Best Digital Gear 2011.

Frankly, I am a little surprised that after 2010, CAS based high end audio products some how, just stop coming on to the market place, instead all we got was disc based players which showcased CDs at their very best! What happened?

To me it's a bit of a dejavu feeling we got during the twilight days of vinyl, when the best advancing turn table designs only started to surface when dooms day was already pronounced, back then in the late 80's. Twenty years or so later vinyl is enjoying it's second spring, while the CD is now in it's last legs, How times have changed. Ultimately, should CAS make further in roads in to the audiophile world, or just slowly fade away like SACD and DVD-A is any one's guest today. One thing is for sure, with 32/384 music files on the horizon, it's only a matter of time when new hardware will be required to keep up.

In the mean time let the CD bask in glory of it's best play back equipment yet!



TAD D-600 CD/SACD player is a master stroke.

TAD D-600 CD/SACD player.

This is likely to be the Yamato battleship of CD players. The common storyline includes being the last pride of it's kind, where the Imperial Japanese Navy built the Yamato to be the end of all battleships, while realizing naval war fare was already shifting towards more agile and aggresive carrier based strategy. TAD also adopted this view when designing the D-600 CD/SACD player. However, unlike the Imperial Japanese Navy, they did not allow the disc spinner to be redundant in the advent of CAS digital source. Instead the TAD D-600 proved to be a perfect match for the Bryston BDP-1 playing hi-rez files to form an un-matched sonic synergy that's out of this world! Playing CDs and SACDs proved to be just as spectacular an event of musical enjoyment. Digital playback don't come much better than this, as it should, fully justifying it's asking price.




Playback Designs MPS-5 CD/SACD player is unique because it's designed to be fully up grade able which will ensure that it won't be obsolete in the near future.


Playback Designs MPS-5 CD/SACD player.

This is an interesting player because of it's modular structure and software based up grade able design. It would be a shame if it didn't sound good too. However, with it's latest power supply and firmware up grades, it does live up to expectations. Like the TAD mentioned above, it also allows connection to a digital media player like my Bryston BDP-1 to play hi rez music files. In this mode, the MPS-5 actually has the pizazz to rival the TAD master class, with it's phenomenally propulsive bass quality, low noise floor and transparency. There's a tendency to lose the last bit of "air" in a given recording compared to the TAD, but in the end, I guess one should choose it's own poison here.  However, it's when playing CDs and SACDs that the D-600 proved mostly superior, perhaps due to it's sturdier built in all aluminium transport mechanism. Having said that, I must put things in context that the fact the MPS-5 is mentioned here in this distinguished list means that it's playing at the very top level of digital playback.




Ayre DX-5 AV Engine is a do it all player, but excels particularly with CDs.

Ayre DX-5 AV Engine.

This Ayre reigned supreme, if only briefly, until the arrival of the two players mentioned above. Some have said that I was perhaps, a little harsh on the Ayre DX-5 AV Engine in my original review. Again in perspective, I found the DX-5 to show it's best with CD and Blu-ray replay. It sounded just as good too, when playing hi rez music files, via it's USB input, with signal fed by a purpose built for CAS windows OS based computer. The only reservation I had with this player is SACD playback, which is a little soft, not in volume, but rather a slight lack of drive and sense of drama, which it's otherwise a rather fine and natural sounding player. I am also not being fair to the Ayre perhaps, because ultimately, it's a whole more affordable than the other two stratospheric priced players mentioned above. Actually come to think of it, which other sub RM$40k player does it all(Audio & Video) with such high levels of competency?

Krell S-350a CD player sonically out performs it's price range by a mile. At one point, it had me wondering, why bother to spend more?

Krell S-350a CD player.

If one is contemplating on buying his last CD only player, my personal advise is why spend more? This sub RM$10k CD player can sound nearly as good as CDs are ever gonna get! It's well built and operates faultlessly too. It's sonic performance is clearly in the league of players costing 3-5 times more, if bench marked just a few years ago.  My digital source bargain of the year!

