YAMAHA CD-S300BL Natural Sound CD Player

Short answer: Buy it (unpaid review)I was looking for a CD player and found so much more.Shipping through Amazon was fast. The player arrived in a box that contained the factory box inside. Packed well and no damage to box or the unit. CD drawer was taped close and had a protective paper shim to keep the drawer from rattling in transport.Unit came with a detachable power cable, basic RCA patch cable, remote, 2 AA batteries and various paperwork.I hooked the Yamaha S300bl CD player up to a 1979 Pioneer SA 8800 amp (this amp produces an extremely clean signal). From there it went out to a pair of upgraded Klipsch Cornwalls.I could not be happier with the sound. Both the CD player and the USB interface sound fantastic (clear and clean with detail in the lows and highs).When I first hooked up my iPhone to the player, I streamed Pandora and I was initially disappointed... turns out that Pandora (as of the time of this review) limits their bit rate on the stream to mobile devices. The Pandora stream was constrained and the quality suffered. I am an Amazon prime member so I played Amazon music and the quality problems went away. In a blind listening test, people around here, that have tried it, can’t hear the difference between the CD and the Amazon Stream.I don’t not feel like it is necessary to run this CD player through my external DAC. The sound quality is high.I bought the player for the CD function... but, I end up streaming to it more often. I like that my phone is charging while it is hooked up to the unit. It is my new go to charging dock.Beside the CD function and the iPhone connection, the s300bl will play mp3s from a USB stick.The remote is not overly complicated. There is functionality in CD, USB and streaming from my iPhone. You can leave you phone tethered and still pause the music, skip tracks and thing from across the room with the remote.I will likely pickup a second s300bl to put in my classroom... as I listen to music before and after school when grading and preparing for lessons. For that matter when it is appropriate, we sometimes listen to music during work time.The price I paid was 299. The Yamaha s300bl is a great value.I highly recommend it

Received my Yamaha CD player yesterday (S300). Working like a champ so far, will update if necessary. Currently running it with my Yamaha RX-V377 and Energy RC-Micro 5.1 system.I had one of the first Yamaha CD players back around 1985 or so. It was a great one and fingers crossed for this one. This is the first stand alone component CD player I've had in quite some time. Noticeably more natural sounding than playing CDs through my Sony Bluray player. Will be pairing with a Yamaha integrated amplifier and floor speakers as soon as money allows.As a bonus, hooking this to a straight audio input of my RX-V377 I can play music now without the TV having to be "on". Unlike my bluray player that hooks with HDMI and that does require the TV to be on with that receiver. Lots of time during the day I only listen to music and having to have the tv on just to listen to music through the bluray player sucked. This ROCKS!Nice features on the unit include dimmer and counter options, programmability, optical output, and a USB input on the front.Both my RX-V377 and this CDP-S300 have high quality Burr-Brown DACs. I have mine currently hooked up with RCA patch cord (included) so that I'm doing the conversion inside the CD player. Will be upgrading to Evergreen RCA cable soon for whatever difference that will make.I have a 2500+ CD collection and growing. Since adding vinyl back to my audio arsenal I wanted to add the CD player to make the CDs sound as natural as possible and so far this sounds like I got my money's worth here and it should in theory only get better with burn in.Listening through Sennheiser HD558s I can VERY NOTICABLY hear a much more natural sound than playing the same CDs through my bluray player and at this early stage I am just VERY PLEASED. Man it feels good to be able to lay out $300 in this hobby and actually feel like you got $300+ out of it! Thanks Yamaha for making fantastic audio products that almost anyone can afford and thanks Amazon for making every purchase smooth and worry free.

This unit just arrived today, but I thought I would give it quick review for people who care about these things.What I like most about this CD player is that it does not try to do anything fancy. No SACDs or native FLAC support, just CDs. Oh, and a USB port too.Okay, so maybe the iPod/USB connection on the front is a little fancy, but it works just as you would expect it to: press the button to switch between CD and USB and you are playing music. Charging of your iDevice only happens when the USB is engaged, which is fine. Switching from USB to CD will stop playback on the iDevice, and switching back to USB will start it from where it left off. This is not the case with the CD, which resets to the first song when flipping back and forth. This is totally acceptable behavior. Oh, and once the CD is inside the player ... very quiet operation.The readout is crisp, the buttons on the face are solid with a good tactile feel, and the whole unit is built like a brick. Analog and digital outs (coax and optical) work. I am using the coax with another DAC and it sounds great (like nothing in fact). I bought this player to be able to accommodate my guest's iDevices and CDs and I am confident that this is an appropriate solution.Like other reviews have stated, the CD tray does not come out all the way leaving you to kind of slide your disc into the tray. This is certainly not a deal breaker for me. If you, like me, consider the CD player a convenience and an auxiliary sound source it is really hard to find any real fault with this player.With the going price of a "used" unit hovering around $200, this is a really hard deal to beat.