Disc Players

Review: Tim Jarman, Lab: Paul Miller | Sep 23, 2019

While first to market with a portable player, Sony soon found itself overtaken by rivals. Its answer was a now-iconic machine, driven by a belt. But how does it sound today?

Sony's original D-50 'Compact Disc Compact Player', released in late 1984, was the first practical portable to reach consumers. Named to commemorate the company's 50th anniversary, the player's ¥50,000 price tag ensured that it dominated the market. However, the fact that it cost ¥100,000 to manufacture meant that this came at some expense to Sony.

Disc Players

Sony Scd Xa5400es (£1200)

Richard Stevenson & Paul Miller | Mar 05, 2009

Just occasionally very creative people can pair two otherwise completely incongruous items and come up with something truly special. Take strawberries and cream: who would have thought mixing a ground fruit with the soured milk of a lactating mammal would sire an international tennis tournament and two weeks of eastern European girls running around in short skirts? Marvellous. But an SACD player with a traditionally video-centric HDMI connection? I’m not so sure. The reason is multichannel SACD audio and getting that data to an external DAC with almost zero jitter.

Disc Players

Soulnote S-3 Reference

Review: Ken Kessler, Lab: Paul Miller | Oct 14, 2024

Still big in Japan, the SACD takes pride of place in Soulnote's 'ultimate digital playback system' that also includes the option of digital filterless conversion and external clocking

With Soulnote having already proved its analogue mettle in these pages with the E-2 phono preamp , does the brand have similar prowess with digital? And not just with CDs, for this S-3 flagship is a fully-fledged SACD player.

Disc Players

Soulution 540 (£17,850)

Paul Miller | Nov 19, 2011

Swiss player combines SACD replay, digital inputs and sumptuous aesthetics to great effect The new 540 SACD ‘Digital Player’, a snip by Soulution standards at £17,850, benefits from the trickle-down of technology from its flagship 745 model. Finish is sumptuous, and the curved edges of top panel and front fascia combine to soften the 540’s physical presence, making it disappear more than most big hi-fi boxes, leaving one to focus on a single rotary dial, a meagre trio of buttons and a slender disc drawer. Screw heads, heatsinks, logos, etc are absent. Digital inputs include coaxial, optical and balanced connections which can all handle incoming data up to 192kHz/24-bit.

Disc Players From the Vault

Space age CD

Martin Colloms | Jun 03, 2022

At last, Krell Digital presents its CD player system, the MD-1 transport plus SBP-64X, and the less costly SBP-16X DAC. Martin Colloms listens

Krell has determined that digital audio should form part of its future, and has created a separately financed division called Krell Digital Inc. The MD-1 digital transport was shown last year together with the SBP-64X processor/decoder – an amazing combination at a price which left the industry breathless, being around £15,000 the pair.

Disc Players

T+A MP 200 Networked CD Transport

Review: Jamie Biesemans, Lab: Paul Miller | Mar 24, 2023

The final, or should that be first, component in T+A's 200 series quartet is a CD-playing, network-attached media transport that boasts a proprietary 'SYS-Link' connection

After delighting headphone lovers with the HA 200 DAC/amp [HFN Aug '20], which nicely matched the Solitaire P headphones introduced at the same time, T&A has been on a roll. The HA 200 transpired to be just the first in a range of units forming the new 200 series – all compact separates, but all designed to dovetail seamlessly together.

Disc Players Network Audio Players/Servers

T+A MP 2500 R digital media player

Review: Andrew Everard, Lab: Paul Miller | Aug 01, 2018

'Bridge' digital sources, the link between conventional physical media and computer-based audio, are very much on-trend at the moment – what can T+A bring to the party?

So, are the twin threats of downloaded music and streaming services putting the final nail in CD's coffin? In the future will our music collections exist only as files on a home server, or indeed not as collections at all – figures seem to suggest downloads are flagging – but rather as infinite libraries accessed on demand from online services?

