AudioFederation - Catalog of High-End Audio Preamplifiers

These tables list cd players and transport / DAC pairs by the type of experience they were apparently designed to produce. Secondary characteristics of an cd player, if any, are listed in order of significance. There are no better or best in these lists - just different. We have personally heard all of these CD players, most of them many times using our test CDs.

Current best practices has transports being paired with DACs from the same manufacturer - so we no longer call out transports and DACs separately. Most CD players today have very little of the irritating digititus once associated with the sound of CD playback- especially as the price of the player rises above $5K or so (in this table, only Burmester, Wadia, Chord and Cary still have a significant digital signature).

Impressive - Exaggerated bass and/or dynamics and/or detail
Sophisticated - Detailed with finesse, nice to listen to, pleasant
Workhorse - Competent with no real intention to do anything specific especially well
Sweet - Exaggerated harmonics and/or warmth
Natural - Timbre and tone are correct, everything else well balanced
Emotional - Music often pulls at heart strings
Real/Truth - Transparent, accurate
Magical/Spiritual - Precipitates psychological effects other than what might be expected