I bought my first CD player in 1986. It was an EMI brand-engineered Sony machine - the Ferguson CD 01.
Even as a very early Sony player with a British name, it convinced me immediately that I could no longer consider that LPs were the best way to collect a music library of recordings.
By that stage I had about 800 hundred LPs, all bar two or three bought new, and though well used, certainly mint. In those days I changed my stylus every three months to avoid damaging the grooves.
It was obvious that CD had, even then, pitch stability and rhythmic address which no turntable would match [oartly because many vinyl and 78 discs are not all that pitch stable in the first place], and indeed has not yet been matched [also partly because of the inaccuracy in pitch of so many discs]. Add to this that a high soprano forte was rendered without distortion [after any numbers of playings], and musical balances were far more lucid, and I knew that LPs were over for me.
That first player itself was not durable with three transport changes in two years, but my next player arrived soon enough. A Sony CDP 300 ES, which apparently was well regarded at the time, and was much more durable. It lasted from 1988 till 1999, when it was replayed with a Naim CD3.5
Of course the Naim did represent a real advance on the Sony in timbre and subtle musical balance, but the 3.5 was with me for a rather short time till 2001 when I got a CDS 2
Nowadays, I have moved on in technological terms with a MAC Mini [iTunes and AIIF files] with a DAC V1 feeding a NAP 100 and ESLs.
I have never been happier with my replay. For the first time there are no occasional niggles in musical terms. It just gets on with the job in exemplary replay fashion, and makes the best of older recordings while being superb on the best of modern ones!
ATB from George
