Cambridge Audio 751BD Blu-Ray Universal Player

UK's Cambridge Audio announces the successor to its successful Azur 650BD, and the only challenger in town to the throne of universal players currently reign supreme by Oppo 93 and 95, with the new Azur 751BD Blu-ray Universal Player.  In addition to playing any disc known to man, the unit features high quality audio and video decoding.  Using the supplied wireless dongle and any UpNP server, (PC w/Media 7, Apple with Twonky, EyE Connect, or NAS Drive) you can stream your entire music library into the Azur 751BD using exclusive Anagram Q5 up-sampling to get REAL 24-bit native performance without any wires. 

Features

• Formats decoded: Blu-Ray / BD-3D / DVD Video / Audio / DVD-R/RW / SACD / HDCD / CD / CD-R/RW
• BD Profile: BD-ROM V2 Profile 2
• Stereo Up-Sampling to 24/192
• 7.1ch High Resolution PCM
• 5.1ch DSD
• SACD High Resolution
• Bitstream or Decoding to PCM of Dolby Digital
• Dolby Digital Plus
• Dolby TrueHD
• DTS
• DTS-HD High Resolution Audio
• DTS-HD Master Audio
• 1GB of Internal Memory
• Twin 1.4 HDMI Outputs
• Twin USB Connection Ports
• Ethernet 100BASE-T Connection
• 802.11 b/g/n Wireless Connectivity Allows Content Streaming
• Five (5) Wolfson 24/192kHz DACs
• Up-sampler: Analog Devices ADSP-21261 32 bit running Anagram Q5 upsampling to 24/192kHz (All 10 -channels!)
• Marvel DE2750 Video Scaler
• e-Sata External Hard-Drive Connection
• RS232 Connectivity
• Video Engine: Mediatek MTK8530
• Video Scaler: Marvell DE2750
• Video Frame Rates: 24Hz / 50Hz / 60Hz
• Ethernet: 100BASE-T
• Pricing: $1,249.00 MSRP

AVM Inspiration C8 CD receiver

Germany's AVM handcrafted Inspiration C8 All-In-One CD receiver is housed in perfectly finished an aluminum cabinet shows no evidence of assembly screws.  Technologically the C8 is very flexible in terms of connections including options for home automation controls i.e. Control4, Crestron etc.  All incoming digital signals are converted to 192kHz/24bit resolution.

• High Power output stages 150W/channel
• PureCD drive with slot-in, suspended mounting
• FM-RDS-tuner
• 4 Line inputs
• 1 phono input (MM & MC)
• 1 processor In/Out
• 3 digital inputs (SPDIF, optical, USB-Input operates without driver installation)
• Signal processing in all digital inputs applying 192 kHz / 24 Bit upsampling
• 2 digital outputs (SPDIF, optical)
• Tone control and parametric loudness with bypass-mode
• Remote controllable, solid aluminum easy-to-use remote control included
• External control via RS 232, IR input via external optional receiver
• Numerous setup functions (i.e. adjustable input sensitivity, individual input naming etc.)
• Available finishes: Aluminum silver or black
• Streaming function as optional module (from mid 2011)

Digital Audio Player from Plinius and Soulution

Computer Audio is now mainstream.  Most manufacturers now retrofit their CD players with USB inputs. New Zealand's Plinius was showing at Munich High End its Toko Digital Audio Player (est. EUR4,950) a stand-alone CD player with USB input.

Also showing at Munich was the Swiss-made Soulution's Digital Player 540, which uses mechanics from Esoteric, upsamples to 24-bit/384kHz feeding to a pair of Burr Brown PCM1792s.  The player also sports a USB input.

Constellation Audio Cygnus and Sirius

Constellation Audio has launched some more accessible pieces (read:prices) at the Munich High End show, including the Cygnus media player pictured below.  Constellation Audio's team is extremely impressive including names like the legendary John Curl and Demain Martin, as well as Andreas Koch of Revox, EMM Labs, and Playback Designs fame.

Cygnus Media Player | Credits: www.my-hiend.com

The Sirius HD Digital Music Source is Constellation's reference digital product and is quite a technological Tour de Force with three separate chassis plus a cool system controller.  

Sirius transport unit

Plays CD, SACD, and DVD-Audio
The Sirius accommodates all of the optical formats commonly used by audiophiles. Unlike many SACD players, it does not downconvert 1-bit digital audio to PCM for playback, so it retains the essential purity of the SACD recording.

Plays digital music files

Digital music files such as MP3, FLAC, and WAV can be played through the Sirius DAC with extraordinary fidelity. These files can be sourced from a USB stick, a computer, or a networked hard drive.

