Predisposed as I am toward Nagra, the long-awaited CD player presents a quandary: Although this brand has a hold on my heart – I would gladly live forever with their valve electronics – I am increasingly distressed by the ever-spiralling pricing of high-end audio. Nagra, being both Swiss and high-end, is as guilty as any of widening the chasm between reality and sanity. £8500 for any CD player is to take the mickey. Yet something so ‘right’ about the wee Nagra CDP almost makes me want to forgive the pricing.
Italian hybrid amplifier specialist Pathos Acoustic unveiled its first CD player last year, the stylish Endorphin top-loader and has now already followed it up with a lower-priced alternative. Now while no-one could mistake the new Digit in its shoebox aspect case for the sci-fi statement of the Endorphin, Pathos says that the two CD players share the same technology inside, with the differences between them limited to the transport mechanism and the power supply.
The Digit is designed to sit alongside the similarly-proportioned Classic One integrated amplifier, itself a more affordable version of the company’s more extended range of high-end valve/solid-state hybrid amplifiers. It’s a cleaner design than the Classic amp, though, without any bright red capacitors or transformer to populate the top board, nor the figured wood frontispiece.
Named after the ‘Bringer of Old Age’, the Saturn builds on the strengths of the outwardly identical Apollo reviewed in February 2007. Both come in black or silver sculpted aluminium casework. Here, improvements have been made to transport, master clock, analogue conversion and power supplies.
With a 435 x 270mm footprint (wd), the player needs a minimum height clearance of 180mm to allow the damped lid to lift – it angles back as it is raised.
It was a brave move going into business making record players in the mid 1990s when LPs were already relegated to niche status. As Avid’s founder and chief designer Conrad Mas is wont to point out: ‘My friends and family thought I was bonkers. ’
Conrad’s bravery, coupled with his belief that there was still a market for high-end record players that were immaculately finished and built to last, has proved well founded. From humble beginnings Avid has grown to become an internationally recognised brand name among vinyl enthusiasts.
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