Over the years we've had features around audio on this blog and this week we return to the topic of cd reproduction
After replacing the Rotel unit I had for a Marantz super audio cd player that does regular discs I thought I had pretty much got this sorted as after all its reproduction of super audio cds was amazing and the regular discs sounded less muddy and frankly boring than the NAD C541i I had until it blew up.
One annoyance is the classical world Chandos have been issuing less super audio cds and with little rhyme or reason to what was a regular cd with a HD download being available from sites like Presto, the Warwickshire classical music store and what in it's physical form is a sacd.
Popular music remains mainly regular cd too outside of specialty re-issues as much as they are welcome.
The though arose, "is it possible to improve on what the internal regular digital to analogue converter offers on regular cds?"
These convertors that turn the naughts and ones into sound have come on a lot since the early nineteen eighties and even in the last fifteen years better sound can be had often for a good third or more of the price before we even consider inflation.
Enter the SMSL SU9 which comes from China, which personal political issues with their government apart has been producing in the last eight or so years some really good value for money hifi products
It is a fairly small unit, unlike many American offerings plain but attractively presented with a variety of inputs such as Toslink optical, Coaxial, USB which is common for computer based music replay (for which you'll need an up to date driver) and Bluetooth which tends not to be as good but does work without wires which some do feel matters.
The inputs are selected using a input button in conjunction with an up/down key, conformed by pressing the knob in which when configured also acts as a volume control.
This means in the context of a wholly digital system you could use this as a preamp sending an analogue output to a power amplifier.
The outputs are balanced XLR used in professional applications for lower noise and interference and traditional RCA or Cinch unbalanced used on nearly all hifi equipment these days with a now standard 2.3 volt peak output.
Playing Sibelius's The Tempest on a 1992 Bis recording on regular cd, a pioneering recording it did bring out more depth and improved midrange coupled with more detailed sound which l thought was more akin to great analogue source.
While a dsd sourced super audio cd would of been better, this was more believable on fine regular discs although there are some "filters" that allow you alter the sound slightly if you prefer things warmer or more contrasty which generally I don't.
Overall I feel this has been an upgrade for the bigger proportion of my 5 cm disc collection.
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