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Old 7th Feb 2023, 11:40 am   #63
Beobloke
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Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Southampton, Hampshire, UK.
Posts: 821
Default Re: On This Day In 1983 Philips Launched The CD.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Aub View Post
Wasn't there a CD player made, I think, by an American company called California Dream, that used valves in all the signal path electronics appart from the drive mechanism?

Aub
You may be thinking of California Audio Labs and their models like the Tempest, which was nothing more than a Philips CD player stuck in a bigger box with a valve output stage tacked on. Cynical "high end" at its finest!

My first CD player was a Yamaha CD-29, given to me for Christmas by my grandmother. My father gallantly volunteered to allow it to be set up in the lounge rather than my bedroom and he took the opportunity to upgrade all his equipment to the matching Yamaha models with some Mission 707 speakers!

The player eventually moved to my bedroom and became part of my system and I was convinced that CD was the future and thought i was set for life. Then my uncle gave me his pride and joy in the form of a Garrard 301. I was moderately concerned that it sounded better than the Yamaha, and things were never quite the same again...

I now use a Marantz CD-94 and CDA-94 combo and they are truly exceptional.
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