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.

Got this to move my personal music away from my work computer while in my desktop. It looks awkward in my desk but its very useful. I use the optical out to my headphone DAC/AMP. Works perfectly. Both during CD playback and iPod interface. I listen to TIDAL (CD quality) in my iPhone 5S connected to the unit usb port and it transfer the digital audio through the optical audio out or to the front headphone port if connected. The good stuff * Solid CD playback. Period. Solid construction. I see myself using it for years. * iPod/iPhone/iPad direct mode digital audio transport to its own headphone jack, analog out or digital optical out. * Remote control and batteries included * RCA cable included (haven't used it but its a nice to have) * Heavy solid body. No cheap feeling. * The Burr-Brown DAC is very competent. Just not awesome. My Schiit modi 2 uber outperforms it in clarity and extension. * The headphone amp section have decent power. Some caveats: * The headphone amp section get some background hiss and if you move around some weird pulses can be heard like something disconnecting for a fraction of a second. Not a big deal to me because I wouldn't use it everyday. Maybe to leave new hardware burn in. * Repeat 1/ALL function requires the remote. No front panel button for it. * In my case its too big for desktop use. I will try to use it as a screen base. Not returning it for this. I can get around the bullying. * It have developed a hot spot in the top left behind the headphone amp is supposed to be. There is a darker oval shaped figure over the chassis where the hot spot it. Its happening while I'm not even using the analog sections. Just digital out. UPDATE 05/24/2016: Added pictures of how I'm using it in my desktop. It can hold that big screen on top without problems. There you can see I'm using the iphone streaming Tidal HIFI through the optical output to my modi2u and then the amp magni2.

I purchased this as a transport device, meaning that I have a separate DAC that converts the digital to analog. Note that in order to by-pass the internal DAC on a CD player it must have a digital out, the analog out is already converted by the CD player. Additionally the ability to use as an input device for a remote MP3 player (like an iPod) and also to burn MP3 TO the USB out is great and easy to use. So why not the TEAC 890 CD Burner (higher cost TEAC CD-RW890 CD Recorder with Remote (Black) - It doesn't have a digital out and thus you must use the internal DAC on this unit. That significantly limits the unit for those looking for a better DAC. What about the TEAC P1260 CD player (lower cost) TEAC CD-P1260 CD Player with LCD and MP3 Playback - the same problem, no digital out. If you don't care about digital out for a remote DAC - then my advice is this: P1260 for a CD player with the ability to plug in an MP3 player. 890 CD burner - if you want to burn MP3s. However - This unit does both - it burns MP3 (not to DISC - but to USB) and it also has the digital out for a remote DAC. If you are looking for a great transport (for remote DAC) - this is a great product for the cost and functionality. EDIT: OCT 2012 (just one year) and this CD player stop reading discs. I called and emailed TEAC customer support, which didn't help at all. The guy on the phone thought it was my discs, but I told them they had ALL played before. Then he said he thought the unit may have over heated and asked how long it had been on, REALLY? He was useless and gave me another number to call, which didn't help. The unit is out of warranty and TEAC customer service sucks. I had someone else look at it (who has built -hi-fi equipment) and said the transport mechanism is plastic and not well designed and the motor is weak. It just can't keep a constant or strong speed to get the laser to read. After looking it over, he concluded it was crap (drive, mechanism, and motor). He suggested I contact Amazon and return it for a credit or something. He recommended the Marantz CD5004 CD Player - which is twice the price, but a far superior product. Also he recommended Emotiva CRD-2 [...] He said these were both far superior units. Also he said the Emotiva customer service and guarantee is one of the best in the industry. I now have a TEAC that doesn't work, TEAC customer service wants to charge me (but isn't clear how much or if they can or will fix it) and wasn't helpful.

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.

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'm gonna have to go ahead and give this player 5 stars even though there are two little issues I have with it. First one is that it won't let you 'nest' folders on a usb drive. For instance, if you have a folder named 'Rock' and within that folder you have two folders named 'Rush' and 'Heart' and then within the Rush folder you have two more folders named 'Moving Pictutes' and 'Signals' and within those album named folders are the actual MP3 song files.....WELLLLLL, when you stick the USB drive in the Teac player it will only recognize the folder holding the files. So, in this example, 'Rock', 'Rush' and 'Heart' would not even show up. The work around would be to use all descriptors in the same folder name. For instance, name one folder 'Rock-Rush-Moving Pictures' and put the song files for that album in that folder. Although I don't use the 'record CD to USB' feature, you need to be aware that it can only record MP3s as high as a 192 bit rate. 256 and 320 are NOT an option. Other than those two things, this CD player is pretty much perfect. Build quaity seems good. Sound quality, great.

