Despite the emergence of new formats and the resurgence of an old one (vinyl), CD is still the king of -formats if you require breadth of choice. And despite the fact that other sources will play CDs, if you want to hear your discs at their best, there's little substitute for a dedicated CD player.
It's also the most enduring -format on the market. Despite high-resolution contenders like SACD and DVD-Audio, -nothing has been able to undermine this universally popular format.
CD players work by reading a stream of 1s and 0s off a disc that spins at a constantly -changing speed (to counteract the increasing length of ‘groove'). This bitstream is then digitally filtered before undergoing -digital-to-analogue conversion in the DAC (D-to-A convertor). Thereafter, the signal is filtered again before being amplified and sent to the output sockets.
The processes of reading the disc and converting the data are sometimes split between a CD transport and separate DAC in so-called two-box players. A -popular approach with very high-end kit, this separates the electronically noisy elements from the sensitive analogue stages, but can introduce timing errors known as jitter, therefore one-box players usually offer best results where budget is a consideration.
