Have your say & ask the experts

After many hours of research, I have finally shortlisted my choice of CD player to a Moon Nova (2nd hand), Roksan Caspian or Rega Saturn. Unfortunately, I do not have the chance to compare them side by side. Therefore I hope to be able to get some advice on the strengths and weaknesses of these 3 players. My amplifier is the Vincent SAT1/SP T-100 and speakers is Aurum Cantus Music Goddess. 

Moon Nova if you want to add some sparkle to your warmish set up otherwise Saturn's natural sound would be well match. Nice speakers :-)

Thanks, Thaiman. The Moon Nova sounds very good indeed with my setup. But I am a little concerned over its age - it came out in 2003 if I'm not mistaken. I somehow have the thinking that digital devices undergo rapid and continuous progress and 5 years is a long time. Should I trust my ears or my logic?

By the way, it 's funny you didn't mention the Roksan Caspian at all. It just won the group test in What Hi-Fi. 

The reason I didn't mention Roksan Caspian only because I never heard the new range! I didn't like the cheaper Kandy I had all that years ago so since then I, unreasonalbly, gone off the Roksan electronic! (Speakers they made were amazingly good though)

As for digital age, I personally think that they are at the peak few years ago. Newer up-sample sounding machine cater for different taste rather than one being a lot better than another one at the similar price range.

For example, The AudioNet Art V2 still fighting off newer machine after all these years (2003 released). If you ever visit Cyrus Forum you also may heard that CD 7Q is prefer over their newer range by many die heard fans. Linn Genki is another sort after item even 8 years on
If it was build right in the first place it will sound right 5 years later!

Only released in 2003?? LOL - my last player I bought in 1998 and it lasted until 2007, doing sterling service until replacement by my new (used) (built in 1994) Linn! All sounds fine to me just now.

Seriously, five years? Barely warmed up!

OK, I must admit that I'm new to HiFi. I work with computers and is very much aware of Moore's law: Processing power doubles every 18 months. And I thought DAC's require a lot of processing power ...

But you guys are probably right as processing power is just part of the equation.

As long as cd player is not run on window 98 eh..the blue display of death :-)

ST Chan wrote the following post at Thu, Jul 03 2008 2:26 PM:

"I somehow have the thinking that digital devices undergo rapid and continuous progress and 5 years is a long time. Should I trust my ears or my logic?"

There is a rapid improvement, but not so much concerning cd-players. Cd-players always play 16 bit 44.1 khz material; quality in cd-player and Dac design differ, but much depends on the right implementation. I.e trust your ears!

Actually the only thing thats happening in digital music replay currently is a switch from cd-based sources to computers as a source. When using a computer, there is more room for flexibility, downloaded music at 24 bit 96 khz from Linn records for instance. Going this route a a dac that can play higher bit rate files would be necessary.

If you work with computers, why not look into the Transporter. Rip all your CDs losslessly, stream through a very highly regarded streamer, that also doubles as a DAC (which you can plug in your old CD player)

Not for everyone (just yet), but its the future (just like garlic bread)

Actually I have done that already - I have ripped all my CD's and in WAV format, no less. But the problem is choosing a good DAC. There is much less information on DAC than CD players and much less consensus on what are good DAC's. In fact, my initial thought was to get a DAC to play music directly from my computer and forego a CD player. But I found out that choosing a good DAC is more difficult than choosing a good CD player. So I have come to this current state where I decided I will first get a good CD player. With my amp and speakers, I at least have some sort of a reference system and can afford to take my time in getting a good DAC.

 

By the way, I am quite attracted to the Audio Note DAC which uses no up or over sampling. Sounds like a good idea to me but I have yet to listen to one.