A typical CD player in this price range rarely meets high expectations. However, this TEAC CD-P650 manages to impress with a clean design, quality components, and excellent performance for its class. Frankly, if CDs were not declining in popularity I wouldn't be surprised to see this player go for twice the price. But the market has swung towards MP3 for obvious reasons and this TEAC provide a great bridge platform for those who still have CD collections but also want to take advantage of playing files directly from their MP3 players or USB storage. Add in the headphone jack with separate volume control and you have a unit that works just as well on its own as it does connected to your main audio system. I purchased my first and only CD player back in 1986. It's a TEAC single CD player that has been in my audio system to this very day and it has worked perfectly for 28 years (!). After recently rebuilding the subwoofer in my audio system to replace worn speakers, I started to do some research on the state-of-the-art in CD players. Overall, the technology has become more affordable, the CD mechanisms are less complex, and the D/A converters have been significantly refined. At this point, CD players have reached their pinnacle and mass-market manufacturers are certainly not investing any more in the technology. Even the high end of the market ($1000+ players) can only differentiate themselves by using higher quality power supplies and D/A sections designed to make the most of the brilliantly-conceived CD format. For most of us, a good quality basic player will do everything just as well. What attracted me to the TEAC CD-P650 was its high-quality appearance, its Burr-Brown D/A, and its ability to play a variety of digital files directly from an MP3 player or USB storage. Since more and more of our family's music is being purchased as MP3 from the start, I felt it was time to add MP3 capability (via iPod or USB stick) to my main audio system --something I had put off for a long time. When the CD-P650 arrived, I was immediately impressed with its quality construction and appearance. There is nothing cheap looking or feeling about it. The CD drawer moves solidly and no mechanical noise emanates from the unit when a CD is playing. Since I always take apart my stuff to see what's inside, I was pleasantly surprised to see a very thoughtfully laid out interior --among the cleanest of any consumer product I own. There's a separate power supply board, a large transformer, the D/A board, and only a few, neatly routed cables (several are shielded) between them. I was expecting less attention to detail in this low-cost unit but I was pleasantly surprised at the quality. The CD transport itself is very solid and the laser/spindle portion is nicely isolated from shock and vibration. There are gold-plated RCA output jacks, an optical output, and connections for a TEAC remote control system. The player comes with it's own remote control for accessing all functions (many of which can only be accessed with the remote as the front panel buttons are kept to a minimum). See my photos of the interior and you'll see what I mean about quality components. Fortunately, this CD-P650 operates and plays CDs and MP3s brilliantly. The two row, front panel display is easy to read and provides a scrolling display of the MP3 file/folder name currently playing. If a CD is playing, only the track number and time is visible. Upon playing my first few CDs it was clear that this TEAC is a refined design and easily exceeds the audio performance of my old player. My old TEAC player had a 2X oversampling D/A and a fifth order analog filter. This was good for its time 28 years ago, but modern D/As provide 8X oversampling and a cleaner output signal. I confirmed that the CD-P650 indeed uses the Burr-Brown PCM1791 D/A Converter among other high quality parts. Overall, I'm glad I found this player and am very happy with the upgrade to my system. The performance and quality has exceeded my expectations and provides a perfect bridge for playing my CDs and MP3s through my main audio system. This was a great purchase!

For $136.00 you will not find a better CD player. - Sounds great with CDs or USB sticks - Records to USB stick from CD (works) - DAC is good, and sounds better than more expensive Marantz on Nine inch nails type music. The dac is good enough for sure - has digital output port in case you want to use an external DAC. Not sure why you would need as it sounds fine as is. I think the next step up from this CD player with be the Marantz 6005 but that cost 4x more and really does not sound much better. Ive tested it on what it can play via USB sticks. - Can play MP3 up to 320 bit - Can't play any type of lossless file. I tried lossless MWA and also tried wave files from a cd that I copied to a USB. Will not play Flac either. That is not a bad thing just I had read it could play MWA and wave from USB.