Lite Et Bonbon. Metronome Technologie CD One T Signature CD Player.

Presenting the Metronome CD One T Signature CD player.

Lite et bonbon, is a direct translation from French to English, meaning "lite & sweet". Some how this CD player's sound just reminded me of that pop cornology description term. This is a truly special CD player, from the very first pressing of the "play" button.

The sound is cohesive and presents music with a wide screen like sound stage presentation, along with excellent depth perception and stage layering quality. I will not say this player is bright, but rather un like it's competitors, it just doesn't try to paint the darkest sound stage back grounds possible. The highs is at once extended, airy and sweet, with a generous degree of sheen to the presentation of high hats, cymbals and just about any other metals based musical instruments. The player imparts a certain "rightness" of metal ring to the overall high frequency presentation. The mids have excellent density and presents vocal images solidly. There's also a tendency to make female voices sound a little more seductive compared to other players. Male voices are not short changed either, as they are presented with more heft and chest than female voices. The thing I admire most about this CD player is the way it twist the nuances out of the throat, tongue, lips and teeth of a vocalist! My friend KM, calls this vocal porn!, if there's such a thing. For me, that imparts a certain humanness to the music which adds to the Metronome's appeal. Bass is naturally rendered, though not as tight nor extends as low as some other high end players. Despite that, kick drums can still "kick" and bass lines are clean and clear, making from one note to another easy to follow.
In the flesh, build quality is excellent.

This Metronome CD One T digs out almost as much information from the CD format as the Esoteric X-03, which is my reference this far. That makes the Metronome one of the most transparent CD players around. Low level piano details like the track 6, And so it goes, from Jennifer Warnes, The Well CD is re-played fully with as much information as I could remember. Micro dynamics of an acoustic guitar is realistically reproduced and when the music calls, such as an orchestra on full crescendo, the transient and macro dynamic is played out flawlessly. I was playing track 1 & 2 from the Diabolus In Musica, Accardo Interpreta Paganini, a Deutsche Grammophon recording of violin led orchestra works by Paganini. My visitor jumped up and declared after listening, "makes your Marantz CD7 sounding slow & dull by comparison!". He obviously liked what he heard. I liked what I heard too, especially the way this CD player handles rhythm and pace. It's very hard to describe, it does not sound un necessarily faster than other players, but it just sounds right. You may call it musicality, but some in the high end circles would not include musicality as a performance perimeter of high fidelity. Might I dare ask, what's high fidelity without musicality? What good is the most tonally balanced, most transparent, best specified hifi equipment, if it does not musically involves the listener on a higher emotional level?
One of my latest favourite classical CD. Salvatore Accardo plays violin concerto pieces by Paganini, back by London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Charles Dutoit. The 1978 CD recording is dynamic and "grand" sounding. The Metronome CD One T has the ability to reproduce the lighting fast transient violin playing techniques by Accardo as represented by track 12, Sonata Moto Perpetuo, where most of the lighter moments will only to be glossed over by lesser CD players.

You see, the Metronome Technologie CD One T is French made, by a group of ex-Jadis engineers. The French combines artistic industrial design flair with strong engineering fundamentals. You can see it in their Peugeot/Citroen automobiles, their Airbus aeroplanes and their TGV trains. They value the finest quality of life, above all. This CD player represents that musical philosophy of the French.
The Philips sourced CD Pro2 transport, with magnetic puck and blue glow LED. The top sliding cover glides very smoothly when handled manually. It's a joy.

Build quality is excellent, with thick aluminium fascia and box construction. The top loading transport is a Philips CD Pro2 unit, mounted on a suspended sub chassis for vibration control. The top loader's sliding cover action is super smooth and well built. As usual for a top loader, a magnetic puck is required to keep the disc clamped down. The DAC type is not mentioned, but the spec indicates of the up sampling variety, however, curiously, no sampling option choices are allowed. All I can say is, why bother? When the default chosen setting is so spot on! There's only co-ax digital output option. Analog output can be chosen between RCA and XLR. I used the XLR outputs exclusively. The simple blue fluorescent display is non dim able, non switch able either.
The Metronome Technologie CD One T's back end.

The Philips Standard RC5 up market remote, with metal top plate.

For a player costing a little more than RM$46K, I'd expected the remote to be more than a Philips standard RC5 issue, with a metal top cosmetic, no back light and many non-functioning buttons, however, in actual use, the remote proved to be very ergonomically intuitive and felt chunky in the hands. Yep! folks, that's the only thing I managed to nit pick on this Metronome Technologie CD One T. By the way, the "T" is to indicate an pair of 6922 output tubes employed in the player's output stage. By the way, I heard little or no tube colouration at all in the player's sonic quality. The cheaper Metronome Technologie CD One Signature makes do without the "T" out put stage.
The internals of the cheaper Metronome Technologie CD One, sans the out put 6922 tubes. Note the transport mounted on the triangular suspended sub plinth for dampening transport vibrations.