Triple chassis design

Each Sirius comprises three separate chassis. One encloses the digital-to-analog conversion circuitry, another contains the optical disc drive and the digital file player, and the third holds the power supply. The design assures that the electrical and mechanical energy of one component cannot interfere with the circuits of another.

Sirius DAC unit

Triple-transformer power supply
The Sirius power supply module has three separate R-core transformers, each linked to its own voltage regulation circuitry—thus it provides separate power feeds for left channel analog audio, right channel analog audio, and digital/control circuitry. Connections are made through custom-extruded PCOCC wire terminated with aerospace-type Hypertronics connectors.

Sirius power supply unit

C-Link digital interface

In order to avoid down-conversion of the audio from SACD discs, we connect the optical disc/digital file player to the DAC through our proprietary C-link optical interface. This connection also carries PCM signals.

Esoteric VRDS-Neo drive mechanism

The VRDS-Neo is simply the best drive mechanism available. Its Vibration-Free Rigid Disc Clamping System holds a disc firmly so that it can spin at four times normal speed without vibrating—thus producing a low-jitter digital signal that needs less error correction

Line Stage Gain Module

This module serves as a key component of all Constellation Audio products. It is a balanced circuit composed of two mirror-imaged amplifiers, with one amplifying the positive half of the signal and the other amplifying the negative half. Through the use of hand-matched, ultra-low-noise FETs and servo circuits, we maintain an essentially perfect balance between the positive and negative parts of the signal. A machined aluminum shield isolates the module from electromagnetic interference.

Pyxis system controller

Massive solid aluminum chassis
As with our other line-level components, each module of the Sirius is constructed from a single piece of billet aluminum, machined with a wall thickness of 8.2mm to block interference from 50/60 Hz household circuits. The mass of the metal chassis helps damp vibration from external sources.

TC Audio Orbis

From Russia with love, the very elegant two-box CD transport + DAC (24/96 capable) - Orbis - from TC Audio.

• Philips CD-PRO2LF mechanism with all metal loading tray
• High quality clocks 
• Digital inputs: AES/EBU and coaxial
• Analog outputs: RCA and XLR
• Dual mono construction, including proprietary link between transport and DAC 
• Short path signal, all discrete elements and surface-mount PCB
• Case machined from solid aluminum billet

Ch Precision D1 CD/SACD player

Swiss company CH Precision's debut product is the elegant D1 Reference grade CD/SACD player.

Built around the Esoteric VMK-5 VRDS CD/SACD pick-up mechanism, the D1 offers a fully modular and evolutive architecture based on optional slot-in boards for its audio outputs. Each audio output board supports two channels of audio output, either digital (DIGITAL_OUT board) or analog (ANALOG_OUT board), allowing almost any configuration ranging from a simple stereo analog only player to a multi-channel purely digital drive. Whereas the DSD signal is down-converted to 16bits/44.1kHz (using in-house algorithms) for standard digital outputs, the D1 also integrates the proprietary CH Link interface which not only supports cyphered transmission of native DSD data but also phase compensated synchronization when the D1 is used with one or more C1 digital to analog converter (yet to be released). CH Link allows connection up to 768kHz/32bits (for PCM) and will also output DSD (cyphered).  Analog outputs are based on a differential dual mono converter topology coupled to a fully discrete output stage. Both balanced and single-ended outputs are provided.

The user interface is based on an ergonomically designed dual concentric rotatory knob with push function and feedback is given by a 24bits RGB color programmable high-definition AMOLED display. A custom infrared remote control allows access to the D1's most common functions.An oversized, multi-regulated linear power supply and meticulous attention to mechanical design, construction and assembly ensure optimal operating conditions for all circuits, especially the clocking section which benefits from its own dedicated power supply.

External synchronization capabilities can be added by the SYNC_IO optional slot-in board. This board provides standard wordclock input and output on BNC connectors as well as a proprietary CH Linkclocking interface for phase compensated synchronization when used with the future CH clock generator.

AMR CD-77 CD player / DAC

UK-based Abbingdon Music Research's CD-77 is probably the most advance and elaborate CD/DAC that is based on the vintage Philips TDA1541A chip, considered by some - the absolute best DAC chip ever made.  

The unit comes with several different sampling approaches from AMR's proprietary Digital Master non-over-sampling filter to oversampling to upsampling, which are user-selectable.  Digital Master I and Digital Master II were developed by AMR and are exclusive to the CD-77 and its brother CD-777.  

All internal clocks are synchronized to the exceptional military-grade temperature compensated master clock module to avoid the creation of unwanted beat frequencies, reduce overall digital noise and resultant jitter.  The CD-77's OptiReg® digital power supply circuit has 14 specifically designed regulators, most of which are two or three-stage. Its transport mechanism is an in-house design based on the high-precision, reliable Sony K-series laser pickup mated to the musical Phillips CD-18 servo system along with a proprietary high-torque direct-drive motor. This is all housed in a very substantial CNC machined aluminium CD well with an extra-stable CD spindle and a CNC machined aluminium CD clamp. 

