In the two decades or so that compact discs have been around, they have become almost universal in serious audio systems. Yet, judging by the number of players on dealers' shelves, they are still selling briskly as people upgrade or add second or third machines. Here are a few hints for when you hit the stores looking for a new CD player.
When the first players arrived on the market, the system was touted as "perfect." Few audio enthusiasts accepted the claim at that time, and few do today, but it is certainly true that the variations in performance from one player to another are very small, and the question of whether or not there are any audible differences at all is still hotly debated.
Nevertheless, the CD's popularity has resulted in a huge number of models, all jostling for their distinctive places in the market. Because the difference in the sound between one player and another is so small, there is little chance that you will get burned on audio quality whatever you choose. But the range of features and functions available is huge, and you should plan to spend considerable time sifting through the options that are available and matching them with what you need.
The first players were single-disc models designed to be part of a home audio system, and that category is still popular. But there are alternatives that may well suit you better. For instance, portable CD players match the performance of their full-sized cousins closely, and most have line-level outputs and AC power supplies that allow them to be hooked up to a home system. Often this is attractive if your hi-fi already takes up so much space that an additional component would be hard to accommodate.
If you need elaborate programming, a CD changer might be the best choice, as it allows extended hands-off playing. A magazine-type changer lets you put together more-or-less permanent programs that can simply be popped into the changer whenever you want to play it (or inserted into a trunk-mounted changer in your car, if it's the same brand). More flexible, perhaps, is the carousel changer, but you are limited to five discs, and they must be loaded and programmed anew each time you fire up the system. Jukebox-style changers hold anywhere from a couple of dozen to hundreds of discs, usually with elaborate programming options.
One of the most attractive things about CD players is that they allow you to be selective about what you play and the order in which you play it. To some extent, all CD players have provisions for such programming, but they vary widely in details, so it's worth taking some time in the store playing with the controls to make sure they will do what you want and are easy for you to use -- what may be intuitive to one user is often unbearably awkward for another. A CD is small enough that it should only take an instant to move the laser from one place to another, but there is a surprisingly wide range of speed differences from machine to machine. Some take almost no time, others can take up to ten seconds to jump from the first to last cuts. And some machines, although fairly sprightly when jumping from track to track, take forever to get going. This may not matter to you, or the delays may drive you crazy; either way you should know what you're getting.
Although CD players are not usually as vulnerable to physical disruption as their vinyl predecessors, some are more likely than others to skip when faced with vibration (dancing, say). Many manufacturers have made specific efforts to provide shock absorption, so if you expect this to be a problem, jump around a bit in the store to see what happens. If your listening is more placid, however, it makes little sense to pay for much in the way of stabilizing.
You can't really see what's going on with your discs, so it's important that the front-panel display tells you what you want to know in a way that you can read. Some are too dim or too small; others cram so much information into the display that it's hard to figure out what's happening. A good compromise is a display that conveys everything, but for ordinary listening shuts off all indicators except the track and time.
With very few exceptions, today's systems require a CD player to be connected to a normal high-level input on an amplifier or receiver. Some of these contain their own digital-to-analog conversion circuitry, however, there are a number of outboard converters on the market as well. To serve them, most players provide digital outputs, either coaxial or optical or both, along with the conventional analog outputs. These may not mean very much to you now, but the separation of players and converters will no doubt continue, so it's wise to consider digital outputs if there's a chance you will upgrade the rest of your system in the near future.
The compact disc system incorporates a sophisticated error-correction code that enables a player to detect missing data and usually replace it before we can hear that it's gone. Not all players are equally adept at using this information; some are much more prone to skipping and other problems. Unfortunately, it's often hard to know just how good or bad a player is until you have lived with it for a while, but your dealer might be able to aim you in the right direction as long as you express concern for this aspect of performance. If you own a disc that has caused problems in the past, take it with you when you shop and restrict your choices to machines that will play it without problems.
