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by Anthony H Cordesman
Adcom gcd-300
Third generation "Sony process" CD player with remote control and drawer loading. Key features include linear phase filter and switch able "equalization" filter.
Price: $399 without remote control, $499 with remote control.
MANUFACTURER:
Adcom, 11 Elkins Road, East Brunswick, NJ 08816, USA. (201) 390-1130.
With exception of one feature that I will discuss shortly, the Adcom GCD-300 contains no major innovations in digital or out put circuitry and can be praised only in terms of providing good value for money.
It is a tweaked OEM player whose strength is a decent filter to minimize phase shift, a better-than-average audio gain stage, and good ergonomics and remote control features.
Value for Money
The Adcom GCD-300 costs $399 or $499, depending on your love for remote controls. It compares sonically with the Mission 7000R and regular Meridian MCD player, falling between the two units in midrange warmth and bass response, with highs closer to those of the Mission. It outperforms many other high-cost CD players (Revox, etc.), and is certainly the sonic equal of even such relatively recent designs as the far more expensive Nakamichi’s. The Adcom avoids the upper midrange hardness and brittle treble transients of most first- and second-generation Sony process players, and has reasonably extended bass.
As a CD player per se, however, the Adcom is simply a further demonstration that a slightly tweaked third-generation Sony process player can sound good enough to outperform any analog record player in its price range. I can't, however, give the Ad corn any marks over the third-generation Philips process players that show some attention to output circuitry. The average Marantz is also up to the sound standards of the Mission 700OR and Meridian MCD, and sounds about as good as the Adcom.
The Added Merits of CD Equalization
But the Adcom does have one unique feature that will be of great advantage to the buyer, but which I find, as reviewer, discouraging. There is an equalization switch on the rear of the player. The top setting dips the upper midrange, the middle setting is flat, and the lower setting dips the highs. This is not some miracle of digital technology; it is a simple analog filter similar to the variable record equalization switches of 20 years ago! It is also the result of listening-oriented efforts to compensate for the sound quality of most CDs, rather than an attempt to improve the accuracy of the CD player itself.
Unfortunately, this kind of departure from electronic accuracy does seem to pro duce consistently more realistic reproduction of music. Worse, the setting which departs most strongly from "flat" -the one that dips the upper midrange-is the one which sounds best with most CDs.
The overall timbre, dynamics, and apparent transient performance of the vast majority of CDs sound far better with such equalization than on all but the very best and most expensive "specialty" CD players.
The best Telarc’s, Reference Recording, Delos, Nimbus, and other audiophile efforts sound best with the flat setting, as do selected "mainstream" CDs from Denon, CBS, and Philips. However, the scum of the CD industry--the RCA and DGG horrors, and the vast majority of mediocre mainstream productions-sound sound better with the filter. (So do the Sheffield CDs, few of which rise above mediocre. An audiophile label does not necessarily mean better.) I should mention that the Carver CD player does an even better job of correcting bad CDs, but it is more expensive and its upper midrange is more fatiguing. I also should stress that Adcom is less listenable on good CDs than the PS Audio and the better versions of the Meridian MCD. The placement of the filter switch on the rear of the GCD-300 is inconvenient, and I can't help feeling it shouldn't be necessary. It does, however, elevate the Adcom from good value for money to very good value for money, and to a "best buy" rating for those audiophiles who care if their CDs can be given natural musical timbre.
CD Parity with Analog: The True Meaning
The Adcom is also unfortunate evidence that CD players have now improved to the point where the key limiting factor is now the quality of the recordings, not the quality of the players (though some players still sound bad). In most recordings, these faults are not subtle. There is a consistent upper midrange "punch" mixed with a lack of harmonic detail and subtlety. The sound stage is consistently blurred, lacking depth and musical integration. The overall sonic result is very much like that of early moving coils, with massive rises in frequency about 3-5 kHz, an inability to properly track more subtle passages or closely-miked recordings with a careless mixdown.
I will immediately admit that most analog records also fall far short of state-of the-art. In fact, there seems to be the same horrible inverse correlation in CD as in analog recordings: high-quality performers and performances are heard on low-quality recordings. Take, for example, performers as famous as James Galway and Pavarotti; either name on a record or CD almost in variably means a truly awful recording.
"Golden Turkeys" at the Animal Farm
I would like to say that this state of affairs will change, but one of the few areas where I have confidence that this week's advice on compact disc will be valid for at least several months. You can count on the value of the switchable "inaccuracy" of the Carver or Adcom. It will be a long time before consumers fail to benefit from compensation for the poor state of the art in CD recording.
In fact, I see no industry forces promoting better CDs. The major CD plants have just finished shafting the small recording companies who could have helped show what can be done with the medium, and the mainstream of the recording industry de fines progress as creating another Michael Jackson boom. By and large, the producers of most CDs remind me of the ending of Animal Farm: You can't tell the people from the swine.
Not that the recording companies alone are to blame. There are good CD labels, and some very good producers, but the same cannot be said about CD reviewers. No American magazine publishes reviews that come close to flagging the problems of most CDs. Most U.S. reviewers fail to put any constructive pressure on the industry.
Fanfare is sometimes a notable exception, but it's highly idiosyncratic and erratic.
High Fidelity's reviews symbolize the fact that it has become the maggot-ridden shell of a once mediocre magazine. If you think Stereo Review's reviews of audio equipment are bland, check the ratings of CD sound quality. "Excellent" seems to be a new synonym for third-rate.
The only English language magazine that seems to try to rate CD sound quality honestly-the British Hi Fi News & Record Review-has gone downhill faster than the sound quality of CDs. In fact, its recent CD reviews lead me to upgrade my previous "Golden Turkey" award to Hi Fi News to a "Golden Turkey of the Year Award With Digital Clusters." This upgrading is merited by its consistent overrating of the sound quality from mediocre CDs.
Isn't life wonderful? CD player technology is advancing to the level of analog records and tape: the most common limiting factor is the recording. No wonder MTV is taking over the country! Rock videos have one dominant advantage over the high end: When a record or CD sounds best with the volume control at zero gain, there is nothing to watch!
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[based on a Feb. 1986, Stereophile review article]
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