Here are a few other digital source components which I believe are worthy of my mention here in no particular order or ranking, though not formally reviewed by me personally, but heard else where.

1) Wadia 571 CD Transport, 931 Digital Controller and 922 Mono Decoding Computers combo.
2) DCS Pucini CD/SACD player and U-Clock combo.
3) Linn Klimax DS with Dinamik power supply upgrade.
4) Vitus Audio SCD-010 CD player.

That rounds up my Best Digital Gear 2011. Stay tuned for Best Amplifiers 2011, next!

Absolutely Beguiling – Vitus Audio SCD-010 CD Player

The Vitus Audio SCD-010 CD Player surprised me. If anyone were to tell me that this entirely-solid-state CD player was tube-based, I’d have believed him.

I had listened briefly to Vitus’ amplifiers in showrooms and in hifi shows, they gave me the impression that they embodied the best qualities of solid state gear, their sound being clean, balanced and well controlled. However, they were less likely to be associated with terms like ‘warm’ or ‘honeyed’. So when the local distributor, Swedish Statement, brought the Vitus Audio SCD-010 CD Player over to my place, I had the same expectation too. (At the same time, they also brought a pair of Marten Design Getz loudspeakers, that is a story for another day)

Indeed, during the first couple of hours of listening, the SCD-010 seemed to re-affirm my expectation. The sound was clean and clear, everything was there, but the music seemed a little detached emotionally.

After that, as my normal habit, I put the player on repeat for a few hours then I put it on standby when not playing. The SCC-010 in the standby mode was warm to the touch, and indeed when it sprang to life from standby, it was ready to perform in its top form. After a full warm up, the other side of this player came to show itself, and it was an astonishing transformation...

The SCD-010 is one hunky piece of gear. It weighs a very heavy 26kg. The build has the tank-like quality of the best high end gear; yet undeniably its line also has the clean-cut, minimalist and softer touch of the Scandinavian – Vitus Audio is Danish. I like the look very much. I would complain about its display window though, being too small to read from 5-6 feet away. This handsome machine lists just a shade shy of the RM100k mark at RM91,995.


The Vitus SCD-010 is a top loader, the cover manually slides open and close very smoothly. After the disc is placed onto the spindle, you’ll use the magnetic puck to weigh it down. The transport is a Philips CDPro2 LF that Vitus says it has also heavily modified by stripping it ‘down to its basic mechanical and electronic parts and totally rebuilt. This ensures a lower level of errors in reading the digital information on the discs, which leaves the error correction system in the drive with much less work to do’. The SCD-010 is a CD only player.

Digital outputs and inputs on the left, analogue outputs on the right

It has the normal analogue outputs, 1 RCA pair and 1 XLR pair that Vitus builds with its own amplifiers’ topology. It has 2 digital outputs, 1 RCA and the other XLR. It also has a couple of interesting features. Firstly, it has 2 digital inputs (1 RCA, 1XLR), I had no way to verify the resolution that they could accept as I did not have any external high res digital source, however the local distributor told me that they accept up to 24bits/96kHz. Secondly, there is a built-in volume control. Used in conjunction with the digital inputs, it means that you can do without a pre-amp if you are running all digital gear.

Comparing the SCD-010 running straight into my monoblocks to having the signal through my pre-amp, I preferred the straight through method a little more, though it was a close call. Straight through, there were slightly clearer details. With the pre-amp in the path, there was slightly more body to the sound. I ran it with the pre-amp in the chain most of the time as I needed its pass-through feature for my home theatre setup.


After the initial run-in warm-up period, the SCD-010 settled down to a stable sound. Boy, was I in for a treat! This player caressed female vocal like no others. It was the most seductive I have ever heard from Stacey Kent from a compilation of her songs (Stacey Kent - Collection). Her voice was in turn sultry, creamy and yet powerful, her performance was dripping with emotion. There was an inner glow to her voice that just pulled the listener’s attention in. I bet everyone who heard this can’t but fall in love with it immediately.

