Visited the boys @ Overture today(in the area for lunch) and low and behold Cary Audio is out of the CD / SACD Digital player biz. They are marketing DAC's but no players.........long live my 303/300 !
Cary Audio.......no longer producing CD / SACD players
- Thread starter twich54
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amey01
Well-known member
Why anyone is still manufacturing them I don't understand.
You're joking, right Adam? I mean . . . look how many manufacturers are still making turntables. There are literally hundreds of millions of CDs out there and people will still need something to play them on for a long time. Perhaps Cary's market share didn't justify them continuing. But I will be surprised if we see Wadia, Esoteric, and other big names jump ship anytime soon.
roberto
Well-known member
Rich and Adam... have you notice that many retail cd stores are gone? Even Linn stop making cd players about 5 years ago, and still are making the LP-12 turntable. I remember that every time I had the chance to visit your Country, I organized some spare time for tower records. At least an afternoon and part of the evening. Now, what I do, is shop at Amazon. I think that the cds time, with the plastic cases, is getting to a point where, them are very difficult to find. Many cd players manufactures are thinking the same as Cary Audio and Linn. Another reason why I am into the computer sound, and trying to get the most of it. My friends, my 2 cents! Happy listening!
Gordon Gray
Well-known member
Rich,
It's my understanding that Wadia no longer manufactures CD players but continues to make DACs.
As far as Adam's comments are concerned, the continued production of five and six figure turntables, along with five figure cartridges, is quite astounding.
I'm with Dave. I love my Cary 306 SACD player and have every confidence that I will be able to purchase CD's and SACD's long into the future. I have no intention of pursuing computer audio.
GG
It's my understanding that Wadia no longer manufactures CD players but continues to make DACs.
As far as Adam's comments are concerned, the continued production of five and six figure turntables, along with five figure cartridges, is quite astounding.
I'm with Dave. I love my Cary 306 SACD player and have every confidence that I will be able to purchase CD's and SACD's long into the future. I have no intention of pursuing computer audio.
GG
Hocky
Well-known member
It is easy to convert a CD into another form of media (load it onto a media server), but it isn't easy to convert a record. I think CD usage will (has) disappear quickly. Hell, even most decent cars these days have built in media servers.
Wow. Just wow! I checked and you are right. Wadia currently only makes DACs. They only have three current products listed on their website, all of which are DACs. How do you survive on three products? At least Esoteric still makes plenty of great CD players. They currently have five different CD/SACD players listed.
I understand that it is easy to convert CD to other forms of media, but actually it is just as easy to do it with a record. They have record players with USB outs just for this purpose. The point is that a large majority of people, like myself and Gordon, want to just play the CDs we bought instead of taking the time and effort to put them all on a server, with all the issues that raises (and it does raise a few when you have a 2000+ cd collection). I certainly would hope and expect to be able to buy quality high end CD/SACD players well into the future. On the flip-side, looks like my Wadia and Gordon's Cary are now instant classics! I'll expect to see their used values rise rather than fall moving forward.
amey01
Well-known member
No I'm not sorry. A turntable provides people with something they can not get any other way. That is why they are continued to be manufactured all over the world. What do CD players provide that can not be provided in another way (media servers)? Nothing.
amey01
Well-known member
Even if you want to stay with CDs rather than a media server, with jitter being almost a non-issue these days; what purpose does a quality transport serve? You could play your physical discs with virtually anything into a decent DAC and still get the sound of that DAC.
As an admittedly early adopter of music servers, I can't believe it's taken them this long.
And it's not easy to convert LPs - you have to do it manually and in real time. You have to intervene every track to break them up, then manually tag all tracks. A CD can be ripped automatically in 2 minutes without intervention.
And with only one lousy record store left in the centre of Brisbane, there is not really any feasible way I could use CDs even if I wanted to
the only way I see myself pursuing 'computer music' is IF I can master the learning curve to do so and do so at my pace. I trully know little about it because up untill now I've had no intrest.
Hell, I'm still wrestling with the process of digitizing my 5000 35mm slide collection !
Hell, I'm still wrestling with the process of digitizing my 5000 35mm slide collection !
Bernard
Well-known member
Not true, Adam, you don't have to intervene every track. I have software that removes clicks and pops and also looks for blank spots, breaking up the tracks in those spots. However, it does not always work with classical music because of the quiet sections within a movement.
Bernard
Well-known member
I would like to pursue computer audio as I have lots of CDs I never get round to listening to as I forget that I have them. If they were all loaded into a server they'd be more accessible.
Bernard
Well-known member
Dave, I'm looking at eventually getting a setup close to what Roberto has - Mac Mini via USB to an Audiolab MDAC. He has one more component in the chain, though.
If you do a search on Mac in Audiogon, you come up with a couple of companies that have upgrades to the Mac, such as replacing the switching power supply with a linear one, and a couple of other things.
Wish I had the shekels to do it right now!
If you do a search on Mac in Audiogon, you come up with a couple of companies that have upgrades to the Mac, such as replacing the switching power supply with a linear one, and a couple of other things.
