Disc Players

Impressive sound and considerable flexibility thanks to six digital inputs With the 99 CDP-2, Quad took a full-function CD player, fitted its DAC with a selection of digital coaxial and Toslink optical inputs, and provided both fixed and variable outputs to enable the device to serve as a preamp. Aside from not featuring digital inputs such as balanced XLR, USB and others current and forgotten, the 99 CDP-2 and now the Elite CDP enable their owners to accommodate six extra digital sources. The new player is essentially an update, with circuitry improvements and aesthetic changes like the better front panel illumination. It has the exact same dimensions, right down to the same indents in the top for stacking.

SACD capability and a clever variable output make the McIntosh a strong performer The SACD won’t go away because enough of us realise that it sounds fabulous. It still has an important market in Japan, and supporters in unlikely places which keep the software flowing. McIntosh is one: as traditional a manufacturer as you can name, and not tempted towards controversy. Mac’s approach to SACD is almost matter-of-fact: it eschews 5.

How does the original CD player stand up nearly thirty years after its introduction? It was in March 1983 that the compact disc system officially arrived in Europe. With it came the first European-made CD player, the top-loading Philips CD100. Four years before, in March 1979, Philips had given a first press demonstration of a Compact Disc player prototype, using 14-bit digital encoding. Philips was already marketing 30cm video discs but believed that there should be a separate, smaller disc format for audio.

Well thought out and far more than simply a 'budget' product Designed by The Audio Partnership in central London and manufactured in large volumes in the Far East for distribution worldwide (including an exclusive deal with Richer Sounds in the UK), Cambridge Audio products have become synonymous with good performance at a competitive price. The Azur component range was revamped substantially a couple of years ago. Soon after its introduction we featured this Azur 650C player alongside its partnering 650A integrated amplifier in our Nov ’09 Group Test. To recap, while a bit more expensive than the 640 models they replaced, they featured a fresh-up and wholly improved design with wrap-around casework and substantial alloy fascias that belied their (still modest) price tags.

A svelte Swede with performance to back up the looks Replacing the CD31, this new CD32 has been designed alongside the I32 integrated Class D amplifier [HFN Jun ’11]. Sweden’s Primare company has always had an eye for handsome design and while the appearance of these latest 32 models is broadly the same as the products they supersede, each component has been enhanced by the inclusion of a white-coloured, variable-brightness organic electroluminescent display (OLED) panel that adds real finesse. The CD32 is housed in an alloy/steel chassis and is beautifully finished; balanced outputs match the balanced inputs of its partnering amplifier. Separate PCB modules featuring SMDs are used to isolate signal paths while keeping them as short as possible, a regulated power supply employing an R-core transformer with separate windings for mechanical, analogue and digital audio circuits, while a separate switch mode supply powers the player’s microprocessor.

Rugged construction, distinctive cosmetic design and the inclusion of a valve output stage combine to make this luxurious CD player stand out from the crowd Ever since the introduction of the compact disc format – the early 1980s, if you can remember so far back – audio perfectionists have argued there’s something ‘not quite right’ about the fidelity of sound it produces. The fact is, despite CD’s finite resolution capability, we’ve all got at least a few discs in our collections that blow our socks off. Wouldn’t you agree? Nevertheless, to tweak its sound, to ensure that CDs sounded more organic and less matter-of-fact, specialist manufacturers far and wide have long experimented with various digital filter implementations and designed proprietary analogue output stages for their players in an attempt to sweeten the sound of what analogue lovers disparagingly refer to as ‘digititus’. The first to make a CD spinner with high-end pretentions that employed valves in its output stage was California Audio Labs.

It is no longer sufficient to offer a mere CD player, or even a CD/SACD player when time comes to tempt the well-heeled and digitally-inclined audiophile. Instead, the modern disc spinner must also service a wide range of alternative and necessarily higher resolution digital sources. Machines like the Chapter Audio Sonnet-S featured here are better described as flexible outboard DACs equipped with a mechanism to support the 16-bit granddaddy of all 5in discs. The CD player is dead, long live the CD player.