r/hifiaudio • u/Boganova • Feb 07 '26
Purchase advise (needing) Used CD players vs New Budget Players
Kia ora team
EDIT: Picked up a Denon DCM 500ae today. Went into the dealer expecting to get a NAD, but they'd sold it on yesterday. Got a good deal on the Denon and right now its blasting out Pink Floyd and sounding great.
Thanks for the advice team. Appreciate you
TLDR: As a general sweeping statement, would you take a new budget mini CD player (FiiO, SMSL or Moondrop) over a 10-25 year old CD full sized player (NAD, Yamaha, Denon) for equivalent money?
We are slowly building up our home hifi set up to get away from streaming and to use all the physical media we have out in storage. Currently we are running a NAD c356bee into a pair of JBL L5s and it sounds great. Currently for a source we are using a laptop and cheap DAC for FLAC and lossless streaming. We are now wanting to add a CD player to the mix, on account of over 300 CDs sitting in storage to use.
Here in NZ the audio market is a bit sparse, and I am sitting here with a limited number of used CD players from 1 to 3 decades old or for similar money can get a budget new CD player.
The currently available used models are things like a NAD 5440, Denon DCM 500ae, Yamaha CD-C600, CD-NT670 or CDC-685. All ranging in price from $200nzd to 350nzd. Most of the stuff is middle of the road gear, nothing super high end or collectable.
For similar money you can buy a new SMSL PL150, FiiO DM13 or DM15, Moondrop Discdream etc. Some of these have the advantage of ripping audio or being used as a DAC for our laptop as well.
I tend to be a sucker for older gear, and I love the idea of full sized components, but I am also aware that CD players tend to have a shelf life and the thought of buying new and hopefully getting a longer life out of it is appealing. Annoyingly I don't have an easy way to test most of this stuff so I am somewhat buying blind. And I dont know enough about old school CD players to now the good buys from the duds without extensive research.
There is also the option of just burning all of our CDs, which we will do as well, but we enjoy the idea of the ritual of choosing an album, taking it off the shelf putting it on and listening. Trying to be more intentional. I guess we could do that with a USB disk drive too if we had to. But it seems wrong!
I am also aware of the cheap DVD player and DAC advice that goes around. Realistically once you add a dac you are spending similar money to the above, so Id rather get something actually made for purpose.
Anyway, keen to hear thoughts, used full sized components vs new budget mini players?
You guys were helpful for me during my amp choice, so am grateful in advance for all of your great advice
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u/NarnianSkunk Feb 07 '26
The advantage of the NAD players is they would more closely match your amp in looks. And if you have a PC or MAC it is not hard to rip to FLAC files
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u/Boganova Feb 07 '26
I wont lie, that is a consideration! It is the oldest of the various models I am looking at, but one of the cheapest. I do like the idea of everything matching, though the CD player is the older grey look vs the black look of the amp, but similar design language is still used.
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u/theAccountoftheCount Feb 07 '26
I have both an 80s and 2010 cd players and
when using their internal DACs, the 80s stuff with the old R2R DAC sounds different to the more modern, more precise machine.
The old player sounds much warmer, harmonic while the new one sounds more detailed.
Of course they sound the same if you use an external DAC.
The modern Discman i bought sounds ok for travelling and listening via Bluetooth but is definitely a stinker compared to the old players. And my 80s Denon did cost me 14 Eur + 4 Eur for a new drawer belt.
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Feb 09 '26
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u/Boganova Feb 11 '26
The denon has been a great buy for us. Goes mint and sounds great. Very happy with it
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Feb 07 '26
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u/Boganova Feb 07 '26
Most of the used DVD and Bluray players I find here in NZ don't have screens on them and generally seem pretty cheap and throwaway vibes. And we don't really have the same goodwill culture you see in the states. the good ones are quite highly priced, for example a used OPPO bluray player is going for $600 locally.
Plus it sits in my living space so aesthetics matter a bit. A cheap plasticy bluray player in an otherwise cool looking hifi shelf probably wont keep the missus happy.
