The CD5004 offers a lot of technology and features for $349.99. It incorporates "SACD-quality" Cirrus Logic CS4392 D/A converters, which Marantz claims are very linear, producing none of the distortion caused by errors in resistor matching, no performance drift over time or with temperature, and low jitter. The signal paths for the two channels are symmetrical, which Marantz claims should improve the specificity of stereo imaging. Marantz's proprietary Hyper Dynamic Amplifier Modules, used for the analog circuitry, have been trickled down from their Reference Series components, for which the HDAMs were developed. The company claims that these outperform conventional op-amps in speed and low levels of noise. The front panel's aluminum central section electrically shields the circuits inside and the parts of the front panel made of rigid, glass-reinforced resin resist impact and help isolate the CD5004 from vibrations and heat.

The CD5004 plays CDs, CD-Rs, CD-RWs, and discs containing MP3 and WMA files. With the latter, it will display the file metadata, to help identify the disc and its contents. Also included is a buffered headphone amplifier and jack, variable pitch control (designed for musician play-along), a Q Replay button on the remote control that repeats the last 10 seconds played of the current track, and an IR Flasher input to provide connectivity to other components. Coaxial and optical digital outputs are provided.

Listening
Early in my listening sessions, I decided that the CD5004's reproduction of tonal balances was beyond reproach. The player's ability to provide rich, delicate, holographic, uncolored midrange textures was clearly evident with the vocal group Sequentia's performance of Hildegard von Bingen's Canticles of Ecstasy (CD, German Harmonia Mundi 0547277320 2). The Marantz's reproduction of the high frequencies of all the CDs I played was clear, clean, and extended, with no trace of brittleness or blunting. I particularly noticed this in the sounds of the shimmering Fender Jazzmaster guitars of Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo in "Becuz," from Sonic Youth's Washing Machine (CD, Geffen DGCD-24825). At the other end of the timbral spectrum, the bass-synth blasts in "Man/Machine," from Kraftwerk's Minimum/Maximum (CD, EMI ASW 60611), were powerful and kick-ass, with no loss of timbre, detail, or speed. The CD5004's expertise in high-level dynamics also made it a good match for hard rock. The aptly named "In Your Face," from Mountain's Man's World (CD, Viceroy VIA8033-2), put Leslie West's burning shred guitar front and center.

The Marantz's ability to render transients with lightning speed made it a good match for well-recorded percussion instruments. My acid test in this regard are the rapid-fire snare pyrotechnics of drummer Chris Tomson in "Cousins," from Vampire Weekend's Contra (CD, XL XLCD429), which the Marantz reproduced without a trace of smear. Speaking of drummers, the CD5004's powers of articulating low-level dynamics made listening to Jack DeJohnette's delicate opening percussion in the title track of his Dancing with Nature Spirits (CD, ECM 1558) an enjoyable and involving experience. The player's dynamic strengths enabled me to enjoy all jazz recordings I tried, especially the "breathing" quality of the ensemble in the title track of Wynton Marsalis's Low Levee Moan (CD, Columbia CK 47975). And Jimmy Smith's Hammond B-3 in "Midnight Special," from Fourmost (CD, Milestone MCD-9484-2), had the requisite growl in the lower middle register.

Although I wouldn't expect a budget CD player to be the last word in retrieving ambience from well-recorded classical discs, the Marantz CD5004 surprised me. The sense of space, air, and decay in Aki Takahashi's performance of Morton Feldman's Illusions, from Aki Takahashi Plays Morton Feldman (CD, Mode 54), gave her solo piano a sense of immediacy and delicacy I normally would expect only from more expensive players. This went hand in hand with the Marantz's ability to unravel detail. Listening to "Top of the Hill," from Tom Waits's brilliant Real Gone (CD, Anti- 86678-2), I was able to follow every instrument buried in this track's intentionally muddy mix. The CD5004 wasn't the last word in unraveling all the detail it retrieved, however. With more expensive players, I have been able to more easily follow the individual instruments on "How Am I Different," from Aimee Mann's Bachelor No.2 or The Last Remains of the Dodo (CD, Super Ego SE002). I had a similar experience in trying to follow the individual orchestral instruments in the recording of Penderecki's Credo by Helmut Rilling and the Oregon Bach Festival Orchestra and Choir (CD, HÑnssler CD 98.311).

Comparisons
It wasn't really fair to compare the CD5004 ($350) with Creek's Destiny CD player ($2495), but I thought it would be at least interesting. The Creek sounded more delicate and airy, with pristine highs. It was easier to follow subtle vocal phrasings and articulations of sibilants. The music also seemed more relaxed through the Creek, with more holographically presented bodies to voices and faster, more natural transient attacks on strings, both electric and acoustic. Being able to follow individual instrument lines was also much easier. Finally, the sound of the Marantz had a bit more of a mechanical quality, and its reproduction of percussion was at times a bit more forward and splatty.

That said, the CD5004 was nearly as uncolored as the Destiny, and with recordings containing no sustained high-level passages, such as solo piano recordings, the Marantz sounded rich and silky, with good resolution of detail and an ability to articulate low-level dynamics that were damn close to the Creek's—which costs more than seven times as much.

A kilobuck starter system
I hooked up the CD5004 to Marantz's PM5004 integrated amplifier and Paradigm's Atom v5 loudspeakers, and was taken by this inexpensive system's overall liquid and coherent balance. The sound wasn't the last word in high-frequency or bass extension, but what was there was relatively uncolored and involving, with realistic dynamic contrasts, convincing transient articulation, and decent amounts of air and ambience for such a low-cost system.

The Payoff
Even as Mikey Fremer and Stephen Mejias salivate over the resurgence of vinyl, others are hearing, or calling for, the death knell of the Compact Disc. I'm not one of them—although I own 12,000 LPs, I listen to CDs much more often than to vinyl or my iPod, and I don't think I'll ever get on the digital-server bandwagon. Young folks who want to put together an entry-level system should find the Marantz CD5004 an excellent way to start, and a gorgeous cosmetic and sonic match for the companion PM5004 integrated amplifier With components like this, we can survive the recent financial meltdown while listening to good music, and might still have some money left over for food. Well done, Marantz.

The Vincent C-60 CD player ($4695), designed in Germany but manufactured, I believe, in China, is a throwback to when there were large differences and clear battle lines between the tube and solid-state camps. Rather than a single optimized—or even hybrid—analog output stage, the C-60 gives the user a choice of two. Per US importer WS Distributing's website: "If you're in the mood for rich, romantic audio performance that brings analog complexity to compact discs, then bask in the vacuum tube output stage. But if you want a bit more edge to your music, you can simply switch to transistor output instead by clicking the C-60's front panel switch."

Description
The Vincent Audio C-60 is a thoroughly modern take on the tube-transistor hybrid design that reflects the best of today's concepts. For example, physical and electrical isolation were a major consideration, so the C-60 actually consists of four isolated subchassis, each floated off a common backbone. Front and center is the top-loading disc transport, made by Philips. Just behind this, a second subchassis houses the power supply for the digital circuits. A full-depth subchassis on the left houses the main power-supply elements, two huge toroidal transformers, and, on a small board, the output stage supply. The latter is itself a hybrid design incorporating both solid-state elements and a 6Z4 rectifier tube. On the right, another full-depth subchassis supports the fully balanced audio circuits, including digital-to-analog converters based on Burr-Brown's PCM1792 24-bit/192kHz chip, as well as the tubed and solid-state output stages. Other, smaller boards handle such ancillary duties as the control buttons and the front-panel display.

The C-60 is nicely styled and built, with a handsome, solid chassis that incorporates into its exterior design such functional elements as a beefy aluminum top plate, a thick, smooth-sliding disc drawer, and oversized tower feet. The top plate incorporates buttons for the drive control functions, two mesh-covered windows that show off the tubes, and a nifty, countersunk logo plate of glass that can be illuminated by flipping a small rear-panel switch. The rear panel has both balanced (XLR) and unbalanced (RCA) analog outputs, coaxial and optical (TosLink) digital outputs, and a standard IEC receptacle for a removable power cord. On the front are a large, well-lit display and two more buttons, one for power and the other to switch between the tubed and solid-state output stages. There's also a small, rubber-surfaced magnetic clamp to hold the CD in place.

The C-60 uses a Philips top-loader transport; opening or closing the cover stops or starts the playing process—or at least that's how it's supposed to work. Not infrequently, the C-60 would refuse to acknowledge that there was, in fact, a disc in its transport. The C-60 eventually did play every disc I threw at it, but something about its drive or error-correction circuitry was finicky. Often, discs that would play perfectly in a half-dozen other players needed a fresh, more careful cleaning and polishing before the Vincent would read them. But other than that occasionally finicky drive, the Vincent was completely intuitive to operate, and proved bulletproof over several months of heavy use.

Listening
The months the C-60 spent in my system overlapped with the visits of a number of other review products. Although the C-60 did have a recognizable sonic signature—actually, more than one, as I'll discuss in a moment—its performance was easy to incorporate into my reference system. I never felt I was degrading the system's performance or changing its fundamental character by using the C-60 as a source. In fact, the ability to switch between the player's two different-sounding output stages proved a benefit as I tweaked the system around other components I was reviewing.

I did play with the volume control some, including driving my amplifiers directly. The control's range was such, however, that I could only use the first one or two "clicks," so I ended up using the Vincent with the volume control set to its maximum.

Tubes or transistors?
I've always been a tube kind of guy, so I expected to prefer the sound of the Vincent's tubed output stage. That proved to be the case, so that's the configuration I'll discuss. The differences between the two output stages weren't huge, though, so most of the comments below apply equally to both.

Glowing tubes, glowing praise
As Steve Guttenberg pointed out in "Being There," his "As We See It" in the November 2010 issue, audio systems tend to better approximate the feel of live music with recordings of smaller-scale performances, where they don't have to cope with the huge and complex dynamics, or the sheer size of an orchestra and concert hall. Indeed, with such recordings as Warren Zevon's solo Learning to Flinch (CD, Giant 24493-2) and Rickie Lee Jones'Naked Songs (CD, Reprise 45950-2), the Vincent C-60 did a stellar job of capturing the live feel of these intimate concert performances.

For example: "Bits are bits, and it is therefore dishonest for Stereophile's writers to continue to insist that they can hear any differences between CD players or digital processors!" recently wrote an angry reader, canceling his subscription. (They always tell me they're going to cancel their subscription.) "Yeah, right!" thought I, having just sat through a comparative audition of, would you believe, digital data interconnects in Robert Harley's listening room. Some of the differences I heard were not trivial. They might even be audible in a blind listening test.

I wished I could have uprooted that complacent Monday-morning digiphile, sat him down in Bob's system's sweet spot, and declaimed something along the lines of, "You can't tell me you don't hear that!" At which he would have broken down, said "You're right!", admitted the hitherto uncorrected error of his ways, bought a complete set of Stereophile back issues, and gone on to lead a full, productive life instead of conspiring with the Postal Service to destroy the equanimity of my Monday mornings. Instead, I respond to such critics with pleasant letters, littered with references and well-supported arguments, all of which I know will have no effect on the recipients' opinions.

It was with joy at the synchronicity, therefore, that on the following Tuesday I read the "Letters" section of the April 1991 issue of the English magazine Hi-Fi News & Record Review (footnote 1). In a lengthy letter, respected UK designer Stan Curtis angrily dismissed the claims of engineers (who should know better) that it is a fact that a digital one is a one and a digital zero is a zero and ever more shall be so. Stated Stan succinctly, "This 'fact' belongs in a different category from the 'fact' that if you punch a brick wall you invariably hurt your hand," and he warmed to his theme by pointing out that once the CD's information has been read and error-corrected to produce digital data, this bit stream is totally unprotected from further degradation or corruption.

And one of the obvious ways in which to corrupt the data is to fool around with its timing, a process called "jitter." As I showed with the computer simulations in my recent "Jitter, Bits, & Sound Quality" article (footnote 2), varying the word-to-word timing of the data fed to the DAC by as little as 1ns—a nanosecond, or a billionth of a second—reduces the resolution of what would otherwise be 16-bit data to 15 bits! The greater the jitter, the lower the resolution of a CD playback system—and it will come as no surprise, I am sure, to learn that jitter of at least 1ns is not only possible, it is common.

"Bits are bits?" say you.

"Ha!" say I.

Having got that out of my system, let me tell you about Meridian's 602 CD transport. Now the very existence of the component category "CD transports" seems to irritate my Monday-morning moaners. But it has surprised me that despite the proliferation of standalone D/A processors, only a relatively few companies have squared the circle by introducing CD "turntables." In this and other recent issues of the magazine, our reviewers have auditioned transports from Arcam, Wadia, Esoteric, and Proceed, while a Krell MD-1 has just arrived as I string these words together on the computer monitor. But as Meridian had sent a 602 transport to accompany their D6000 active digital loudspeaker (which Robert Harley will be reviewing shortly), I decided to spend some time with it and report on how I got on.

What it is
The 602 is superficially identical to the Meridian 208 CD player/preamplifier that I reviewed last December in that it is an attractively proportioned, black-finished unit with a glass face. A single row of vertical gold pushbuttons rather than the 208's double row of acrylic buttons distinguishes the new unit, however, and instead of the 208's rather clunky 7-segment green LED display, the 602 has a green alphanumeric display which forms real words as opposed to altered numbers. (Perversely, these are rather harder to see from across the room than the 208's primitive runes.)

Footnote 2: Stereophile Vol.13 No.12, December 1990, p.179.

On the other hand, outboard D/A converters clearly make sense. CD-player (and DAT) owners can enjoy the improvements offered by the latest technology just by replacing (or upgrading) their D/A converters, provided their players have digital outputs. Digital output ports are becoming increasingly common: in early 1987, just 12 players had digital out, the number rising to 50 by early 1988. Today, the figure is over 100, with 29 also offering optical digital output (see Sidebar "Into the Optic").

