TEAC C-1D CD-player
The first and perhaps the only advantage of the design of C-1D consists in the fact that this player can be mistaken for High End. Massively and very qualitatively made, it as if immediately let you see that it like very expensive models has nothing superfluous. On the panel there are only the most useful controls for playback and display. The display has a little music calendar and doesn't show CD-text. Also there is no a long list of various service functions.
However, if take C-1D into the hands (uh, it is very light - there are no even 4 kg) and turn it "woodward", everything will fall into place - yeah, this is the device of honest-to-God budget class. Standard linear RCA outputs are added by only one digital output - an optical. On the front panel there is headphones' output with a potentiometer of volume control. The player is equipped with the remote control.
A digital path is the most simple: a filter with eight times oversampling and 1-bit converter (just like in stereos and music centers). The reading is made by transport, being equipped with three-beam laser head.
Preview of TEAC C-1D again clearly confirmed a simple truth: it is impossible to include the component, which is noticeably inferior to the level of others, into the system with a very high musical resolution. This especially refers to the source. Do not think that we didn't like C-1D. We do, it just sounds on its dime and the test system is like a barcode-reader - shows without bias how much you should pay for its source.
Now our main expert task is not to analyze the sound C-1D from all the sides but to transfer its possibilities on the system, which will be within its depth. So, let's start with classics, with Anne-Sophie Mutter. The stage "breaths" - it becomes scaled, or gets the depth or losses the localization that, seemingly, is impossible to lose. We are trying to analyze "Newtonian binominal": on any speaker systems, which are not radiant with three-dimensional stage, these disadvantages will unlikely occur. But with smart, albeit inexpensive, monitors the errors will come out.
Next. Emma Shapplin. Somehow, with some roughness, the details make their way through a sound path and this significantly quickens the play. Tonal balance is normal, dynamics is good, vocal is expressive.
Van Der Graaf Generator in C-1D, as people say, did not work out - there are not enough sensibility and attention to details, although everything seems to be alright: bass, middle, top. But Blur and No Doubt make the heart soar by drive and the mood is not the last characteristic - it was transferred very accurately. Again we "will approximate" on the system of class lower than the tested: if the amp has a good dynamics and nuance, the detected advantages of C-1D will stay and the disadvantages may be smoothed.
And the last note. It is not important with what phase you will plug in C-1D in the socket. But you have to tinker away with the selection of interconnect cables. The main thing - do not take too expensive samples, which have maximum neutrality. It's better to try something simpler: brighter or more sonorous. Here is the case than fight fire with fire.
