Excellent transport, styling (NAD like with all metal front panel) and especially price.

Very slow scan speed. There must be a way to tweak this as the entire transport and front end controls are generic Sony.

This review is for model CD8b. I resisted the urge to review this player until I was very familiar with it. I completely replaced my system last fall and purchased this player because of the price and the fact that it has a more modern transport and DAC and supposedly better output filtering. I was using a Sony CDP-497 which was one of the best consumer grade players Sony made but was still based on a fully integrated transport control and bitstream DAC. The CD8b has separate transport controls and DAC (supposedly a Burr-Brown audio grade 96/8 type, but it is not mounted on the main board for all to see. It must be under the transport which is not easily accessible). It also uses audio grade low noise op-amps (NE5532) for the output filters. So it should sound a lot better, right? Wrong. It sounds identical to my Sony. I have done numerous comparisons on all kinds of music, passages with interesting imaging effects etc and in the end, I have concluded that they sound identical. I had previously replaced a decent Nakamichi receiver with a Rotel integrated amp and the world really opened up. Highs and lows appeared that weren''t there, crisp clean midrange and so on. No such luck with the CD player. I of course kept it since it looks much cooler than the Sony and I like the idea of having better quality components and gold plated RCA jacks even though they do nothing for the overall sound! I would like to compare it to a supposed higher quality unit like the Rotel 971 which I just couldn''t bring myself to buy. My equipment : ACI Opal speakers (I built the boxes) Rotel RA-972

Similar Products Used:

Sony CDP-497 and numerous CD walkmen.

Price.Very good sound.Easy to operate. Nice remote control.

CD drawer seems to be made of plastic. Other than that nothing.

I bought the AMC because of the price and recommendation of audioadvisor.The unit seems to be well built.Looks just like any NAD product.Nice remote control.It sounds alot better than my old CD player which was a 20 year old pioneer unit.It seems to have a brighter sound, more detail.I also have a Sony 96/24 dvd/cd player in another system and the two favor each other in price.The sound of the AMC seems to have a little more sharpness,but as another gentleman noted,it would be damn near impossible to tell a difference between the two.It may just be my imagination.But the AMC does sound good, and for 199.00 I doubt you could buy even a 500.00 CD player that would sound much better.

Similar Products Used:

Sony 9624 DVDCD player.

Takes up relatively little space. Lightweight. The stats on the DAC can be used to impress easily impressionable friends.

Sonic qualities indistinguishable from Sony''s products.

Most of my collection of ordinary CDs are loaded into a pair of Sony-manufactured jukeboxes. I intended to use the jukeboxes for playing extended shuffle plays, for parties, storage, etc. I bought the AMC for its advertised 24/96 DAC and what I assumed would be circuitry a step or two over the bargain-basement Sony stuff. Unfortunately, I am disappointed to say that I am not perceiving any difference in quality between the AMC and the el cheapo Sonys. I hooked it up and thought it sounded great. Fab detail, great imaging. Then I tried a head-to-head comparison. I actually own multiple original copies of certain discs (relics of my wife''s and my days as single people), so I loaded the dupes into the AMC and the Sony and ran both simultaneously, using the input knob on the amp to perform an A/B test. Sadly, NO ONE - not me, not my wife, no one - who participated in the listening could discern the least difference between the two sources. Good discs sounded equally good, problem discs sounded equally problematic. No audible change in imaging, accuracy, or speed. Note that we performed a "blind" A/B test, with only the person turning the knob, and not the judge, knowing what the input source really was. I can only assume that most of the glowing reviews on this page were from people conducting non-blind or non-A/B reviews, which are notoriously biased. Now, of course it is at least *possible* that there is a sonic difference, just too subtle for me to detect. But as they say, an inaudible improvement is no real improvement at all. Hence, I see little real value from this product which is actually relatively expensive for what it gives you. Associated equipment: Musical Fidelity integrated stereo amplifier, B&W CDM-9NT front speakers, two Sony (non-ES) CD jukeboxes. Audioquest Copperhead RCA cables connecting the AMC to the Musical Fidelity amp; Radio Shack RCA cables connecting the Sony jukeboxes in series to the same amp.

Price, build quality for price range,sound quality,Burr-Brown 24/96 DAC

Haven''t found any yet

First and foremost for the money I can''t imagine anything close to the quality and musicality of this player.Good soundstage,clarity,bass is tight,highs not too bright, etc. Best player I''ve tried under $900.00.