The Delta 170 is based on a Philips single-beam mechanism. Unlike many other Philips-based players, Arcam has completely redesigned the machine, keeping only the basic laser assembly (CDM 1 Mk.2) and Philips data-recovery chips. The entire mechanical assembly is mounted on a vibration-isolated and damped subchassis. Compared with a Philips CD 880 transport, the Delta 170 appeared much more solid. For example, the metal supports that anchor the assembly to the chassis are larger and heavier. Arcam has put much thought and effort into this machine.

On the electronics side, the Delta 170 has some interesting design features. These include an optically isolated master clock and dual power supplies, each with its own transformer. One supply provides DC to the master oscillator and digital output stages, while the other serves the player servos and microprocessor. Digital output is in S/PDIF format from an RCA jack, or optical EIAJ (Toslink) connector.

Now comes the $64,000 question (or, more precisely, the $1295 question): does all this tweaking make it sound better? My philosophy in approaching this question is much like the American judicial system: CD transports sound the same until proven otherwise. Theoretically, they should sound the same. However, I would be the first to throw theory out the window if my ears told me otherwise. This is demonstrated by my experience with JVC's K-2 Interface, detailed in last month's "Industry Update."

Listening
First, I listened to the digital outputs of the Precision Audio DIVC-880 CD player and the Arcam Delta 170 decoded by the Musical Fidelity Digilog. I heard no difference either through speakers or the Stax headphones. Since Arcam's importer, Audio Influx, suggests that the audible benefits of their transport are more apparent through the Theta DSPre, I connected the digital outputs of both CD machines to the Theta's two digital inputs.

I listened analytically to a variety of music, both familiar and unfamiliar, audiophile and mediocre recordings. Still I heard no difference between the transports. Next, I put on my favorite music and forgot about critical listening; I just sat back and gauged the emotional impact of what I was hearing. As much as I wanted to hear audible differences, I could detect none. However, I should add that this experience is limited to one individual, under one set of circumstances, with essentially one playback system. I am interested in hearing from readers who have had experience with different CD transports.

Do optical cables sound different from coaxial cables? Yes. The difference is subtle, but nevertheless there. Bass seemed warmer and rounder. This phenomenon is surprising: how can changing a cable carrying ones and zeros make bass warmer? I never would have believed it possible without hearing it myself under test conditions totally under my control. There is much we don't know about digital audio that should be explored by critical listening, not blind acceptance of textbook theory. I have little doubt that our ideas about digital audio will be very different in ten years, provided we have the intellectual courage to accept new ways of thinking and challenge the status quo.

Summing Up
I find it hard to recommend the Arcam Delta 170 on the basis of sonics since I heard no difference between it and the stock transport. It is, however, very well made, ergonomically satisfying, and has many useful features. I strongly urge you to listen to it yourself and form your own impression. Again, my experience is by no means the final word on the matter.

The Proceed was a long time in development, reflecting Madrigal's care and thoroughness before releasing a new product. Many technical innovations have been incorporated into the Proceed, and the machine's unusual appearance exemplifies the "start from scratch" attitude behind its development. With its nearly square proportions, grey cabinet, and sparse front-panel controls, the Proceed may set a new trend in audio component styling.

Technical description
The Proceed's design philosophy reflects the more recent trends in digital audio thinking. One of these ideas, which challenges conventional wisdom, places a high priority on the transport mechanism's sonic characteristics. Although it can be proved that virtually all CD transports produce an identical bit stream (at least the same ones and zeros), there is mounting evidence that CD mechanisms do make a sonic contribution to the decoded signal (footnote 1).

Madrigal chose the high-quality Philips CDM1 Mk.II metal transport for the Proceed. In addition, the Philips decoder electronics used with the CDM1 Mk.II have been modified to produce a cleaner "eye pattern." According to Madrigal, slight temperature changes affect the "eye pattern." The eye pattern, so called because the RF (Radio Frequency) signal produces a fuzzy waveform with a clear "eye" in its center when displayed on an oscilloscope, is the signal produced at the photodetector when struck by laser light reflected from a spinning disc. This raw signal contains all the information on a CD, and is subsequently decoded to retrieve the audio and subcode data. A high-quality RF signal is vital to error-free data retrieval. However, it is greatly affected by the pit shape created when the CD master glass is cut, and varies between CD plants (footnote 2).

The Proceed has an extensive power-supply system. According to Madrigal, the transport affects sonic performance through interaction with the power supplies. Without adequate care given to power-supply design, transport servos (focus, tracking, rotational) can affect the DC supply to analog audio circuitry. Madrigal has given the Proceed two master power supplies and 11 distributed supplies to ensure isolation between sections. These separate power supplies are individually regulated, an improvement over capacitive decoupling or filtering. Most of these regulators are three-pin TO-220 types. Four of these supplies provide DC to the analog section (one for each rail of each channel), four supply the DACs (again, one for each rail of each DAC), and there is one each for the transport logic, decoder, display, and digital filter. The regulators are scattered about the Proceed's circuit boards, in close proximity to the circuits they supply. In addition, the single power transformer has separate taps for digital and analog circuitry. Attention was paid to grounding, including large circuit-board traces to provide noise a free path to ground. The analog and digital sections each have their own ground plane.

This power-supply system is elaborate and impressive, especially in such a reasonably priced product. The digital decoding section features the ubiquitous Philips SAA7210 decoder chip and SAA7220 4x-oversampling digital filter. The latter chip is only partly used, however, to implement the error correction. The corrected digital signal is fed to an 8x-oversampling digital filter chip (the same, apparently, as that used in the ultra-expensive Accuphase player).

Usually, the Philips TDA1541 dual DAC is part of this chip set. However, Madrigal has chosen the Burr-Brown PCM58P DACs for the Proceed. I have noticed a tendency toward Burr-Brown DACs and away from the TDA1541 in the more sonically ambitious digital decoders. The PCM58P is an 18-bit unit with fast-settling, glitch-free current output and a Schmitt-trigger input. A Schmitt trigger reshapes the incoming signal into a near-perfect squarewave, providing the DAC with a clearer transition from one to zero at the signal's rising edge. After burn-in and just before shipping, each DAC's performance is optimized by adjusting an external MSB trimmer.

The analog audio section (electrostatically shielded from the rest of the digital circuitry) uses, according to Madrigal, "devices from a new generation of high-performance integrated circuits." These op-amps are said to maintain the advantages of discrete circuitry with external compensation using precision capacitors and resistors. Inside the Proceed, I saw 8-pin ICs that looked like op-amps, but could not distinguish their type: they were not marked. The Proceed's deemphasis circuitry is passive, and switched in the circuit by FETs.

Fully balanced outputs on XLR connectors, and unbalanced outputs on RCA jacks, are provided. In addition, a third RCA jack supplies a digital output to an external digital processor or DAT recorder. Output impedance is a very low 1 ohm.

Removing the Proceed's heavy metal cover revealed a unique and impressive layout. The Proceed's unusual shape allows optimum positioning of the circuitry, both for thermal considerations and for keeping analog and digital circuitry discrete. In addition, the circuit boards are mounted at right angles to each other, minimizing interaction between them. The transport and transformer are mounted on the bottom for stability. The audio board is mounted on the chassis's rear panel so the output jacks can be connected directly to the board. Parts quality appeared very high, including double-sided glass-epoxy circuit boards. I was particularly impressed with the Proceed's construction quality and level of thought put into its design and layout. It clearly represents some original thinking in CD-player design. The innovation and build quality would be impressive in a product twice the Proceed's price.

In addition to rethinking the inside of a CD player, Madrigal has also radically revamped the outside, both in appearance and functionality. The unusual shape and grey color set the Proceed apart from other CD players. The machine also eschews the trend to loading CD players with elaborate features, most of which are never used. Instead, the front panel is very plain. Just above the drawer are Stop, Play, Pause, Previous, and Next pushbuttons. The only other controls, on the right side of the panel, are marked Drawer (open/close), Next/Previous (index), Scan (forward/backward), Program, and Repeat. The machine is very straightforward and easy to use. In addition, the rubberized control buttons have a unique and comfortable feel.

Footnote 2: Watch for an article next month on CD quality, including a survey of discs made at various factories around the world. Error-rate graphs, RF-signal photographs, and tips on how to detect poor-quality CDs will be included.

Fast-forward 30 years. So far has the pendulum swung the other way that Simaudio has implored me to please not refer to their Moon Evolution 650D as a "CD player." But in fact, the Moon Evolution 650D is a multi-input digital-to-analog converter that, as an added convenience, happens to include a CD transport, just in case you still play those old-fangled things. Why they didn't also add eight-track, cassette, and floppy-disk transports, I'm not sure.

A DAC with a Drawer
Two years ago, Simaudio introduced the Moon Evolution 750D CD transport/DAC ($11,999), billed as "the world's first true 32-bit asynchronous DAC." The new Moon Evolution 650D ($7999) is physically and functionally identical to the 750D. The differences are inside.

The 650D uses the ESS Technology SABRE32 Ultra DAC/Digital Filter (ES9016), whereas the 750D uses the ES9018 chip. Like the 750D, the 650D features a 32-bit data path, that the initialism-happy Simaudio calls MA-JiC32, as well as eight DACs per channel. The 650D's fully balanced analog stage is not quite as sophisticated as the 750D's. For instance, the 650D has 18 stages of independent, inductive, DC power-supply voltage regulation (Simaudio calls this i²DCf) vs the 750D's 24 stages.

Independent toroidal transformers feed separate digital and analog power supplies. The fully balanced, dual-differential, dual-mono analog output stage features what Sim claims is a "very short," capacitor-free DC servo circuit, and a proprietary 12dB/octave analog filter. A short signal path and pure copper tracings on a four-layer PCB are said to produce improved signal/noise ratio and a more accurate sound, while the ultrarigid chassis construction minimizes bad vibrations.

The 650D is physically compact, dense, and shelf-friendly—it's sufficiently squat to fit on most lower rack shelves. The front panel is illuminated by LEDs in dot-matrix style, with letters and numbers so large you may have to remove your glasses to read them. You can adjust the panel's brightness or shut it off entirely.

On the rear panel are four digital inputs: AES/EBU, S/PDIF, TosLink, and USB. By the end of the year, an extra-cost (price TBA), in-the-field swapping out of the digital input board will up the USB input's maximum resolution of 16-bit/48kHz to 24/192, which the other inputs are already capable of decoding.

Oh, and there's also that CD-drawer, which is part of Simaudio's proprietary M-Quattro Drive transport, mounted on the gel-based, four-point floating suspension—or, as I like to say, "the transport's on some rubber."

Also on the rear panel are S/PDIF and AES/EBU outputs, an RS-232 port for firmware updates and "unsolicited bi-directional control" (sounds like a kinky personals ad), an IR input for external control, and a SimLink port to communicate with and control other Simaudio components. The 650D's nicely machined remote control can operate those other Sim devices, so some of the buttons are superfluous for a CD play—I mean, a multi-input CD transport–DAC—but from the remote you can toggle through (though not directly select) inputs and control the transport. Not that it's important, but I found the remote's shape—it looks like a long tooth—less than appealing.

In short, except for a few chips, the 650D seems identical to the 750D, for much less. A 750D wasn't provided for a comparison, so it's difficult to say what another $4000 gets you in terms of audible or measurable performance, or what you might lose (if anything) by opting for the less expensive model. For all I know, the 650D might sound better.

Setup and Listening Strategies
Screw in the Moon Evolution 650D's spiked feet (provided) and, if you've got wooden shelves, set them on the supplied bases (provided), run some interconnects and digital inputs from external sources, and you're ready to go.

I used the 650D's S/PDIF input with the Meridian Sooloos music server, the AES/EBU input with the Alesis Masterlink hard-disk recorder, and the TosLink input with my MacBook Pro computer, and ran a set of Stealth Sakra balanced interconnects to the Ypsilon PST-100 Mk.II preamplifier.

Operated via iPhone, the Sooloos made for an incredibly handy tool that I couldn't have imagined 20 years ago. I could choose from among more than 2300 CDs and higher-resolution files, create instant playlists, and access individual selections, all within seconds. Swap a few cables and I could rehear the same music through the Playback Designs SACD player–DAC, the only DAC reference point I had on hand.

No Expectations Met with Shock and Awe
Rummaging through my Sooloos jukebox produced a playlist that had no rhyme or reason other than that it was music I wanted to hear as I came upon it. It added up to a varied selection that proved extremely useful. The selection ran from the Animals'"Don't Bring Me Down," from the CD layer of ABKCO's hybrid SACD, to a JVC XRCD of Offenbach's Gaîté Parisienne, the famous 1954 recording by Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops (CD, RCA Living Stereo/JVCXR-0224).

Also on the playlist: Lalo Schifrin's "Pampas," from the superb release Antonio Lysy at The Broad: Music from Argentina (CD, Yarlung 27517); "Touch of Grey," from the Grateful Dead's In the Dark; "There Goes My Baby," by The Drifters; "I'll Get You," in mono, by the Beatles; "Take the 'A' Train," from the M&K Realtime CD of Bill Berry and His Ellington All-Stars'For Duke (M&K's direct-to-disc vinyl kills it); "Let's Go Away for Awhile," from Brian Wilson's Live at the Roxy; the Zombies'"Time of the Season" (in mono and stereo); André Previn's jazz recording West Side Story, on Contemporary (tape dropout included); and the high-resolution recording of Malcolm Arnold's Commonwealth Christmas Overture, from the disc of Arnold conducting the London Philharmonic in his own overtures (HRx, Reference), which can sound like pompous parodies fit for the entrance of a high government official in a Monty Python sketch.

I began with the Dead's "Touch of Grey," and it was love at first hearing. At first I just listened without trying to analyze why I was finding the sound so pleasurable (for CD resolution). Then it was time to get to work.

