Board 8 > Help deciding between 2 CD Players

(+) Yeah! (+)

And no, I'm not interested in just using a cheap DVD player.

I ask for help deciding, but it's not quite that simple. I ordered the SMSL PL100 about 5 weeks ago. It hasn't shipped yet, and with most major countries having announced by now they're no longer shipping small goods to the US as of this week due to the new tarrifs, I'm thinking there's a solid chance it's just gonna get canceled automatically like a month from now.

My backup choice was the Moondrop Discdream2. It's about $50 more expensive (on sale), but it APPEARS to have the same sound chip. It lacks both the RCA and Coax of the PL100, but does still have Optical. Also does not have a remote like the PL100.

Does it seem like a good alternative in this tier of product? Anything else anyone would recommend that may not be as above radar? Again, I don't want "thing that can play CDs", I want a CD Player.

https://www.smsl-audio.com/portal/product/detail/id/904.html

https://moondroplab.com/en/products/discdream2

tagging because i've been considering getting a new cd player recently too, but haven't done much research on them yet. all i do know is i want one with the ability to swap between several discs since my family used to have one like that (it would automatically rotate between up to 6, so i'd go for one that can do at least that many)

so yeah uh topic mini-hijack to capitalise on any experts dropping in that might know of optimal options in that regard

ok i did a bit of research on my own conundrum now and have realised that it might as well not even be a question since turns out there is only one multi-disc cd player still being properly distributed in my country and it's already close to 20 years old if amazon is right lol (honestly kinda crazy that there even is this one still in production and sold through mainstream channels here considering it's clearly all quite phased out)

i will say for the sake of actually contributing something to the topic (while not really having anything to say for actual alternatives) that it does sound like both the players you outlined are definitely pretty solid cost-effective options, though to be honest outside of (more guaranteed) seamless playback, there probably aren't that many advantages to any dedicated cd-only player over anything else you'd already have that "can play cds" at this still relatively low-cost level. for me the only real advantage to any of them was absolutely the whole multi disc playback that has evidently died out 20 years ago and is still only available at $800+ over here lol. the discdream is at least semi-portable so it at least fits a different use case potentially, so it's honestly not that bad to get as a secondary player if the pl100 does also arrive

edit: to quickly add, outside of my country, it seems like the sharp bh-350 might be one of the most modern examples of a multi-disc player now (released in late 2022 apparently), so it's not necessarily as dead as i made it out to be. also that one's quite a bit more affordable than the >$800(nzd) model i was looking at, it's apparently around the low $200s (usd)

My family had an extremely heavy 6 disc Onkyo changer around 10 years ago, thing was a beast.

I think the issue is just that getting people to buy CD players in the modern age in general is so difficult that they can barely justify something for 1 disc lol. It's not trendy like a record player. With only a few exceptions, like the ones mentioned here and the FiiO DM13 I started looking into last night, it seems modern production is mostly limited to either high end enthusiast machines or cheap Amazon garbage.

The shitty CD players that look like record players are kind of adorable at least.

What are your goals with the product?

If you take a picture of your CD and show it to Spotify they'll let you listen to it for free

banananor posted...

What are your goals with the product?

Connected to powered speakers for budget home theater use. Specially I have Edifier R1280DBs.