- Jun 22, 2013
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Imagine if all DACs and CD players didn't sound the same... hey, humour me here.
Mike (Stylesound) popped round this afternoon for a coffee and a natter: Mike might like to add to what follows. Those wammers with a memory (there must be one, surely?) may recall that I bought the heart of my vintage Pioneer Urushi-design system (M-90 power amp, C-90 pre-amp, Prologue 100 floorstanders) from Mike last year. I have since added the contemporaneous PD-91 CD player, F-91 tuner, CT-91 cassette player and earlier PL-530 turntable.
Conversation turned to the Arcam RingDAC-based CD players as Mike has been engaged in conversations about how they stack up against the multi-format DV139 which I also own and which some have been hailing as a great value alternative... and a mini-bake-off was born. Arcam CD23T vs Arcam DV139 vs (legendary, apparently: Eddie-Baby, your ears should be burning!) Pioneer PD-91.
Rest of system: Arcam A39, Celef LS8's, REL Strata II, Isotek GII MiniSub, ProAc Signature Black speaker cable, custom Thai/eBay interconnects, LAT AC-2 mains cables, Custom Design Oak rack, comfy cushions, Booths' Columbian coffee.
Just one track: Jamie Woon's Night Air from the album Mirrorwriting.
The incumbent Arcam CD23T was up first: an engaging listen across the spectrum - clear treble, lovely midrange, crisp and powerful bass, notably where the winding bass kicks in around 90 secs in. Arcam and dCS may have fallen out and failed to agree commercial terms to continue to deploy the superb RingDAC after its first few years but that DAC is legendary for a reason.
Next up the Arcam DV139: these machines are superb as a DVD player, with upscaling that works wonders. £1800 (!) new, now £300-400ish used: a "barg" as my kids would say. Conveniently the DV139 handles DVD-A (not tried) and SACD (excellent) as well as CD via its "CD DIrect" circuitry which I have never tried (why would I with a CD23T to hand?). So should Mike consider one as an excellent value and format-agnostic player? Well, no. I described the SQ as "thin" with which Mike agreed, though we didn't have a micrometer to hand to measure the thinness (sorry, Serge ). Just not emotionally engaging at all. I'd strongly recommend this player to anyone looking for a DVD player which will wring the best out of their "legacy lo-res" movies and will enjoy hi-res audio as a bonus, but it was a pale shadow of the CD23T from the same Arcam stable.
Finally the Pioneer PD-91: from 1990ish when Pioneer were pulling out all the stops to show just how good Japanese engineeering could be. Ridiculously over-engineered with for example a copper honeycomb chassis and an externally mounted transformer on which the mounting screws were to be tightened only for shipping so it could be decoupled from the rest of the player during playback. More buttons for playback options than a sane person would consider using if they wanted to spend more time listening to music than setting up the litening experience... Mad but beautiful.
Eddie-Baby, look away now: legendary it may be, and enjoyable it was today, with lovely clear treble and mid. But the bass was noticeably muddy compared with the Arcam CD23T.
The winner: Arcam CD23T. And by, to me, a surprising margin. This was not one of those repeat-listening-marginal-differences sessions and did not need to be.
If you're into that sort of thing (and most wammers are distinctly not) the only difference not documented above is that the CD23T was plugged into the Isotek GII MiniSub and the other two CDPs went straight into the wall. If that explains the performance difference then I'll electrocute myself with my own filthy mains.
A great afternoon - thanks Mike.
Mike (Stylesound) popped round this afternoon for a coffee and a natter: Mike might like to add to what follows. Those wammers with a memory (there must be one, surely?) may recall that I bought the heart of my vintage Pioneer Urushi-design system (M-90 power amp, C-90 pre-amp, Prologue 100 floorstanders) from Mike last year. I have since added the contemporaneous PD-91 CD player, F-91 tuner, CT-91 cassette player and earlier PL-530 turntable.
Conversation turned to the Arcam RingDAC-based CD players as Mike has been engaged in conversations about how they stack up against the multi-format DV139 which I also own and which some have been hailing as a great value alternative... and a mini-bake-off was born. Arcam CD23T vs Arcam DV139 vs (legendary, apparently: Eddie-Baby, your ears should be burning!) Pioneer PD-91.
Rest of system: Arcam A39, Celef LS8's, REL Strata II, Isotek GII MiniSub, ProAc Signature Black speaker cable, custom Thai/eBay interconnects, LAT AC-2 mains cables, Custom Design Oak rack, comfy cushions, Booths' Columbian coffee.
Just one track: Jamie Woon's Night Air from the album Mirrorwriting.
The incumbent Arcam CD23T was up first: an engaging listen across the spectrum - clear treble, lovely midrange, crisp and powerful bass, notably where the winding bass kicks in around 90 secs in. Arcam and dCS may have fallen out and failed to agree commercial terms to continue to deploy the superb RingDAC after its first few years but that DAC is legendary for a reason.
Next up the Arcam DV139: these machines are superb as a DVD player, with upscaling that works wonders. £1800 (!) new, now £300-400ish used: a "barg" as my kids would say. Conveniently the DV139 handles DVD-A (not tried) and SACD (excellent) as well as CD via its "CD DIrect" circuitry which I have never tried (why would I with a CD23T to hand?). So should Mike consider one as an excellent value and format-agnostic player? Well, no. I described the SQ as "thin" with which Mike agreed, though we didn't have a micrometer to hand to measure the thinness (sorry, Serge ). Just not emotionally engaging at all. I'd strongly recommend this player to anyone looking for a DVD player which will wring the best out of their "legacy lo-res" movies and will enjoy hi-res audio as a bonus, but it was a pale shadow of the CD23T from the same Arcam stable.
Finally the Pioneer PD-91: from 1990ish when Pioneer were pulling out all the stops to show just how good Japanese engineeering could be. Ridiculously over-engineered with for example a copper honeycomb chassis and an externally mounted transformer on which the mounting screws were to be tightened only for shipping so it could be decoupled from the rest of the player during playback. More buttons for playback options than a sane person would consider using if they wanted to spend more time listening to music than setting up the litening experience... Mad but beautiful.
Eddie-Baby, look away now: legendary it may be, and enjoyable it was today, with lovely clear treble and mid. But the bass was noticeably muddy compared with the Arcam CD23T.
The winner: Arcam CD23T. And by, to me, a surprising margin. This was not one of those repeat-listening-marginal-differences sessions and did not need to be.
If you're into that sort of thing (and most wammers are distinctly not) the only difference not documented above is that the CD23T was plugged into the Isotek GII MiniSub and the other two CDPs went straight into the wall. If that explains the performance difference then I'll electrocute myself with my own filthy mains.
A great afternoon - thanks Mike.