The SCD-010 also turned piano music from a mere recording into a great performance. My favourite piano reference CD – George Winston’s ‘Autumn’, was transformed. A few things stood out, first was the definition and delineation of the notes, each note was cleanly enunciated, the slight smearing of one note to another in the lower register that I used to hear was gone. Each ping of the piano key was illuminated, like it was surrounded by an aura. Details were excellent, I could hear into the minute changes as each note came into being, progressed and finally dissolved. Reverberation and air in the recording were aplenty, whether it was natural or added as it may be. They all added so much more musical information to the performance itself as to bring the recording up another level.

The SCD-010 sounded totally in control all the time even as it tackled complexity, speed and dynamics. It did them pretty well, though in this regard I think some other players could out-slam the SCD-010, especially some high-enders from the US of A. However, I am pretty certain they could not match the Vitus’ beguiling charm.

The Vitus SCD-010 came across as peerless with vocal, acoustic music and small scale ensembles. It has a very natural, very analogue and rich sound, not unlike the kind we attribute to tube gear. With the Vitus SCD-010, you’ll listen more with your heart rather than your head.

This CD player has a musical soul.

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Addendum 19/9:

I neglected to mention that the Vitus SCD-010 CD Player comes standard with Vitus Audio's own Andromeda power cord.

The Andromeda is a sturdy and very well constructed cord. More importantly, it matched the CD player extremely well, adding to its virtues. Compared to my Shunyata power cord, when used on the SCD-010, the Andromeda made the CD player sound quieter, the background was pitch black. It also added further to the silky smoothness and richness of the SCD-010's sound (Haagen Dazs ice cream came to mind :-) ).

Since the Andromeda matches the SCD-010 perfectly well, I don't think there is any need for the owner to go seeking for another power cord, really.

Vitus is carried by Swedish Statement. Please contact Koo at 012-2891682 or email info@swedishstatement.com.my

Swedish Statement / Audiomatic / Ultimate Reference at KLIAV 2011

In Swedish Statement / AudioMatic room 835:

Audiophile grade music streaming via NAS (network attached storage) will be demo'ed. You'll be able to see the new Bladelius USB DAC in action.

Specifications:
* Accepts data up to 24 bit/192 kHz
* USB powered
* Asynchronous USB transfer, re-clocking with a fixed low jitter crystal clock
* Galvanic isolation between USB and the analog circuits, which means no noise from the computer will be transferred to your amplifier
* Super low noise power supply with multistage regulation and filtering
* For low out of band noise we use low order modulator
* For a more "analog" behavior (no pre-ringing) we use a digital filter with minimum phase
* The analog output stage is a high performance stage with high drive capability

The fact that this DAC uses a minimum phase filter, like the one in Meridian and Ayre CD players, pique my interest. I am sure to check it out.

If you are a Bladelius Embla owner, then the latest iPad app for Embla remote will interest you too.


In Swedish Statement / Audio Matic room 837:

The beautiful looking and great sounding Vitus Audio Reference series will be on demo. The system will include the RI-100 Integrated amplifier, the RL-101 Linestage and RP-101 Phonostage.

The Vitus electronics will be running together with Marten Getz loudspeaker and EAT Forte S Turntable.

Starhill 4 and 2B:

These 2 rooms will be dedicated to showcasing AV.

The Vivitek D8300 Large Venue Projector transitions 1080p between professional and home applications.
Vivitek's latest technology - Vivi-Blending, which provides ultra wide screen with 4-6 megapixels will be introduced to the showgoers in room 2B. Some examples of Vivi-Blending use:

12 projector immersive screen - US Marine Corp

Low cost ultra wide display for Windows desktop

Lastly, there will be the Asian premiere of the ADAM Grand Theatre Series loudspeakers, touted by the famed German loudspeaker maker as the new reference for home cinema sound.