Any recommendations for a radio/CD player (mains powered)

[Anastasius]

Our elderly FM/CD player is failing sadly. The sound quality is excellent as the speakers are a reasonable size and also have a wee bass port. But most importantly the CD player reads ahead which is essential for playing opera CDs. Last time I looked into this every single device I found failed to do this. When we enquired of any store staff or manufacturers as to whether this feature existed we were met with blank looks or a zero response.

So...does anyone have any recommendations?

Ideally it would have FM but am beginning to realise that might be a wish too far.

[Barbirollians]

What is your budget ?

[Anastasius]

A good question. As low as possible TBH but realise that it probably won't be cheap. Where are all those 'boom-boxes' of yesteryear?

[Frances_iom]

sorry - what is read-ahead in context of a CD and why necessary for Opera ? - maybe my ARCAM Cd player which handles opera CDs reasonably well is missing something ?

[Anastasius]

Perhaps I'm using the wrong term and 'gapless' is the correct term.

From an article on the web ..
Gapless playback is when a series of audio tracks are played seamlessly, one after another, without any pauses or clicks in between. Unwanted pauses or clicks between tracks can ruin pieces of music which are split across multiple tracks, especially in cases where the music is not silent at the split points.

A gapless digital audio player will neither insert nor remove silence between tracks; instead it will play an album exactly the same as a CD player would play the original disc.

It's possible that yourArcam supports 'gapless' playback. When you say 'reasonably well' do you mean that there are no audible discontinuities as it traverses a track change ?

[jayne lee wilson]

The inability to playback operas etc. gaplessly is usually only a problem with Computer Audio i.e. files played through streamers and networking devices, and increasingly rare even there. I can't imagine any CD replaying system failing to replay gaplessly as the original Redbook spec. enabled this from the outset. I can't recall ever reading about such a problem either, in the context of a CD Player, in many years' subscribing to HiFi magazines.

So just set your budget, look around the web for reviews of devices which cover all the music sources you want - do think about future-proofing too, as you may need internet radio or web streams at some point. But don't worry about gapless replay off CD!
Then consider visiting a dealer to ask advice and/or try a few, on Home Trial if you can...

[Anastasius]

The inability to playback operas etc. gaplessly is usually only a problem with Computer Audio i.e. files played through streamers and networking devices, and increasingly rare even there. I can't imagine any CD replaying system failing to replay gaplessly as the original Redbook spec. enabled this from the outset. I can't recall ever reading about such a problem either, in the context of a CD Player, in many years' subscribing to HiFi magazines.

So just set your budget, look around the web for reviews of devices which cover all the music sources you want - do think about future-proofing too, as you may need internet radio or web streams at some point. But don't worry about gapless replay off CD!
Then consider visiting a dealer to ask advice and/or try a few, on Home Trial if you can...

Sorry but have to totally disagree with you. The last time I started looking around (about two years ago) for a replacement for our Panasonic I went to quite a few places and listened to several radio/CD players from different manufacturers. I suspect that there is just the one Chinese chip factory that makes the guts for these as they all failed to properly play an opera CD gaplessly. You're referring to a CD player separate whereas I'm looking for a combined radio/CD player ...think BoomBox!

Reviews are hopeless as none that I have seen bother with gapless playback. Finding a dealer anywhere within a 50 mile radius of where I live is slim.

Anyway, the sort of device that I'm replacing is not exactly high-end audio. This is what I'm looking to replace. It's a Panasonic RX-ES27 Stereo Cassette CD Player FM Radio Boombox ! Actually the sound quality is pretty good as the speakers are a reasonable size with a small bass port.

[Dave2002]

sorry - what is read-ahead in context of a CD and why necessary for Opera ? - maybe my ARCAM Cd player which handles opera CDs reasonably well is missing something ?

I’m slightly surprised you’ve not come across this.

There are obviously several factors:

1. Short data buffer for error correction - part of the CD spec.
2. Longer data buffer to allow for gapless playback as next track is readied.
3. Long data buffer to allow the CD drive motor to be turned off to save power.

I was made aware of the last (3) some while ago by a friend and colleague. For portable CD players, rather than having the CD spinning all the time, and running the motor continuously, some work by only spinning the motor up and doing the CD readout at very high data rates, thus (allegedly) reducing the overall power drain. I don’t now how much buffering is used in this type of design - maybe several minutes worth of music.

For mains powered designs there’s presumably much less need for this kind of technique.

I think the requirement for opera (or some other pieces, such as variations which have zero length gaps between them) is to minimise the impact of individual tracks on the CD being separated by in built 1 or 2 second gaps - a feature of some CD players without gapless playback - thus totally ruining the effect.

