perry@sbcs.UUCP (Perry S. Kivolowitz) (12/24/83)
I bought a Luxman DX-104 Compact Disk player this week and would like to share some of my experiences with it and the cd's I have purchased. First, I would like to say that the DX-104 is a superbly crafted piece of hard ware. The unit is quite solidly built and I expect that it will continue to perform perfectly for many years to come. It is a 16 bit system as opposed to many other cd players of lesser cost which sport 14 bit dac's. I found the comment on the wow/flutter specs fairly humorous in that they state that wow and flutter are ``below measurable limits.'' The unit offers an eight selection memory which allows one to select any eight cuts from an album for playback in any sequence. A keypad is used to key in your selections. The memory can be scanned to see what you have selected but one drawback is that individual choices cannot be changed without re-keying all selections. The seek time between randomly selected cuts is less than the time normally between consecutive cuts on a normal record. The unit displays track number, index within a track and the exact time into the track even accounting for fast forward and reverse scanning. The ff/rev get up to 100 times the normal step rate after 2.5 seconds of holding the button. Again - a superb machine. And the sound? In a word - fantastic. I listen through a pair of Magnepan MG1 speakers powered by a GAS Grandson. I was afraid that the limited power of the Grandson would not be sufficient to handle the 90+ db dynamic range of the player but I have not been displeased with the results. I purchased the unit from Designatron Stereo in Setauket N.Y. The store is an excellent source of fine audio and video components with limited amounts of sales/hype bullshit. The staff, Chris and Drew, are very knowledgable and very helpful. As a person who has to save a while to make a major purchase (and thus demands the best sonic value for each buck) I would not hesitate to re- commend the store highly. Their number is (516) 751-0253. In short (to paraphrase a F. F. Coppola film) Sell the house, Sell the car, Sell the kids - GET A CD Player. I have purchased the following disks at prices ranging from $19.98 to $14.30. Good Ol'Sam (I'll sell you shit) Goody wants $21.98 per disk. Deutsche-Grammophon 400-035-2 Tschaikowsky - 1812. On the whole, good but some yo-yo REALLY needed rosin on his/ her bow. Spoiled in many cases by that ever popular ``Hi, I am a bow that can't find the strings'' noise. This detraction is, however, compensated for by an otherwise excellent sound. 410-033-2 Mussorgsky - Pictures at an Exhibition Again on the whole, good. But...me thinks that the original recording was saturated. 410-026-2 Grieg - Peer Gynt Suites 1 and 2. Ahhhhh (patting head and rubbing tummy while smilling broadly) 410-028-2 Beethoven - Symphony No. 5 Dunno yet - haven't had a chance to listen yet. Philips 400-021-2 Rimsky-Korsakov - Scheherazade Superb. Really nice. CBS CK-33795 Springsteen - Born to Run Let Bruce shake your rafters with Jungleland. The 60-cycle hum at the start of Thunder Road is really on the record so don't freak. CK-33453 Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here Excellent. Polydor 800-020-2 Vangelis - Chariots of Fire Outstanding - the title's song will blow you away each time you hear it. I still can't get over it. 800-077-2 Who - Tommy - 2 disks I never had a clean copy of Tommy. This is worth getting. Is quadrophenia out yet? I would love to hear from other people who have had experiences with cd's.