Similar Products Used:

Rotel 955,Pioneer Elite CD63

detailed highs and lows, smooth sound, and excellent soundstaging

slow forward cue

It''s got all the bells and whistles of components that makes any budget audiophile salivate. 24/96 Burr Brown, low jitter device, and a low low price. Saw it on ebay for an even lower price, so what the heck. My previous unit was a modified Magnavox CDB-650 from the ancient of days, you remember 16 bit and x4 oversampling that was the rage. (I''m keeping it as a museum piece, quite a nice reliable player.). So you don''t have to imagine my elation on such an improved product and fabulous sound from the AMC. PS, I mainly listen to LPs speaking of oldies but goodies. Equipments Rega Brio AMC CD8a MMF 2 with Grado Red B&W 303 Synergistic Research Alpha SW Synergistic Research Alpha IC

Similar Products Used:

real old stuff

Nice sound for the price - especially if moving up from a DVD player.

A tad bright, dry cast to classical music.

First off, this is a great CD player for $200. I was putting together a modest system and stumbled across this player at the Audio Advisor website. I originally had my heart set on the NAD C540 (which I extensively listened to on a similar setup at the local hifi shop) but the player seemed to have some choice components and it was $300 cheaper, so what could I lose?

To keep costs low, I thought having the Pioneer do double duty would be adequate. And that's how the system sounded. The Pioneer seemed to produce sound - not music. Replacing the DVD player with the AMC only confirmed my suspicions.

When I dropped the component in, I immediately noticed how clear the music sounded. Bass was more controlled and instruments had more presence. The player effectively retrieved the decay of sound in a concert hall. Rock tracks had more body. Quite simply, there was more sound.

But when compared to the NAD, the AMC falls a bit short. Massed strings sounded dry - it seemed I could hear more of the bows being drawn across the strings than the actual note being played. Cymbals had a slight harshness that, even after two weeks of play, still annoyed me (but, in all fairness, I detected this harshness in the NAD too, though to a lesser degree). And in some places it strained to reproduce large-scale dynamics.

So after careful deliberation and trials I sent the AMC back and finally settled on the Njoe Tjoeb 4000, which costs $400 more, but hey, you gotta live a little...

HOWEVER, I still think this player is a great buy - especially if you don't have too much cash to throw away on audio equipment. And besides, you can always use an external DAC later...

Similar Products Used:

Pioneer DVD-333, NAD C540, Njoe Tjoeb 4000

Value; Components; Quality of player for price paid.

None at the moment

I pulled this baby out of the box, hooked up the existing PBJ interconnects, slapped in one of my favorite CD's, Steven Stills "Stills Alone". This CD is only Steven and his 12 string guitar and I thought the AMC CD8b sung beautifully out of the box. Granted, Steven Stills is not going to challenge the range of the player and speakers but I could definitely hear the quality. I let it burn in for 24 hours before listening to it again and OH MY GOD. What a huge difference. Even my audio challenged wife could notice a huge difference from the NAD 521 the AMC just replaced. I would definitely recommend this player and Audio Advisor.

Similar Products Used:

Kenwood; NAD; Sony ES

Very musical, neutral sound, clean output. Good value. Stylish. Excellent entry-level hifi.

Has a trouble with playing old, worn-out CD's.

I'm very happy with this player and its clean, musical sound. Great for entry-level hifi. And it looks cool, too. It had a small issue with playing two CD's with worn out center-holes, but other than that, it seems very well constructed.

Similar Products Used:

Various JVC players.

Clear, neutral sound with accurate and adequate bass, midrange, and treble.

Remote a bit on the cheap side, but at this price who cares!

The CD8b has the Burr-Brown 24/96 DAC chip set combined with a Sony transport. It does not do HDCD, SACD, or DVD-A but the filter in the 24/96 DAC chip set is so good that I really wonder how the new formats could possibly sound any better than ordinary CD's do played through this filter. This is an excellent player that I listen to for a couple of hours a day. I spent $200 on the AMC CD8b, got a Creek Headphone Amplifier for another $200, connected them with a Wireworld Oasis III interconnect that cost $45, and got some Grado 80 headphones for about $100. Total cost for my headphone only system is about $545 and this left plenty of money in my audio budget for a pile of new CD's. The price per hour over the course of a year for the equipment is going to be about $1.00/hr or less for near stereophile quality. Let me conclude by emphasizing that this player does require a good breakin period, about 100 hours, to really sound good. The Creek Headphone Amplifier even requires 30 or 40 hours of breakin, and the Wireworld Oasis III package recommends 100 hours of breakin for the interconnects. Grado headphones need 40 to 80 hours of breakin as well. It appears that most high-end audio equipment out of the box requires a healthy breakin period to sound right.

Similar Products Used:

Old Sony player from the 1980's the details of which I prefer to forget.

great .....