CD-77's power supply transformers have been designed in-house and are individually hand-made. They are some of the most advanced double C-Core transformers available. AMR claims that they surpass even the impressive R-Core transformers used in many high-end components and comprehensively outclass traditional EI and toroidal transformers used in many peer group products. 

Other high quality parts including Ultra High Speed RF, military-grade design printed circuit boards, German-made premium film capacitors, AMR's own power supply polypropylene film Music Capacitors, zero noise schottky rectifiers and FEP Teflon insulated cable with silver-plate copper conductors for chassis wiring.

OptiBus® USB digital input accesses the vast library of music from a computer, allowing it to be enjoyed to a far higher level than conventional personal computer audio systems.  OptiValve® analogue stage is a thermionic electron valve circuit. Using no negative feedback, with high gain, very low distortion and low output impedance together with new old stock thermionic electron tubes.

Specifications

Operation modes: 

• Direct Master I; no digital or analogue filter
• Direct Master II; no digital filter, anti-sin(x)/(x) analogue filter
• Oversampling 2X, 4x
• Upsampling 96KHz, 192KHz ( I am at a loss to understand why, since TDA1541 only does 16-bit/44kHz TDA1541A can accept sampling rates of up to 192kHz - 8x oversampling from 48kHz base data - without problems, albeit at 16bits resolution)

Digital Audio Inputs: 

• 1 x USB interface, 1 X S/P-DIF Interface (optional)

Analog Outputs: 

• 1 x RCA; 1 x XLR per channel

Digital Outputs:: 

• 1 X S/P-DIF Interface (optional)

Thermionic Electron Valves: 

• ECC81/12AT7 (NOS): amplification stage
• 5687/6900 (NOS): output buffer stage
• EZ80/6CA4 (NOS): rectifier stage

How about the price? If you have to ask - you probably can't afford it.

Esoteric K-01 Digital Source Device

K-01 is Teac/Esoteric new flagship all-in-one SACD/CD Player and DAC replacing the X-01.  Capitalizing on Esoteric's state-of-the-art technology and derived from the award winning P-01/D-01 series separates. Featuring VRDS-NEO transport mechanism. 

The design concept of the K series is extremely clear and simple -- a 2-channel D/A converter and stereo player that gives a stress-free musical experience, without adding or removing anything from the original source material. All aspects of the design and engineering process for the K series had extremely tough requirements to achieve cost-no-object state of the art results.

• New VRDS-NEO "VMK-3.5-20S" mechanism
• Dual 32-bit monaural D/A converters with eight parallel/differential DAC circuits used per channel, as well as separate L/R power supplies
• On-board, high-precision clocking circuit has also been advanced
• Power supply for each circuit block has been optimized by using four on-board power transformers
• Three sets of S/PDIF 192 kHz/24-bit digital inputs, supporting the most advanced high-sampling-rate digital sources are also built-in
• USB input with driver software supports 192 kHz/24-bit asynchronous transmission for connecting with a PC or Mac

There is also a smaller model, the K-03 which uses lesser transport mechanism (VMK 3.5 10s) and 4 parallel DACs per channel rather than eitght.

MSB Technology Universal Media Transport

MSB Technology's new Universal Media Transport is based on the new Oppo BDP-93.  Basically the same feature sets but with modifications on analog and digital board as well as the power supply which is now housed in a separate unit. Plays most type of discs (including SACD and Bluray) and also can stream from network, external HDD and USB memory stick.

Playback Designs MPS-3 digital player and MPD-3 DAC

New Playback Designs Series 3 products are among the first units that can play DSD digital audio files over USB protocol. 

The Playback Designs Music Playback System 3, also known as MPS-3, is a two products in one single box: a CD transport combined with a discrete dual differential DAC that can also receive a variety of external digital sources, including computer based music servers.  Another unique feature of the MPS-3 is its ability to playback super high resolution DSD files of up to 6.1MHz sample rate through USB. However, it oddly doesn't play DSD directly from SACD discs.

1 x XLR and 1 x RCA analog outputs

Digital Inputs:
AES/EBU for PCM up to 24 / 192kHz
S/PDIF for PCM up to 24 / 192kHz
USB for PCM up to 24 / 384kHz
USB for DSD up to 6.1MHz

The MPD-3 Digital to Analog Converter is actually identical in every way except it does not have a transport mechanism. With more and more enthusiasts taking advantage of computer based music, the MPD-3 might be the perfect solution.

