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Over the last 5 years I have, for various reasons, come into the possession of 4 different cd players (details below). Now I wouldn’t be a budding audiophile if the idea didn’t occur to me, eventually, to find out which one of them was the best. I googled each of them to get the technical specs, then pulled the covers off each, just to make sure I knew that each of my players matched the technical specs as listed. Now I feel I should emphasise right from the beginning that there is not really a clear winner in this contest, although there is a clear loser.
The Contestants.
Arcam Alpha 5+.
I bought this player off ebay in early 2008. It had a relatively new mechanism, about 12 months old, and upgraded op-amps. The previous owner had pulled the old op-amp chips and replaced them with AD8045’s, a very nice high end chip. This player was manufactured in 1995 and my research tells me that quite a few of the audiophile brotherhood consider Arcam players of this vintage to be extremely good. Certainly worthy of buying second hand and then upgrading with new op-amps, or bypassing the digital filter, or putting in a tube pre-amp stage, the options seem to be endless. I feel that if there is such an after market for a player this old then it must be pretty damn good. I purchased this little gem for $350.
Consonance CD120.
A player out of China that has accumulated many positive reviews. It features a CS4396 24 bit/192KHz DAC from Crystal Devices and the mighty Burr Brown OPA2604 op-amps. It seems that this player is a less fancy version of the Consonance Reference players which feature tube output stages. This is the player that I had been thinking about upgrading to over the last 6 months. At a price of $1300 Aussie it was about the maximum I could justify (to myself) spending on a cd player. I am happy to say that I bought it over ebay for just under half RRP.
Denon 755AR.
I bought this player new in early 2004 and it has been my standard listening unit ever since. I just plain loved it and up until I set all the other players up for this comparison it was the player that was plugged permanently into the “cd in” on my amp. It’s claim to fame is Denon’s 20 bit “Alpha” processing via Burr Browns PCM1702 DAC feeding into NEC C4570C op-amps. This player is the only one to feature a pre-amp stage that allows volume control via the remote, since the remote for my amp has never worked well this was a definite plus in convenience. When purchased this was a $700-800 player that I (regrettably!) paid full price for.
Consonance CD100 Linear.
Another player accumulating positive reviews, this cd player does away with op-amps and digital filtering, featuring Philips TDA1543 DAC’s that feed directly from the player to your amp. I had read a lot about this player and when I saw it on ebay (can anyone see a pattern emerging here?) I just couldn’t hold myself back.
For those interested in the specs of everything other than the cd players.
Every player was fed power via a Consonance surge protector (PW3) followed by a Consonance power filter (PW1). Each had decent quality, though not high end as such, Consonance power cords. The Denon was the exception here as it does not have a 3 pin plug so it was forced to use the cord that it came with. This may have affected its performance, but it was tested “as received” so this is the way it was meant to sound. All players used the same high end RCA cables feeding my Consonance C1 Integrated amp, the volume control was set initially and then not touched for the length of the comparison (which dragged on for over 2 weeks, on and off). Each player was warmed up for 15 minutes, or more, prior to playing. Every player was auditioned with my Osborn Eclipse speakers attached with Osborn Datalink cables (see www.osbornloudspeakers.com.au for details).
The Music.
I had a hard time choosing songs to listen to, in the end I chose songs that had as wide a variety as I could find in the way of instrumentals, vocals and bass while still being songs that I was likely to listen to.
I chose Heart’s Jupiter’s Darling album, Norah Jones Not Too Late, Dido’s No Angel, Billy Joel’s Greatest Hits, Def Leppard’s Adrenalize and Queen’s The Miracle. My self discipline didn’t hold out too well, and I paused the comparison test several times so I could take a break from concentrating on listening and just enjoy the music. The Top Gun soundtrack sounds very good on the Arcam and Queen’s The Works sounds just as good on the CD100.
I ordered some classic orchestral cd’s of Bach, Mozart, Vivaldi and several others but I haven’t been able to find the time to get to those yet.
Results.
Arcam: The Arcam certainly performed well. It had good bass performance (for the most part, it didn’t seem to like the deliberately loose base on Heart’s “Make Me” but its performance on every other track was spot on). It was interesting to note that this player sounds very similar to the CD120. It features good bass performance, nice strings, good piano (though not quite as good as the CD120). It gives a nice lively performance with just a little more soul (read “enjoyment) in its sound than the CD120. The bass performance had slightly more impact, and slightly less depth, than the CD120, but more depth than either the Denon or the CD100.