I had zero expectations of the Moon Evolution 650D's sound. Other than a few modestly priced, reasonably good-sounding phono preamplifiers, I've had no Simaudio models in my system. But the 650D's bottom end foundation was noticeably muscular, deep, articulate, and well balanced. The kick drum was well textured and punchy, while the bass line floated cleanly and separately beneath it, free of bloat and in exceptionally fine focus. Jerry Garcia's voice hovered between the speakers in an unsmeared, three-dimensional space that made deciphering the words unusually easy. The overall instrumental separation and three-dimensional image solidity and transparency, combined with the bottom-end foundation, produced an exceptional digital reproduction of "Touch of Grey" that was free of glare and harsh overtones, and that didn't come at the expense of clean, fast transient articulation or a detailed decay structure, both of which helped produce rhythmic certainty and a physically solid, organized sound picture. In other words, this pleasing sound didn't seem to be caused by a sonic cover-up from diffuse warmth or softness. Rhythmically, the 650D could not be faulted. It rocked!

Next up was the vintage recording of Offenbach's Gaîté Parisienne. While this is an exceptionally spacious and transparent recording, its mid-1950s origins are obvious in its overly generous midrange and upper midrange, which put the strings, woodwinds, and brass at the beginning in a bit of a confused, bulbous haze. Only after these subside and the ultratransparent snare drum, woodblock, flute, and triangle take over do you begin to hear what all the fuss this recording has generated is about. The 650D's reproduction of the woodblock and the grainless, pristine clarity of the triangle caught my attention as being unusually clean, finely drawn, and precise—particularly the triangle's attack, clean sustain, and decay into "black."

Next to Kalt on the couch, his girlfriend, Maryann, was nodding her head up and down to the music. At the loud level Kalt had set, the staccato start/stop style of "Jambi" had taken control of the room. He turned to me, remote in hand, and tilted his head toward the volume setting, as if to ask "Can I turn it up?" I nodded, and we all proceeded to bounce (yes, the floor and couch were bouncing a little) to the onslaught as Tool's glory pinned our ears back even tighter.

"Jeff and I bonded to the music of Tool," Maryann confided to me later. Two such sweet, almost shy people—I never would have guessed. Under their unassuming surface were an intensity of purpose and an intelligence that, I would come to discover, are also present in Kalt's products.

When I get a new product in hand I normally shun its manufacturer's advances, preferring to experience my first impressions of the product just as a regular buyer would. But when Kalt pointed out that his dealers often offer a setup service for new customers, I relented. Turns out the Cantata was easy to set up and use, but I discovered that this attention to the customer was, indeed, pretty standard for Resolution Audio. Take the box the Cantata comes in: a sturdy, handmade, stamped wooden crate carefully lined with foam that perfectly cradles the product.

Senses Working Overtime
Audio products are here to stimulate our sense of hearing, but the Cantata also pulls sight and touch into the mix. Jeff Kalt says he worked closely with his metal fabricator to get the most unique casework I've seen enclosing an audio product: the top is an undulating sea of scalloped aluminum waves. It must be seen to be believed, and touched to be understood. Stunning. The Cantata is also fully packed; at 13 lbs, it weighs more than its looks suggest, and that top panel got a bit warm (about 102°F).

For those who, like me, have left analog sources behind, the Cantata may be all that's needed in addition to amplification (a matching Cantata 50 amplifier is available) and speakers. The Cantata is a digital preamp with a built-in CD player, and a DAC for everything else digital. And I mean everything.

On the front right half of the low-slung Cantata's front panel is an array of small holes; splashed across the 1"-thick edge of the aluminum top, these holes hide a retro- yet oddly futuristic-looking large alpha-numeric display. Below the aluminum slab is a row of buttons on a black background. From left to right, these are power, input select, volume up/down, the disc-player controls, and the built-in CD player's all-but-invisible disc drawer. Clean and to the point.

More comprehensive control is available via either the Cantata's medium-size remote control or, with a free app, your iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch. The beautifully designed app controls all of the Cantata's functions, and Kalt has created the best implementation of touchscreen volume control I've seen. Instead of the typical slider bar, which can accidentally be pushed to full window-shattering volume with a single errant tap (trust me, I've done it), the Cantata app has a calibrated virtual wheel that spins forward and back as you swipe at it. Elegant and idiot-proof.

On the Cantata's rear panel are, from left to right: the power switch, fuse, and detachable grounded power-cord socket; a Cantata Link (for hooking up to RA's Cantata amps); Ethernet, USB, TosLink, AES/EBU, and coax inputs; and balanced and unbalanced stereo outputs. Unlike the Ethernet jacks found on most components these days, this one is not only for controlling the Cantata via your network, it's also a digital audio input (as I'll explain shortly).

Swiss Army DAC
I set out to test as many methods of running digital audio through the Cantata as possible. These included using the CD slot on the front; the S/PDIF, TosLink, and USB inputs on the back; and from my Apple computer, via the rear-panel Ethernet jack, connecting to Resolution Audio's Cantata Pont Neuf Bridge USB adapter (see below), and to a wireless WiFi bridge (also via the Cantata's Ethernet jack and the Pont Neuf).

Nightmares of lo-rez audio iClouds got you down? Create your own local full-resolution audio cloud. Most folks will integrate a computer as a source component into their system via USB, and while regular USB DACs require a computer in the listening room due to the 1–2m limit on the length of USB cables for best performance, Resolution has come up with a way to create a wireless "bridge" between a computer or USB music source in another room and your system, like a Sonos system on steroids.

This last option is one of the Cantata's more interesting features: using a wireless bridge and a remote computer, you can wirelessly stream, via WiFi, audio of resolutions up to 24-bit/96kHz. To make this work, Jeff Kalt created the Pont Neuf USB to Ethernet Bridge ($400). (Pont Neuf, French for "new bridge," is also the name of one of the Paris bridges spanning the Seine.) It looks like a mini Cantata—it, too, has a top plate of scalloped aluminum—and is the size of a pack of chewing gum. At one end of the USB-powered Pont Neuf is a USB plug for inserting into your computer and, at the other end, an Ethernet jack.

To test this type of connection, I ran the USB output of my Mac to the Pont Neuf, which I then connected to my WiFi network locally with an Ethernet cable. I then connected the Cantata, in the listening room in another part of the house, via its Ethernet jack to an Apple Airport Express. I controlled the remote computer's music libraries with my iPad. The Cantata wasn't connected to the network directly via Ethernet, only through the Airport Express. After I'd configured the AE to join my WiFi network and restarted it, setup was simple, and within minutes I was streaming from both iTunes and the VLC player (for FLAC files) at any sampling rate up to 96kHz. And it sounded great.

In fact, I tried dozens of cuts, and couldn't hear a reliable difference between using a wireless bridge via Ethernet and the Pont Neuf, and direct S/PDIF or the Cantata's disc player. I was prejudiced to hear some flaws with the WiFi-Ethernet connection, but could never hear any. Same thing after adding USB to the mix. This surprised me quite a bit.

Macca On the Mac
During this review, I received CD copies of the new Abbey Road remasterings of Paul McCartney's McCartney and McCartney II); then HDtracks.com made available downloads of the 24/96 FLAC versions. These two releases are confusing in that McCartney II was released 10 years and many Paul McCartney and Wings albums after McCartney. Something to do with how each was recorded as one-man solo effort in a small studio, and the albums in between were full-on studio/band affairs.

Because we are audiophiles and because this is Stereophile, it might seem that my choice would, or even should, have something to do with sound. It doesn't. I have no strong opinion on the sonic characteristics of CDs and LPs—either can sound ravishing, dreadful, or anywhere in between—and I rarely make direct comparisons between CD and LP versions of a particular recording in an attempt to draw conclusions about the formats' relative sonic merits. (How would one do that properly, anyway? How do you eliminate the respective source components? Wouldn't you also be comparing a CD player to a turntable? What sense would that make?) Whether it's because I'm in the earlier stages of my audiophile journey or because I'm superficial or simply because I'm me, the fact remains that I am less concerned with sound than I am with beauty and soul. I see and feel a certain beauty and soul in LPs that I rarely perceive in CDs. In my mind and to my eyes, a CD is a small, cheap facsimile of the real thing, the true work of art: the magnificent and lovable LP.

Besides, as much as it is about anything, hi-fi is about creating and enjoying a memorable experience. I prefer the experience of listening to vinyl, with all its little rituals and demands intact.

All of which is why, when a particular piece of music is available on both formats, I will always choose the LP. But often, that choice does not exist, and a recording is available only on CD. Should I then forsake the music altogether, deny myself the pleasure of hearing that music at home on the hi-fi?

Of course not.

Although music has no easily identifiable adaptive function—civilization could go on without it—for me, it stands alongside food, shelter, clothing, and companionship as one of the ingredients essential to a complete and happy life: It feeds us, keeps us safe and warm, accompanies us through good times and bad. We need it.

And if it's music from, say, Alva Noto and Ryuichi Sakamoto, Mark Hollis, or Matthew Shipp, I need it any way I can get it.

In a machine-oriented way
Because I am an audiophile, I want to hear that music through the best possible source component. Lately, I've been enjoying CDs through the Emotiva ERC-2 CD player ($449, footnote 1).

The Emotiva ERC-2 measures 17? (435mm) wide by 4.25? (110mm) high by 14? (360mm) deep and, at 17.5 lbs (8kg), is the heaviest component to enter my listening room since the 25-lb Simaudio Moon i3.3 integrated amplifier ($3300, discontinued). The player's distinct appearance was developed by Emotiva's president and CEO, Dan Laufman, and VP of engineering, Lonnie Vaughn. In building the ERC-2, their goal was to "keep it simple, easy to use, and elegant . . . in a machine-oriented way."

Indeed, the ERC-2 is clearly a machine. Its satiny black faceplate of brushed aluminum is capped at each end by a strip of stainless steel. To the left are four silver function buttons (Play/Pause, Next, Stop, Previous), arranged in a diamond; at center, from top to bottom, are the large display, a thin slot for loading discs, and a large Standby button adorned with Emotiva's distinctive E logo; to the right of these, all by itself, is the Eject button. This arrangement makes ergonomic sense, but it creates a louder, busier look than would a simple straight row of buttons.

Each button on the ERC-2's faceplate is lit by a halo of bright, clear blue that perfectly matches the bright, clear blue of the player's vacuum-fluorescent display. Like a Christmas tree, these blue lights set my small apartment aglow. Fortunately, the Dim button on the ERC-2's remote control softens the display and deactivates the halos. About that remote: It's a massive brick of milled aluminum designed to match the player's overall look and feel—in a word, manly.

Indeed, the ERC-2 and its hefty remote together exude an extremely masculine look and feel that I don't fully appreciate; I would prefer a quieter, more subtle appearance. To my eyes, the ERC-2's look is gaudy, boastful; I kept thinking that the women I know would find it unattractive. But every woman who entered my listening room and whose opinion I asked gave an ambivalent shrug. "As long as it works, I don't care," one said. "They all look the same to me." (And, yes, she was talking about the CD player.)

It took me a little while to get used to the ERC-2's slot-loading transport, which is made by Toshiba. First, it requires a careful touch: Line up the CD so that its edge is perfectly centered in the slot, begin to gently insert the disc, then let the player take the disc. If the disc is too far to either side of the slot, the player won't accept it. Second, the ERC-2's loading mechanism is slow: The review sample took up to 12 seconds to load a disc and up to four seconds to eject it, so be patient. Finally, once the player has loaded the disc, it immediately begins playing the disc from the beginning—if you want to hear track 5, you'll have to then select it using the front-panel buttons or the remote.

On the rear panel are: a set of balanced outputs; two sets of analog outputs; S/PDIF, TosLink, and AES/EBU digital outputs; a trigger input; a rocker power switch; and a standard IEC three-prong power receptacle for the included AC cord. Despite my feelings about its appearance, the ERC-2's build quality is undeniably impressive, with a level of fit and finish appropriate to a component costing three to four times as much.

Correct from the ground up
How does Emotiva keep their prices so low? According to Laufman and Vaughn, all Emotiva products are designed, distributed, and supported in Franklin, Tennessee, while manufacture and assembly take place in China. Laufman and Vaughn insist that their manufacturing partners are "totally committed to quality." I buy this. In addition to spending several weeks with the ERC-2, I've met and spoken with Laufman and Vaughn, and I trust that their enthusiasm and care for their company and its customers would be clearly communicated to Emotiva's colleagues overseas, ensuring that the company's values are appropriately respected. They take special pride in having built a loyal customer base and providing exceptional customer service, as is evident in their lively online community and events such as the annual Emofest: a weekend of factory tours, live music, and entertainment open to customers and friends.

Informed by feedback from those customers, Laufman and Vaughn told me that they decided "to build a player that was correct from the ground up." Under the ERC-2's hood, four individually regulated and shielded power supplies drive the CD transport mechanism, VFD display, and digital and analog electronics. The result, according to Emotiva, is "dead-quiet ground-floor noise, extremely low distortion, and complete freedom from interaction between circuit elements." At the heart of the ERC-2 is a high-quality Analog Devices AD1955 24-bit oversampling DAC. The ERC-2 carries its balanced topology from the output of this chip straight through to the rear-panel XLR jacks.

Emotiva sells direct, with free shipping to anywhere in the continental US. All Emotiva products are backed by a 30-day "hassle-free" return policy and a five-year transferrable warranty.

Wild, right? This is just the latest of the profundities to explode into my mighty brain as I slouch on the orange couch, staring at stacks of CDs, contemplating life and stuff. It came to me on a lovely Sunday morning. The sun was shining, the birds were cheeping, and I was still high from my band's performance two nights earlier.

If you've ever played music of any kind—but especially rock'n'roll—for a crowd of enthusiastic fans and friends, you know the rush I'm talking about. There's nothing like the energy that erupts from the live performance, the blissful marriage of process and product. The band makes music and the audience hears it—nothing between them but the lip of the stage. As the band gives, the audience, through cheers and flailing limbs, gives in return. One fuels the other, and a unique bond is formed. This is very different from, say, creating a magazine: The process occurs months ahead of the product, and there's often a great distance between the performers (writers and editors) and audience (readers).

I wish you could have been there to see our band, the Multi-Purpose Solution, play. The show took place at one of the finest rock venues on the planet, Maxwell's in Hoboken, New Jersey, and it was a wild success—a surprise to all involved for many reasons, none greater than the fact that our band pretty much doesn't exist anymore.

