NEC CD-705E COMPACT DISC PLAYER (March 1986)

by Richard OHHHH.

THE NEC CD-705E COMPACT DISC PLAYER

Top-loading CD player. Infrared remote control. All standard functions. Price: $649.

MANUFACTURER: NEC Home Electronics, 1401 Estes Avenue, Elk Grove Village, Illinois 60007.

The CD-705E is NEC's top-of-the-line player, loaded with all the programming and convenience features that Japanese maurers consider de rigeur for justifying a high asking price. Now, I certainly don't object to convenience, but in this case I wish the money had been spent on a better analog section.

The NEC CD-705E's design is pretty much standard for second generation machines. A single 16-bit DAC is used, with 2-times oversampling of the bit stream. The digital filtering is contained in a newly developed LSI chip proprietary to NEC, and the analog filter is unique: an active 5th order design, rather steeper than the more common passive high-order types. The analog filter is phase-compensated, and the filter design is claimed to give the player "silky highs." I can safely categorize that statement as promotional hype. [1]

The unit is generally very well constructed-then there's that cute little remote control which, when not in use, can be stowed away in its own tiny drawer under the front panel. But I'm not going to pull a Len Feldman on you and spend pages describe every pushbutton and blinking light on the front panel does. Suffice it to say the 705 gives up nothing in terms of features to the competition. I do, however, have some complaints about the ergonomics: You have to enter Search mode before you can select a track for playing, and track selection cannot be preset with out using the remote. The best you can do from the front panel is to advance track by track to the one desired.

The first surprising thing I noticed about the 705 was the lack of a transit screw to immobilize the disc tray suspension. In stead, the tray is fixed during shipping with a rubber/cardboard insert which, at least on my sample, proved rather difficult to ex tract. It got stuck and was partially chewed up by the tray mechanism.

[1 Apparent HF smoothness also relates to the amount of high end ones speakers reproduce. Softer highs arc "silkier" highs. all other things equal. -JGH ]

Another, and more pleasant, surprise was the sound quality of this unit, which runs circles around the lower-priced competition; it may even have set a new sonic standard in the under-$1000 price range. I was amazed at how much more suave it is sonically than the Sony 502-ES. I found the Sony fatiguing after only a couple of minutes; with the NEC I'm not tempted to exit the room until after, say, 30 minutes.

That means the NEC player is 15 times better than the Sony, right? I actually don't know of any CD player under $1000 that is entirely free of gratuitous brightness and grundge in the upper octaves, and the 705 is no exception. It just has less of it than the competition.

But it doesn't have to have even that much grundge! Its analog circuit board is dotted with what appear to be electrolytic capacitors, some of which are in the signal path, and you can hear them. (The situation is much worse with lower-priced players, whose analog sections typically consist of a few cheap ICs, and passive parts with no more sophistication than you'd find in a "ghetto blaster.") In terms of tonal balance, the impression is of a full and slightly forward midrange, with a strong bass line that is tighter and deeper than the regular Meridian MCD. The Meridian Pro's bass is better than the NEC, though, with deeper extension and tighter control.

The NEC player is no slouch; some aspects of its sound can compete with the true heavyweights in this field. Its midband robustness and ability to resolve hall ambience give it an edge, at least up to the up per midrange, over the much more expensive Kyocera DA -910. The Kyocera's midrange sounds a bit leaner and more antiseptic than either the NEC or the Meridian Pro. The NEC's midrange resolution and focus are very good, and the NEC again surpasses what the Meridian MCD (or any of the the lower-priced competition I'm familiar with) can do in those areas. In comparison with the Meridian Pro player (the best-sounding unit I've heard), though, the 705's shortcomings are quite obvious. I am even tempted to say that in these respects the 705 is a pain in the NEC. , The NEC's sonic problems begin in the upper midrange and extend right through the extreme treble. Compared with the Meridian Pro, its treble is rough and grundgy, the amount of grundge depending on program level and content, and most noticeable with high-powered orchestral material.

The main cause of these HF aberrations, I'm convinced, is the player's analog section. I have observed in recent years that, the better a CD player's analog circuitry, the better the sound. This relationship isn't surprising, of course, but since no one has yet (apparently) used state-of-the-art analog circuitry in a CD player, it's certain that we still don't know just how good CD sound can be. I suspect that, with an analog section comparable to that in a S2000 preamp, a CD player could hold its own with the finest analog sound.

Meridian, for example, has done wonders by heavily modifying a lowly Philips player. For once I concur with AHC, in his assessment of Meridian's MCD Pro player: It is the best sounding unit available right now, and shows how much more potential the CD medium has than we had suspected. I think the Meridian points the way the industry must go.

There are rumors, believe it or not, of a tubed CD player. At the moment, this appears to be an extensive audiophile mod and not a commercially available unit. Jim Grignon of Audiogram magazine actually has one of them, apparently built for him by Mike Moffatt, chief designer for the now-defunct Theta Electronics. Jim, who's a dedicated audiophile and owns an outstanding analog front end, swears that

[2. lord. we beseech Thee, forgive him this wicked transgression! –JGH]

that tubed CD player is the ultimate! But back to the 705E... Building on George Graves' experience (Vol. 8, No. 4), I replaced one of the 23-mFd electrolytics in each signal path with a stack of polypropylenes adding up to the same value.

(The stack was so large it had to be located outside the chassis.) The substitution removed some of the 705's roughness but did not entirely eliminate it. Nevertheless, the lesson is obvious: better capacitors equal better sound.

So, while the NEC's limitations in the up per octaves take it out of the running as a great player, it is generally quite listenable and certainly sets a fine standard at its price range. I wouldn't recommend it for use with a very wideband, extra-quick pre amp; it definitely sounded best with a good tubed preamplifier.

3. I haven't yet found a CD player that didn’t -JGH

--

[based on a March 1986, Stereophile review article]

Also see:

NEC CD 650

THE INFINITY IRS-III AND RS-IB: STILL FURTHER CONSIDERATIONS

THE RAUNA TYR MARK II LOUDSPEAKER

THE SYNTHESIS LM-20 AND LM-250: A NEW LINE OF TOP QUALITY SPEAKERS