Consonance CD120: A similar bass performance to the Arcam, as noted above, with slightly less impact but slightly more depth. It definitely has more presence than the Denon, and just a little more than the Arcam. It features very good clarity in the mid and high range and an enjoyable all round performance. However, although it is difficult to fault the sound it seems to be missing some of the “foot tapping factor” of the Arcam. If you already had an old Arcam player it would not be worth upgrading to this player.
Denon 755AR: The Denon is the loser of this comparison, taken on its own it gives a very enjoyable performance and I have enjoyed owning it for the last 6 years but it just does not have the “foot tapping factor” of any of the other three players. Its bass performance is the poorest, with less impact and less depth than the others. It seems to smooth over the backing instrumentals and also seems to soften the highs and lows. It won’t offend but by the same token it will not impress either. It takes the “edge” off the music, almost as if it was designed to play background music.
Consonance CD100: I have to say that I really like this player. It has excellent timing, very nice highs and mids and good bass (though not as deep as either the Arcam or the CD120 it still gets the job done). The clarity of plucked strings in particular, and instrumentals in general, is extremely good. It has a very nice “edge” to its sound, the best timing of all four players and gives the most enjoyable performance of this test group.
Now all that having been said, if I were to engage in a blind test I am fairly sure I could pick the CD100, positive I could pick the Denon (though if I were playing something bland even that would be difficult) and fairly sure I would not be able to spot the difference between the Arcam and the CD120. My preliminary evaluation (because I just know this habit of listening to a song four times through four players is going to last a lot longer than I first planned) is as follows.
For instrumentals the CD100 has a more real and engaging sound. For bassy music with serious punch it is a toss up between the Arcam and the CD120. I don’t dislike the Denon, I just like the other 3 players a whole lot more.
Vocal performance was very good from all players and picking the difference was so difficult I raised a sweat, finally though I have come to the conclusion that while the CD100 seems to have ever so slightly better performance with female vocals, male vocals did not seem to change from player to player.
An interesting tidbit of information is that the Consonance remote will operate the Arcam, and vice versa. Would anyone out there happen to know if Consonance has based more than just its remote codes on Arcam? I ask since they sound very similar, even though they are fairly different on the inside and separated by close to ten years.
That’s all I have for now, but the evaluation will go on, and on, and on... One thing I can say is that I will not be buying another cd player for a long, long while!
Cheers!
Cafad.
The Contestants.
Arcam Alpha 5+.
I bought this player off ebay in early 2008. It had a relatively new mechanism, about 12 months old, and upgraded op-amps. The previous owner had pulled the old op-amp chips and replaced them with AD8045’s, a very nice high end chip. This player was manufactured in 1995 and my research tells me that quite a few of the audiophile brotherhood consider Arcam players of this vintage to be extremely good. Certainly worthy of buying second hand and then upgrading with new op-amps, or bypassing the digital filter, or putting in a tube pre-amp stage, the options seem to be endless. I feel that if there is such an after market for a player this old then it must be pretty damn good. I purchased this little gem for $350.
Consonance CD120.
A player out of China that has accumulated many positive reviews. It features a CS4396 24 bit/192KHz DAC from Crystal Devices and the mighty Burr Brown OPA2604 op-amps. It seems that this player is a less fancy version of the Consonance Reference players which feature tube output stages. This is the player that I had been thinking about upgrading to over the last 6 months. At a price of $1300 Aussie it was about the maximum I could justify (to myself) spending on a cd player. I am happy to say that I bought it over ebay for just under half RRP.
Denon 755AR.
I bought this player new in early 2004 and it has been my standard listening unit ever since. I just plain loved it and up until I set all the other players up for this comparison it was the player that was plugged permanently into the “cd in” on my amp. It’s claim to fame is Denon’s 20 bit “Alpha” processing via Burr Browns PCM1702 DAC feeding into NEC C4570C op-amps. This player is the only one to feature a pre-amp stage that allows volume control via the remote, since the remote for my amp has never worked well this was a definite plus in convenience. When purchased this was a $700-800 player that I (regrettably!) paid full price for.
Consonance CD100 Linear.
Another player accumulating positive reviews, this cd player does away with op-amps and digital filtering, featuring Philips TDA1543 DAC’s that feed directly from the player to your amp. I had read a lot about this player and when I saw it on ebay (can anyone see a pattern emerging here?) I just couldn’t hold myself back.
