It's the most vinyl-like I've ever heard a CD. I settled on Filter 4, which is supposed to be some sort of apodizing filter, because it sounds very analog. I don't claim to know anything about them, or how they work, but I can say that they do alter the sound slightly. I'm sure this has a lot to do with the digital filters that Onkyo utilizes. It's just a little more smooth and musical. They are no longer fighting for space with background instruments.Īnother neat thing I noticed, which took several times going back and forth between the sources, is that the Onkyo sounds more analog than the Teac. Also, the vocals are slightly more pronounced on the Onkyo, which is a good thing. Rush's "Tom Sawyer" sounds rather pedestrian on the Teac, but it sounds more alive on the Onkyo. The Onkyo has a hint more bass, but feels a tad more alive. The differences were extremely subtle, but they were there. It was a similar story: they all seemed to have just a hint more bass than I remember hearing from my old source.Īfter going through several of my favorite CDs and getting a sound imagine stuck in my head, I then hooked up my old source to have a re-listen. I then proceeded to go through many of my favorite albums to reacquaint myself with them through the new player. It wasn't night and day difference, but just enough to make notice some more energy. The music, particularly rock, seemed more alive. During my first audition of it, I immediately noticed more bass and more PRaT (even though I don't really like that term). This seems to have corrected the problems mentioned above. I could detect the digital graininess even when played through my tube OTL amp.Įnter the Onkyo. It was a smidge laid back, especially in the mids, but also had a hint of digital graininess to it. Another thing left me slightly confused about this player. In my case, I could easily tell that bass, energy, and vocals were just a tad lacking. But, sometimes these subtle differences can synergize with other components in your chain to make things a little more obvious.
Now, I completely think that differences between digital sources are subtle at best. They blended into the background a little bit. However, most importantly, vocals were slightly recessed. Just enough to rob a little energy from some good rock recordings. Mainly, it was just a smidge light in the bass. It did have a few weaknesses, though, that were highlighted by my amp and cans. It seems like just about every manufacturer maker puts the word "reference" in their product descriptions these day without warrant. Although, despite it having the word "reference" in its name, I don't think it is on par with true "reference" players. This wasn't a bad little player, and I definitely think it performed above its price point. My old source: Teac "Reference" PD-H300mkIII CD player. These are just quick impressions because I haven't had it all that long, but there are some characteristics that are very obvious to me already. There aren't many reviews out there, or posts here about it, so I thought I would just post some quick impressions. I didn't buy it for the SACD playback, but more so for the redbook CD playback.
I recently took delivery of an Onkyo C-S5VL SACD/CD player.
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