I have a Sony CD player CDP- XB920E and have had in storage for some 6 years. Was in the process of setting it up again and realised that the stabiliser puck which was taped to the outside of the unit has gone missing.
Would I be able to still buy this part from Sony? Or anywhere else?
Pete

I first purchased my Sony CDP-XB920E about 12-13years ago , it appealed to me bythe way it was made and also how it sounded on some expensive gear at Douglas Hi Fi in Perth Western Australia , At home I had a rare Sony TA-8650 V-FET amplifier driving some JBL-S310 MK2 speakers , and a Tecnics SL-120 tyrntable with an sme 3009 arm and shure v-15 mark3 cartridge . I don't change gear very often , and I took my time replacing my Technics CD player . I was able to compare several quality players through the same amp and speakers in a sound room at Douglas HiFi and the Sony beat the others comfortably , it had a really well balanced , smooth and punchy sound that appeals to me . After hooking it up to the redoubtable V-FET amp , I was really blown away by the dynamicsof this CD player , I have had no problems in the 12 odd years I have owned it , or the Sony V-fet which is now 30 years old . Sony makes gear to go the distance and sound good too !

I've owned this player for a long time. It was purchased from a Sony factory seconds place much cheaper than rrp, It wasn't supposed to be in Australia - was fitted with an oddball mains plug, I can only guess it was an Asian market evaluation model that was rejected.

This is a very solid machine, lots of heft to it with frame and beam construction, copper used in critical areas. As a transport it's killer. As a standalone player it's so-so, very digital, very forward, potenet dynamics & thrusts music at you rather than drawing the listener in. However add an offboard DAC and all bets are off. The fixed optical ES transport reigns supreme in the mass produced Japanese market.

If you find one for sale snap it up for a song and spend your coin on the DAC, then sit back & see what this star can really do.

Clean, neutral, dynamic sound. Fixed laser design.

Adjustable digital filter.

After exhaustive auditioning of numerous machines over the last few weeks I bought the Sony CDP-XB920 today, and since getting it home it has not ceased to please and amaze me. My previous player was an aged Marantz CD-63 (good in its day) which is now retired to the second system in my study.

The Sony has been a great pleasure after only a few hours use, and is still burning in so it is getting better and better by the minute. I can hardly wait for each disk to finish before reaching for something else to rediscover.

Finely articulated sound across the entire frequency spectrum with no bad spots or overemphasised areas; good but not extreme soundstage; punchy but not agressive dynamics; clean and detailed but also revealing of faults in recordings (over compressed recordings are obvious).

The disk "stabiliser" or "puck" is a funky little thing - so much so that the novelty of using it (and the obvious good engineering of this and the fixed lens system) prevents the player being a chore to use. The only thing I don't like is the user adjustable digital filtering - it is a bit gimmicky - why not just get the standard setting right?

A very fine and musical CD player. The perfect middle-ground upgrade for when you (like me) are ready to graduate from inexpensive consumer products but are not yet in the Krell league. I wish I could award it 6 stars in both categories.

Components:

Sony CDP-XB920 CD player
Rotel RT-820 tuner
Golden Tube Audio SEP-1 valve preamp
Golden Tube Audio SE-40 valve poweramp
Alon Lotus SE speakers (tri-wired)
Tara Labs interconnects
Chord speaker cable

Similar Products Used:

Sony, Marantz, Pioneer, NAD, Rotel, Musical Fidelity, Myriad (various models of each).

Build, ease of use, sound

Too many gadgets, cd text, filters

A competant player that out-performs some of it's more expensive rivals. This player has the build quality expected from a company such as Sony and looks good too. The player is very easy to use - the jog wheel is something I couldn't live without! The player has both optical and co-axial outputs which is great if you want to make recordings to MD or CDR and has many facilities such as track spacing and peak search if you are making analogue recordings. For the price you really can't go wrong!

Great sound, natural sound,Fixed optical mechanism, construction.

digital filters.

this is a great cd player. the price is very good. highly recommended.

Similar Products Used:

SONY, HK

Sound, build quality, CD-TEXT.

Too sensitive to CDs physical imperfections.

I bought this player for the quality of its sound and the CD-TEXT feature, which is very useful for my own compilations, besides it can play CDRW.
But soon I realised that this player has many problems with some discs, mainly because some CDs have an internal radius which is a little bigger (fraction of millimeters), and because the way this player fixes the discs, the CD cannot spin allways at the speed needed. This causes glitches in the sound, even the stop of the playing with the message "NO DISK".
A pitty for such a promising player; may be a simple and traditional fixing mechanism (now I don't by this fixed optical blah ...) with a 10 seconds buffer would be better.

Great sound, digital filters, it matches perfectly with my MD player (a sony MDS - JB920)

Not a lot of cd's have CD text nowadays

This a must have cd player.
It has revealed al kinds of new details I had never even heard on my old cd's, and the price is very good.

i have the CDP-XB920 QS for 14 mounths now and i can say that i´m still inlove with it, as if it was the first day of audition...it never stops amazing me as i replay all my 5 years cd collection and mostly my 15 years pink floyd galore...maybe the secret of revealing tunes that i never noticed in my cds before, is plugging my schneiser 565 ovation to the headphones plug of this cd player!!! because as for my old sony amp TA-FE 500R i can´t extract more that i already have for 3 years...another loyal component ready to be upgraded :-( if your budget is tight up to £350 then i recomend this beauty cd player CDP-XB920...
because it reaches so deep and with wide ambience that never is anoying or out of breath...it encorages the listener to dig deeper in the music never knowing were to stop! enjoy it...and treasure it :-)