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For sell famous Classe CDP-1 in very good condition with HDCD option.Remote control and original box.Pictures upon request.Local pick up are welcome.
Classe CDP-1
Classe CDP-1 Integrated CD Player
James W. Durkin review in Ultimate Audio Vol.2 No.3
Slow fade into fall has me contemplating the seasons. You see audio too has its seasons, and their dominant winds very much shape our equipment environment. After years of a DAC-of-the-Month club atmosphere predominating in digital audio, with its ceaseless stream of DACs, transports, cables and jitter reduction boxes, the comparative simplicity and sanity of integrated digital solutions is back in vogue.
Given the focus of today's marketplace, and treating the rumblings of new digital formats as the distant noise they really are, we're arguably fully into the season of the high-performance single-box CD player. The abundance of single-box digital standouts isn't the result of some sudden shift; it really began several years ago with product introductions from digital stalwarts such as Krell, Meridian and Wadia. Canada's Classe Audio was as much in the vanguard as any, however, and the Classe CDP-1 is among the fruits of its efforts.
Classe Audio isn't a name that springs immediately to mind when ticking off digital trendsetters. Although the company has been in business for nearly two decades, and is one of the larger speciality audio manufacturers in North America, it has built its reputation on its amplification products, designs that provide much (some say all) of the performance of the industry's best solid-state designs at a markedly lower price.
Digital didn't enter into the company's product mix until 1995. Classe, however, prides itself on the continuity of their product line (today's successful CA/CP series amplifiers and preamplifiers are the direct descendants of the early David Reich designed DR series models) and introduces new and updated products with care. The surprise is not that it took Classes long to dip its toe into digital waters, but that it has done so with such success.
Classe's first digital products, the DAC-1 digital-to-analog converter and the CDT-1 CD transport, turned heads in the industry with a performance that compared favorably with units costing two to three times their price. Following on the heels of its digital separates came the CDP-1 integrated player, which endeavors to offer as much of the performance of its older cousins as is practicable in one box. Later, the CDP-.5 and CDP-.3 models fleshed out the line's lower price points. Just recently Classe entered the home theater arena with the SSP-50 surround-sound processor/preamplifier.
...OF RHYTHM...
First impressions matter in audio. Some audiophiles (and more than a few reviewers) would have you believe a component's sound is sufficiently malleable that, given sufficient break-in time and/or proper component matching, one can capitalize on or eliminate almost any of its sonic characteristics. While a component's sound can change with time, through warm-up, break-in or simple listener adaptation (system matching certainly can't be discounted), I've rarely found a component that loses the sonic characteristic most evident upon first listen. This fundamental character will still be there years down the road, even if its impact grows somewhat diminished, so it's essential to keep that first impression clearly in mind when deciding how well a component serves the truth of the music and whether it matches one's sonic taste.
What impression did the CDP-1 give right of the box (after a suitable period in standby mode to warm up the works)? The thing that struck me first and most strongly was how much the CDP-1 resembled my Theta Digital separates. Theta products have a reputation for an outstanding sense of pace. Some attribute this to an inflated low end, saying it gives an unnatural emphasis to the percussion and bass instruments that typically carry the rhythmic line. In my opinion, it's an absence of the anemic bass that plagues some CD players, in combination with clean, crisp resolution of transients that accounts for Theta's presentation of music that floats upon, and is driven forward by, a rhythmic cushion.
The CDP-1 shares this same rhythmic rightness and, if anything, improves upon it slightly by not being quite as "in your face" as the Theta gear sometimes is. Give Glen Velez's Internal Combustion (CMP Records CD 23) a try for a fun; although slightly off the beaten track, it illustrates the CDP-1's crisp rendition of rhythmic elements. Velez, known for his work as a percussionist with the Paul Winter Consort and as part of the trio behind the Mokave titles released by Audioquest, teams here with Layne Redmond on a series of multicultural improvisational pieces using various frame drums. On the title track, Velez and Redmond improvise widely around a strong central theme. No matter how far afield they venture, the CDP-1 maintains the elements of that inner theme, which drives the music steadily, relentlessly forward.
... AND RESOLUTION ...
An equally strong characteristic of the CDP-1's sound, but one that reveals itself less dramatically, is its resolution of fine detail. A component's resolving power has become a bit of a reviewing cliche, so I use it with some reluctance. But in all fairness, a digital component's ability to resolve subtle detail is a large part of what separates the good from the bad and the truly stellar from the merely competent. That the CDP-1 excels in this area isn't terribly surprising, as UltraAnalog-based digital products tend to be among the best at it.
What makes this element of the sound so fetching, and also what accounts for the characteristic not jumping out and calling immediate attention to itself, is the complete lack of an etched or highlighted quality to the presentation of detail. By way of analogy, consider viewing the musical scene in front of you through an intervening pane of glass. Some products provide an enhanced sense of detail simply by shining a brighter light on the musical scene; the CDP-1, by contrast, does so by offering a cleaner window through which to view the scene under its natural illumination. Both approaches arguably achieve similar results, but the former can make highlighted details overly forward and at times oppressive, while the CDP-1's method does so in a way that is ultimately more natural and that never becomes grating over time.
The detail resolution manifests itself quite noticeably in well recorded, large scale orchestral music. Where poorer performing digital gear can present the orchestra with a homogeneity that almost makes you wonder just why they need 80 people all playing the very same instrument, the CDP-1 presents each instrument section in clear detail. On particularly well recorded material, you can discern the subtle differences between instruments and in playing styles within each individual section. Small group acoustic jazz benefits from this cleaner window approach too, with the subtle changes in phrasing that mark the medium easily heard without the listener straining to locate them.