In May of last year, our old friend and rock colleague, Neil Sabatino of Mint 400 Records, had contacted our front man, Jim Teacher. Neil's band, Fairmont, would be celebrating their 10th anniversary with a show in November, and he wondered if our band, defunct since 2006, would reunite for the occasion. It was an interesting proposition. We'd been asked to play shows in the past, but we'd always found reasons to decline. This show, however, would be at Maxwell's (where bands eat for free), and we had six months to prepare. It seemed possible. Still, I was as surprised as anyone when we actually agreed to do it.

After accepting the offer, we tried our best to schedule regular rehearsals, but life and stuff—work, children, weddings, funerals, lower-back pain, upper-back pain, untimely snowstorms—conspired against us. Over the next six months, we managed to meet for only three full-band rehearsals, and the third one wasn't all that encouraging. We were rusty. So when the time came to actually play the show, each member of the band felt a certain degree of anxiety. It wasn't until we were at Maxwell's and had seen the bar fill up with fans, friends, and family that we knew nothing could go wrong. We packed the house and rocked furiously, this time knowing that we might never have another chance. The sound of the audience members as they sang along, their separate voices coalescing and growing into a massive, single voice raised high above the racket of guitar amps and crash cymbals, is something I'll never forget.

In the nights leading up to the show, I practiced diligently on my own. Standing in the center of my listening room, I tried to avoid knocking into my PSB Alpha B1 loudspeakers as I struck rock-star poses, snarled at my LP shelves, and riffed along on my Gibson SG to our band's debut CD, the mps (CD, Mint 400 M4R00 18). The CD player, NAD's C 515BEE, must've wondered what the heck was going on as I constantly paused and reversed, paused and reversed.

Totally neat
At $300, the C 515BEE is NAD's least expensive CD player (footnote 1). Designed to match the NAD C 316BEE integrated amplifier ($380), the compact C 515BEE measures 17 1/8" W by 2 3/8" H by 9½" D and weighs just 7.75 lbs. In terms of fit and finish, it falls short of the standard set by the big, hefty Emotiva ERC-2 ($449), which I reviewed in December, but there's nothing chintzy about the NAD. In fact, I prefer its simple, modest appearance over the Emotiva's busy, showy design. And anything that's easy on the back is a friend of mine.

On the NAD's front panel, from left to right, are a power button, the disc tray, a modestly lit vacuum-fluorescent display, and two rows of three buttons each: on top, Play, Pause, and Stop; below those are Open/Close, and forward and backward Skip/Scan. So smooth and quiet was the NAD's tray that inserting and removing CDs was always a pleasure—not unlike opening or closing the door of a fine automobile. On the rear panel are an analog output, coaxial and optical digital outputs, and a simple AC power cord. The model's overall appearance is handsome and serene.

The C 515BEE comes with a remote control that allows the user to do all sorts of fun stuff: program tracks, repeat a single track or a section within a track (handy for practicing your rock'n'roll moves), and adjust the display's brightness. The remote is small and light—you won't feel compelled to smash anyone over the head with it.

Surprisingly smart for a $300 CD player, the C 515BEE can play MP3- and WMA-formatted recordings burned to CD-R or CD-RW discs—a trick that even my $1100 Exposure 2010S can't pull off. Using the remote control, the user can select playback by scrolling through the MP3/WMA folders and files. Once a file is selected, the C 515BEE displays the file type and any available metadata (song title, artist, album). Totally neat.

Tech talk
I wondered if there were special design goals for the C 515BEE. NAD's director of technology and product planning, Greg Stidsen, explained that the company wanted to reach a high level of performance at an affordable price: "While $300 is not much in audiophile terms, it is a major purchase for many people, and we try to offer the best possible musical performance for the price." I appreciate Stidsen's acknowledgment of the real world: For most of my friends, $300 is a crazy amount of money for a CD player. He continued: "While perfection is not possible at $300, a highly engaging musical experience is entirely possible, if you know what you are doing." To that end, NAD developed a circuit layout to complement their chosen active devices: a Cirrus Logic 24-bit/192kHz sigma-delta digital-to-analog converter and an audio-specific Texas Instruments 5532 dual op-amp.

More tech talk from Stidsen: "A lot of people don't realize that most DACs don't meet their potential performance due to manufacturing tolerances. A perfect 24-bit DAC should have a dynamic range of 144dB, yet in practice even the most expensive DACs only get to 135dB or so. Since CD is only 16-bit, even a moderately priced 24/192 DAC will easily accommodate the 96dB dynamic range required with perfect linearity. Circuit layout is supercritical, as [are] correct decoupling of power supply and choice of passive components and component values."

How does NAD keep its prices low? Stidsen explained that the company has never invested in its own manufacturing factories, but instead benefits from the economies of scale and production expertise offered by their overseas partners. The "BEE" in the component's name stand for Bjørn Erik Edvardsen, the man behind the brand, and NAD's director of advanced development. Leading a small team of hardware and software engineers at NAD's Ontario-based facilities, Edvardsen, along with senior engineer Steve Wilkins, fine-tuned the C 515BEE's audio circuitry "to achieve the best possible results within the set budget parameters."

The Emotiva ERC-2 measures 17" (435mm) wide by 4.25" (110mm) high by 14" (360mm) deep and, at 17.5 lbs (8kg), is the heaviest component to enter my listening room since the 25-lb Simaudio Moon i3.3 integrated amplifier ($3300, discontinued). The player's distinct appearance was developed by Emotiva's president and CEO, Dan Laufman, and VP of engineering, Lonnie Vaughn. In building the ERC-2, their goal was to "keep it simple, easy to use, and elegant . . . in a machine-oriented way."

Indeed, the ERC-2 is clearly a machine. Its satiny black faceplate of brushed aluminum is capped at each end by a strip of stainless steel. To the left are four silver function buttons (Play/Pause, Next, Stop, Previous), arranged in a diamond; at center, from top to bottom, are the large display, a thin slot for loading discs, and a large Standby button adorned with Emotiva's distinctive E logo; to the right of these, all by itself, is the Eject button. This arrangement makes ergonomic sense, but it creates a louder, busier look than would a simple straight row of buttons.

Each button on the ERC-2's faceplate is lit by a halo of bright, clear blue 5that perfectly matches the bright, clear blue of the player's vacuum-fluorescent display. Like a Christmas tree, these blue lights set my small apartment aglow. Fortunately, the Dim button on the ERC-2's remote control softens the display and deactivates the halos. About that remote: It's a massive brick of milled aluminum designed to match the player's overall look and feel—in a word, manly.

Indeed, the ERC-2 and its hefty remote together exude an extremely masculine look and feel that I don't fully appreciate; I would prefer a quieter, more subtle appearance. To my eyes, the ERC-2's look is gaudy, boastful; I kept thinking that the women I know would find it unattractive. But every woman who entered my listening room and whose opinion I asked gave an ambivalent shrug. "As long as it works, I don't care," one said. "They all look the same to me." (And, yes, she was talking about the CD player.)

It took me a little while to get used to the ERC-2's slot-loading transport, which is made by Toshiba. First, it requires a careful touch: Line up the CD so that its edge is perfectly centered in the slot, begin to gently insert the disc, then let the player take the disc. If the disc is too far to either side of the slot, the player won't accept it. Second, the ERC-2's loading mechanism is slow: The review sample took up to 12 seconds to load a disc and up to four seconds to eject it, so be patient. Finally, once the player has loaded the disc, it immediately begins playing the disc from the beginning—if you want to hear track 5, you'll have to then select it using the front-panel buttons or the remote.

On the rear panel are: a set of balanced outputs; two sets of analog outputs; S/PDIF, TosLink, and AES/EBU digital outputs; a trigger input; a rocker power switch; and a standard IEC three-prong power receptacle for the included AC cord. Despite my feelings about its appearance, the ERC-2's build quality is undeniably impressive, with a level of fit and finish appropriate to a component costing three to four times as much.

Correct from the ground up
How does Emotiva keep their prices so low? According to Laufman and Vaughn, all Emotiva products are designed, distributed, and supported in Franklin, Tennessee, while manufacture and assembly take place in China. Laufman and Vaughn insist that their manufacturing partners are "totally committed to quality." I buy this. In addition to spending several weeks with the ERC-2, I've met and spoken with Laufman and Vaughn, and I trust that their enthusiasm and care for their company and its customers would be clearly communicated to Emotiva's colleagues overseas, ensuring that the company's values are appropriately respected. They take special pride in having built a loyal customer base and providing exceptional customer service, as is evident in their lively online community and events such as the annual Emofest: a weekend of factory tours, live music, and entertainment open to customers and friends.

Informed by feedback from those customers, Laufman and Vaughn told me that they decided "to build a player that was correct from the ground up." Under the ERC-2's hood, four individually regulated and shielded power supplies drive the CD transport mechanism, VFD display, and digital and analog electronics. The result, according to Emotiva, is "dead-quiet ground-floor noise, extremely low distortion, and complete freedom from interaction between circuit elements." At the heart of the ERC-2 is a high-quality Analog Devices AD1955 24-bit oversampling DAC. The ERC-2 carries its balanced topology from the output of this chip straight through to the rear-panel XLR jacks.

Emotiva sells direct, with free shipping to anywhere in the continental US. All Emotiva products are backed by a 30-day "hassle-free" return policy and a five-year transferrable warranty.

Awesome music
Summvs (CD, Raster-Noton R-N132) is the fifth and final installment in the stirring and lovely Virus series of recordings from electronic composers Alva Noto and Ryuichi Sakamoto. In "By This River," a great open space is punctuated by wonderfully physical low-frequency pulses and startling high-frequency buzzes and chirps, while a rising progression of reverberant piano chords creates a lulling melody. Not only is the piece beautiful and emotionally powerful, it's a fine test of any system, filled with quick, hypnotic stereo effects, sudden stops and starts, and profoundly deep silences. I find it fascinating (and somewhat sad) that much of what makes this music special is lost through lesser systems. For instance, through my office system of Dell laptop and plastic computer speakers, "By This River" sounds disjointed, one-dimensional, and uninvolving; at home, through the hi-fi, it's a rich, soul-stirring experience.

The Cipher—a strangely inert name for such a dynamo machine—is Krell's follow-up to the slightly cheaper Evolution 505 ($10,000, reviewed by me in the September 2008 issue). Like the 505, the Cipher is a fairly massive SACD/CD player: 29 lbs, half a foot high, and a foot and a half wide and deep, with a case of aircraft-grade aluminum (it comes in silver or black) sporting slitted edges on the side, which give it a modicum of grace. Also like the 505, and like all amps and preamps in the Evolution series, the Cipher employs Krell's proprietary CAST circuitry.

Description
As outlined in my reviews of Krell's Evolution 505 and FBI integrated amplifier (July 2007), the company's Current Audio Signal Transmission (CAST) circuitry manipulates audio signals in the current domain rather than in, as is usual, the voltage domain. It does this in the circuits within a component and—if you have a Krell preamp and a special CAST cable—the connection between two components (more about that later). In theory, this approach reduces distortion in two ways. First, the signal is a continuous stream of current; it doesn't have to be converted from current to voltage and back to current. Second, signals in the voltage domain go from low impedance to high, while signals in the current domain go vice versa. As a result, say Krell's technicians, factors that inevitably corrupt a signal—stray capacitance and inductance on a circuit board, the various effects caused by the mismatched impedances of interconnects—are reduced or eliminated. But operating in the current domain requires about twice as many transistors, which means the component must be bigger and heavier, run hotter, and thus cost more.

Except for the name on the faceplate, the Cipher looks outwardly identical to the Evolution 505. Inside there are some similarities—the disc transport still rests on a rigid aircraft-grade aluminum subchassis, and its drawer is mounted on a steel plate to maximize reading accuracy—but much has been upgraded. The disc drive—made by a Chinese company called Raymedia, and also used in the 505—incorporates newly customized firmware said to improve reading accuracy further, and extra damping material to reduce noise when it's tracking a hard-to-read disc. The separate output levels for the CD and SACD laser heads are now individually hand-calibrated. (Krell will apply this upgrade to your 505 if you send it to the factory.) Whereas the 505 had a single stereo D/A converter, the Cipher uses a pair of 24-bit/192kHz DACs, which deliver higher current to the analog stages and expand the dynamic range by 3dB. New current-mirror technology are said to generate a closer match between the hot and cold signals of the balanced circuitry. The new output stage, which requires about one-third more components than that used in the 505, is said to produce less distortion and wider dynamic range. The Cipher also uses the same anti-jitter circuit that was retrofitted to later units of the 505, and which Krell claimed reduced jitter between the transport and the DAC by a factor of five.

Setup
I did all of my listening with the Cipher resting on three Black Diamond Racing Mk.IV Cones (footnote 1)—which, as usual, tightened the transients a little bit—and plugged into Bybee Technologies' Signature Model Power Purifier, which in turn was plugged into hospital-grade wall sockets wired to a dedicated 20-amp circuit. Speakers were a pair of Revel Ultima Studio 2s. (The Cipher can play multichannel SACDs, but I didn't.) For most of the time I used Simaudio's www.stereophile.com/content/simaudio-moon-evolution-700i-integrated-amplifier">Moon Evolution 700i integrated amplifier and Nirvana cable, but I also swapped it out for Krell's FBI integrated, so that I could test the Cipher's CAST output circuitry using a strand of Nordost CAST interconnect.

Although the Cipher offers a choice of two filters for CD playback and four for SACD playback, Krell told me that Filter 1 was the best in general. I listened to the others, but just briefly, as it struck me that Filter 1 was indeed the best. That's what I used.

Sound
In my review of the Evolution 505, I singled out the player's finesse at revealing the finest subtleties of a musical passage, untangling the knottiest complexities, and showering light on the tonal colors of a voice, an instrument, or an ensemble. I also praised its airy highs, its subterranean lows, and its knack for tossing up a palpable soundstage (wide width, deep depth, sharp but not Etch-a-Sketch images). Summing up the Cipher, I'd say: all that, taken up a notch or two on every count.

