CD Players & Such in 2025
2025-Jun-24, Tuesday 22:01![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gothfvck posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
musicianshipsYup. A few weeks ago I bought a new portable CD player. It's got some pretty good features and sounds pretty good. Maybe it doesn't have a trendy audiophile DAC and the anti-skip protection brings CDs to lossy quality but, it does have BT5.1 and two 3.5mm headphone outputs w/ FM radio and even will read MP3s from a 64GB microSD card. For the price, it's a good value.
It's great walking around town or even the house with a CD player in my pocket or in it's case hanging from my belt loop. Generally, I've always got the wire connected.
I wish it had BT5.4 because improvements for audio quality and distance were implemented. HW manufacturers should be required to ship with the latest spec with the next batch of parts they order, when it comes to things like this.
Using it to rip CDs is not quick, easy, nor good quality. It's one track at a time and the files don't have any indicator about where they came from.
Next time I go to a show, I can buy an album from a band and listen to it on the way back! When I go out, I can bring a few MP3 CDs. Typically I go for opus files but, I guess I could transcode from FLAC to both. opus for my digital music player and MP3 specifically for this then delete those wretched, obsolete things. lol. That format seriously needs to die already.
There are a few other options out there currently or coming soon. However, they all disappoint me. I'll likely pick up a fiio DM13 when I can afford it as it also offers a good function to cost ratio. What good features they are! Not to mention this one supports multiple output jacks, BT with various codecs, actual lossless quality for listening & ripping. Among others for ~$150 US.
I plan on grabbing a fiio BTR17 as soon as possible, too. It's a portable BT DAC, amp, and EQ. There aren't many EQs out there. I'm not sure why.
I wish it had an option to switch between the digital presets and a parametric w/ low & high shelves for the bass and treble, plus low mid, mid, and high mid all on dials that can lock into place easily. I want something tangible where I can reach into my pocket to adjust the volume as well as the sound.
The app is fairly robust. Certainly is enough to set equalizer presets for a portable listening experience but, it's not open source. At any time they could cease development or push firmware with a breaking change or regressions.
Kind of like a Logitech gaming keyboard I used to have. The settings used to stay on the kb itself. I updated and that no longer was true. This was the main selling point at the time as far as available mechanical gaming keyboards with macropads went. It initially had good GNU+Linux support.
Other CD player contenders:
Lenco CD 500BK - This is a good inexpensive one but, it doesn't appear to have a clear top to see the disc, lol. Another issue is that it has a non-replaceable batter. (So does the Klim. Boooo)
Lenco CD 300 - This is similar to the above. Main differences are this one does Not do FM radio but, it does use 2x AA batteries. These both appear to have a 24mo warranty! Relatively speaking, that's great. What I'd like to see is 10yr+ be the standard.
Dunu Concept R - They want $750 for it. lol. They can go spin. If it had i/o and multi-channel support of SACDs then I'd consider it because it would replace a living room surround sound CD player. It sure looks cool.
For that price and considering it has one dial, I want more dials for the EQ. May as well drop in an SBC and let it look up CD metadata as well as ability to read CD-TEXT and properly fill out FLAC tags. The sheer audacity they have asking so much. The sheer stupidity people have to actually pay this! To top things of, the thing isn't even going to be manufactured in N. Am.
Nice first attempt. I'll hold my breath for v2 to live up to everything in the CD, SACD, and HDCD specs, and all that a portable and LR stereo could offer.
It sounds like I just need to get rich and buy out some of these companies so they start doing the right thing and live up to my standards. XD
P.S. yes, I used to do this a long time ago as well. Those CD players went their own way after a few moves and I mostly just listened from a computer, portable music player, or smart phone (great for netcasts!)
Xposted in my own journal.
What are your thoughts and experiences?
It's great walking around town or even the house with a CD player in my pocket or in it's case hanging from my belt loop. Generally, I've always got the wire connected.
I wish it had BT5.4 because improvements for audio quality and distance were implemented. HW manufacturers should be required to ship with the latest spec with the next batch of parts they order, when it comes to things like this.
Using it to rip CDs is not quick, easy, nor good quality. It's one track at a time and the files don't have any indicator about where they came from.
Next time I go to a show, I can buy an album from a band and listen to it on the way back! When I go out, I can bring a few MP3 CDs. Typically I go for opus files but, I guess I could transcode from FLAC to both. opus for my digital music player and MP3 specifically for this then delete those wretched, obsolete things. lol. That format seriously needs to die already.
There are a few other options out there currently or coming soon. However, they all disappoint me. I'll likely pick up a fiio DM13 when I can afford it as it also offers a good function to cost ratio. What good features they are! Not to mention this one supports multiple output jacks, BT with various codecs, actual lossless quality for listening & ripping. Among others for ~$150 US.
I plan on grabbing a fiio BTR17 as soon as possible, too. It's a portable BT DAC, amp, and EQ. There aren't many EQs out there. I'm not sure why.
I wish it had an option to switch between the digital presets and a parametric w/ low & high shelves for the bass and treble, plus low mid, mid, and high mid all on dials that can lock into place easily. I want something tangible where I can reach into my pocket to adjust the volume as well as the sound.
The app is fairly robust. Certainly is enough to set equalizer presets for a portable listening experience but, it's not open source. At any time they could cease development or push firmware with a breaking change or regressions.
Kind of like a Logitech gaming keyboard I used to have. The settings used to stay on the kb itself. I updated and that no longer was true. This was the main selling point at the time as far as available mechanical gaming keyboards with macropads went. It initially had good GNU+Linux support.
Other CD player contenders:
Lenco CD 500BK - This is a good inexpensive one but, it doesn't appear to have a clear top to see the disc, lol. Another issue is that it has a non-replaceable batter. (So does the Klim. Boooo)
Lenco CD 300 - This is similar to the above. Main differences are this one does Not do FM radio but, it does use 2x AA batteries. These both appear to have a 24mo warranty! Relatively speaking, that's great. What I'd like to see is 10yr+ be the standard.
Dunu Concept R - They want $750 for it. lol. They can go spin. If it had i/o and multi-channel support of SACDs then I'd consider it because it would replace a living room surround sound CD player. It sure looks cool.
For that price and considering it has one dial, I want more dials for the EQ. May as well drop in an SBC and let it look up CD metadata as well as ability to read CD-TEXT and properly fill out FLAC tags. The sheer audacity they have asking so much. The sheer stupidity people have to actually pay this! To top things of, the thing isn't even going to be manufactured in N. Am.
Nice first attempt. I'll hold my breath for v2 to live up to everything in the CD, SACD, and HDCD specs, and all that a portable and LR stereo could offer.
It sounds like I just need to get rich and buy out some of these companies so they start doing the right thing and live up to my standards. XD
P.S. yes, I used to do this a long time ago as well. Those CD players went their own way after a few moves and I mostly just listened from a computer, portable music player, or smart phone (great for netcasts!)
Xposted in my own journal.
What are your thoughts and experiences?