Complex vocal arrangements are particularly well served by the CDP-1's rendition of subtle low-level detail. For a telling example of the CDP-1's fine hand with the human voice, take The Baltimore Consort's recording of early Scottish music, On The Banks Of The Helicon (Dorian DOR-90139). In the song "My heartly service", Custer LaRue and Alice Kosloski carry out a complex interplay, with the vocal line bouncing back and forth from one to the other, ending in two-part harmony, then cycling back to individual parts again, all to the accompaniment of the broken consort instrumentation of the group's other members. The subtle tonal shifts and distinct vocalizations of the pair are a joy to behold. Without the CDP-1's excellent resolution of these details, the otherwise fairly understandable Scots dialect of the song fades into so much gibberish.
The CDP-1's presentation of the tonal spectrum is largely true to life. The unit's bass is full and strong, but in no way overblown. Large drums and lower brass in orchestral pieces are rendered with an authority that provides a solid foundation for the orchestra's other instruments. In rock and jazz recordings, both electric and acoustic bass are handled similarly well. Its midrange has a silkiness, a lack of grain if you will, that gives female voice a smooth, analog-like quality. It's not what I would term lush, however, so fans of a classic tube sound may not be completely satisfied. In pleasant contrast to many integrated players I've heard, the CDP-1's highs neither suffer from the biting brightness that often makes inexpensive digital so non-musical, nor are muted in a way that makes CDs listenable, regardless of the source material, but rarely realistic-sounding.
My only real complaint with this player's tonal presentation is that the treble isn't the last word in clarity. The timbre of violins, for instance, isn't quite right. They lack that last bit of shimmer and shine that the instrument's overtones provide, and are instead presented with a minor touch of glare that leaves them a hair short of sounding true. To be fair to the Classe, not many digital components get this aspect just right, with my Theta separates faring about as well. A notable exception are the Mark Levinson digital components, which possess a string tone I've yet to hear equalled. Still, I'm nit-picking; the Classe is never less than listenable, even on orchestral material heavily dominated by massed strings. On the whole, the CDP-1 delivers pretty much what's on the recording, with a commendable degree of neutrality.
The player's presentation of spatial information is in the same league as its rendition of the tonal spectrum. If the recording contains a real sense of space, the CDP-1 will offer it up with a full measure of width and depth. None of the 2-D pancaking of lesser designs is here to spoil the sense of instruments and performers arrayed in a realistic space. In comparison with digital's best, usually in the form of more expensive separates, the CDP-1 does give up a little. The soundstage won't push back your listening room's walls nor is the recording space rendered with truly holographic precision. The player also brings the whole soundstage forward some, pretty consistently providing a "front half of the hall" perspective to recordings. But in this last respect, I'm like an audiophile Goldilocks, still searching for the CD player that's "just right", neither pulling the soundstage too forward nor pushing it too far back.
.... AND DYNAMICS
In addition to the outstanding sense of pace and stellar resolution of detail, the other characteristic that defines the CDP1's sound is its excellent handling of musical dynamics, with the loudest and quietest passages handled with equal aplomb. The unit seems to possess an extremely low noise floor, with both digital and recorded silences providing a pitch-black background from which the music arises. It isn't just the extremes that impress, but also the CDP-1's extremely continuous, rather than some player's occasionally discrete, delivery of all the dynamic levels in between.
The exquisite handling of dynamics extends beyond just having a wide, continuous range. The portrayal of dynamic contrast is equally good. Differences in level, both subtle and substantial, such as that presented by an orchestra working its way inexorably towards a climax, are rendered such that no part of the dynamic spectrum comes up short. But possibly of more importance is the CDP-1's presentation of dynamic complexity. When one section of the orchestra is playing at nearly constant volume, with only the subtlest of dynamic shifts, and another section is shifting levels dramatically, this player will allow you to easily follow both lines without any part of the whole getting lost. To hear how well the CDP-1 deals with a wide variety of dynamic shading, listen to the Everest CD reissue of Eugene Goossens conducting the London Symphony Orchestra in Stravinsky's Petrouchka (Everest EVC 9042). In the opening "Shrovetide Fair" section of the "First Tableau" every part of the orchestra - strings, brass, percussion, woodwinds and even harp - range from featherlight to fanfare-bold in their dynamics. The CDP-1 presents each part, and each shift between parts, with an absolute clarity. Nothing is shortchanged. Given the essential role played by such dynamic contrasts in orchestral music, saying the CDP-1's portrayal is complete and proper is as high a complement as you can pay a component.
SIMPLICITY DOESN'T MEAN SACRIFICE
That I think highly of the Classe CDP-1 should be, I think, abundantly clear. The player does some very important things extremely well - namely its handling of pace, resolution and dynamics - and most everything else more than competently. Given its strengths, and the lack of any significant weakness, anyone considering a high-performance integrated CD player should make time for an audition.
Not having spent nearly as much time with other contenders in this class, such as the well regarded Meridian 508.24 and Mark Levinson No. 39, as I have with the CDP-1, I won't lay a best-of-breed title on any. But the Classe's complement of standout characteristics suits my own taste extremely well, and I suspect they will match many others' likes just as surely. One thing I can say with certainty is that you'll have to climb way up the price ladder to put together a separates-based digital system that improves dramatically on today's best single-box offerings, with the CDP-1 certainly firmly in that realm. For today, anyway, simplicity wins the field.
All Prices are in Canadian Dollars
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