On "Tangled Up in Blue," from the SACD of Bob Dylan's Blood on the Tracks (Columbia CK 9032), I still heard the "extra octave of air [that] seemed to rise from the steel guitar," but the acoustic guitar's strumming was also harder, clearer, and more melodic. On Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony's performance of Mahler's Symphony 9 (SACD/CD, SFSO 821936-0007-2), sounds were still "popping out all over the soundstage, very precisely but in full harmonic richness," but now with greater clarity. For instance, just before 2:00, clarinets come in under the strings for just a measure or two, but I'd never heard them jump out with such vibrancy or sound so much like clarinets, with their reediness and the wind jetting out the long narrow tube, as opposed to horn-like notes coming out of some ill-defined something.

That last goal, especially, is one most designers try to reach by adopting ever-new technologies: new digital-to-analog converters, new filters, new numbers. But there remain a handful of manufacturers who would win the numbers game by not playing it at all, Audio Note UK among them. Not that the British firm is against progress per se—but as far as their digital playback gear is concerned, theirs is a decidedly different approach. Their digital credo might best be summed up as: The key to making products that sound more analog is not to be found in the world of digital. Or, putting it another way: Don't bring a chip to a transformer fight.

The latest embodiment of this policy is Audio Note's new flagship CD player, the CD-4.1x ($12,000), a top-loading, single-box product that the company says combines its CDT-Two/II transport ($7450) with a slightly upgraded version of its DAC 2.1x ($4200).

Description
Among the many keen descriptions in Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman's comic novel Good Omens, one stands out. Writing about a character's odd choice of automobile, the authors observe that "It was state of the art, [but] the art in this case was probably pottery." That quote came to mind more than once while living with the CD-4.1x, but not in a pejorative sense—not at all, in fact.

Famously—in audiophile circles, at least—Audio Note rejects the use of oversampling digital filters, and promotes their CD players and D/A converters as "1x oversampling" products. According to managing director Peter Qvortrup, "Oversampling is the digital equivalent of feedback, and it causes a colossal amount of damage. All we can really do is to minimize the damage being done in the digital domain." He added that products without digital filtering "will have more of the qualities you associate with analog. Not all of them, mind you—but more."

The Audio Note CD-4.1x uses no filtering at all, digital or analog: Instead, the player takes advantage of the natural rolloff provided by the transformer coupling in its current-to-voltage section, a design for which AN has received patents in the US, UK, and Australia.

The new player's I/V section is driven by the Analog Devices AD1865N chip: a dual D/A converter with an 18-bit word length. "We've done comparisons," Qvortrup said, "and I consider the AD to be the best-sounding converter, by far." The AD1865N is also used in other of Audio Note's upmarket digital products, and Qvortrup says the company recently bought 1000 of the chips: a wise investment, as Analog Devices no longer manufactures it.

The transport mechanism selected for the CD-4.1x is more current: the Philips CD-Pro2LF, a decidedly robust drive that's engineered specifically for the broadcast and perfectionist-audio markets. The Philips uses a magnetic disc clamp—in the CD-4.1x's case supplied as a removable puck—and an integral four-spring suspension. With regard to product longevity, Audio Note has yet to buy-in as many spare samples of the CD-Pro2LF as they have the AD1865N chip, but, Qvortrup said, "I've gotten Philips to guarantee me that they will give me a minimum three years' notice when they plan to discontinue the Pro." (He pointed out that, with regard to the Philips L1210 transport used in Audio Note's less expensive players and transports, AN purchased the company's last stock: some 4000 units.)

All of the above are implemented in ways that will be familiar to longtime Audio Note enthusiasts. The analog output section is built around a stereo pair of 6H23N dual-triode tubes—a Russian substitute for the more common 6922—configured as anode followers. The nicely made can-style transformers used in the I/V section appear similar to the ones Audio Note makes for their phono transformers. Expensive tantalum resistors are used throughout—more so in this integrated player than in the standalone version of its D/A converter, I'm told—while most of the capacitors are Cerafine granulated ceramic types. Output capacitors are Audio Note copper-foil-in-oil types, while the digital-out cable is a length of the company's own AN-Vx shielded silver interconnect. Separate power supplies, with separate mains transformers, are used for the transport and DAC boards.

The casework, while not aiming terribly far beyond the basic cosmetics for which the brand is known, is better finished than in other recent Audio Note products, while the execution of the top-loading bay is impressive: Its manually operated sliding door feels solid and smooth, so much so that I was surprised when I disassembled the CD-4.1x and saw how simple it actually is. Build quality is fine inside and out, with neatly laid-out PCBs and very clean solder joins.

Installation and setup
There are few things in life more simple than installing a one-box CD player in an existing music-playback system—which is, I suppose, one of the great reasons for the medium's success. So it was with the Audio Note CD-4.1x: I plugged its AC cord into the same power strip as everything else in my system, ran a long pair of Nordost Blue Heaven interconnects (see below) between its analog output jacks and a pair of line-level input jacks on my Shindo Masseto preamp, toggled its cannily hidden rear-mounted power switch to On, and all was revealed. The front-panel display, which glows an attractive blue, was about as basic as these things get, although a dimming switch on the CD-4.1x's front panel is a welcome inclusion.

Playing a CD was a simple matter of sliding open the bay's lid, placing a CD on the transport hub, securing it in place with Audio Note's chunky little magnetic puck, and closing the lid. At that point the CD-4.1x reads and displays the contents of the disc—all a bit more slowly than most other modern machines, but a great deal faster than my Sony SCD-777ES SACD/CD player—and awaits the pressing of Play. No surprises here.

At the very first, the CD-4.1x sounded a little too soft on top. Bearing in mind that the player had been shipped to me direct from the Audio Note factory, without benefit of running-in, I didn't expect it to achieve peak performance with the first CD, but excessively rolled-off trebles aren't among the qualities I associate with an untamed digital source. Thus it was I decided to exchange that 5m pair of Blue Heaven interconnects, on loan from Nordost, for a 1m pair I had on hand. The treble extension noticeably improved. It improved yet again, to a subtler extent, when I replaced the Nordost cable with my own 16-year-old, 1.5m pair of Audio Note AN-Vx silver (which, as ideas go, seemed righter, anyway). I'm not sure what, if any, output-impedance irregularities John Atkinson's measurements will reveal, but the prospective owner should consider herself forewarned.

Of course, CD-R "burners" are de rigueur these days in the PC power user community, and there have been other standalone CD recorders—Stereophile reviewed the Meridian CDR (way back in Vol.15 No.11 and Vol.16 No.11) and, more recently, the Pioneer PDR-99 (Vol.19 Nos.1 and 4). The high prices of these machines kept them out of the hands of average-Joe audiophiles, however. By contrast, the Philips CDR880, priced at $695, is aimed solidly at the consumer market. Is this, as one Philips official claimed, the final step in the evolution of the CD?

We stand at the edge of a new frontier
The Philips CDR880 is a consumer CD recorder. That means it will recognize and record only on "consumer audio"–grade CD blanks. These are somewhat more expensive than the computer-grade CD blanks available at most stationery stores, since their price includes a royalty designed to reimburse musicians, composers, lyricists, et al for the lost revenues that recording CDs is supposed to cost them. How much more expensive? Well, Philips quotes consumer audio-grade discs at between $5 and $7 each, whereas Office Depot sells 10-packs of computer discs for $19.99, and I've seen them in computer catalogs for as little as $0.99 each, after rebate. As a consumer machine, the '880 also includes the Serial Copy Management System (SCMS)—a system that "allows" users to make first-generation copies from original copyright-protected CDs, but prevents them from making copies of copies.

The CDR880 also includes CD-rewritable (CD-RW) capability, which requires special discs with an alloy recording layer that can be recorded and erased (see Sidebar, "Two Types of Discs"). CD-RW blanks cost a lot more—between $25 and $30 each—but, according to Philips, they can be recorded and rerecorded thousands of times.

The '880 is the second-generation consumer CD recorder that Philips has released. Their first attempt, the CDR870, performed an unnecessary sample-rate conversion when recording 44.1kHz-sampled digital signals (footnote 1), which created high enough jitter levels that Martin Colloms found the difference between recorded discs and the originals puzzlingly audible when he reviewed the unit in Hi-Fi News & Record Review in January 1998—a subjective finding that Paul Miller's measurements, also in that issue, supported. The '880 corrects that flaw through its Direct Line Recording (DLR) feature, which recognizes the 44.1kHz sampling rate of a CD source and bypasses the sampling-rate converter. For analog sources, or digital sources recorded at different sampling rates, the sampling-rate converter is used.

New occasions teach new duties
Compared to the Meridian CDR and the Pioneer PDR-99, the CDR880 is a lightweight, weighing in at well under 10 lbs. At first glance it looks like just another mass-market CD player—only the recording-level knob to the right of the display hints at any unusual capabilities. But a closer examination reveals that a lot of thought has gone into making the recorder easy to use. The controls are kept to a minimum; other than the necessary Play, Pause, Stop, Scan Forward, Reverse, and drawer Open/Close buttons, the '880 sports a mere seven buttons dedicated to the recording process: Auto/Manual track allocation, Display, Input select, Record, Finalize, Erase, and CDSYNC. Some of these are not obvious, but they're simple to use.

Auto/Manual track allocation allows you to set the machine to create a new track every time it senses a three-second pause; or, if you're recording from an analog source, to manually mark the beginning of each track by pressing the Record button. Input select allows you to choose between optical or coax digital inputs, or analog. Record is self-explanatory, except that pressing it puts the machine into Record standby—you must then press Play to start recording. Finalize performs the "cleanup" function once you've recorded all the data onto your disc—it writes the ToC (Table of Contents) so that other CD players can recognize and play the disc. CDSYNC is a convenient function that allows the consumer to copy whole CDs, DATs, or DCCs down to including track markers.

The '880 has gold-plated RCA jacks for coaxial S/PDIF input and output, as well as inputs and outputs for analog signals. TosLink input and output are also available. The mains connection is not the larger three-pin IEC type, but rather the smaller two-wire plug-in sort sometimes found on home appliances such as electric mixers.

The CDR880 utilizes a new Philips laser pickup/drive mechanism, the CDM36, which employs a heavy die-cast chassis, complete with suspension. It also has a high-density magnetic clamping mechanism and a low-noise, high-torque motor. Philips' TDA1305 D/A chip converts digital data to analog signal. S/PDIF input and output chores are handled by a TDA1315 chipset. If necessary, the signal is sample-rate-converted by a TDA1373 chip.

Teach us delight in simple things
Recording couldn't be simpler. Pop in a consumer-audio CD-R or CD-RW disc and close the drawer—then wait. The player reads the disc to determine whether it is a conventional CD, CD-R, or CD-RW, and, when it recognizes a blank of either type, performs an Optimal Power Calibration (OPC). During the OPC, the '880 calculates the required laser-energy level by performing a trial recording. This is made necessary by the number of different materials that can be used for the recording layer of a CD-R disc—each, of course, requires a different recording laser-beam power. After the OPC, the machine is ready: Choose your input, press Record, then press Play, and you're in business. Before you can play the CD-R on another machine, however, you must finalize it. This, too, is simple—just press Finalize followed by Record within two seconds, and the '880 will write a ToC. The process takes about two minutes.

Be warned, however, that not every CD player will recognize finalized CD-Rs. I went to New York recently and played my CD-R of John Atkinson's 1997 recording of the Marc Copland Quartet on the systems of several Stereophile reviewers without incident, but when I tried to play it on my pal Ruben's CAL Icon II, the machine wouldn't acknowledge the disc's existence. Like other older CD players, it requires greater contrast between the land and the pits than the 40–70% reflectivity of CD-Rs. It also appears that DVD players that use a single-beam, multifocus laser will not recognize them either.

Philips is being cautious about making claims for compatibility for CD-RWs, but when I tried a finalized disc in an Arcam Alpha 9, it played. I walked from room to room trying the CD-RW in other players I had in the house—neither the Meridian 508.24 nor the Audio Research CD2 recognized it. Intrigued, I went door-to-door around my neighborhood, trying it in players wherever they'd let me in. (Would you?) A Sony CDP-C535 played it, but a Denon DCM-360 and DCM-30 did not. Given the high price of the discs in the first place, I can't imagine anyone just handing them out like the mythical five-cent seegar, but I recommend checking playback compatibility before making any CD-RWs for friends.

To ask the hard question is simple
How well did the CDR880 perform? "As what?" I ask.

As a CD player, I'd call the '880 competent but not too ambitious. It sounded like a lot of other mid-priced players: better than some, but not the pick of the litter. It had good, punchy bass, although truly deep bass seemed MIA, and it got the midrange essentially right. Voices and guitars sounded natural and focused. Further up the frequency band it ran into some hard going, however, as I felt string overtones and other HF information was slightly lackluster—not screechy, certainly, but not particularly sweet or extended either. Nor was it a soundstaging champ. But once I'd gotten used to its somewhat flattened perspective, I could distinguish layers of information from the front to the somewhat farther back. Good performance, but certainly not up to the best affordable CD players I've heard—like the Marantz CD63SE, for instance.

But then, most people who buy an CDR880 will already own another CD player. The real question is, How did it perform as a recorder?

Still, I resisted. Because I'm lazy, and can be painfully stubborn even against my own desires, I tried to force the idea from my mind. I'm done with the Tannoy review. I'm supposed to be getting to know the Parasound Zcd CD player. It's going to be a pain in the ass to unpack the speakers. It's hot!

But resistance was futile. There was only one way to bring this struggle to an end. I knew it, the speakers knew it, the CD player knew it. Most of all, the music knew it. It was probably "Nightfall Pieces I" that finally sent me over the edge. George Marge's tender alto flute spun gray-blue ribbons round Bill Dixon's troubled, disconsolate trumpet, and it was just too much to take. Was this classical? Jazz? Noise? Pop? The blues? Goddammit.

