Are customers still buying CD players? NAD insists that is exactly the case with the C 538, a high-performance CD player the company claims can extract "the very best sound" from the humble compact disc.

The C 538 lies somewhere between the C 568 and C546BEE in the NAD CD player hierarchy. It offers both analogue and digital output, with a Wolfson 24-bit/192kHz DAC feeding coax and optical outputs for connection with a stereo amplifier digital input or external DAC. As well as CDs it handles CD-R/CD-RW discs, allowing users to burn MP3 or WMA files on disc for longer playlists.

Control comes through included IR remote or front panel buttons allowing one to play, pause, skip and scan the disc. The remote offers more controls, such as random track, program, repeat and RPT A-B (or repeat playback sequence). A dimmable dot matrix display shows tracks and total playing time.

“Although music downloads and streaming continue to grow in popularity, CDs are still the primary listening source for millions of people around the world” NAD says. “NAD continues to innovate and develop its CD players to get improved performance while keeping prices affordable.”

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