Nuforce offers Oppo BDP-93 and BDP-95 upgrades

OPPO BDP-93 NuForce Edition MSRP $899 (available Feb, 2011)
OPPO BDP-93 NuForce Xtreme Edition MSRP $1299 (available April, 2011)
OPPO BDP-95 NuForce Xtreme Edition MSRP $2495 (available April, 2011)

Extracting high-quality audio from Blu-ray players is problematic. The HDMI signal interleaves video and audio data which, upon decoding, produces an inherent jitter as high as 7nanoseconds (For comparison, a good CD player's jitter is in the picosecond range). In practical terms, it is difficult to properly decode HDMI audio without employing extensive reclocking circuits, thus pushing up the cost of a good HDMI audio pre-processor.

The simplest way to improve analog audio performance is at the source. As replacements for standard OPPO analog boards, the NuForce analog boards for the Oppo BDP-93 and BDP-95 3D Blu-ray players have been redesigned from the ground up for improved performance parameters. DIY customers can purchase NuForce Edition analog boards separately to upgrade to NuForce Edition BDP-93NE, BDP-93NXE and BDP95NXE players.

BDP-93 NuForce Edition player (MSRP $899) and 93NE board (MSRP $400) feature:

• All 8-channels have been re-engineered for a breathtaking, full-HD multi-channel experience
• A highly regulated and filtered onboard linear power supply
• Output stage carefully designed to sidestep signal-degrading muting circuitry
• Advanced analog filters eliminate phase shifting within the audible bands
• High performance op-amps for a warm, vibrant, seductive sound

BDP-93 NuForce Extreme Edition (MSRP $1299) and 93NXE (MSRP $800) upgrade board offer all the features of BDP-93NE plus:

A sophisticated clocking scheme to suppress the audio data jitters – inherent in all video-based players – for all eight channels. An ultra stable VCXO generates audio clock that is completely asynchronous from the transport's clock. Thee result is a theoretical jitter of < 3ps (RMS) on both PCM and DSD streams.

The BDP-95 NuForce Extreme Edition (NXE) (MSRP $2495):

• Employs the BDP-95 platform plus a state-of-the art Sabre32 DAC, thus raising performance to an even higher level.
• Two-channel ultra-high-performance output for music
• 7.1-channel ultra-high-performance output for movies
• All channels utilize extensive re-clocking circuits
• A more robust power supply with multiple regulation

Nuforce is accepting orders January 15, 2011

Soulution 540 "entry" level CD/SACD player processor

Soulution of Switzerland will announce its entry-level CD/SACD player at CES2011 on January 6th.  When Soulution says "entry", it's still $30,000 (whew!).  Soulution's amplifiers are the new The Absolute Sound's darling.  I can only tell from a recent local dealer launch of the 540's bigger brothers, the 745, it is absolutely gorgeous!

Features

• Teac Esoteric UMK-5 (VRDS neo) transport mechanism
• Plays CDs and SACDs
• Up-sampling to 24/192kHz
• Digital inputs and outputs (AES/EBU, Coaxial, Toslink)
• USB input (24/96 only)
• Balanced and RCA analog output
• Dual discrete current to voltage converters per channel
• Digital volume control

Consonance Orfeo and D-Linear 7

There are a lot of interesting digital audio companies out of China these days.  You have Shanling, Bada, Lite Audio, Valab, Yanqing, Audio G-D, and now Opera Audio from Beijing sold under the brand Consonance.  Some interesting models:


Consonance Orfeo non over-sampling CD player

• Aluminum chasis (quite good looking) 
• 4 x Philips TDA 1543 in parallel (lower output impedance and high voltage)
• Non over-sampling
• No digital filter
• Passive I/V conversion
• Quality parts

Consonance D-Linear 7 streamer

• Touch color screen controls
• 24-bit/192kHz compatible
• 32-bit DSP
• Decodes WAV, WMA, APE, FLAC, ALAC, ACC
• Streams music from NAS or USB hard drive
• SDHC card and USB host input
• Streams internet radio 
• USB wireless WIFI adapter available

BADA HD-23 CD Player

The Chinese hi-end audio scene is pretty interesting right now.  I stumbled across this new BADA HD-23 CD.  Priced at around $600 shipped out of Hong Kong.

It is a a top loading CD player using Sony pro mechanics. High-end Burr-Brown PCM1738 with tube output (6N16B, can be replaced with 5670 ot WE369A) and R core transformers.  Aluminum alloy case with balanced output as well.  There is also a commemorative edition with 12AU7 tubes.

The design (and model name) is probably inspired by Marantz CD-23 circa 1994, which was top of the line CD player from the venerable brand at the time.  

CD-23 was a classic Bitstream DAC7-based player which I used to have.  The CD-23's sound was smooth albeit a bit laid back.  A very good disc spinner especially with its Philips CDM9 mechanism considered by some the very best Philips mechanic ever produced.


http://www.badahi-fi.com/