[Suholee]

New member from so cal. I have been listening to music for long time and want to lear more about audio set up and technology behind it. My set up
Cambridge audio edge nq as preamp/streamer
Cambridge audio edge m (mono blocks)
B&w 803d2
Mciintosh mcd301
I have no turntable now and hope to get back to listening to vinyls soon.

Thank you in advance for sharing you wisdom and knowledge.

[FullRangeMan]

Welcome to AC 
Your Mcintosh MCD301 was reliable?

[Phil A]

Welcome!

[Phil A]

Welcome to AC 
Your Mcintosh MCD301 was reliable?

Despite its age - there are some parts still readily available for it - e.g. https://www.amazon.com/Optical-Laser-McIntosh-MCD-201-MCD-301/dp/B0813RM4DT    I believe the transport mechanism was made by Denon

[FullRangeMan]

My ex Denon DCD-1520 used Sony KSS151A.

[Phil A]

https://audiokarma.org/forums/index.php?threads/mcintosh-mcd301-repair.693672/

[FullRangeMan]

Seems the 301 was much younger than the 1520.
All drawer CD players have belt problems.
Drawer is shoddy engineering.

[Phil A]

Seems the 301 was much younger than the 1520.
All drawer CD players have belt problems.
Drawer is shoddy engineering.

I agree any electro-mechanical device is going to have moving parts which can wear out and it is typical for the drive mechanism of something like a CD player to be manufactured by a third party, who may only support the manufacture of those mechanisms for a limited amount of time (e.g. 7 years).  I never thought I'd leave physical media behind.  After owning expensive transports, I finally decided it was time to move on.  That's one of the reasons by just over a decade back I bit the bullet and moved into file playback.  Yes it did take time and effort to get my CDs, DVD-As and SACDs ripped.  I have so many discs (most of them, except for Blu-Rays are stored in a closet and I've had to resort to a couple of storage boxes designed for CDs as not everything I want is available via downloaded files) that I try to buy downloads, both CD quality and above.

It seems, at least to me, over the last decade or so, that the available of good transports and CD players are not as prevalent as they once were.  The statistics for vinyl, CDs, streaming and downloads are reported in places like  https://www.riaa.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/2022-Year-End-Music-Industry-Revenue-Report.pdf

[kd4ylq]

Phil, I did what you did about 5 years ago. Gave away my transport and 500+ CDs. Still haven't had the heart or time and desire to sell my 1200+ LPs though, even if I never use them. I'm glad that a new generation loves vinyl and is willing to be part of an "in" crowd that will be sure to learn all sorts of things, many unintended and/or unexpected. But for this old timer, going digital was well worth the effort. As the Dan said - "I'm never going back to my old school".

[Phil A]

Phil, I did what you did about 5 years ago. Gave away my transport and 500+ CDs. Still haven't had the heart or time and desire to sell my 1200+ LPs though, even if I never use them. I'm glad that a new generation loves vinyl and is willing to be part of an "in" crowd that will be sure to learn all sorts of things, many unintended and/or unexpected. But for this old timer, going digital was well worth the effort. As the Dan said - "I'm never going back to my old school".

I never thought I'd leave vinyl either.  Unfortunately, a decent portion of what I owned from my younger years was played on crappy equipment (when I was in high school and college in the early 70s - when I was 5 years old of course ).  I moved from central NJ to southern NJ towards the latter part of 1985 (and closed on a house in early 1986).  I had about 40 audiophile (e.g. Mobile Fidelity, Sheffield Labs, etc.) albums (in great shape as I had put them on cassette the first time I played them) and probably another 60-80 albums which were in OK shape (and somewhat desirable) and another 100 or so albums, most of which were playable but not in the greatest shape (I still have old Beatle albums but they are too beat up to play) and not worth much.  I had a bunch of 45rpm singles.  I ended up selling them to a used record store for about $425 and for just under $600 bought the Adcom GCD-575 CD player which as highly regarded at the time.  Just before that move, I had sold my Phase Linear 8000 Series II turntable, with 3 cartridges (2 moving magnet and 1 moving coil) and my Burwen TNE (transient noise eliminator to get rid of pops and clicks) 7000A.  So I was able to buy a bunch of discs plus the CD player and over a long period of time upgraded my CD playback chain with players and then DACs.  I remember dragging a whole bunch of albums (in a suitcase) up to college on a bus one trip and it was so heavy I think my right arm is longer from that until this day.  I had started to buy some good record racks when I got serious and then ended up using them for laserdiscs (and probably about 7 years back I got rid of a couple of those with extra parts and the discs and the racks).

[ArthurDent]

Greetings & Welcome to AC   

[JLM]

About 1985 I literally dropped my nice Thorens turntable, didn't have many records so moved onto CD's.  Prior to that I had a Nak 700 cassette machine but found out that the tapes were so heavily biased that they would only playback well on the machine that recorded them (exposing the limits of slow/thin tape format).  Have been very satisfied with the Redbook standard ever since.  In the last several years have been listening to ripped, then streamed music via Tidal. 

Now have Buchardt A500SE active monitors (rated 25-40,000 Hz +/- 1.5 dB) with a matching hub.  A total wireless system (except for power cords).  The hub acts as a pre-amp, room EQ, wireless streamer, and provides WISA format wireless signal transfer to the monitors.  The A500SE's contain low voltage crossover, (4) DAC's, (4) 150 watt mono-blocks, waveguide loaded tweeter, (2) Purifi drivers (one in the front with bass and midrange voice coils and one rear mounted for bass), and connection for "Master Tunings".