Wish I had the shekels to do it right now!
roberto
Well-known member
Hola guys, let me tell you what happened here about an hour ago. A dear friend came by to listen some music. When I opened Itunes, he said, no, no , no, no, please Roberto, be serious!!! How are you going to listen to the music in a compressed format! No way I could listen my music, your way.... please, just give me some time. If you do not like what we are going to listen, then, I still have my CD2 Bel Canto Transport. He said..ahhhh, that´s different. The first thing that we listen was a Lang Lang, La Campanella by Frank List, then he said, not so bad, it must be a good recording. Then, I played a guitar-violin ( Schubert for two - Gil Shaham - violin and Goran Sollscher - guitar ). The sound is very good, that's another good recording. Then I played some jazz, Alan Broadbent trio. The piano is very good, the bass too, and when the cymbals came, wow, I like the air of the cymbals. You must have a big trick here. I said, yes, I have this: the Bel Canto Ref Link. Let me show you what it does, then I swap for Youtube. When I played the chapman stick, while my guitar gently... he said: this is not possible. Why do you have such clean, undistorted sound from Youtube? Then I said, listen without the Bel Canto... and that was it! This Bel Canto is doing magic here in my system. It converts the USB signal from the computer to coax, and I can use up-sampling up to 192KHz/24bit through Audirvana virtual player. Just a little history that made another unbeliever to be a believer. Please, understand this: I am not saying that this is the most transparent, high-end top grade sound, what I am saying, is that you can live with no stress, I do not get any distortion, or saturated highs, that brakes the wonder of the music. You can listen easy the feeling of the musician, and yes, no noise! no digital garbage coming out of my speakers!... happy listening!
... please, just give me some time. If you do not like what we are going to listen, then, I still have my CD2 Bel Canto Transport. He said..ahhhh, that´s different. The first thing that we listen was a Lang Lang, La Campanella by Frank List, then he said, not so bad, it must be a good recording. Then, I played a guitar-violin ( Schubert for two - Gil Shaham - violin and Goran Sollscher - guitar ). The sound is very good, that's another good recording. Then I played some jazz, Alan Broadbent trio. The piano is very good, the bass too, and when the cymbals came, wow, I like the air of the cymbals. You must have a big trick here. I said, yes, I have this: the Bel Canto Ref Link. Let me show you what it does, then I swap for Youtube. When I played the chapman stick, while my guitar gently... he said: this is not possible. Why do you have such clean, undistorted sound from Youtube? Then I said, listen without the Bel Canto... and that was it! This Bel Canto is doing magic here in my system. It converts the USB signal from the computer to coax, and I can use up-sampling up to 192KHz/24bit through Audirvana virtual player. Just a little history that made another unbeliever to be a believer. Please, understand this: I am not saying that this is the most transparent, high-end top grade sound, what I am saying, is that you can live with no stress, I do not get any distortion, or saturated highs, that brakes the wonder of the music. You can listen easy the feeling of the musician, and yes, no noise! no digital garbage coming out of my speakers!... happy listening!Well I like spinning my discs too. And i have a fairly large sacd catalog. So has anyone heard the Cary dacs? Do they sound as good as their CD players? I do not like this news either because I like the physical discs. My sacd player is getting old and now my concern is that I will have to pay top dollar to replace it someday. Booooo!
MiTT
Super User
I'm in a similar position as Adam and Roberto. It's probably been a year or so since I've spun a silver disk in my Esoteric. Pretty much everything I listen to these days comes off my Mac Mini or my VPI turntable, and if I'm short on time I almost always gravitate to the computer based setup. I can listen to my entire collection in my listening room, out on the deck, in my bedroom or Family room, plus take most of it with me when I travel. I haven't bought a new CD in I don't know how long - just vinyl and high Rez downloads.
amey01
Well-known member
Computer music is easier than doing that - promise!
And if you really don't want to delve into it - just plug a cheap DVD player (or a computer ROM drive) into a M-DAC (or a Cary DAC......not sure if they have the same level of jitter isolation/buffering/independent clocking, but I'm sure they do) and i'm sure you'll get better sound than a clunky old-school CD player!
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For those looking for a highly flexible and good sounding disc transport, I can vouch for the Oppo series. The BDP-105 has it all, including a DAC if you want.
The UI on the Oppo is perfect as a DLNA player accessing all your ripped content, and if you spin physical discs, it handles them all. It even accesses an online DB in real-time and shows you all the Meta data (Album name, track title, etc.), even for SACDs! that last one was a nice surprise the first time I spun an SACD on it.
Sound quality is very, very good. I'm extremely pleased with my 103.
The UI on the Oppo is perfect as a DLNA player accessing all your ripped content, and if you spin physical discs, it handles them all. It even accesses an online DB in real-time and shows you all the Meta data (Album name, track title, etc.), even for SACDs! that last one was a nice surprise the first time I spun an SACD on it.
Sound quality is very, very good. I'm extremely pleased with my 103.
That was one of my problems, too. FWIW, I now use an Olive, and have been pretty happy with it.
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