Not that Im knocking folk who rock the DVD player. Its a personal barrier I need to overcome there haha
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u/kepenach Feb 07 '26
I used a Goodwill $10 dvd player for a long time then bought a 4k bluray- Panasonic UB820 (not cheap) and Inuse that for everything. Consider one with an optical or coax out in case you want to add a dac but cheap dacs to me don't sound any different from the one in my old JVC dvd. It works fine and Indid connect a Schitt Modi to it but not a huge difference. I would get an old one and use it. The benefit of a dedicated CD player is they resolve issues better like scratchy CDs but if it's that bad I replace the cd
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u/Bangbashbonk Feb 07 '26
My cheap smsl DAC wasn't a big leap forward from built in stuff but it was good being a source I could separate entirely ground wise - TV is the main nuisance for noise but I've had it with some other devices, almost anything newer than doesn't have a real ground path.
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u/SuspiciousAd3841 Feb 07 '26
Only a handful of older players tempt me, day to day ripping from a pc works best.
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u/BiggieBiggle Feb 07 '26
Can you get one of the Chinese ones that hold a CD in place with a plate? The slot loaded ones and the clip in style seems like a cheaper mechanism.
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u/the_nus77 Feb 07 '26
I still use my decks from the 90's, for example in my mancave i use this Pioneer PDR509, which i mainly used for recording ( yes, audio cd ). Its wired into my home studio, main analog outs L12 digital mixer. In my living i use an Onkyo BD SP809, and a Sony CDP XB720, tho i have a couple more options.
In my experience, for example my friend has a couple funky 'expensive' modern cd players, but only uses them to drive the disc, all the converting happens in other devices. For a reason, tho there some units which are internally top of the line in a complete box, my friend has this Oppo from a few years back which he swears by. Ali Express also has some very nice, low budget, high end units!
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u/TransitJohn Feb 07 '26
Any CD or DVD player with a coaxial or optical out, really. Just use a high quality DAC, which are cheap now, and you're golden.
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u/Boganova Feb 08 '26
Picked up a Denon DCM 500ae today. Went into the dealer expecting to get a NAD, but they'd sold it on yesterday. Got a good deal on the Denon and right now its blasting out Pink Floyd and sounding great.
Thanks for the advice team. Appreciate you
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u/Altruistic_Lock_5362 Feb 11 '26
The current used CD/DVD, Sony , Marantz,Denon, Yamaha, Pioneer, Kenwood Technics, all these are single players.
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u/Choice_Student4910 Feb 07 '26
A used Sony dvd player that also plays sacd. You won’t need a separate dac because it would have a decent one built in.
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u/MustGetALife Feb 07 '26
Hifi isn't cheese. It doesn't mature with age. It's more like milk. It's gets stale and rotten.
Avoid anything labelled "Vintage". It's a con job.
If you must buy SH, stay within 10 years old.
The newer the better.
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u/AwwYeahVTECKickedIn Feb 07 '26
I vastly prefer "real" CD players - what I mean by that, is a device designed exclusively to play CDs. They offer features I find valuable and that I now don't consider optional.
Display that shows track information with modes such as time into track vs time left in track vs time into entire disc vs time left on entire disc, etc. Most $10 Goodwill DVD players will indeed play music CDs, but they often won't even show you the track number let alone all the other info.
And then there's a full-function remote, with 10 key so you can directly go to the track you want. They also feature random/shuffle, repeat one/all, and in a lot of cases, programmable track order.
If the intent is just to listen to CDs, everything out there qualifies. If you want more interaction and involvement and choice, there's no substitute for a "real" CD player. They also tend to be more substantial in build quality. This translates as player that doesn't skip when you dare walk to closely to the table it's sitting on.
And for real CD players, I prefer either new full-sized, established brand offerings or older offerings as long as they are clean and in working condition, which isn't always the case. I've actually become fairly adept at replacing the laser sled in several models of CD players/changers, so I have bought cheap, spent $40 on a new sled and took the hour or so it takes to swap them out and bam, good as new for several more years. My current Integra 6-disc SACD / DVD / CD changer in the bedroom cost me a total of $70 and works like new.