WINDY CITY WINDUP

Last month in my initial report on the 1985 Summer Consumer Electronics Show, I reported on the new 8-mm videocassette recorders and on audio/video package systems, but touched only briefly on the considerable speculation that CD players would reach new low price points. This proved accurate when Pioneer introduced a "budget" CD player to retail at $299, Magnavox showed its FD1041 at $299, Technics had its SL-PJ1 CD player priced at $300, and Symphonic premiered its CD100 at $180. There are supposed to be some CD players from Korea and Taiwan that will be offered at a list price of $249. Many people involved with the marketing of CD players fully expect that by the time this column appears lots of dealers will be discounting CD players down to $199! To me, it is incredible that such a sophisticated product--with its laser tracking, servo control and digital circuitry--can be produced to sell at such a price and still make a profit for a dealer!

---Denon DCD-1800R CD player

--- Sansui PC-V100 CD player functions

Two schools of thought are current among manufacturers of audiophile type CD players, most of whom are too small to make entire players from scratch. One approach, exemplified by Meridian, is to buy a specific model that can be extensively modified. The other approach is to buy certain critical and hard-to-fabricate CD parts, such as the laser pickup and tracking assembly, the tracking servo system and drive motor, and the D/A converters.

These parts are then incorporated into special chassis along with special, high-quality digital and analog circuitry and convenience features.

---Pioneer PD-9010X CD player

There are many marketing people who feel this kind of pricing will make CD players a mass-market product.

The fly in this ointment is the price of CD software. Even with the deep discounts on CDs available from New York City's big record dealers, we're still talking about $10.95 to $11.95 per disc, with many labels at higher prices.

Perhaps down the line, when the CD is actively tied in with computers, there will be an impetus to bring down the retail cost of a CD to $7 or $8, and then the CD floodgates will really open! But as it is, to make and sell a CD, it costs about 10 times what it costs to make and sell an LP. As I pointed out in the first part of my SCES report, most CD players offered by the various manufacturers are actually sourced from the likes of Matsushita and Sony, and differ mainly in features and cosmetics. Here, I am going to deal first with some of the more specialized players, and those which claim specific points of superiority.

McIntosh, the venerable high-end amplifier manufacturer, chose to go this route, and at the SCES they introduced their MCD-7000 CD player. The aforementioned parts come from Philips, as McIntosh has decided to use the Philips quadruple-oversampling (176.4 kHz) and noise-shaping technique for CD playback. Gordon Gow, "the canny wee Scot" who presides over the destiny of McIntosh, is justifiably proud of what his engineers have wrought in this new CD player. A very rigid chassis is employed, along with what they call a precision platform. On this platform are mounted all the moving parts of the reproduction system.

This in turn is supported by a special suspension system, to isolate these assemblies from external vibration and shock. Motor control uses digital phase-locked-loop circuitry. Double digital filtering is a feature, along with parallel D/A converters. This filtering is claimed to be completely effective in removing signal spuriae without altering phase relationships. The McIntosh uses CIRC error correction, but has an additional ERCO error-correction system which its makers claim affords the best error correction in any CD player.

As you might expect, a CD player of this quality has all sorts of convenience features under microprocessor control, as well as an elaborate display for track and timing information, etc. Most are duplicated on the wireless remote control. The MCD-7000 is a beautiful-looking CD player, styled in the McIntosh tradition and priced at $1,399.

Bob Stuart, Meridian's dynamic digital expert, was showing off his new Meridian MCD Professional CD player. Like the standard Meridian MCD, this unit is developed from the Philips CD101 chassis (now said to be exclusively reserved for Meridian). The MCD Professional is approximately 1 1/2 inches higher than the standard MCD; this provides extra space outside the original Faraday cage fitted to the bottom of the CD101 chassis. This space has additional electronic circuitry, including a new, very high-performance integrator and analog filtering stage, and the first digital, absolute-phase correction system-a new Meridian development. These new circuit sections, located away from the digital and servo sections, are powered by a totally separate transformer and regulated power-supply system. All of this special electronic circuitry is hard-wired to the player section to avoid timing errors said to be inherent in CD players using two separate chassis.

The MCD Professional also has a new master oscillator that affords 40 dB less jitter and modulation than earlier generation CD players. This refinement is claimed to allow true 16-bit resolution under dynamic music-replay conditions. (Standard CD players are said to achieve 10 bits at high frequencies.) The MCD Professional also features d.c. coupling, with low-frequency response to 0.5 Hz, and a digital output. The new Meridian Professional CD player should be available by the time you read this, and will cost $1,399.

The $2,000 two-piece CD player from Cambridge, which I described in the April 1985 issue of Audio, will also be available by the time this issue reaches you.

Among old-line companies offering special circuitry in new CD players was Denon. Of course, Denon has been working with digital recording and allied technology since 1969. Their new DCD-1800R CD player has all the bells and whistles of a top-drawer player, but of major interest is its new DDAC (Direct Digital-to-Analog Conversion) circuitry. Tiny errors in the MSB (most significant bit) can overwhelm the information carried by the LSB (least significant bit). Denon claims that conventional D/A converters do not correct these errors, and cause a glitch at the crossover point of the transfer function.

This nonlinearity is said to produce distortion similar to crossover distortion in a Class-B amplifier. With Denon's DDAC, a special conversion-error detection circuit corrects the values of the MSB and the SSB (second significant bit). Thus, conversion is much more linear and there is less audio distortion.

