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| January 5th, 2010 14:49 |
Accustic Arts Drive II and Tube-DAC II reference CD Player |
The heart of the dac is the 32 bit digital filter and 26 parallel
operating processors, which redefine the word as a 32 bit signal this
is then processed by individual dacs for each channel. An oversampled
player like an upsampler uses a higher sampling frequency but in this
case it is a multiple of the original 44.1Khz (352.8Khz for 8 times
oversampling as apposed to say 192Khz that most people use for
upsampling.) What this is not doing is up converting the signal at this
stage to a high bit rate. Where an upsampler increases its accuracy by
decreasing the scan times and up converting the word to normally 24 bit
an oversampler is in reality still processing at 44.1 KHz but is taking
multiple samples in the same time frame and outputting the mean average
so cutting down on error rate as a result. Both of these systems push
the digital noise further from the audio band so mean less harsh
filters can be used. In this case it is a Burrbrown OPA627 opamp
followed by the ECC83 for each channel.
Aesthetically the player is a mixed bag. You can see the superb
engineering and quality of materials used in the construction but with
the big bling chrome knobs on the front it is a bit brash for me, but
hey that’s down to personal choice. Most people who have seen it when
visiting have loved it. I also feel that although the loading cover
looks impressive it is a little agricultural in its operation and does
not have that silky smooth action I would expect at this price point.
There is great attention to detail in the build and choice of
components used with the obvious philosophy of nothing but the best
being very evident.
There is a beautiful sense of fluidity with the player, lucidity and
sweetness that is missing from all but a handful of cd players. Gone is
the clinical sterility that can plague the medium in general including
the vast majority of ‘hi-end players’ This combination really does get
the to heart of the performance, its ability to convey the music in a
natural analogue fashion combined with the transparency, clarity and
dynamics you expect from the best digital source is astonishing. You
are drawn into the music and find yourself simply enjoying the
experience and performance. It has the ability to perform well across
all genres of music, coping admirably with the dynamic swings of full
scale orchestral work as well as the fast rhythmical beats of modern
synthesised tracks and the raw energy of rock. If your ideal player is
one that ekes out every last detail and ruthlessly exposes every aspect
of the performance this is not a player for you. The detail is there
but it does not jump out at you. The imaging and scale are impressive
but not at the holographic levels presented by some of the players in
the stratosphere of hifi exotica that this resides in. The bass is well
extended and articulate; vocals are expressive and tonally very natural
sounding. It seems silly talking about a player costing £14000 getting
back to basics but that is exactly what this does, it gets back to the
core, the fundamental reason for having a hifi in the first place, the
music. There is such an inherent sense of rightness about the player,
the timing is metronomic, the subtleties and nuances of the music come
through beautifully it just sounds right. there are players out there
that will sound more impressive, that will give you greater scale and
authority and that will give you pin point accuracy when it comes to
imaging, but I am yet to hear one that is as musical, as natural or has
the ability to put a smile on my face and draw me into the performance.
The player is amazing adept at conveying the delicacy and subtleties of
the harmonic structure of the music. Its ability to convey the texture
and emotion of the music is breath taking.
When I think of a product being made in Germany there are immediately a
number of clichés that come into my mind. It will be superbly
engineered, very well made, efficient, the player is all of these and
more, it is natural, musical, subtle, and beautifully posed, what is it
not is clinical, sterile and humourless, it is a fun engaging player to
live with. . To a lot of people the words natural, musical and CD
player do not fit comfortably together they need to hear this combo it
will blow their mind!
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| AccusticArts |
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