I got up and unpacked the box I'd just packed up, moved the PSBs aside, and set up the Tannoys. I cleared a spot on my cluttered orange couch, started Intents and Purposes from the beginning, and listened again. I guess I wasn't ready to move on, after all.

A few points
Just after I'd submitted my review of the Mercury V1, Tannoy's marketing manager, Jen Kavanagh, sent me some interesting information about the speaker's development and design. A few points are worth mentioning here.

The V1 is the fifth iteration of the Mercury, which was originally released in the 1980s. As I've said before, I really like it when things stick around for a while. I like constancy and consistency. Especially in these unsettled days, when technological advances relentlessly alter the ways in which we interact with one another, and how we experience art, music, food, clothing—everything—I think it's important to celebrate things that last, whether they be horseshoe crabs, paisleys, friendships, or loudspeakers. (See Art Dudley's "List of the Month" in this issue's "Listening.")

In hi-fi, as in music and other forms of great art, the most distinct and memorable pieces of work are often those born from a single, determined vision. I like that, too. It means that when you're listening to a CD player or an amplifier or a pair of speakers, you're also listening to a point of view—you're listening to a person. As I mentioned last month, the person behind the PSB sound is Paul Barton. In the case of Tannoy, that person is Paul Mills, the company's director of research and engineering. Mills joined Tannoy in 1987 as a senior engineer. Today, he's responsible for the acoustic design of all Tannoy residential loudspeakers, from the modest Mercury V1 to the stately Westminster Royal SE. It's fun to think that something of the $12,000/pair Westminster can be heard and enjoyed in the $320/pair Mercury V1. I love the fact that there are talented engineers who are willing to produce truly affordable, high-quality designs as well as cost-no-object flagship models. And while I understand and appreciate that some designers can't or won't make certain compromises (moving production to China, for instance) to reach a lower price point, I can't help wondering what the Magicos, MBLs, Wilsons, Vivids, and YGs of the hi-fi world might come up with if they chose to design a speaker that would retail for $300/pair.

Every design, even the most expensive and ambitious, is made with compromises. Last month I noted the Tannoy Mercury V1's old-fashioned appearance, all straight lines and right angles. Many other speakers have contoured baffles, tapered edges, and/or rounded sidewalls, to reduce vibrations and cabinet resonances. How does the boxy Mercury V1 overcome those obstacles? Jen Kavanagh passed my question along to Jim Stewart, Tannoy's director of operations, who explained that the speaker's overall appearance was compromised in order to achieve the best possible sound quality. I guess it's ironic, then, that I find the Mercury V1 to be so physically uncompromised—beautiful, in fact. But that's me. I like it when speakers look like speakers, rather than seashells, aliens, eyeballs, or vulvas.

According to Stewart, a square, rigid cabinet will offer significantly better performance than a curved, thin-walled cabinet with plastic trim pieces. For the Mercury V1, Tannoy concentrated on building a substantial, thick-walled cabinet with an internal volume that would deliver well-controlled bass. The cabinet was kept as narrow as possible, to reduce any harmful effects of its sharp edges; the desired internal volume was attained by making the cabinet deeper. Furthermore, limiting the Mercury V1 to just two vinyl finishes (Dark Walnut and Sugar Maple, both lovely) enabled Tannoy to produce large quantities of those two variants, thereby keeping the speaker's price low and offering greater value to the customer.

But as I listened again to Bill Dixon's Intents and Purposes, none of this entered my mind.

With the relevant amount of fidelity
Intents and Purposes was originally released by RCA Victor in 1967, and, with the exception of marginal reissues in Japan (1972) and France (1976), was soon out of print—and stayed that way until last year. We have to thank International Phonograph's Jonathan Horwich for making it readily available to a new generation of music lovers. I bought my copy at Other Music, in New York City, but I've seen the album available, at criminally low prices, from Amazon and eBay.

Housed in a glossy, heavy-stock, mini-gatefold sleeve that beautifully replicates the original LP's art, this is a Compact Disc that even I can love. As Horwich's liner notes make clear, Dixon had strong feelings regarding a potential reissue. He quotes Dixon from June 1999: "I worked like the devil on [Intents and Purposes] and, as a consequence, I'm incredibly sensitive about it being displayed for listeners in any format other than the one I conceived. I have wanted to purchase the masters myself, but that has come to naught. I would rather it never be reissued if it can't be done with the relevant amount of fidelity to the philosophy of its initiation."

Horwich's reissue was accomplished with Dixon's blessing, so you know it's good. The original two-track masters were provided by Sony Entertainment and converted to 24-bit/96kHz digital by Mark Wilder (Battery Studios, New York) and Horwich. Steve Marlow handled the final mixing and mastering. Horwich's International Phonograph label has also reissued Julius Hemphill's Dogon A.D. and the Clare Fischer Orchestra's Extension (see our reviews in May and September, respectively). Upcoming Phonograph International titles will include other neglected treasures: Jeremy Steig's Flute Fever and John Carter's Flight for Four and Self-Determination Music. While Horwich is currently dedicated to releasing CDs of long-out-of-print recordings, he says he'd be happy to release them on LP as well, but only if the demand exists. I'm crossing my fingers for a big, beautiful vinyl version of Intents and Purposes. For now, I'm delighted to have the CD.

The album comprises four pieces—two long, two short—developed by Dixon and his creative partner, dancer-choreographer Judith Dunn. Much like John Cage, who had a long and productive relationship with choreographer Merce Cunningham, Dixon was interested in and inspired by dance; while the four pieces on Intents and Purposes certainly live on their own, it's fun (and enriching, I think) to consider them as being inextricably tied to the work of the Cunningham-trained Dunn. So, as I listened again, I saw the drama unfold: nightfall, rainfall, whisper, weep, and wail. Many-voiced, mercurial—sometimes furious, sometimes languid, by turns romantic, soft, sorrowful, sexy—the music leapt into my listening room, danced into my life, and made me feel happy to be who I am, happy to have undeniable urges. And it was that quality—the graceful, weightless dance of it all—that the Tannoy Mercury V1s captured best.

Parasound Zcd CD player
If you're going to listen to great CDs, you'll need a worthwhile CD player, and Parasound's new Zcd ($400) is an interesting option. Like all of Parasound's Z products, the basic-black Zcd measures 9.5" wide by 2" high by 10" deep, and has front-panel rack-mounting holes. I've also seen a stylish, silver option that forgoes the holes for an appearance more at home in the listening room than in the recording studio. Difficult as I am, I'd prefer black without holes. For more on the Z products' physical design, see my review of the Zphono•USB phono preamplifier in our March issue.

My apologies for corrupting the well-known statement by French mathematician Jules Henri Poincaré (1854–1912), in which he described his relationship with science and nature. But substituting audiophile for scientist and music for nature, I feel the sentiment expresses what drives many audiophiles to the extremes for which mere mortals often chide us.

We don't just listen to music, we try to get inside it—to put the reality of it into our rooms with as much life and impact as when that music was originally created. To do this, we make sacrifices.

I'll go further, and corrupt the old adage of live music being the audiophile standard for accuracy of reproduction: My goal is to clearly hear what went down on the tape or in the digits. If that was intended to document a live musical event, so be it. For live recordings, perhaps the ideal is to hear the equivalent of a live mike feed, where the engineer still makes sonic choices.

However, I recognize that the recording studio, too, is an instrument that is orchestrated by the musicians, producers, and engineers, and the only way to hear what it has contributed is through a sound system. Most modern recordings, for better or worse, never existed in a real space. Therefore, the goal is to accurately reproduce what is in the final mix.

Which is a long way around to stating that my preference is for equipment that doesn't embellish, but that seeks accuracy and to reveal what went into the mix. Having wandered into the their room at Consumer Electronics Shows for several years now, I've sensed that MSB Technology, too, is on the path to that goal, and isn't shy about harnessing extreme technology to reach it.

So when I was offered a chance to hear some of their equipment in my home, I jumped. But first, we had to figure out what I was going to review. John Atkinson and I both admitted to being a bit perplexed by the menu of options MSB offers: There are the Platinum, Signature, and Diamond DACs, each with a half dozen or more options, including outboard power supplies of various grades. There are literally hundreds of permutations, and the prices range from several thousand to tens of thousands of bucks.

MSB DACs are built to order, so MSB's Vince Galbo started putting together a system for Stereophile. The heart of the system reviewed here is the top-of-the-line Diamond DAC IV ($21,995). (Its carton was labeled "Platinum Diamond DAC IV.") MSB upgraded this model with these options: FemtoSecond Galaxy Clock ($9950), Diamond Stepped Attenuator ($2995), Pro I²S input board ($995), USB2.0 384kHz input ($1395), and Diamond Power Base ($5995).

The result is a $43,325 DAC bristling with options. Though I'm primarily a music-server-and-vinyl guy, Galbo insisted on completing the stack with a Platinum Data CD IV CD transport ($3995) and Signature Transport Power Base ($3495). Total system price: $50,815.

Configurations
All four components in the MSB stack (DAC, transport, two power supplies) have the same basic appearance: a wide, low-slung chassis with a rounded front, and a vertical cylindrical leg at each corner. Along the sides, between the legs, are heatsinks. Each leg is stuffed with antiresonance material to isolate the chassis from the sharp, sturdy brass foot that runs through it. When you stack MSB gear, the pointy foot of the top component fits into an indentation on the top of the leg below it; the bottom component's feet sit on small silver discs (provided) to protect your shelf.

Each component is sturdy and deceptively heavy. I'm guessing the full stack weighed 60 lbs; it was best moved a couple units at a time. If you forget to use the discs under the pointy feet, I'd bet this stack would work its way through your wood shelf in days and probably crack concrete.

With four DAC modules, these things run hot. I measured over 110°F at the right front corner of the DAC as it warmed up on the floor, so was a little apprehensive about putting them inside my cabinet. When I did, the temperature shot up even higher, and started to heat up everything else, so out on top they went. I normally don't power down my equipment, but I made an exception for the MSBs.

The front of the Diamond DAC IV is simplicity itself: from left to right are four small, round buttons for menu or input navigation, then a display, and finally a round volume knob. The display indicates the volume setting, the selected input and output sampling rates (they may not be the same if you're using upsampling), the input source, and choice of filter. For me, this was a perfect combination of information; I never wished for more. The display's brightness is adjustable.

On the rear panel (remember, this was the fully loaded version) are two sets of single-ended and one set of balanced left and right analog outputs, and one set of balanced inputs (for maybe a phono preamp, if you use a DAC IV as your only preamp). To the right of those are one of every type of digital input I've ever seen, including MSB Network (which looks like an Ethernet jack but is used for MSB's PRO I²S interface) for the transport. From L to R these are Aux (set up on the review sample as a USB port), MSB Network, Balanced Digital, Clock In, Coaxial, Optical. To the right of those is an eight-pin DC power jack for connecting with the Diamond Power Base. MSB has told me that the DAC IV hardware is also DSD ready, but that the software isn't yet.

After I'd plugged everything in, it took me 15 minutes to figure out how to turn it all on. Turns out there's a tiny (as in a grain of rice) plastic switch on the back of the power supply that toggles up and turns green—an odd choice of switch for an otherwise robust suite of components. JA later revealed to me that he couldn't figure out how to turn the thing on either, so I don't feel so bad.

Pretty much in the middle of the DAC's top plate is a standard iPod dock. Also on top, toward the rear, the letters MSB are formed by the dozens of small vent holes punched into the metal. The MSB components come in a wide variety of colors and finishes—there's a handy configuration tool on their website to help you choose.

The Platinum Data CD IV transport has a standard plastic disc drawer concealing a DVD-ROM drive on the left, a display on the right, and between them are buttons for Open/Close, Play/Pause, and Skip Back/Forward. MSB also sells a universal transport based on an Oppo player, but the Platinum Data CD's drive will play CDs or wav files (up to 32-bit/384kHz) burned to DVD-R. You can create these yourself, or try the HRx discs from Reference Recordings, or the DVD-Rs available from M•A Recordings and others.

The rear of the Platinum Data CD IV has balanced AES/EBU and MSB Network output jacks as well as coax and optical S/PDIF. Next to those was the 12V DC power jack, which connects to the Platinum Power Base. Inside, the transport spins CDs at up to 40 times the real-time rate, then rereads each sector to ensure correct data retrieval. MSB says that if it finds any difference, it assumes that all reads were wrong, and adjusts the spin speed, tracking, and laser focus to better read the bits, as many times as necessary, to get a "perfect" result.

The YBA CD 1 Blue Laser (or Lecteur CD 1, as it's known at home in France) breaks new ground. It is very French in that it's individualistic in the extreme, and perfectly embodies current thinking chez YBA regarding music playback in the home. Its design dates back to 1991, a point Yves-Bernard takes pains to point out in the manual.

The most fascinating element of the player's design is the blue LED that rides outboard of the dual-rail linear-tracking three-beam laser read assembly. Most Stereophile readers are digitally up to date and aware of today's requirement to dither down (or noise-shape) from the typical 20+ bits of the master tape to the 16 bits of current commercial media. In a similar process, YBA treats the data to a massage of sorts as it is read—a form of pre-dithering, if you will. The additional LED bathes the underside of the CD in an eerie blue light while the red read laser does its thing.

According to Yves-Bernard: "It's been observed that the phenomenon of stochastic resonance allows random noise to amplify signals of small amplitude. This paradox, used in biology, astronomy, and physics, can also be applied to opto-electronics. It provides a quality of sound similar to analog and produces a level of information never achieved before. The blue laser diode actually permits better extraction of information from the digital medium with less reliance on the error-correction algorithms."

My wife Kathleen suggests that it's like being in a relatively quiet restaurant with a general low-level hubbub: You might better understand your dinner partner in such circumstances due to the randomized noise floor. (Have a look at my "Kind of Blue" sidebar for the complete lowdown on blue lasers and stochastic resonance.)

The Visitation
Setup of the CD 1 Blue Laser was further revealing of the endless attention to detail that marks the entire YBA presentation. Yves-Bernard and Daniel flew in from Chicago (yes, their arms were very tired...), where they'd been tending a client's monster YBA installation.

