There are many ways to listen to music. CD is still my favorite format. They can sound GREAT and there’s no muss, no fuss. Your sound depends on how the master recording was made, and ultimately turned into a CD. Assuming the company used an original master and did the work with TLC, your CDs should sound FABULOUS.

There’s no cleaning of your LP or stylus. There’s no worry about azimuth or rake angle. What about VTA? Was the last LP thicker or thinner? There are no clicks and pops in the music to “listen through.” I’m long past pretending they aren’t there. I’m not listening to Schubert through pot holes. With classic rock, you won’t notice the noise as much. But you’ve got a bobsled riding through a plastic track. There are always noisy mechanical interfaces.

There’s no wi-fi or internet hand shake to go bad. There’s no caching of files.

Just put the disc in and listen to the full program as the artist intended.

CDs have gotten a bad rap from audiophile purists. It’s sheer hogwash.

Further, I’m JUST FINE with the artist making money on selling discs, be they silver or black. Spotify pays music distribution companies approximately $.003-.005 per stream. A stream isn’t a song. Of course Spotify runs its new math at the music distribution companies. The company takes a nice cut before the artist sees a dime. A million streams (whatever Spotify calls a stream) might land the actual artist as much as a grand.

Atoll of France

Atoll makes its entire line of gear, including its great CD players, in France, with a 3 year warranty. Atoll prefers the sound of Burr Brown DACs in its players. They’re used in all models. The vast majority of its competition is made in China with a one year warranty. The majority of CD players are made in electronic job houses that make a myriad of widgets. It is unlikely that a CD player with a brand name on the face was actually made by that company. Atoll does indeed make its own players.

CD players sound different from one another. They vary in reliability. Why is Atoll better than the masses?

*All metal chassis

*Linear power supply for digital section with its own 30VA transformers.

*Separate linear power supply for analog audio stages

*Double sided printed circuit boards with nickel/gold finish

*Differential audio output stages with discrete components

polarized in class A topology

CD Players

MD100 $900

MD100 is Atoll’s entry level CD player. It is made on Atoll’s “mini” sized chassis. Just because it’s in a small package, doesn’t mean it has small sound. Atoll wanted to make one mini player to accommodate customers with a large stash of gear- and needed a small player in the rack. MD100 runs three (!) regulated power supplies and over 10,000uF filter caps. Its sound is noticeably more smooth and full than Chinese built players at this price point or below.

CD50 Signature $1650

CD50 is a full chassis player with six power supplies and filter caps of 8192uF. It doesn’t need quite the filter capacitance of its little brother above due to having more supplies and a bigger transformer. CD50 does deliver fuller bass response than MD100.

CD80 Signature $1750

CD80 is my point of diminishing returns player. It runs 8 regulated power supplies and has filter caps of just under 13,000uF. Since it’s only $100 more than CD50, I’d buy CD80 for the extra fullness it provides. CD80 has a more relaxed, effortless sound than its less expensive brothers.

CD100 Signature $2200

CD100 steps into a higher echelon of music making. With 8 supplies and 13,032uF of caps, CD100 is very rich sounding. Its the first player in the lineup to use Atoll’s higher end current voltage conversion stage. It has a more weighty sound to its bass performance in particular.

CD200 Signature $2950

CD200 is more full and dynamic sounding than the rest of the family. It brings a refinement to playing CDs- as a much higher end cartridge brings to record playing. Most notably, CD200 brings sophistication of timbre and breathy dynamics that its brothers can’t quite do. It uses 8 supplies, 13,032 uF of caps and a superior current voltage conversion stage.

CD Transports

If you already have a great DAC in your system, you really just want a solidly built TRANSPORT to feed silver discs to it. Atoll hasn’t forgotten about you guys.

DR100 $1200

DR100 has coax and OPT outs. It has caps of 14.141uF. It has an outstanding anti-vibration CD drive mechanism. It sounds cleaner than running a cheap CD player into your DAC.

DR200 $2000

DR200 is on a more sturdy chassis and has 22,100uF caps. It has coax, OPT and XLR outs. It has a separate, dedicated transformer for the digital outputs. The PCB has better isolation than DR100. DR200 is a slam dunk for an IN300 Signature buyer! It is a full figured, uber sophisticated silver disc player.