YAMAHACD-S303 Single CD Player, Black

I recently got back into CDs, I was using a DVD player as a transport to my DAC but I wanted a dedicated CD player. After considering several other players, I chose the Yamaha CD-303 and I'm glad I did! So far, everything has worked flawlessly out of the box. Straightforward remote, simple to use. A huge plus is it's USB playback function, a lot of other players at this price point and higher don't have it. As noted in pervious reviews, there were firmware updates but mine came with the most recent update, VER 1.63. The built in DAC ( Burr-Brown) sounds nice, but I also have it going out via Coaxial and Toslink to my external DAC. Nice to be able to switch back and fourth for depending on what I'm playing. So far, I am very happy with it and would highly recommend it.

I got this CD player to replace a 6CD carousel player that started to have problems reading several discs. I am using the player connected to a Yamaha RX-A1060 receiver via digital optical connection and output through a pair of Klipsch RP-280 speakers. I am using the DAC of my receiver and can’t say how the sound would be using the player’s DAC and the analog connection, but the sound of the system is great running a digital signal from the CD player to my receiver. If you prefer to use the DAC in the CD player just use the analog connection to hook it up to your receiver. Really just depends on whether you prefer the sound of the DAC in your receiver or the one in the player. The CD player has a display that shows the track number and elapsed time, and if you push the display button it also cycles through the time remaining in the track, the time remaining on the disc, the name of the track, the name of the artist, and the name of the album if the CD includes that information. Only a few of the CD’s that I own have the title of the track, album, and artist, but I can verify that the player will display the information if it is present. The remote is fine, and the commonly used buttons are easy to locate.I’ve had this player for about three months at the time of this review, and it plays everything flawlessly. I have listened to a lot of different CDs on the player during that time, covering a wide range of music. When I first got it I tested the player using some discs that I knew previous CD players had difficulty reading, and initially, this player also had difficulty and would not play some of them. I checked the firmware (press and hold A/B on the remote and the display shows the current firmware version) and it was an older iteration. When I updated the firmware to the current version (1.53 at the time I got the player) it was able to play the same discs that had problems before the firmware update, and it has played everything flawlessly since, including commercially manufactured CDs, CDs that I burned on my laptop, and commercial manufactured on demand CDs, and the CDs that were unplayable on the previous 6CD player. When you do the update, switch the unit to USB mode, be sure that only the firmware update data file is on the USB drive that you are using, and that it is using the correct file format on the drive (fat 16 or fat 32) and no encryption. I used a 3.0 USB drive formatted on my laptop without issue once I only had the firmware update data file on the drive and nothing else. On my first attempt I extracted the update file to a folder on the USB drive and it would not work as the drive must contain only the update data file at the root directory of the drive. If there is anything else on the drive besides the update file it will not work. Note that when you connect the USB drive to the player the display reads UNSUPPORTED. This is not a problem, and once you push and hold the pause button on the remote for a few seconds it switches to UPGRADE (if I remember correctly) and after 20 seconds or so the machine reboots and when it restarts it says UNSUPPORTED on the display again. When you switch back to CD mode and check the firmware it should be updated. Turn off the player and remove the USB drive and it’s done. There is a guide on Yamaha’s website with instructions. If you are looking for a good quality, reliable CD player this is a good choice.

This is a beautiful CD player, made by a respected company.It is the perfect size to coordinate with other music components and uncomplicated.I love playing songs on "repeat", whether a single piece or the entire album.My only wish is that these choices were on the unit, itself. Instead, one must use the remote control piece to do this.

I really like the sound of this CD player. Its audio fidelity puts to shame my 19 years old DCM 390 Denon CD player that recently gave out, and also the DAC in my Cambridge Audio CXA80 integrated amp. But it also has a few petty annoyances. One is that it default playback mode is "auto play" on, which fortunately can be switched to off using the advanced commands (see the user's manual). When it's on, every time you insert a disk it starts playing it. Also when it's powered on with a disk inside it, the disk starts playing, as also does the USB if it's enabled. Setting auto play to off get rid of this behavior. Also, if you use seek to find a track to play, regardless of the auto play mode, playback will start. Another annoyance is when playing music files (i.e. not redbook CDs), regardless of the media or encoding the playback is always interrupted between tracks. This is particularly jarring if the two consecutive tracks happen to run together, and is nearly a deal-breaker for me. And finally when using a USB flash drive, it flattens the folder/directory structure on the drive into a single linear list of the folders that directly contain music files. This folder list can be linearly traversed forwards/backwards by the remote to find the desired music to play. I find this implementation clunky at best, and it significantly negates most of the usefulness of having lots a music stored on a USB. I'm docking 1 star for all these annoyances, but in the end I'm keeping this player. BTW, I am using the most recent firmware for the player.