Yves: "We are always there for our customers—by phone or by fax—so they are not alone when they set up their systems."

Our installation included the CD 1 Blue Laser under test and the Signature 6 Chassis Phono preamplifier. At $19,000, the preamp represents YBA's assault on the absolute state of the preamplifier art. They also brought along a pair of YBA Signature Alpha HC (High Current) monoblocks, $16k the pair, each rated at 100W.

We set the player on the top shelf of a Michael Green Signature DACRack, as we call it chez-10—a Signature ClampRack dedicated entirely to digital processors. First, our reference Forsell Air Bearing D/A, clamped as usual without its top cover in place; the YBA analog power supply on the shelf below (unClamped, thank you) on its bespoke footers; and the Ensemble Dichrono DAC on its anti-resonance Honeyplate;r stand.

The small but herniating Signature Alpha monoblocks were set upon two small Tuning AmpStands (nothing more than Signature ClampRack shelves with short, threaded corner posts which can be run "tight" with everything cinched up, or "loose" for interesting changes in sound). They sat close to and either side of Forsell's hulking The Statement amplifier, and were hitched to the Avalon Ascent speakers (followed by Radian HCs) with TARA Labs Decade, then Synergistic Research Resolution Reference cables.

It's a foot fetish thing...
Each YBA component comes complete with a trio of unusual footers anchored to the chassis. The rear pair are short, discrete, stubby metal shafts terminated in small nylon feet. The centered front footer features a similar shaft terminated with an aluminum square rather than the petite nylon foot.

Interestingly, the player section of the CD 1 was fitted with a chunky rubber nodule under its aluminum front footer, perhaps to further decouple the transport mechanism. Enigmatically, the 6 Chassis preamp sports round front aluminum footers on the dual-mono control units, while the power supplies sit on "standard" aluminum squares. One can only conclude that a lot of thought has gone into this.

Now you see it...
As we confirmed connections and warmed up the system, Yves-Bernard began his ministrations.

Showing some regard for my credulity, he slipped small squares of black wool under the equipment footers while giving me questioning looks as I sat in the Ribbon Chair. Then he slipped small, thin-cut squares of lead under the wool pads. "What do you think of the sound now?"

We also listened with the CD bay's sliding door open and closed. As indicated in the manual, the sound was better with it open; that is to say, more open-sounding.

Trying to absorb all this, I suddenly found myself on the receiving end of a short briefing on the wraparound effects of high-frequency speaker drivers. I eyed the two 6½"-by-7½" squares of black wool that Yves-Bernard had been waving around as he spoke. I removed the three Mpingo Discs that usually sit atop each speaker and watched as he placed a wool square on each of the Ascents, centered on the top surface and just touching the leading edge of the slant-back baffle.

He returned me to the Ribbon Chair and inquired as to which orientation of the squares sounded best. I put a cork in it (wisecracks bubble over in my mind...) and complied. In fact, given the circumstances, I did hear a difference in what seemed like upper-frequency linearity and extension, and settled on one particular orientation.

Yves-Bernard suddenly knelt down to run his open palm across the wool carpet between the listening chair and the speakers. "You are in the wrong orientation," he declared. (Here we go again with the orientations...) "I will show you..." He helped us lift the carpet and reverse its direction 180° so that its nap ran toward the listener. This did indeed effect an improvement in overall smoothness and coherence.

Not yet content with setting the record for Maximum Number of Tweaks Performed During a Setup, Yves-Bernard did it again. "Do you prefer the sound like this...or like this!" Once again the very picture of debonair nonchalance, he quickly unscrewed four retaining bolts and lifted the entire top/side-cover assembly off the player's chassis!

...now you don't!
Fast as a scalded cat, I popped out of the listening chair for a quick look. Pretty (yes!) bronze-colored Roederstein capacitors (modified, I'm told) nestle close to YBA's own silicone-filled aluminum cylinder caps, all mounted on a substantial copper bus bar. (The caps are threaded to be slightly loose to avoid oscillation.)

Checking out the belt-driven, linear-tracking, triple-beam laser sled, I learned that it is sourced from Japanese belt mavens C.E.C., and the spindle motor is TEAC-derived. I also noticed the routing of the separate digital power supply (ground-lifted on its own power cord) right into a nice example of those dipped-in-fois-gras transformers YBA uses.

Despite YBA's claim that it's an integrated player, the CD 1 Blue Laser is a two-chassis affair. The second full-size chassis houses the analog power supply (500VA double C-core transformers), umbilicaled to the player. With a single-box unit, there's no S/PDIF interface and thus no jitter, avers Yves-Bernard.

M. Bernard on the subject of separate transports and DACs: "The signal between transport and D/A converter is, of course, high-frequency and low-intensity. The connecting cable acts like an RC network whose resistance and capacitance depend on the length of the cable, which gives the cable its own impedance characteristics. That creates distortions and shifts in the time domain. Fiber-optic has the same faults. So we integrate them."

That ideal has been thwarted by the concept that, in order to hear what needs hearing, people who really love music must buy separate line stages, phono preamps, transformers, transports, D/A converters, master clocks, power amps, booster amps, and power supplies. An opposing notion offers encouragement for the thrifty and the sane: All that and more can be had in a single component that is still designed and manufactured to perfectionist standards, and the AVM Evolution C9 ($5750) among them.

Description
Audio Video Manufaktur, a German firm that has supplied electronics to Europe and Asia since 1986, entered the US market in 2008, apparently with an emphasis on the comparatively (footnote 1) affordable side of high-end audio. While attending the redundantly named New York Audio and AV Show of 2012, I was impressed by the two CD receivers in AVM's line, the Evolution C9 being the more expensive. (The AVM Inspiration C8, which offers 100Wpc into 8 ohms plus an array of functions nearly identical to those of the C9, sells for $4200, and is reviewed by John Marks in this issue's "The Fifth Element" column.)

In addition to its 180Wpc integrated amplifier, the Evolution C9 provides a selection of onboard source options, the most conspicuous of which is a CD player, whose transport is said to be mechanically isolated from the rest of the unit. According to AVM, the C9's D/A converter automatically upsamples "Red Book" CDs and CD-Rs to 24-bit/192kHz: a kindness that's done for all other digital signals as well. (AVM's converter chip of choice is the Wolfson WM 8741.) Alongside its CD player, the AVM C9 also incorporates an FM tuner, with a European RDS decoder for broadcast text data.

The aforementioned DAC can also be addressed with signals from external sources, including both S/PDIF digital (a choice of RCA and optical jacks) and computer-music files, by means of the C9's USB-B jack, the latter involving the use of a 16-bit Burr-Brown PCM 2704 chip as a receiver. Another input-source selection, labeled Player, is actually a line-level audio/video input, with a quartet of RCA jacks and a USB-A jack for supplying DC to a portable music player. Although the C9's manual is sketchy on the point, this function appears intended for use with an iPod equipped with Apple's Composite AV Cable ($39), a sample of which I did not have on hand for this review.

In addition to the above, the AVM C9 provides three other line-level inputs, a moving-magnet phono input, a fixed-level line output, and a processor loop. The sensitivities of all those analog inputs—including the aforementioned Player input—can be adjusted, by means of the C9's Menu function, to match the output voltage of each device in use.

In common with other all-in-one products of recent vintage—the Micromega AS-400 comes to mind—the amplifier section of the AVM C9 operates in class-D. AVM is also au courant in having adopted switch-mode power-supply technology for all of their electronics: a total of three power supplies in the case of the C9, two of them serving as dual-mono supplies for the amplifier section alone.

Because the C9 resisted my mild attempts to disassemble it, I'm unable to comment on the quality of its parts or construction, but I found the C9's brushed-aluminum casework agreeable overall, with impressively serene, unfussy styling and well-designed controls: a large source-selection knob, an equally large and nicely weighted volume control, an endearingly easy-to-read display screen, and a horizontal row of five soft-touch buttons, the precise functions of which vary with either the user's choice of menu screen or source. Insofar as I could tell, the build quality was fine.

Installation and setup
I used the AVM C9 in two different rooms, with three different speakers: a loaner pair of Wilson Audio Sophia Series 2s, and my own pairs of Quad ESLs and Audio Note AN-E SPe/HEs—something to please everybody, as Sally Henny Penny would say. The C9 has two complete sets of loudspeaker outputs, although I never used more than one set at a time.

During its time with the Audio Notes in my 12' by 19' listening room, the AVM C9 sat on the middle shelf of my borrowed Box Furniture rack, where its temperature ranged between cool and mildly warm to the touch—the latter only during prolonged listening sessions. I used only the stock AC cable, and resisted the temptation to use any manner of accessories to isolate the C9 from an acoustically hostile environment. Speaker connections were made with my stranded-copper Auditorium 23 cables, while interconnects were my usual mix of Shindo silver and Audio Note AN-Vx.

The C9's software controls, the conventions of which will be familiar to anyone who understands the distinction between merely pushing a Menu button and holding it in for three seconds, offered some welcome choices. In addition to the ability to tailor analog-input gain as described above, the C9 allowed me to cut and boost treble and bass; to apply a loudness curve for low-level listening; to enable or disable either pair of speakers; to choose between distant and local broadcast signals; to choose between stereo and mono broadcast playback (the latter, as always, to tidy up weak signals); and, best of all, to effect small balance adjustments between the left and right channels.

Some specifics: The RadioShack FM antenna I installed years ago in my attic—where it has stood, half forgotten, since the last time I reviewed such a product—gave grist to the tuner's mill, while the programs Decibel and iTunes drove the AVM's USB D/A converter by means of an Apple iMac running Apple's OS X 10.7.4. (In the Sound submenu of my iMac's System Preferences menu, the AVM showed up as "USB Audio DAC.") Lack of a standalone CD transport argued against my trying the AVM's S/PDIF inputs. And although its phono-stage specifications suggest that the C9 can be directly driven by higher-output moving-coil cartridges, I nonetheless chose to use a step-up transformer between that stage and every cartridge I tried—my preferred approach in any case, owing to the superior sense of musical touch and impact it imparts to phono playback.

Listening
I began by using my Apple iMac to drive the Evolution C9's USB input (which is also the easiest way I know to break in a brand-new amplifier). During the first day of listening I was impressed by how obvious the C9 made the distinctions between iTunes and Decibel, the latter's treble openness and clarity being preferable to the former's dust and haze. Yet during that first day of listening it was also apparent that that clarity owed its existence to a somewhat bright timbral balance, and a treble range in which note attacks and textural distinctions were allowed greater-than-usual emphasis.

My idea of natural sound calls for a more reticent top end than that. Consequently I expected—and hoped—that the C9's high-frequency performance would become a little less eager, as often happens as new playback gear settles in. That happened here, but only to a very slight extent.

If that's the worst news about the C9—and it pretty much is—the best news would surely be its facility with the difficult-to-drive Quad ESL, the impedance of which drops a whopping 31 ohms between 80Hz and 18kHz. Yet when driven by the AVM amplifier, my Quads sounded as nicely balanced as they ever have. With the right gear, ESLs can also sound surprisingly and pleasantly tight, with excellent musical timing and freedom from timing distortions—and so it was here, with plucked cellos and electric bass guitars alike sounding tuneful and snappy. When listened to from an off-axis and reasonably farfield (ie, more than 10' away) seat, the C9 also afforded the Quads a more natural-sounding treble range than I heard through the Wilsons or Audio Notes—although, in the nearfield setting that many Quad owners prefer, the AVM's overly strong top end endured.

The C9's ability to express the timbral colors and natural sonic textures of recorded music, while not as good as that of my Shindo and Fi electronics (unsurprisingly, given the AVM's comparatively low cost, footnote 2), was acceptably good, especially through the Quad and Audio Note speakers. A few years ago, a friend gave me a CD copy of a digital recording made in India, of an improvisation performed on sarod, harmonium, and tabla: a timbrally rich recording, as you can imagine. Rather than sounding tonally thin or bleached out—as I might have feared, given the amp's brightness—the recording was pleasantly colorful through the C9, if not quite as fleshy and bloody as I like.

A few source-specific observations: The AVM's phono section performed admirably, without adding hum or obvious noise to the signal. (There's a phono-ground lug on the C9's rear panel, but I never had cause to use it; grounding the tonearm in use to the step-up transformer in use was sufficient in every instance.) Without an antenna, its FM tuner couldn't pick up any stations—not even the local religious station broke through—but with the antenna in place, the AVM received three stations clearly when set to Local, with the addition of a few iffy signals when set to Distant, the latter being cleaned up nicely by the switch from stereo to mono. (Remember, I live in a rural area in central New York State.) And the C9's CD player performed reliably, even with two physically worn discs that another player of mine now rejects out of hand.

The AVM's onboard CD player was, as the days played out, the source on which I most often relied—at its best it sounded pleasantly forward, with very strong center-image presence. Still, the observation that dominated my notes was the C9's overabundance of high-frequency detail. In "Ellis County," from Buddy and Julie Miller's fine Written in Chalk (CD, New West NW6158), the usually well-textured fiddle had too much texture, and drawn-out vowel sounds in Buddy's lead vocals had a little too much wheeze around the edges. In "The Last Living Rose," from PJ Harvey's Let England Shake (CD, Vagrant VR651), the tambourine sounded harsh and bright—ditto Lee Feldman's tambourine in "Halo," from his great new Album No.4 (CD, Bonafide UM-130-2). Those aspects of its sonic performance prevented me from ever really warming to the AVM in my system.

Conclusions
With a total of 10 source selections—two of which are self-contained—the AVM Evolution C9 lacks neither flexibility nor ostensible value. But while the C9 performed well enough with my Quad ESLs, and while I can think of at least four or five classic Brit-fi loudspeakers that might also suit it, owners of speakers with tipped-up or very well-extended treble ranges would probably do well to consider something else. I remain enthused about this product category—in which solid-state amplification prevails, understandably enough—but the bargain hunter who shares my taste in sound should approach the Evolution C9 with greater-than-usual care.

