TEAC CD-P650 Home Audio CD Player with USB and iPod Digital Interface - Black

There have been few reviews of this player online, and it's mystery as to why not. Most reviews want to compare it to the Onkyo C-7030 CD player, which I own, so I will start there. Let me start off by saying that I bought this item through Amazon's "Warehouse Deals", at a great price. The listing stated (as they always do) that the item is "Used-Like New" or "good" or "acceptable". The listing then describes the reason why it is used and the imperfections within. Mine was listed at "less than 5% cosmetic damage on the top of the item, so I gave it a try. The player arrived double-boxed, and all items inside (remote, cords, manuals, etc) seem to be in their original packaging. I could not tell this was used. I inspected the player itself, and found a small (very small) indentation on the top and had to really look to see it. Thus, the "used' term. This item was absolutely pristine, and once placed in the stereo rack, the imperfection disappeared completely. I will now use the Warehouse Deals with confidence in the future. Onto the player. If you are debating whether to buy this unit, or the Onkyo C-7030, the question is whether the price difference is justifiable. In my opinion, yes it is. The Onkyo player has more depth, a wider soundstage, and definitely more bass. In fact, the Onkyo player has to be the best deal ever in stereo equipment for the price it is offered at. I bought the Teac player at a $80.00 price drop for a second room, and it was certainly worth it for that. If it was going to be my main unit, I would spring for the Onkyo each and every time; there is definitely a difference in sound. If you are a casual listener and don't care much about the technical differences in sound, the Teac will serve you well. The main differences between the two players are these:1) Sound quality - The Onkyo wins hands down. If you want the best sound at the best price, and this is your main unit in your stereo / home theater system, you will want the Onkyo. It has the better overall sound, and the soundstage is unreal. The bass and depth of the sound are also very pronounced, and your CD collection will come alive with this unit. The Teac sounds wonderful, but as many reviewers have already written, the mid-range on this unit is the focal point. The highs are a bit shrill, and the bass takes a bit of a back seat to this. What this does mean is that your vocals will be way up front, and if your music is vocally driven this unit will let you hear just about every word the singer is saying. Also, the Teac sound is very clean and precise. If you have never heard the Onkyo, the Teac will sound fantastic to you. It really is a great unit at a great price.2) USB access. You can record music from your CDs, onto a flash drive. I'm not sure who would want to do this, but I'm guessing that anyone who doesn't have a CD burner on their computer might burn CDs onto a flash drive and load up an MP3 player from there.3) NO eject button on the remote to for the CD tray itself. This is completely baffling to me. I didn't take away a star for that, as I could have but the price vs performance keeps it at 5-stars. Why Teac wouldn't put an eject button on the remote is strange. I'm guessing that the USB control button would have been that button, but they wanted to keep the remote small, which it is. It makes zero sense to have a power on/off button, and then make you bend down to open the tray to load the disc. It could be a deal breaker for some.In conclusion, aside from the missing eject button, if you are a casual listener vs an audiophile, you will love this player at this price. It looks good, and it plays superbly. If you are an audiophile, and you want the best bang for your buck, then get the Onkyo C-7030 while they last. It is without a doubt, the best player on the market for that price. I've got a higher end Marantz CD player, and I have much trouble hearing the difference between the Onkyo and it. As a second player, or you just play CDs some time, the Teac is the way to go.

The affordable, dedicated CD player is being threatened with extinction by streaming music and home media servers. Get this one while you can!The CD player may survive as a niche product, but it will likely be expensive. Teac has emerged as a leader in this shrinking market, and in fact they manufacture the transports for many high-end players. Blu-ray players will continue to play CDs as well, and in some cases do so brilliantly, but the good ones won't be cheap and aren't exactly designed for your typical hi-fi stereo setup.This is a great CD player and for what you get, astonishingly cheap. It features a high-end digital audio converter (DAC) chip, a robust drive mechanism, and a solidly designed chassis power supply. All in all it delivers top flight sound, probably 95% of what the really high end stuff delivers for less than 5% of the price. It's very robust and plays all of my CDs, even the old scratched ones that survived my dorm room and barrack days. It is accurate with good pacing and a neutral sound.It also has a very convenient front panel USB host port which works perfectly with my iphone, both for music stored on the device and streaming through it. So you can hook up any old iPhone, iPad or iTouch and have a fully featured music streamer, using the high quality DAC. Nice! That's a huge savings over a dedicated streamer, with a vastly improved interface. The USB port powers your i-device so you won't ever run out of juice if you just want to leave it plugged in. Add this player into your stereo setup and you are future-proof: all your CDs will play, plus all the streaming and digital music you have through your i-device.It doesn't support native SACD format (too bad) but will play the CD layer of SACDs very nicely. Since most SACDs are better recorded and mastered than regular CDs it takes the sting off not playing SACD. It won't play Blu-Ray or DVD audio which is pretty rare now anyway.The headphone amp works very well and has it's own volume control. It isn't quite as spacious sounding as my dedicated headphone amp, but it is dead quiet and thus an improvement over my amplifier's headphone output which has a slight hiss to it.Improvements in manufacturing have meant that CD players are approaching their highest quality to price ratio ever, while at the same time the market is shrinking. How long will manufacturers like Sony and Teac continue to offer these products? I'm not sure: if you look at radio tuners, for example, it is almost impossible now to buy a new, high quality, dedicated tuner. On the other hand, if you look at record players, the price/quality ratio has never been better and they are widely available. Will CD players flourish as a niche product like record players, or fade away like radio tuners? Already the new generation of automobiles are leaving out the CD player, so we will probably find out soon. The Japanese market, where CD sales are still climbing, will likely keep it alive for some time. But why gamble? At this price buy it now.And for those people who don't understand how component stereos work: you need an amplifier, speakers, and cables to connect them to get sound out of this, unless you are using your headphones exclusively. You don't need anything to listen on your headphones, just turn it on and plug them in. To use your ipod you need a cable.

I've owned this CD player for about 8 years. It sounds pretty good and was an overall improvement over early 90's Phillips, Magnavox and Sony CD players I had been listening to before acquiring it. The CD mechanism is very solid and quiet and has never once skipped or floundered. The internal Burr Brown PCM1791 DAC is pretty decent, however the sound really opened when I started using it as a transport via the optical digital out into the AD1955 DAC in my integrated amplifier. The CD-P650 is very respectable budget CD player and it also makes for a very respectable CD transport. For some reason, dedicated CD transports tend to be very pricey. It's only shortcoming as a transport is that a digital coax output is not provided. For me, another shortcoming is that the handy to have USB input does not read .wav files. For these reasons, I recently pulled the trigger on a an upgrade CD player that does have the .wav and digital coax capability, and I stuck with TEAC because I am impressed with their CD mechanisms and general build quality at a budget price point.