---Audio-Technica AT-CD10 CD player

---Bang & Olufsen CDX CD player

Another interesting point about this CD player is that the power transformer has separate windings for the transport/servo section, the analog amplifier, and the digital display section. To avoid mutual interference and hum induction, the transformer is mounted outboard on the back panel of the player. The DCD-1800R is available now at a price of $949.

Denon also introduced the DCD1500, at $579.95. It uses the new DDAC in the left and right output channels, thus eliminating the 11.36-µS inter channel delay caused by single D/A converters using time-division multiplexing. Three other, lower priced Denon players, the DCD-1000, DCD1100, and DCD-1400, also debuted.

Harman/Kardon introduced their first CD player, the HD500, which will sell for $600. In addition to all the standard bells and whistles and the wireless remote control, the HD500 has some special circuitry. It uses a 16-bit linear D/A converter with double (88 kHz) oversampling. They claim a special, ultra-low-distortion analog output section enabling them to use a simple analog filter with a gentle slope. No negative feedback is employed, and the analog section uses discrete components. A sample-and-hold circuit reduces interchannel switching noise, and there are separate analog and digital power supplies. The player is direct-coupled from the analog converter to the audio output jacks to improve low-frequency performance.

New CD players were introduced by Sansui (the PC-V750 and PC-V100, both at $350), by Magnavox (the FD1041 at $299, mentioned above, and FD1051 at $349), by Audio-Technica (the AT-CD10 at $399), and by Kyocera (the DA-610, priced at $550). There were also new players from Yamaha and Akai, and several very stylish "Danish Modern" units from Bang & Olufsen. Pioneer's top-of-the-line PD 9010X costs $539.95. NEC showed their CD-607E; they are very big on its non-delay filter plus 5-pole active analog filter, which they claim reduces group delay by 96%. Luxman's D-03 CD player will sell for $600, and their combination LaserVision/CD unit will be priced at $1,300. In CD players for cars, the Pioneer and Sony units have been joined by models from Alpine, Sanyo, Grundig, Blaupunkt, Yamaha, Kenwood, Panasonic and several others. The big stumbling block in this market appears to be delivery, with even the first-announced Sony and Pioneer players still slow to reach dealers. Yamaha, which had shown prototypes of its car CD player at the WCES, said they would be shipping a production model by now. Yamaha claims to have developed a floating suspension system that makes their YCD-1000 player as stable as their home CD units. The player's novel CD cartridge system allows both disc protection and easy insertion. A CD is loaded into a plastic cartridge; when this is inserted into the slot of the YCD-1000, a shutter built into the cartridge opens to allow laser tracking.

When ejected, the shutter is closed and the CD remains protected from dirt, fingerprints, etc. Ten of these disc cartridges will be included with each YCD-1000 player.

Harman/Kardon HD500 CD player Needless to say, there were some other interesting products at the SCES. For instance, Electrocompaniet can always be counted on to furnish a civilized demonstration of really excellent sound, and they were showing off their new Ampliwire Three power amplifier.

This is probably the "beefiest" amplifier they have made, with a very large power transformer and power supply.

---Akai CD-M88 CD player

---Yamaha YCD-1000 car CD player

It is rated at 125 watts/channel into 8 ohms, with a whopping maximum peak current output of 80 amperes! THD at 50 watts into 8 ohms is rated at a very low 0.005%. Driving a pair of their interesting pyramid-shaped Prisma speakers ($1,690 per pair), it produced a very smooth, clean, highly detailed sound, with good depth and imaging. The Ampliwire Three will be available this month at $2,150. In the Krell room, Dan D'Agostino was very proud of his new PAM-5 stereo preamp, which has a single outboard power supply. With top cover removed, the $1,500 unit looked very high-tech, with its beautifully laid-out boards and precision wiring. Dan also

was showing a 200-watt-per-channel stereo amplifier priced at $3,800. Like most Krell amplifiers, this one's innards were dominated by a king-sized toroidal power transformer.

MOS-FET output amplifiers and tube/MOS-FET amplifiers are apparently becoming more popular. Now Perreaux of New Zealand has their new PMF 1050, a 100-watt-per-channel (into 8 ohms) amplifier with a Class-A driver stage and extended Class-AB MOS-FET output. Rise time is rated at under 1.5 µS, with a bandwidth of 10 Hz to 200 kHz between-3 dB points.

The price of this unit is $850. There is a companion SX-1 preamp, with both moving-magnet and moving-coil inputs, at $650. Perreaux has also introduced its first stereo FM tuner (not necessarily a companion piece), featuring frequency-synthesized tuning and switchable de-emphasis; 17.5 µV (36.1 dBf) input will provide 50 dB of quieting. Its price is $500. Counterpoint was showing their SA-12 hybrid amplifier. This uses a tube driver stage and a MOS-FET output stage providing 80 watts/channel into 8 ohms; frequency response is from 5 to 100 kHz. The price is $995.

Harvey Rosenberg of New York Audio Labs was on hand, replete with his flamboyant merchandising policies.

The man has boundless enthusiasm for his Moscode amplifiers, which have-here again-tube stages driving MOS-FET outputs. Harvey has four such amplifiers including a 500-watt per-channel (8 ohms) beast that is priced at $3,000. There were a few interesting speakers, and several other noteworthy products that will have to be covered in the course of time-and enough other products to fill a book!

(adapted from Audio magazine, Bert Whyte)

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