What Hi-Fi? Awards 2025: new faces meet old favourites as five-star CD players keep the humble disc alive and kicking

There was a time when the best CD players category was in danger of going slightly stagnant.

Perhaps the best way to think of the CD Awards category is one of peaks and troughs, or indeed stops and starts, like traffic moving through the M25 at rush hour: sometimes things are whizzing along nicely, at other times things can get a bit... static.

This year, we have movement! We’re not racing along in the outside lane at 70 miles per hour, but 2025 has seen a new entry join the established names that were threatening to monopolise this corner of the market.

Returning are old favourites, with all the models below proving you can get proper performance at a range of prices to bring out the best in your prized collection of shiny discs

An old warhorse continues to do battle

Once again, our go-to choice as the most affordable winner in What Hi-Fi?’s best CD players category is the Marantz CD6007, a low-cost legend which brings together excellent performance with a reassuringly functional build.

The CD6007 is our pick as the best player under £500, and as an entry point for would-be buyers seeking to get their CDs spinning without forking out a mountain of cash in the process. For that price and with this sort of performance, you really can't go wrong.

Arcam is having a very good year

Moving up a price bracket, we once again find the excellent Arcam CD5, part of the Radia Series which gave us the likes of the five-star A5 and A15 integrated amps (both of which have now been superseded by their A5+ and A15+ successors).

The CD5 has established itself as a firm favourite in the £500-£1000 category, cementing its reputation as a “tremendously talented player”. As we said in our review, the CD5 "deserves an audition if you’re still holding on to your beloved CDs and want to give them a new lease of life".

That’s three wins on the bounce for the CD5, and unless Arcam decides to give us a ‘Plus’ version, we wouldn’t bet against it making it four from four when 2026 rolls around.

Never leave us, Cyrus CDi

Once again, the Cyrus CDi is the next step up this particular ladder as the best disc spinner between £1000-£2000.

Few products in history have held onto their place with such a vice-like grip as the CDi – it’s a testament to the player’s quality that we still use one in our reference system to this very day.

At some point, the CDi will be ousted, but we're yet to find a player out there that beats the evergreen superstar for insight, entertainment and musicality.

It might look like a big old hunk of metal, but this is a supremely refined, wonderfully engaging operator that has been digging the detail out of our discs for years.

There's a new Cyrus in town

If you read our roundup of the Award-winners in this particular category last year, you may know all of the above already. Get to the new model, you’ll be (metaphorically) shouting at your monitor as you (again, metaphorically) curse our name to the heavens.

OK, we’ll stop beating around the proverbial. The five-star Cyrus 40 CD is our new pick as the best CD player over £2000, marking itself out as the only debutante on our esteemed rundown.

At £2995 / $3995 / AU$4999, it isn’t cheap, but thanks to the way it juggles subtle detail and rhythmic precision with punch, power and superb control, it’s more than capable of making you very cheerful.

Cyrus Audio’s 40 Series of products essentially marked a rebirth for the British brand, reimagining established products, such as the Cyrus 40 ST streamer and 40 AMP integrated amplifier, and making them shine for a new generation.

The 40 CD does just that for your CDs, and if you’re really serious about getting those shiny bad boys firing at their best, you need to consider taking Cyrus’ star attraction for a spin. It'll make you forget about your vinyl collection altogether...

So there you have it – a lovely blend of new and old, as well as the affordable and the premium, makes up our 2025 Awards rundown of the best CD players you can get your sticky mitts on.

Vinyl may be the one getting all of the attention – and there are certainly plenty of stunning turntables to match its continued revival – but the likes of Arcam and Cyrus prove that the physical media revival extends far beyond vinyl. Happy days.

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