Little things like that are indicative of this player's build quality. There is absolutely no motor sound coming out of the thing while it playing. It just glides on out as if it were riding on air. It may have the smoothest tray mechanism I have ever seen. I was surprised to discover how heavy this player is when I installed it in my own system. As far as I know, Onkyo is the only company who makes carousel players that hold six discs. It is carousel type changer that holds six discs at one time. This is their premier line of components. The Onkyo DX-C730 is part of Onkyo's Integra line. I was convinced and bought the thing as fast as I could. The Onkyo still sounded better with its own circuitry than the Cal Alpha DAC and the Audio Alchemy (R.I.P.) DAC-in-the-Box. Just for kicks, the fellows at the shop even did some A/B comparisons with the Onkyo by itself and its output through a couple of separate DA converters. After listening to both players in couple of other listening sessions over a couple of weeks, I determined that, for the price, the Onkyo couldn't be beat. Of course, the Cal player costs twice as much as the Onkyo and any people believe that Cal Audio produces the best multi-disc players on the planet. It seems that the CD-5 is able to milk a bit more information out of those shiny silver discs. Where the Cal player really excelled was micro-dynamics and heightened sense of ambiance. The two matched up very well when it came to realism and naturalness of sound. So once again we set up for a head-to-head match. Now that the Onkyo had thoroughly thrashed the Parasound, I ready to compare it to the Cal Audio CD-5.

The almost mechanistic sound that I had heard in many of the players I auditioned was totally absent with this player. The Onkyo also excelled in dynamics and truth of timbre, especially in the higher frequencies. The Onkyo was clearly better in this regard, with only the slightest hint of snakiness.

It quickly became apparent that the Onkyo player excelled the Parasound in all phases of music reproduction this right out of the box with no burn in! Sibilance is one my pet peeves with digital. I listened to both players extensively, listening to a wide variety of music. He then left me to my own devices with a handful of CDs and three remotes. We then set the Onkyo DX-C730 player on top of the Parasound player for a friendly head-to-head comparison. I mean Onkyo isn't exactly a 'high-end' name is it? While we were unpacking the new baby he explained to me that Onkyo is a pretty well respected name in the business and they actually manufacture some products for some another high-profile name in the audio industry. Uh, sure, why not? Needless to say I was a bit skeptical. When I explained my quest to the always helpful sales guy, he quickly responded, 'Hey, we just got a new Onkyo player in a couple of days ago.' 'It's still in the box.' 'Do you want to take a listen to it?'. Then I went by the store where I had recently purchased my integrated amp to listen to the Parasound and Cal Audio players. After looking at three stores, I was most impressed with the NAD player. I won't go into much detail about this experience except to say that most of the products left a me a bit underwhelmed. So off I went to the local 'hi-fi' shops to do some listening. This quickly narrowed the field of contenders to a handful of products that are made by companies that are more interested in sound than bells and whistles. In order to gain spousal approval for this new purchase, one caveat was made: it had to be a multi-disk player. Listening to the newest wave of CD transports and D to A converters made this clearly evident. But CD playback has come a long way since those early days of digital technology. The Luxman player had been a loyal and faithful servant since 1985 when I purchased it. Upon purchasing a new integrated amplifier (see my review of the Jolida SJ 202A), it became readily apparent that my Luxman CD player had some serious flaws that I was unaware of previously.

Onkyo cd player silver