THE CD PLAYER PLUS - Ultra High Fidelity Magazine

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10 ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine
signals is a task that requires exquisite
skill, the sort of skill that is vanishing
in the modern world.
We haven’t heard them all by any
means, but we’ve heard some expensive
ones, and the results mostly weren’t
pretty. However we do have a review of
a step-up transformer, our first in many
years, in this very issue of UHF.
Back in issue No. 21 you gave the
QED F79 speaker cable a good rating.
That is what I got 20 years ago.
Actually I still can’t afford expensive
cables but do cables go bad? I know there
can be physical wear, but these are like
new, connections have been tweaked
over the years. Could I do better? I can
afford a cable in the $5 to $6 a foot range.
Some Neotech and Kimber cables look
(sound???) interesting.
My next question is what would be
the best transport? I have two options:
an old Arcam Alpha-Plus with no issues
other than it now sounds terrible compared
to new stuff, or a much newer
Oppo 981HD that sounds pretty good
when you consider the cost. I listen to
vinyl most of the time but still need to
spin CDs. One salesperson suggested
I could rip all my CDs, but that is not
something I will be doing anytime soon.
I enjoy spinning CDs (must be like a type
of vinyl addiction).
I will be purchasing a new Cambridge
DACMagic in the coming month, unless
you can suggest something better. I
have a large collection of downloaded
lossless music, so I need a USB input
on the DAC. I know the standard reply
to choosing gear is listen and choose.
Well I have, with a Buddy’s DACMagic
that he was kind enough to lend me for
a weekend. The verdict was…well there
was no verdict, we were not sure.
Keep up the good work. I used to
think you people at UHF were a little
crazy or “on” something, the way you
heard all these differences in amps,
cables etc. Well, 20 or so years later, I
must be nuts too, because I can hear the
differences, yet my hearing is not what
it was 20 years ago.
Scott Barta
LONDON, ON
No, but what you’ve picked up is
experience, Scott, which better lets you
evaluate what you hear.
The DACMagic looks like a pretty
good choice in its price range, which
is way below such products as the
Benchmark DAC1. Finding a transport
is harder. Cambridge once had its own,
designed to match the original DAC-
Magic, but it no longer does. The CEC
belt-driven transport works very well,
and we own one ourselves. You can of
course use a standard CD player and
feed its digital output into the DAC. The
results may be less than predictable.
Do cables age? Yes, they probably do.
The reason so many cable manufacturers
boast of their “oxygen-free copper”
is that oxygen is a vital ingredient in
corrosion. All the same, the copper
strands may corrode in time. They are
especially vulnerable at the ends, where
the wire leaves its sheath and enters the
connector. Reterminating an aged cable
can make it sound...perhaps not new, but
as though it had had a lifting and tummy
tuck.
I am in the process of “ripping” my
CD collection to a Mac Mini with a
500 GB hard drive. Currently, I am using
the optical out connected to an older
Aragon D2A. The optical cable came
from a local pro-audio store. For the $15
I paid, it is very obviously plastic.
I have been looking around for a
glass cable, and did find that a lot of the
high end cable makers also carry glass
TOSLINK cables. Prices seem to be
from around $200 to as much as $600.
Have you had experience with good
TOSLINK cables? I know it is worth
the change, but will price really make
a big difference in optical cable? Unless
the price is related to the quality of the
glass.
If all else fails, I will purchase a
USB/Firewire-to-coaxial converter,
probably from a pro-audio company like
M-Audio, or PreSonus, and use my Atlas
digital cable.
Tom Todorovski
TORONTO, ON
We have tried a number of fibre optic
cables, Tom, and we are preparing to
listen to some more. Our experience so
far: plastic TOSLINK cables don’t hold