For those interested in the specs of everything other than the cd players.
Every player was fed power via a Consonance surge protector (PW3) followed by a Consonance power filter (PW1). Each had decent quality, though not high end as such, Consonance power cords. The Denon was the exception here as it does not have a 3 pin plug so it was forced to use the cord that it came with. This may have affected its performance, but it was tested “as received” so this is the way it was meant to sound. All players used the same high end RCA cables feeding my Consonance C1 Integrated amp, the volume control was set initially and then not touched for the length of the comparison (which dragged on for over 2 weeks, on and off). Each player was warmed up for 15 minutes, or more, prior to playing. Every player was auditioned with my Osborn Eclipse speakers attached with Osborn Datalink cables (see www.osbornloudspeakers.com.au for details).
The Music.
I had a hard time choosing songs to listen to, in the end I chose songs that had as wide a variety as I could find in the way of instrumentals, vocals and bass while still being songs that I was likely to listen to.
I chose Heart’s Jupiter’s Darling album, Norah Jones Not Too Late, Dido’s No Angel, Billy Joel’s Greatest Hits, Def Leppard’s Adrenalize and Queen’s The Miracle. My self discipline didn’t hold out too well, and I paused the comparison test several times so I could take a break from concentrating on listening and just enjoy the music. The Top Gun soundtrack sounds very good on the Arcam and Queen’s The Works sounds just as good on the CD100.
I ordered some classic orchestral cd’s of Bach, Mozart, Vivaldi and several others but I haven’t been able to find the time to get to those yet.
Results.
Arcam: The Arcam certainly performed well. It had good bass performance (for the most part, it didn’t seem to like the deliberately loose base on Heart’s “Make Me” but its performance on every other track was spot on). It was interesting to note that this player sounds very similar to the CD120. It features good bass performance, nice strings, good piano (though not quite as good as the CD120). It gives a nice lively performance with just a little more soul (read “enjoyment) in its sound than the CD120. The bass performance had slightly more impact, and slightly less depth, than the CD120, but more depth than either the Denon or the CD100.
Consonance CD120: A similar bass performance to the Arcam, as noted above, with slightly less impact but slightly more depth. It definitely has more presence than the Denon, and just a little more than the Arcam. It features very good clarity in the mid and high range and an enjoyable all round performance. However, although it is difficult to fault the sound it seems to be missing some of the “foot tapping factor” of the Arcam. If you already had an old Arcam player it would not be worth upgrading to this player.
Denon 755AR: The Denon is the loser of this comparison, taken on its own it gives a very enjoyable performance and I have enjoyed owning it for the last 6 years but it just does not have the “foot tapping factor” of any of the other three players. Its bass performance is the poorest, with less impact and less depth than the others. It seems to smooth over the backing instrumentals and also seems to soften the highs and lows. It won’t offend but by the same token it will not impress either. It takes the “edge” off the music, almost as if it was designed to play background music.
Consonance CD100: I have to say that I really like this player. It has excellent timing, very nice highs and mids and good bass (though not as deep as either the Arcam or the CD120 it still gets the job done). The clarity of plucked strings in particular, and instrumentals in general, is extremely good. It has a very nice “edge” to its sound, the best timing of all four players and gives the most enjoyable performance of this test group.
Now all that having been said, if I were to engage in a blind test I am fairly sure I could pick the CD100, positive I could pick the Denon (though if I were playing something bland even that would be difficult) and fairly sure I would not be able to spot the difference between the Arcam and the CD120. My preliminary evaluation (because I just know this habit of listening to a song four times through four players is going to last a lot longer than I first planned) is as follows.
For instrumentals the CD100 has a more real and engaging sound. For bassy music with serious punch it is a toss up between the Arcam and the CD120. I don’t dislike the Denon, I just like the other 3 players a whole lot more.
Vocal performance was very good from all players and picking the difference was so difficult I raised a sweat, finally though I have come to the conclusion that while the CD100 seems to have ever so slightly better performance with female vocals, male vocals did not seem to change from player to player.
An interesting tidbit of information is that the Consonance remote will operate the Arcam, and vice versa. Would anyone out there happen to know if Consonance has based more than just its remote codes on Arcam? I ask since they sound very similar, even though they are fairly different on the inside and separated by close to ten years.
That’s all I have for now, but the evaluation will go on, and on, and on... One thing I can say is that I will not be buying another cd player for a long, long while!
Cheers!
Cafad.
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