Disc Players Outboard DACs

T+A PDT/SDV 3100 HV SACD Transport/DAC

Review: Andrew Everard, Lab: Paul Miller | Dec 05, 2019

Are the days of the disc almost over? Evidence to the contrary comes in the form of this flagship SACD/CD transport and network DAC/preamp from T+A's 'High Voltage' series

I think I can be pretty confident in saying there aren't too many new British hi-fi components out there whose development has been government-funded. Clearly they do things differently in Germany, where the Federal Ministry of Economics and Energy underwrote the design and development of the network-capable DAC/preamp forming half of the subject of this test, T+A's £23,400 SDV 3100 HV. The project has borne fruit in the behemoth of a digital converter you see here, all 26kg of it, described as a 'Super High Definition Audio DAC with bit-perfect data transmission and resolutions of DSD1024 and PCM768'.

Disc Players Vintage

Technics SL-P3 CD Player

Review: Tim Jarman, Lab: Paul Miller | Oct 19, 2022

The first CD player from the Japanese brand to boast real 'kerb appeal', this mid-'80s machine also inherited key technology from previous models. How does it sound today?

Any early Compact Disc player from Matsushita (Panasonic/Technics) holds a particular fascination. The company was excluded from the top table when the CD format was created, in spite of (or perhaps due to) its pre-eminent position as the world's largest producer of electronic consumer goods.

Disc Players Vintage

Technics SL-XP5 Portable CD Player

Review: Tim Jarman, Lab: Paul Miller | Dec 14, 2022

Believing portables to be as good as their full-sized rivals, many music lovers sought out the smallest – and this CD player was a compact king. How does it sound today?

Think about portable CD players and the chances are that the Sony Discman [HFN Jul '19] will come to mind. The company's ability to produce enchanting and compelling miniature versions of existing products has been pretty much unequalled, and 'the world's smallest' is a phrase that can often be seen in Sony's vintage catalogues. In comparison, the company's larger models were frequently bland and derivative.

Disc Players Vintage

Toshiba XR-J9 CD Player

Review: Tim Jarman, Lab: Paul Miller | Jul 05, 2023

Compact, clever and priced to entice, this quirky little late-'80s machine caught the imagination of those buying into digital for the first time. How does it shape up today?

When Toshiba unveiled its lineup of new CD players in 1986 it was clear the format had come of age. Just three years after the first machines were launched onto the European market they'd gone from being exotic and expensive to something so accessible there was little point in any keen listener not owning one.

Disc Players Vintage

Toshiba XR-V22 CD player

Tim Jarman, Lab: Paul Miller | Sep 09, 2024

Gimmick or grand plan as Toshiba looks to spice up the mid-’80s CD scene with a dual-disc player offering over two hours of continuous music. How does it fare today?

Anumber of our recent Vintage Reviews have featured CD players designed to broaden the appeal of the format by making the hardware available at progressively lower price points. This was one way to maintain sales, but another approach was to add additional features at little or no extra cost.

Disc Players Vintage

Trio DP-850 CD player

Review: Tim Jarman, Lab: Paul Miller | Mar 09, 2020

Based on Sony's second-gen 16-bit/2x oversampled chipset, the DP-850 established a toehold in the CD scene for the Trio-Kenwood Corp. How does it shape up today?

While not a name often associated with early CD players, Kenwood was not lacking in ambition with its first entry into the field. Rather than test the market with a quiet offering buried deep in the backwaters of its catalogue, in 1983 the company added the L-03DP CD player to its range of top-line components.

Disc Players

Wadia 381i Cd Player (£8000)

John Bamford & Paul Miller | Aug 05, 2009

There’s something about the look of Wadia components that says, ‘This is mighty serious’. It goes without saying that at £6500 – which is a pretty penny for an integrated player – the 381 is indeed a serious piece of work. But then Wadia CD transports and DACs (and players) have always cost top dollar, much like the products from those cutting-edge British digital specialists dCS. So this is actually Wadia’s ‘budget’ offering, a cost-down version of the £9800 581se CD/SACD player.

Search form

Disc Players

Pages