pmr@drutx.UUCP (10/31/84)
[?]
---> Caution: The surgeon general has determined that subjective
---> equipment reviews may be hazardous to your ego. :-)
Hi fans,
It's me again spreading subjectivity and listenability here and there as I
flit and fleet from audio salon to audio salon. (Hey Phil. These are the
most bizarre things you've ever said. Are you on drugs or is it just the
altitude you live at?) {The previous line was presented to you by the
Benevolent and Unapproachable but Legitimately Ludicrous Society for the
Harassment of Indispensable Technology, affectionately referred to as
BULLSHIT :-)}
Seriously now folks, last Wednesday I was in a local audio salon that had a
Revox CD player plugged into the Revox receiver driving the new Goldmund
loudspeakers (which incidentally are very nice) through the new, and commonly
misspelled, Kimber Kable. I listened to a few classical selections from an
M&K Realtime (digital master) compact disc (of course silly, vinyl wouldn't
fit) and had to let you know about my first impressions. Although this
listening session was not scientific by any stretch of the imagination,
and that people will probably flame at me on the most basic principles of
jealousy/envy/disgust/bias/lust/insanity/silver vs. gold ears/price of tea
in China (pick one/some/all), I was familiar with the way this system sounded.
And since these players are selling almost as fast as all the people
at Revox can assemble them (according to the highly biased salesperson
anyway), there is little hope for me to test the Revox in a controlled
manner on my own system. Remember that I only evaluate sonic reproductive
excellence. Features, to me, are not significant.
The major complaints I had about CDs going in to this listening session
are three:
1. There is something going on with group delay, or some other
time-dependent problem, that causes that causes the upper
harmonics to sound unnatural and sterile. (Let's not argue
about why or what this is, I don't care anyway. I just know
that it's, to quote Supertramp, "...not quite right.")
2. Ambience is practically non-existent. Echos die off much
faster than they do in reality.
3. The soundstage is essentially two dimensional. Front-to-back
depth is something yet to be discovered by this format.
So now that you know my biases and have read and thoroughly understand my
disclaimer, let us proceed.
On the positive side, it is truly the BEST CD player I've ever heard. No
kidding! I've heard quite a few and I've been totally disappointed in all
but two of them. The Revox doesn't get my ears fatigued half as much and half
as fast as most of the stuff on the market today. The Revox's clarity and
ambience is several orders of magnitude better than the first generation
stuff (like the Sony CDP-101, et. al.) that flooded the market almost
two years ago now. For the first time I heard detailing worthy of the
distortion specifications claimed by CDs, approaching and in some cases
surpassing SOTA analog. (There! That ought to pacify most of the digital
maniacs.)
On the negative side of this player, still there was no soundstage to speak of
and the harmonics were better but still not quite right. The performances
were lifeless, flat, unmoving, and unnerving. The focus was good but the depth
and ambience still needs A LOT OF WORK before approaching that of SOTA analog.
Ambience is much better than any other CD player, but echos still die off very
quickly. The best soundstage it could develop was about five or six foot deep
at the center and about three or four foot deep at the speaker extremes. The
best height was about five or six foot at center and four foot at the speaker
extremes. This system is easily capable of generating a soundstage about twice
this size with SOTA analog. (And that ought to pacify the analog maniacs.)
Let's review the prices of this system:
Revox B780 Receiver - $2,200
Goldmund Loudspeakers - $3,800
Monster Reference Interconnects - $85
Kimber Kable - $?
Revox B225 CD Player - $1,150
Maybe price has a lot to do with sound quality (or the lack thereof). Let's
see. In relating this CD player's price to that of esoteric analog, we
have the Kiseki Lapus phono cartridge ($3,500 before arm and table); the
Levinson ML-6A preamp that sells for more than four times what the total
electronics and mechanics sell for in CD players; and that incredible Conrad
Johnson monophonic tube power amplifier that sells for a cool $3,000 (yup, you
need two for stereo). One would think that competing against SOTA analog is a
bit unfair with such vast price differences. And I suspect that it is very
unfair.
The most expensive consumer CD player that I know of is under $2,000 (one
third the price of a no-moving-parts CJ stereo amplifier). But some day in the
near future, the $2K price barrier will be broken and people will get serious
about designing and manufacturing CD players. It took 10 years for Nak and
other cassette manufacturers to develop full bandwidth cassette tape decks with
acceptable s/n figures. Just think what CDs could sound like if the same design
trend continues for them! I can't wait to listen to a well-design-budgeted CD
player. For the complexity of these units, esoteric CD players could sell today
for as much as $15,000. Hopefully at this price, CD players truly WOULD surpass
the performance of SOTA analog.
Is the technology is available? I'm not sure that the analog side of CD
players is understood well enough to date. But even if it were understood,
the market isn't ready for them, not today anyway. Who do you know that would
dish out $15K for a CD player when CDs are still in their infancy? CDs must
must first establish their place in the consumer market before manufacturers
will start talking in these figures.
I'll never forget the words of a writer (who shall remain anonymous) of
one of the big three audio rags. To paraphrase his thoughts, "Once we
go to a digital format, things cannot possibly get better. Music by the
numbers is black and white with no chance for improvement." Although this
statement is partially true, so ends another great audio myth (I think this'n
is #1010011, base 2 of course :-).
I still prefer the sound from SOTA analog systems and at the present rate of
CD player/disc evolution, I will continue to prefer it for quite some time.
But the Revox B225 player at least gives me hope for the CD format much in the
same way that I had hope for the cassette format when Nakamichi began making
their fine equipment. (Hey Phil. These are the nicest things you've ever
said about digital audio. Are you on drugs or is it just the altitude you
live at?) {The previous line was presented to you by the Department of
Redundancy Department. :-)}
Yours for higher fidelity,
Phil Rastocny
AT&T-ISL
ihnp4!drutx!pmr
NOTE: I could care less if you bought one of these or not. I don't own stock
in Revox and I don't think I ever will. These are my own opinions and I don't
get a dime for the things I review or the products that I name drop. I just
like expressing my honest reactions to the public about the equipment that I
evaluate in hopes that people won't get ripped off by fast-talking salespeople,
hype advertising, or dazzling specifications.
PS - I don't do drugs so it must be the altitude. :-)herbie@watdcsu.UUCP (Herb Chong, Computing Services) (10/31/84)
Denon make a professional CD player that sells for about $6000 US.
It is a console unit designed to be used in broadcast studios.
The people who looked at it said they were not able to cause the player
to mistrack by hitting it, although they were afraid of breaking something.
It allows direct entry of cue delay to tenths of a second and can access
the CD by track number (this is the physical track, not the cut number).
The Phillips test disc had all flaws tracked with no audible effects.
I hear that it implements the complete error correction scheme as specified
in the Phillips/Sony CD standard.
Herb...
I'm user-friendly -- I don't byte, I nybble....
UUCP: {decvax|utzoo|ihnp4|allegra|clyde}!watmath!watdcsu!herbie
CSNET: herbie%watdcsu@waterloo.csnet
ARPA: herbie%watdcsu%waterloo.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa
BITNET: herbie at watdcs,herbie at watdcsupmr@drutx.UUCP (11/02/84)
The $6K Denon is not a consumer product so I didn't include it in the comparison. Yours for higher fidelity, Phil Rastocny AT&T-ISL ihnp4!drutx!pmr