SOTA 1989, Accuphase DP-70V CD Player

It was some time during the summer of 2018, I was in Hong Kong, had the weekend there to myself after a few days of work. The idle mind became the devil's workshop. I was't really in to hifi at that stage, being very contended to be away from the scene. But somehow, there was 48 hours of idle time to amuse my self, and began wandering around the electronics retail areas of Mongkok & Sham Shui Po.

There are 3 specific areas of hifi retail in Hong Kong. For the newest and most mighty all hi-end scene, there is always the snooty Admiralty & Central area. For the good mix of mid range & used hi-end stuff, there is always Mongkok area, while you're there check out the great local cafes & street food stall there too! As for Sham Sui Po, there is always a place for antiques, collectors of any sort, and generally old, & unwanted curiosities, hifi included.  

In Sham Sui Po, Ap Liu Street specifically is where my curiosity with Accuphase CD players started! Talk about contrasting lifestyle, shopping for hi-end at low brow, go figure!..................... There are a few shops in Ap Liu Street, specializing in either almost junk or collectible hifi, which are stacked from floor to ceiling. It's quite a place to behold. The shopping experience is not very pleasant to say the least. No auditioning is the rule, a request to audition tells the shop owner you're a time waster, a tire kicker so to speak, he will tell you to go buy from somewhere else. You gotta know your stuff when hifi shopping here, the only thing they will allow is a functional test after you're committed to purchase! 

It's inside one of those dinky little shops along Ap Liu Street that I came across some shiny, Champaign gold, super well built Accuphase amplifiers & CD Players. One that caught my eye was the Accuphase DP-70. If you're unsure....... Yes, Accuphase has 2 DP-70 models, one with a V and one without! I believe the DP-70 came first, followed by the face-lifted model with the V! Both look very similar, except for the button arrangements on the right side of the fascia, and the easiest differentiating feature is the display. The DP-70 sports a red LED display, while the DP-70V comes with a florescent green display, the only one to do so, since the first of all disc players from Accuphase till now! Nearly all Accuphase DP series CD players comes with either red LED or orange florescent displays.

The beauty & simplicity of Accuphase DP-70V CD player with only 4 control buttons on the right side of the front fascia. All other buttons hidden inside the bottom fold able flap.

I was smitten by that Accuphase DP-70 CD player, something about CD player designs from that late 80's till late 90's era always grabs my attention, just like all Bruno Sacco era designed Benz automobiles. However, like I said, I was as far away from the hifi scene as possible, and I didn't like the idea of lugging a 20kg plus box from Hong Kong to Kuala Lumpur. So I let it go and left things to fate.

By spring 2019, having forgotten about the whole episode in Hong Kong, my dear sifu asked me to check out the Accuphase DP-950 & DC-950 transport & DAC combo for him in Akihabara, as I had a weekend to my self in Tokyo! And so I spent the whole day walking around Akihabara hifi stores gawking at Accuphase gears. I wondered what was so good about the Accuphase CD players that got my dear sifu to want to check them out? Yeah! sure, we've heard a few Accuphase CD during our hifi crazy days, I think if you looked in to our home visit pages, you may even spot some systems with Accuphase CD players there. However, at that time, somehow we never given it much thought.  Ya, in case you're wondering, my dear sifu eventually got his dream digital set up. I said dream......... only because it cost more than six figures in price tag! And what a lovely sounding CD transport & DAC combo that is......... right up there, and maybe even better than some of the best CD players I have ever heard!

My unit of the Accuphase DP-70V, some say the early version without the V sound warmer, thus better. I have not compared, so can't confirm how that is! 

As fate would have it, sometime in late 2019, the Good(hifi) Doctor, Oh have one Accuphase DP-70V in his hands to let go. And this time, I took thing more seriously, I went for and audition, yes I can confirm the Accuphase DP-70V sounds very good indeed, but better sounding than my Sony CDP X-7ESD? Hard to say, but the price was tempting, and off went the silver bullet!

Now mine, the State Of The 1989 Art Accuphase DP-70V is 21kgs heavy, built up to Yamato battleship standards and finished in the classic Japanese Champaign gold with glossed wood cheeks. The CD player also come with XLR output besides RCA, among other digital inputs & outputs. In general, I do not buy hifi that does not have XLR connections. Most Accuphase disc players uses Sony transport mechanism, and it's no surprise that this one is using the KSS-190A with the BU-1C or 1D laser head combo. So I already have a standby Sony KSS-190A for either of my CD players should the need arises, how convenient!

On the DAC side is a pair of 20 bit chip set, implemented R to R style, mated with 8 times over sampling filter completes the picture. That's state of the art multi bit chip set implementation, all the way to the 1998 swan song, the Marantz CD-7 which I previously owned.  if I seemed to go round & round back to this golden era of CD players, so be it!

I have a belief that the 1st generation of CD players were designed to overcome technical limitations with focus on functionality & reliability. 2nd generation CD players like the Sony CDP X-7ESD & this Accuphase DP-70V, sports some major technical advancement over their predecessors and were designed with more sound performance improvement in mind. Early CD player developments were bench-marked against the best turn tables of the time, sound wise. From the 90's on wards, CD player developments started to bench-marked against previous top CD players for sound. I think this is where the first mis-steps of Digital players start to deviate from analog bench-marking. It is my speculation about why newer, more technologically advance digital designs start to sound more digitized, more details, lower noise floor but yet at the same time, less natural sounding, compared to the early multi bit CD players, which tends to sound more analog, more life like even!

A look at the front, back & top of the Accuphase DP-70V, note the opened flap at the front bottom panel.

The Accuphase DV-70V follows the sonic signature of the Accuphase sound, very detailed, yet presented in a very organic and slightly rose hued tinted fashion. Compared to my Sony CDP, the Accuphase had very delicately voiced sound, much like the late Ken Ishiwata curated sound of the Marantz CD-7. Some of my buddies have a disdain for Accuphase hifi gear for this very reason. I don't, in fact I find this kinda sound very easily acceptable, and if synergistic with the rest of the system, can be the basis a great sounding system!

I am glad I picked up this gem of a CD player in my lifetime for a fraction of it's original retail price of USD 10,000 a pop! It's a few twist of fate all rolled in to one fine ending. So with this I decided to keep 2 CD players of classic late 80's vintage in my system.