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Description: MCD1000 CD Transport. The MCD1000 is exactly what its name implies, a CD drive. Built according to the company’s long tradition, it is extremely solid and designed to remain an attractive proposition for years to come and to survive many fashion changes. Unlike cheaper solutions, its glass fascia is split into three sections. The middle one contains the disc tray and protruding display. The tray has no special front cover so we see the tray itself made from cast aluminum beautifully finished. The display is small and contains a track calendar but I really do not understand why it couldn’t be the type of big legible display that was installed in the partnering DAC. The back light behind the controls is classic McIntosh green and the light is supplied via optic fiber to prevent the front panel from getting hot and protect the varnish. The side panels are locked-in aluminum rails. Since the late 90s, those have increased in size. McIntosh began with flat elements which have now grown to being almost square in cross section. The top cover too is special, a thick aluminum sheet placed atop a glass cover. A window in the aluminum layer looks at a block diagram drawn on the glass below for a look similar to Nagra. Closer to the front there is a large aluminum McIntosh logo placed on a gold-plated decal for a nice contrast with the otherwise black enclosure.
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On the back we see a variety of digital outputs – 1 x XLR, 2 x RCA and 2 x TOSLINK. As we learn from the manual, the output signal conforms to the 16/44.1 disc format. Many companies upsample already in the transport. I talked to the head of the German Audionet company some time ago who laughed at that. Being an engineer, he used proven standards and available knowledge on transmission linetheory to state that the higher the sampling frequency, the “bigger” the signal and hence, the more prone to distortion. It is better to transmit the signal in its native form and upsample it in the DAC. So McIntosh employs engineers who use such available knowledge.
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Besides the mentioned outputs, we can also find communication ports for various Mac units and an IEC power inlet. Let’s add a set of small ventilation holes in the top cover which is interesting when many companies like Accuphase and Luxman with its newest and fantastic D-08 player do everything possible to restrict outside airflow from entering to protect the laser lens from external light and dust. Opening the top cover, I was incredibly curious to learn what kind of sled McIntosh had used. In their older transport, they ran the phenomenal TEAC VRDS although they were not eager to disclose that information in their company materials. But because the most expensive source from the Americans now plays no SACDs, they probably searched for the best dedicated RedBook-only drive. And the player encloses a big drive splendidly isolated from vibrations. I was simply surprised to find a Linn Ikemi drive albeit with McIntosh modifications. This sled incorporates read, decode and certain mechanical parts from Sony. This is surprising. The MCD1000 is tall so the VRDS Neo would have fit easily. But the new TEAC drives are SACD and DVD capable and no longer pure CD.
The Mac improvements to the Linn are mostly to the mechanical isolation of the drive which gets suspended on pillars to lower the center of gravity. The metallic frame is rigid and big. The motors employed for every part of the mechanism are sizeable too. The power supply is based on a big R-core transformer to suffer the lowest magnetic losses of any transformer geometry. It has four secondary windings rectified and filtered by Rubycon Muse capacitors. The signal path is short and we find a nice thermally compensated clock. Everything looks professional and suggests that it will last for years. But I am surprised by one other item besides the display: why the heck did they not use a proprietary data transfer link between the MCD1000 and MDA1000 to eliminate jitter, which is quite high for AES/EBU and S/PDIF interfaces? I²S would suffice. And the parent company D&M Holding also owns the Denon brand, which in my opinion has the best way of transmitting digital signals (including DSD) called Denon Link. On the other hand, I remind myself of the phenomenal CDT-777 and DAP-999EX Reimyo separates which use a single S/PDIF cable to not seem harmed a bit.
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MDA1000: The MDA1000 DAC looks similar to the transport but not identical. The front also is made of glass, backlit and split into three sections. The middle one replaces the tray with a big green and highly legible display. It displays chosen input, output level (if we activate the variable output in the menu) and sampling frequency. To the left we have a big 7-detent knob for input selection and a volume knob to the right. There is also a setup and power button. Setup can change input names from a list but you can’t compose your own. The top cover is similar to the transport’s but the block diagram differs to show a 24/768 upsampling block after the input receiver section. I have seen such high upsampling values previously only in Cary Audio’s CDP1 for example. Next we have two balanced stereo 24-192 D/A converters per channel followed by the I/V conversion circuitry and finally the output amplifiers and relays. Between those sits a balanced analog signal damper, which can be bypassed by relay since the MDA1000 offers volume control. When we choose the variable outputs, level can be set anywhere from 0 to 6 volts. The fixed output applies the 2V standard. The design is fully balanced and the RCA outputs are de-symmetrized post I/V conversion. There are seven inputs—three optical, three RCA and one AES/EBU—and balanced and unbalanced outputs plus the Mac communication ports and IEC socket. The back plate is made from thick sheet metal.
The insides are as beautiful as the drive’s. The circuitry is mounted on one big suspended PCB whose supports also make the assembly more rigid. On one end we have the input circuit with a modern Cirrus Logic CS8416 receiver (which accepts sampling frequencies up to 192kHz to not have me understand why it was limited to 96kHz here- the 192kHz available for example from the Blacknote DSS 30 Tube will not be accepted). Then we see a well-implemented power supply with a Kitamura Kiden R-core transformer as in the transport, also with many secondaries. This section contains the upsampler covered by a shield to have me unsure whether it is a custom-programmable DSP or stock solution. I think it custom by its frequency. On the other end of the PCB sit the audio circuits. At the beginning further shields cover the paralleled Burr Brown 24/192 DACs just like at Accuphase. Behind those are Burr Brown OP2134 operational amps, one per channel for the I/V conversion. Then we see contactrons (switching elements superior to relays) and big BurrBrown PGA2310 chips for digitally controlled analog resistor ladders. Those are followed by two NE5532 filters for 3rd-order Butterworth slopes—four of the same ICs are to be found in the amplifying section—and finally nice big output transistors, bipolar pairs of 2SC4793+2SA1837 capable of driving reasonably sized loudspeakers. Splendid passive elements like Wima and ERO polypropylene capacitors and tantalum precision capacitors are used throughout. All contactron-switched outputs are gold-plated. Both machines integrate a small line filter with their IEC power inlets. The player comes with a big system remote also capable of controlling all other McIntosh devices. Technical data for the MDA1000 according to McIntosh are:
Frequency response:
4Hz – 45kHz (-0.5dB, sampling frequency 96kHz and 88.2kHz)
4Hz – 22kHz (-0.3dB, sampling frequency 48kHz)
4Hz – 20kHz (-0.3dB, sampling frequency 44.1kHz)
4Hz – 15kHz (-0.3 dB, sampling frequency 32kHz)
THD: 0.002%/ @ 1kHz
S/N ratio (weighted): >110dB
Dynamics: >100 dB (1kHz)
Output voltage:
RCA/XLR – 2V (fixed)
RCA/XLR – 0 to 6V (variable)
Sampling frequency: 96kHz, 88.2kHz, 48kHz, 44.1kHz and 32kHz
Dimensions (H x W x D, with feet and knobs): 152 x 445 x 410mm
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opinia @ highfidelity.pl |
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