spectral cd 4000 pro
devkr -- Wed, 03/21/2007 - 10:06
I would like to se Mr harley comment on the spectral 4000 pro player. Recently there seemd to be a plethora of superb sounding cd players at different price points . I see that Robert has commented favourably on the cary sacd/cd player@$6000, the meridian 808 @$12000 and the spectral 4000 pro @$17500 and also the esoteric players . AlsoThe memory player i guess is still under reveiw and there is the new emm labs se player. IF Mr harley can pick one player based on sound quality which one would it be? Thank you for being such an informative magazine and i have been a subscriber since 1988.Keep up the good work.
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Unfortunately, Spectral has a history of not supplying review samples to magazines. I would love to hear the SDR-4000 Pro. I think its designer, Keith Johnson, is one of the great audio geniuses of all time. The player was in development for five years. I've spoken to people in the industry who have heard the SDR-4000 Pro (whose ears I trust) and they report is is extraordinary. I heard it briefly at the January CES and thought the system was outstanding.
Robert Harley
I have a sample of the Spectral SDR-4000 Pro and will be reporting on it in an upcoming issue. The report will include an interview with Spectral founder Richard Fryer and the SDR-4000 Pro's designer, Keith Johnson.
Robert Harley
Also note this thread on dCS, Meitner, ARC, and Esoteric:
http://forums.avguide.com/viewtopic.php?t=3611
CEO and Editorial Director, Nextscreen LLC
robert_harley6 wrote:I have a sample of the Spectral SDR-4000 Pro and will be reporting on it in an upcoming issue. The report will include an interview with Spectral founder Richard Fryer and the SDR-4000 Pro's designer, Keith Johnson.
Robert Harley
Will you also be reviewing the DMC30SS preamp and the DMA 360 amplifiers as part of a full Spectral system (including the Spectral [or Oracle] MIT interconnects/speaker cables)? I'm sure Spectral would want you to have the SDR 4000 pro front end a full Spectral/MIT chain as one of your review systems at a mimimum.
Inquiring minds want to know...
I reply to this question in another thread:
http://forums.avguide.com/viewtopic.php?t=3611
Thanks Robert... I apologize for the duplicate post, but the other thread really lent itself to this discussion which is why I got into there as opposed to pursuing further here.
It's not a problem to have the post in two places.
Robert: It has recently come to my attention that the SDR 4000 is a closed system and does not have digital inputs for other sources. Given the trend towards hard disk music servers and the like, does it make sense to consider the more flexible architecture of an SDR 2000/3000 combo? That would allow for having a music server connected to the SDR 2000 as well as having CD playback through the SDR 3000. How much fidelity do you think would be lost on CD playback by going this route versus the SDR 4000?
You are correct: The SDR-4000 Pro has a digital output but no digital input for decoding other sources. Spectral chose this approach because they believed that the system would be compromised by the SPDIF interface.
I think the SDR-4000 Pro is better sounding than the SDR-2000/3000 pair, largely because of the new custom digital filter (the "Long Filter").
Robert
Have you actually reviewed the Spectral 30 SS. I would love to read it if you have. Thanks.
Just got a loan set of the superb Spectral SDR 4000S while my SDR 2000 DAC is being sent back to the factory for leaking capacitors.
The sound is very clean and musical. I don't have to try to listen to the layering, positioning etc. All the hifi attributes are there in spades! Incredible! Never thought Spectral could better the 2000/3000 combo in such a dramatic fashion. Keep up the good work. If only the SDR 2000 DAC can also in some way retrofit the 'long filter' in as well then I will be cloud 9 :D
My full review of the Spectral SDR-4000 Pro appears in the February issue (mails to readers on December 22). The review includes the Spectral DMC-30SS preamp and DMA-360 power amplifiers. Accompanying the review is an extended interview with Spectral Founder Richard Fryer and Chief Designer Keith Johnson. Keith provides some interesting insights into CD playback, and why the SDR-4000 sounds the way it does.
I think the "Long Filter" is a major contributor to the SDR-4000 Pro's musical qualities.
Where is this review? Thanks
My review of the complete Spectral system (and interview with Richard Fryer and Keith Johnson) will appear in the February issue, which mails to subscribers next Tuesday (December 23).
The short answer is that the SDR-4000 Pro is the state-of-the-art in CD playback. It has a smoothness combined with resolution that is revelatory. It also sounds wonderful and less "digital" with medicore-sounding CDs.
"I think the "Long Filter" is a major contributor to the SDR-4000 Pro's musical qualities."
The "Long Filter" is only one of the sub-systems in the SDR400 that results in the sonic performance it posses. The results are really the sum of all the tiny details that make the SDR4000 what it is. Everything from the discrete devices used in the entire analog section and power supply, the precision VCXO that have sub pico-second jitter, pcb layouts that are extremely carefully crafted and account for much of the circuits performance, cable routing, connector types, cable ferrites to control and isolate HF interference between sections and more contribute to the overall performance of the SDR4000.
It is not simply just the parts that are used, but how they are used together to form a system, much like a well honed, well rehersed orchestra playing under the guidance of a great conductor that results in a great musical performance.
I didn't mean to suggest that the SDR-4000 Pro's sound quality is purely the contribution of the custom filter. I went into some detail in the review of the power supply, clocking, I/V converter, and other aspects of the player. Note, however, that one can listen independently to the Long Filter's contribution by comparing the SDR-4000 with the SDR-4000 Pro. The former used a Pacific Microsonics PMD-200 filter chip (the best off-the-shelf filter extant). Much of the "Pro" version's lack of glare in the midrange and treble, along with the sense of analog-like ease, can be attributed to the Long Filter.
There is more than just the difference between the PMD200 vs the DSP version of the "long filter". I won't get into the specific design details here (The two DAC board versions are quite different in many ways), but like many things Specral, it evolves slowly in time and only when there are very, very good reasons to do so.
Can anyone answer me the following question ?
Can you connect to the new Spectral SDR4000 Professional CD Player, The old Spectral SDR2000 D/A Convertor. Using the Spectral Spectralink Cable ?.
Thank you for your time.
I was seriously thinking of buying a Spectral SDR4000 Professional CD Player for a moment but then I saw a picture of the back of it and saw that it had no balanced outs. No buy for me anymore.
me@28, why does the lack of balanced outputs discourage you from getting it?
He may have an all-balanced system and doesn't care for converters?
If a digital source is fundamentally single-ended (one DAC and one analog output stage per channel) as opposed to being fundamentally balanced (the phase is split in the digital domain, and the audio converted to analog with two DACs per channel with two analog amplifiers per channel), then the DAC will probably sound better using unbalanced connection. Digital sources that are fundamentally unbalanced, but have balanced output jacks, add one additional active stage (a phase splitter) in the signal path. Moreover, if the preamp the digital source is feeding is unbalanced, yet has balanced input jacks, the preamp immediately converts the balanced signal to an unbalanced signal (with a differential amplifier), adding yet another active and unnecessary active stage to the signal path.