This is also a problem with some streaming sites which haven’t taken this kind of operation into account.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I’m slightly surprised you’ve not come across this.

I hadn't encountered the term before, either - although I had heard of "gapless". (As in "a gapless CD player", or - as they used to be known until about five years ago - "a CD player".)

[cloughie]

I hadn't encountered the term before, either - although I had heard of "gapless". (As in "a gapless CD player", or - as they used to be known until about five years ago - "a CD player".)

My knowledge of the terminology is about on a par with yours ferney. As for a recommendation for a CD/Radio player I use a Yamaha which I have had for a few years and in daily use - does everything I need with FM and Digital Radio, CD player and also has a USB input for memory stick playback. I don't know if there is current model which will do the same.

[Joseph K]

This is the one I have:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00DTTMFP2/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

It's cheaper than when I bought it as well. My only complaint is that CDs take a while to load up. Otherwise it's got most things you'd want.

[Frances_iom]

Dave
an audio CD must conform to the Red Book standard to be correctly called a Compact Disc - see Wikipedia - there is just the one track containing frames of coded audio (assuming not a special non-standard format) which frames are played sequentially - preceding the audio frames is an index whose entries give the time offset from the start of the audio stream with the timings quantised to fall on frame boundaries - the data rate in the frames is considerably higher than that output digital audio as coding is used to correct errors and also to allow for the interblock 'gaps' - it is only when such CDs started to be ripped on computer drives that the index was used as a mechanism to extract specific segments of audio - incorrectly referred to as tracks using a false analogy to vinyl discs - as most CDs were pap music of then on replay of a succession of 'tracks' fixed length gaps were automatically inserted even though the CD contained no such signals but merely encoded silence between the musical segments as the index was there only to locate the start of a musical segment. Opera CDs usually included in their index the start of major arias etc (after all many opera 'buffs' are only interested in these) but composers awkwardly placed these in a continuous musical context which was fine when the CD index was used as designed but not under the pseudo 'tracks' analogy

I was being somewhat facetious in my reply as I guessed it had to be something involving the unwanted insertions of gaps as this was immediately noted in the early days of ripping and several ripping programs allowed for 'gapless' rips especially for the few 'Classical' and Jazz listeners - my Arcam player now a few years old is somewhat near the top end in specification so plays CDs as Philips intended.

[Dave2002]

I used to have a player which not only did tracks, but also index points. Very few CDs were made using index points, though I do recall one which had all the music in one track, with index points providing the structure and navigation.

Perhaps some CDs and players were aimed at “popular” music, and so it was thought sensible to have short gaps between the “numbers” contained within, but it makes no sense for some classical music. I don’t really know why the design was like that. I don’t think often about the physical nature of the CD, but I believe you are right that there is simply a single spiral track containing a digital data stream which is organised into frames. There must be mechanisms for rapid access to the frames which represent any particular musical track. This contrasts with the physical layout of data on magnetic disc drives. The data is I believe contained in concentric rings of data tracks.

I don’t normally spend much time thinking of the low level details of CD and DVD discs, but this provides a quick refresher I think - https://electronics.howstuffworks.com/cd.htm

[Anastasius]

..... but it makes no sense for some classical music. .....

Or Sergeant Pepper .

It is quite difficult to Google this issue as search results get 'coloured' by gapping in network streamers etc and MP3 files. I did see a post I made back on another forum in 2013 and from one of the responses it would appear to something inherent in the design of many modern CD players that are software based rather than a good old fashioned hardware chip.

The response from Philips is complete and utter rowlocks.

I bought recently a Philips DCB852 CD/FM/DAB/iPod player. Not cheap at over £200 but the sound is actually very good. There is just one downside. It cannot play gapless audio CDs like Dark Side of the Moon without a noticeable hiccup as the track changes. Opera is impossible to listen to. So I wrote to Philips asking them if they were going to bring out a model that did. This is the reply that I received from them.


I am sorry to hear about the problems you are having.

I would advise after looking at previous conversations you have had with Philips.

I will advise from the information supplied that this is a disc issue and not a system issue.

Different disc standards use by manufactures can result in the gap issue you are experiencing this is why it does not effect all discs on the market.

Also this system was not designed with the ability to change the settings for this for the gap issue.


I hope this information is of help to you.

Leaving aside the appalling grammar, lack of punctuation and poor sentence construction......what utter tosh.

If he was right then perhaps he could explain why all the 40 or so gapless audio CDs that I have play flawlessly in all the other CD players we have around the house and in the car.

[Anastasius]

Anything from Cambridge Audio is off the list. Certainly the Cambridge One inserts gaps. Yet they get rave reviews from the Hi-Fi rags. Speaks volumes for Hi-Fi rag reviews.

At first sight Yamaha seem fine.