In summary, this is one of the best and most "humane" sounding digital players to have come my way so far. It's sound is special only because of that "humane" quality it adds to the music it's asked to reproduced. So far, in this respect, no other player comes even close!

Metronome Technologie is sold by CMY Audio & Visual, contact John, tel: 03-21439206

French Beauty - Metronome Technologie CD One T Signature CD Player

This CD player from Metronome achieved a number of impressive 'most's in my system.

Firstly, coming in with a list price of RM46,920, it is the single most expensive piece of equipment I ever had in my system.

Secondly, it is the most handsome piece of gear that ever got into my system. The Metronome CD One T Signature has an understated elegance in its look that I found very appealing. Its line was clean and purposeful, but was not cold. There was an economy in its design with no unnecessary adornment, which is how high-end should be, in my opinion. The photographs do not do the CD One T Signature justice, really, it is better seen in person.

A cool artistic touch is the symbols used for the control buttons. They stumped me initially, I could not decipher them and had to refer to the manual. I realized then that Metronome used only the top half of the normal symbols for play, stop, pause etc. on the player. I truly marvelled at the creativity of its designer.

Third, its sound.... It is simply the most beautiful sound that I have ever heard from CD in my system. The 'T' in the Metronome CD One T Signature signifies that it has a pair of tubes in its output stage (can't remember the tube type used though), thus it has that musicality, analogue smoothness, and organic-ness that tube gears can so effortlessly demonstrate. Though in this case, the Metronome goes further in its virtue, it has that high-end sheen in its sound, leaving you with no doubt that you are listening to a piece of exceptional equipment.


Nothing demonstrated the CD One T Signature's quality better than a song sung in French - the 'India Song' track on Youn Sun Nah's 'Voyage' album. I didn't understand one word of it, but the song melted my heart, Nah's voice was at once nuanced, seductive and extremely beautiful.

Violin was another that showed off these qualities excellently. The CD One T Signature brought out the beauty in Itzhak Perlman's and the London Philharmonic Orchestra's strings on their collaboration in Vivaldi's 'The Four Seasons' (EMI Classics). The strings has a liquidity, a shine and a silkiness that was the best that I have ever heard from this CD in my system.

The CD One T Signature also turned the stereotype of tube gear upside down by sounding assured, confident and dynamic (rather than the warm, slow sound that can plague some). The CD One T Signature's class leading performance in these areas will beat many solid state players except just a handful of the very best. On the 4th movement of Tchaikovsky's Symphony No.5 (Herbert von Karajan, Berliner Philharmoniker, DG), the Metronome held the complex threads together without once falling apart. It got loud, but the music was organized while emotional and exciting at the same time. Horns blared, timpani whacked hard, massed strings charged ahead, double basses dug hard. The movement sounded ominous, apocalyptic, but triumphant at the end. It was an exhilarating ride! This Tchaikovsky CD is not exactly an excellent recording. Many CD players would spew out rough and unlistenable sound, however the Metronome transformed it into a real performance.

This CD player has a magic touch, it made the best out of every CD that went into it. The CD One T Signature would tone down ear-grating sibilants, round off a few rough edges and imbue music with a slight silky honey smoothness, these are the qualities that will attract the listener to listen on and on. I bet you'll put one CD after another into it and your listening session would stretch on and on. Well, it did that to me!

The Metronome CD One T Signature has left my system since, I am truly sorry to see it go.

Metronome Technologie is carried by CMY Audio & Visual, contact John, tel: 03-21439206

STOP PRESS! CMY Audio & Visual Updates.

The Ultimate Dynaudio!

Folks, the much awaited Dynaudio Consequence Ultimate speakers has arrived to CMY Damansara Utama branch in Petaling Jaya. It has been set up for demo with partenring Jeff Rowland Criterion pre and 312 power amps. Cables used are Siltech Royal Signature series.

The flagship of Metronome Technologie, CD5 Signature. It's made in France.

The bigger suprise is that the set up is fronted by the tube based Metronome Technologie CD5 Signature front end. This is a system to be heard to behold!

In fact, almost the whole range of CD players from Metronome Technologie of France, is available for demo in all CMY outlets.

Please call Chan, tel no: 03-77272419 for an apointment to audition.

Lastly, I wish to congratulate John Yew and CMY team for securing Metronome Technologie, another high end brand to their stables.