Footnote 2: Ibid.!

Farad, however, was effectively the sole driving creative force eight or nine years ago, when I used to regularly visit him at his London apartment and witness stages in the design of a loudspeaker that, in retrospect, would put Mission Electronics on the high-end map. As well as drinking large amounts of his liquor, night after night I would witness Farad putting record after record on his Linn, listening to what seemed to be innumerable prototypes of what became the Mission 770, trying to match the midrange accuracy of the classic "BBC-sound" Spendor BC1 but marrying it to a less loose bass region, more suited to the special requirements of modern LP replay.

And to a large extent he succeeded. I can remember almost painfully exquisite reproduction of Jackson Browne's live Running on Empty album, Emmylou Harris just taking my breath away with Quarter Moon in a Ten-Cent Town, and Dire Straits'Sultans of Swing causing us to boogie until we were disturbed by the early-morning sounds of London's pigeons taking their first cough. The 770 was one of the first speakers to use a polypropylene-cone bass/midrange unit; the combination of an upper-midrange transparency rare at the time of its launch, and low frequencies that, while never quite as tight as those of the Linn Isobarik, nevertheless were "fast" and played tunes effectively, caused the 770 to be the loudspeaker of choice for many UK audiophiles in the early '80s.

Farad and I somewhat lost contact over the following years, and perhaps inevitably, I found myself losing sympathy with the sound of Mission's loudspeakers. While always detailed and fast, and offering excellent value for money, they increasingly featured, in my opinion, a somewhat forward midrange which didn't fit with my awakening tastes for subtlety and restraint in high-end sound. If you take perfection in sound reproduction to lie at the top of a broad-skirted mountain, then you could say that Farad's and my paths toward perfection diverged around opposite sides of the mountain. The destination may be the same, but the incidental scenery is totally different.

Time passed, however, and in 1986 I found myself being drawn again toward the sounds of Farad's brainchildren. Aided by the set-up skills of one of the partners in Mission's Canadian subsidiary, Armi Leonetti, Mission had always obtained excellent sound in their CES exhibits. While the top models in Mission's new generation of loudspeakers, the 770 Freedom and 780 Argonaut, didn't look or sound anything like their distinguished ancestor, the original 770, they sounded good on their own terms. Low frequencies had excellent weight, without the almost universal propensity for box loudspeakers to lose definition in the upper bass, while sensitivity was high, so that the speakers would produce high sound-pressure levels with the relatively modest output power of the Mission amplification.

Intrigued, I spent a weekend at Mission's Canada HQ in Toronto, listening to an Argonaut- and Cyrus-based system put together by Armi. Impressed with what I had heard, I requested a complete Mission system for review, resulting in the words you are now reading. Each piece of equipment—the PCM 7000 CD player, Cyrus Two integrated amplifier, and 780 Argonaut loudspeaker—was first auditioned in the context of my own usual system, based on a Linn Troika/Ittok/Sondek feeding an Audio Research SP10/Krell KSA-50 combination which in turn drives Celestion SL600 loudspeakers on spiked Foundation stands. Interconnects and speaker cables are by Monster; beer by Corona; Scotch by The Macallan. Following that experience, the three components were auditioned as a complete Mission system.

In a CD player?

Century-old technology embedded in a modern digital design?

I realize that Aesthetix's Saturn Romulus is not the first disc player or D/A processor with tubes, nor will it be the last—but does combining these technologies even make sense? Are audiophiles working at cross purposes to themselves, looking for modern perfection but preferring a little old-school sweetening here and there?

To date, I've stuck with purely solid-state DACs and disc players, but I was curious enough to jump at a chance to audition the Aesthetix Romulus DAC/CD player and get my ears on this oddest of technological hybrids.

The Saturn Romulus is named after one of the mythical founders of Rome (Star Trek fans will recall Romulus as the namesake planet of the Romulans), and is essentially the same product as Aesthetix's tubed Pandora DAC, with the addition of a CD disc drive and a $1000 hike in price, to $7000. For another $1000, either product can be upgraded with an optional volume control based on Aesthetix's Calypso preamplifier, rendering a preamp unnecessary in an all-digital system.

I've had in for review another CD player/DAC in the Romulus/Pandora price range, the Resolution Audio Cantata ($6000, reviewed in the November 2012 issue), and here's the weird part: after setting up everything, the soft-spoken, well-mannered designers of both products asked to hear metal/rock band Tool at prodigious levels. Any other price range, and we're mostly listening to normal audiophile fare. But something about the $6000–$7000 range and they start going all Maynard on me. It turns out that Romulus designer Jim White's wife is a retired race-car driver who was pretty good at keeping the other cars in her rear-view. Audiophiles living on the edge!

Under the hood
The DAC sections of both the Pandora and the Romulus sport a full complement of digital inputs that decode every resolution up to 24-bit/192kHz, and include: Gordon Rankin's asynchronous design for USB inputs, a Motorola DSP56362 in the filter section, and a Burr-Brown PCM 1792A DAC chip. The analog section has four tubes: my unit included a Russian Electro Harmonix 6922EH and a Slovakian Teslovac E83CCS in each channel. The analog circuit is a zero-feedback design; there are both balanced and unbalanced outputs.

The Romulus arrived carefully packed in a large, heavy, 2'-square carton. The unit itself weighs a hefty 40 lbs and is 18" square—it pretty much takes up every spot of depth in my cabinet. Its cleverly removable pop-off top—no tools needed—grants easy access to the tubes.

With the top off, and peering in from the front, you'll see the plug-in digital input cards at back left, and the beautifully laid out analog output stage on the right. Both the Pandora and Romulus feature Rel-Cap polypropylene coupling capacitors and Roederstein metal-film resistors. Jim White clearly takes time to lay out everything with precision, and the build quality is as good as I've ever seen.

At the front of the chassis, taking up almost half the interior and encased in shiny metal for extra shielding, is the hefty power supply. Also at the front, housed in its own Faraday cage to isolate it from the rest of the DAC, is a "Red Book" disc drive made by TEAC.

I normally don't go on about the innards of products I review, but under its hood, the Romulus is a thing of beauty. White has been at this awhile—he designed for Theta Digital back in the 1990s—and his experience shows.

You can order the Romulus with a silver or a black faceplate, but the surrounding case is always black, with two large open areas on top protected by metal screens. The exterior design is solid and clean, without gratuitous slabs of metal or flash, and resembles the other preamp products in Aesthetix's Saturn line.

One detail that stands out is the triangular shape of the company's logo, and of every button on the front panel. Starting from the left are the Standby button and indicator light, then the Input selector button and display on/off button. The display, in the middle of the front panel, runs through self-check messages whenever you power up the Romulus. That done, it provides track and timing information for CDs, or input and sample-rate information when running as a DAC. There are also indicators for setting CD functions like repeat and indicating Phase setting and digital lock. A nice touch is that the display senses the room's light level and adjusts itself accordingly.

Perhaps the coolest feature of the display is that it also functions as a touch volume control, assuming you've paid the extra $1000 for the volume option. The plastic display panel itself rocks slightly left and right; tap it on the left and the volume goes down; press it on the right and the volume goes up. Ingenious, though a bit tricky to figure out if you don't read the manual. Alas, my Romulus was delivered sans volume upgrade (though the display still rocks back and forth).

The CD drawer is a ½"-high slot in the middle of the front panel, below the display. One difference between the Romulus and the Pandora is that the DAC-only Pandora has a button for each input instead of a CD drawer, while the Romulus has a single button that cycles through the inputs.

To the right of the display is a Mute button with indicator LED, and to the right of that are the standard CD-transport buttons. The front panel ran only slightly warm, with the hotter components toward the rear. Still, the Romulus never got more than moderately hot around the tubes.

I was a little surprised that such a beautifully engineered product comes with a generic plastic remote control silk-screened with the Aesthetix logo and button functions. That aside, it has a button for everything, including direct selection of inputs and some extra preamp controls. I found that everything I needed was actually on the front panel of the Romulus, and so didn't use the remote much. So perhaps this really was the perfect place for Aesthetix to save a few bucks—and if you drop this remote, it won't dent your furniture or break your toe.

Around back, starting at the left, are the analog outputs, both balanced and un-, and in the middle are the AC power connector and power switch. Below those are RS-232 and trigger jacks for home-automation applications. On the right are three removable plates for the various input configurations. Mine had the first plate blank, with the USB plate next and, on the third plate, the TosLink, coax, and AES/EBU jacks. The blank plate can be replaced with another USB input.

On the USB plate is a pushbutton that switches between Class 1 and Class 2. Class 1 allows operation up to 24/96 for all operating systems without requiring any special drivers. Class 2 is USB High Speed mode for higher data rates up to 24/192, if you're using either the Windows drivers supplied by Aesthetix via their website, or a Mac with OS 10.6.4 or higher. I was in the latter camp, so I left the switch in Class 2 position.

Getting Our Ears On
After running the Romulus in the system for about a month, it was time to get down to serious listening. First things first: Whenever comparing DACs, carefully match their output levels. I often wonder, when reading a review or comment in which the sound of one DAC is described as "far and away" more striking than that of another, if the better DAC was simply a tad louder. The Romulus, though close to my system standard level set by the Benchmark DAC1 USB, was still 1dB louder—noticeable when I made close comparisons in which even such a small difference in loudness could obscure relevant details.

And so we have the Audio Research Corporation's Reference CD9 digital-to-analog converter and CD player, which, at $12,999, costs about the same as my Krell Cipher SACD/CD player ($12,000), but is so different in design and function that it offers a good test of my theory on converging sound qualities. In the May 2012 issue, I called the Cipher "a great CD player: the best I've heard in its price range, and the best I've heard, period, in my home system." How does the Reference CD9 stack up? What can each player do that the other can't, and does it matter? What does the very existence of such machines, near the peak price for a single-chassis player, say about the future of high-end audio?

Description
The Reference CD9 is a top-loading player that uses Philips's CD Pro2 transport. The drive rests on a ½"-thick metal I-beam that extends the player's full depth. Four 6H30 dual-triode tubes drive the analog section; a fifth 6H30 and a 6550C regulate the power supply. ARC claims that its use of four digital-to-analog converters (two per channel, each in dual-mono mode) reduces the digital noise floor by 3dB (ie, doubling the number of DACs doubles the signal's amplitude while keeping the noise the same). Power is handled by a custom transformer that, according to design engineer Dennis Petrich, has no gaps or breaks in the material of its R-core and thus more efficiently contains the flux field, with much less leakage, resulting in less distortion and a higher signal/noise ratio. Jitter reduction (to <10 picoseconds, according to the spec sheet) is handled by a crystal-controlled reclocking mechanism.

In its most up-to-date feature, the CD9's rear panel has not only digital outputs but also five digital inputs—S/PDIF on RCA, BNC, and TosLink, AES/EBU on XLR, and USB—for outboard digital devices or digital streaming. (The player comes with a CD-R carrying the necessary driver programs for Macs and Windows PCs.) Once you've pushed a button (on the CD9's front panel or its remote control) that activates one of these digital inputs, you can set the bit rate to 24 and the sampling rate to 44.1, 88.2, 96, or 192kHz, depending on the source signal. (You can also set it to play at the source's native resolution, whatever that may be.) The DACs are also equipped with dual oscillators, so that music at 44.1kHz (or doubled to 88.2kHz or, from there, to 176.4kHz) uses one of the oscillators, while music played at 96 or 192kHz uses the other.

Finally, when you're spinning discs, the CD9 allows you, with a push of a button, to upconvert the sampling rate from 44.1 to 88.2kHz. Another button lets you select the digital filter: Fast (a brick-wall filter at the highest frequency) or Slow (a filter with a more gradual rolloff).

For those familiar with Audio Research CD players, the Reference CD9 is the same as the CD8 (released in 2010 at a price of $9995), except for its digital inputs, the selectable filters and upsampling options, and the circuitry that facilitates them: the four DACs (vs the CD8's two), the two master oscillators (vs the CD8's one), the greater bandwidth of the analog circuitry, and the sample-rate display on the front panel.

Setup
I hooked up the Reference CD9 to a system that included the Simaudio Moon Evolution 700i integrated amp, Revel Ultima Studio2 speakers, and Nirvana cables. I usually place Black Diamond Mk.4 Racing Cones under all electronic components and plug all hi-fi gear (except amps) into a Bybee Technologies Signature Model Power Purifier. But David Gordon of Audio Research urged me not to do this, at least at the outset, so I let the CD9 stand on its own Sorbothane feet and plugged its power cord straight into the wall—in my case, into hospital-grade sockets wired to a dedicated 20-amp circuit. He was right: the player sounded a little better without the usual aids.

I played lots of CDs, occasionally pushing the buttons on the remote control to switch between straight 44.1kHz and the same datastream upsampled to 88.2kHz, and from the Fast (brickwall) to the Slow (gradual rolloff) filters. (About my findings on these matters, more later.) ARC recommends 600 hours of break-in; I gave the review sample three weeks of continuous play before settling down to serious listening. I conducted several A/B comparisons with the Krell Cipher. To check out the CD9's digital inputs, David Chesky, of Chesky Records and HDtracks, brought over a MacBook Pro and an external hard drive loaded with Audirvana software and lots of high-resolution tunes from the Chesky catalog (mainly in 24/192, but a few in 24/96), which I compared with CDs and, when possible, LPs of the same titles.

Sound
As a CD player, the Reference CD9 was simply excellent. This wasn't a surprise, given Audio Research's track record. What was a surprise—and what takes me back to the proposition at the top of the review—is that it sounded almost exactly like the Krell Cipher, even though the Cipher has a front-loading transport (it's not a top-loader), transistors (not tubes), two DACs (not four), and proprietary circuitry that manipulates audio signals in the current domain (not the voltage domain). Often, two similarly high-priced components may both "sound good" but have different strengths and weaknesses, which in many cases stem from their designers' different preferences or trade-offs. A review that compares two such models generally identifies those trade-offs, weighs the differences, and concludes which player might be better or worse for various kinds of music or taste. Usually, the differences are pretty clear.