Tír Na HiFi

I am a bit of an audiophile n00b and I am looking for some advice regarding an upgrade of my CD player and speaker cable. Mainly I listen to rock / electronica CD's but I also listen to some radio and compressed music via my PC from time to time.

When building my system I bought the HK HD970 cd player which incorporated a DAC input so that I could use it for both playing CD's and to stream audio from the PC for casual listening. Currently the CD player will only read approx 80% of my CD's and it also can take a few attempts to start reading any CD's which has prompted my decision to upgrade.

The components I am currently using are listed below and I would appreciate any advice on replacement CD players and speaker cable. My budget for both is around €500 and I am open to purchasing either new or second hand: -

Musical Fidelity Dual Mono Integrated Amp
B&W 600 S3
Harman Kardon HD970 cd player / DAC
Harman Kardon TU970 tuner / DAB radio
Black Rhodium Prelude interconnects
Speaker cable x 3m bought for approx €5 per metre from AV store

Thanks

Upgrading the speaker cable first is starting at the wrong end of the chain.

I believe that mains cables from Russ Andrews or Audio Works will give significanly greater return for your money and will better show off the differences in speaker cables and interconnects when you do get round to changing them. I know that starter level or mid level equipment is capable of way better performance, much better than we would be led to believe, if it is given the opportunity to do so. Mains cables, supports, isolation devices will lift the performance of the kit it supports.

Just don't tell anyone who frequents guitar websites! They 'know' that this is impossible so it is impossible [freely quoting vaguely remembered basic electrical theory to prove their point].

Hmmm, we enjoy a bit of healthy disagreement here, right?

My view would be that you should forget about cables completely for the time being, cos you'll get better bang for your buck spending all of your budget on a replacement CD player. IMO cable prices are often very high compared to the improvement gained, and since you're already using €5 per metre stuff it's probably fine for now. If you were using bell-wire then maybe I'd think differently.

Honestly though, you should probably go to Cloney, tell them your budget, and listen to whatever they suggest. You'll get a sense yourself then of what way to split the budget, and your ears should be the final arbiter here. One thing's for sure, you *have* to upgrade your CD player since it sounds like your current one is dying, you don't *have* to upgrade your cables at the moment.

Good look in the search!

well at least we all agree (so far) that the speaker cable isn't that important just yet!
The CD player doesn't sound too old so I suspect it might be the alignment of the lens... that said a decent second hand machine would probably be an improvement.

You already have decent interconnects, amp and speakers so spend the entire budget on a good, perhaps second hand, CD player. A few bob on isolation or mains improvement later on would bring results too.

Thanks for the advice lads. I will concentrate on upgrading the CD player then look into the speaker cable and power supply at a later date.

For the CD player I will keep my eye on the boards and check out the ex display models in Cloney's and KonosAV.

Ivor - you mentioned that the issue with my CD player could be related to the lens alignment. I found a DIY procure for aligning the lens and will give it a go. If it is unsuccessful it will hasten my need for a replacement CD player.

Thanks again

My Tag McLaren DVD32R toploader DVD/CD Transport wouldn't play 50% of the discs I put in it
for a year after I bought it second hand, I put it dcown to a failing transport.

I one day decided to clean the lens of the laser (easy for a toploader) with a little isopropyl aclohol
and it hasn't refused any disc since.

Have you tried a decent quality lens cleaner to see if a dirty lens is the problem?

Regards.

Andy

stigpepper wrote:
Ivor - you mentioned that the issue with my CD player could be related to the lens alignment. I found a DIY procure for aligning the lens and will give it a go. If it is unsuccessful it will hasten my need for a replacement CD player.

As Andy says try cleaning the lens first. Damagaing the lens would make decisions easier alright but still..... take it easy!

Hi Guys,

Thanks to your advice I am now listening to cd's in my collection that I couldn't play for many months.

I picked up a camera lens cleaning kit took apart my cd player, cleaned the lens and drawer. All cd's are playing first time with no issues.

Thanks to this I can now take more time to weigh up my options for an upgrade.

Cheers from happy man with nothing to do for the weekend but listen to good music!

That's a fantastic result. Nice one, stigpepper!!

Result.