xaipemw
100+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Dec 26, 2003
- Posts
- 424
- Likes
- 10
It was a dark and stormy night....
No, seriously, it was. Last night, anyways. I was listening to my headphones when it started raining. I live in the basement of my parents house (no jokes, please... I'm still in college!) and I usually can't hear any weather outside. But this was different: this thunder was LOUD. And I could hear it clearly through my Sennheiser HD650's. I stopped listening to my music (it was Damien Rice), and paused my Arcam DiVA CD73t. I could hear the thunder as it climaxed, and then rolled off into silence. This went on for over thirty minutes, and then it stopped altogether. I put my Senn's back on, and resumed listening to "O", Damien Rice's album. And I started to really listen. When I say that, I mean actively pay attention to the sound, not just the feel or the emotion of the music. I became fascinated.
I auditioned some big contenders in the sub-$1K pricerange, all Redbook-only players. I tried the Rega Planet 2000, the Rotel RCD-1072, the Music Hall MMF-CD25, the Audio Refinement CD Complete, and the Arcam. I tried to be as objective as I could be when I was evaluating their performance: but as any true music lover can attest, there can't only be an objective evaluation. I wanted to feel the music: to let it move me.
And that's why I chose the Arcam. To me, of all the choices it was the one that "sang". I'll be more specific: the music wasn't bass-heavy, midrange-heavy or treble-heavy. The music wasn't boring and neutral, either: it simply sounded how I believe music is supposed to sound. Whether it's the power source, the DAC, or something else, I don't know. I'm not a techno-guy when it comes to this sort of thing. Of course, I read all of the specs I could on all of the players. And I read what reviews I could read, although for the Arcam there weren't that many. And then I went out and tried the ones I could reach in my city.
The CD73 is so great because it isn't harsh, yet it's very detailed. It isn't bass-heavy, yet it produces the lowest of lows I have yet heard from a CDP. It doesn't have a midrange hump that I could hear, yet the midrange was solid and gorgeous. Don't get me wrong, it's not what I could call a "neutral" player, because that to me implies a boring one. No, it is certainly not a boring player. It just lets the music be , without shouting a statement of its own. And I like that, a lot.
It also works wonderfully with my other components: My HD650's, my Perreaux SXH1, even my old-school version Accoustimass speaker setup. In fact, the CD73 sounds so much better than my old CDP, a Sony CDP-211, that I have decided to return my Zu Mobius cable and just use the stock one for now. (Read my thread about the Zu and classical music to understand more.)
This player is highly underrepresented in Head-Fi, and that's a big shame. I could go into more details about the sonics of this player: but for now, all I will say is that the Arcam DiVA CD73t puts a big smile on my face everytime I listen to it. And that's all a music lover could ever ask for.
No, seriously, it was. Last night, anyways. I was listening to my headphones when it started raining. I live in the basement of my parents house (no jokes, please... I'm still in college!) and I usually can't hear any weather outside. But this was different: this thunder was LOUD. And I could hear it clearly through my Sennheiser HD650's. I stopped listening to my music (it was Damien Rice), and paused my Arcam DiVA CD73t. I could hear the thunder as it climaxed, and then rolled off into silence. This went on for over thirty minutes, and then it stopped altogether. I put my Senn's back on, and resumed listening to "O", Damien Rice's album. And I started to really listen. When I say that, I mean actively pay attention to the sound, not just the feel or the emotion of the music. I became fascinated.
I auditioned some big contenders in the sub-$1K pricerange, all Redbook-only players. I tried the Rega Planet 2000, the Rotel RCD-1072, the Music Hall MMF-CD25, the Audio Refinement CD Complete, and the Arcam. I tried to be as objective as I could be when I was evaluating their performance: but as any true music lover can attest, there can't only be an objective evaluation. I wanted to feel the music: to let it move me.
And that's why I chose the Arcam. To me, of all the choices it was the one that "sang". I'll be more specific: the music wasn't bass-heavy, midrange-heavy or treble-heavy. The music wasn't boring and neutral, either: it simply sounded how I believe music is supposed to sound. Whether it's the power source, the DAC, or something else, I don't know. I'm not a techno-guy when it comes to this sort of thing. Of course, I read all of the specs I could on all of the players. And I read what reviews I could read, although for the Arcam there weren't that many. And then I went out and tried the ones I could reach in my city.
The CD73 is so great because it isn't harsh, yet it's very detailed. It isn't bass-heavy, yet it produces the lowest of lows I have yet heard from a CDP. It doesn't have a midrange hump that I could hear, yet the midrange was solid and gorgeous. Don't get me wrong, it's not what I could call a "neutral" player, because that to me implies a boring one. No, it is certainly not a boring player. It just lets the music be , without shouting a statement of its own. And I like that, a lot.
It also works wonderfully with my other components: My HD650's, my Perreaux SXH1, even my old-school version Accoustimass speaker setup. In fact, the CD73 sounds so much better than my old CDP, a Sony CDP-211, that I have decided to return my Zu Mobius cable and just use the stock one for now. (Read my thread about the Zu and classical music to understand more.)
This player is highly underrepresented in Head-Fi, and that's a big shame. I could go into more details about the sonics of this player: but for now, all I will say is that the Arcam DiVA CD73t puts a big smile on my face everytime I listen to it. And that's all a music lover could ever ask for.
