that was tiring, along with a sense that, compared to even my lowly Dual CS5000 turntable, that 20% of the musical information was just missing. What I mean are the spatial cues were gone, rendering the voice and instruments as very two-dimensional. A good reproduction system should have depth along with breadth, transporting the listener to the mind of the producer, or with some classical recordings, to the venue itself. Instead the Denon reminded me once again why I prefer vinyl for home listening.
After a few days of break-in I decided it was time for some comparisons against two different turntables along with some general impressions.
The forwardness was reduced but there is no other way to say this - this budget Denon still sounds like digital. Compared to the same LP, the CD is missing reverb cues; either the room or artificial. An example of this is Willie Nelson's Stardust. The body of the acoustic guitar is gone, leaving just the top layer of the guitar notes. The "black background" sounds uncanny but not in a good way. It's like a black hole of information - nothing is there! - compared to the warmth and fullness of analog which captures the space of the room and the size of the instruments. It feels as if the music has gone through some kind of horrible clinical ward, stripping off the flesh of the music and leaving only the bones.
Now that does sound like a harsh review. To be fair some CDs were better than others, like a few Chet Baker albums in my collection that sounded quite good. Jazz is usually well-recorded but I still preferred my LP versions - even with my second turntable, a budget Dual CS5000. At least with analog my brain connects to the music and I can relax. With digital I am still gritting my teeth and feel uncomfortable with the overall presentation.
Maybe a DAC will bring some improvements. We shall see!
System:
- Audio Research SP8
- modified Eico ST70 with 6AR6 tubes
- Cardas Neutral Reference interconnects
- KEF R500 speakers
- Dual CS5000 turntable with an Ortofon OM20 cart, aftermarket Shibata Stylus
- Thorens TD309 with Ortofon 2M Bronze
