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EMM Labs
CDSA SE CD Player
Cut to the
chase, the EMM Labs CDA SE is a remarkable player, arguably one of the
best one-box machines available. It has smoothness and refinement that equals
anything this side of the stratospherically priced breed.
The EMM Labs CDA SE CD/SACD Player is unique. It’s a
single-box, dual format player that doesn’t merely upsample CD audio to SACD,
it
upsamples to double the SACD standard sampling
rate.
Pop a CD into the CDSA SE and the
player up samples the 44.1 kHz it to an astonishing 5.6448MHz, making CDs sound
remarkably like SACDs. This seemingly impossible task is made possible by the
unique Meitner Digital Audio Translator (MDAT) signal processing technology.
MDAT is unlike anything the industry has seen, or heard,
before. Here’s why: Rather than address the digital signal as a series of sine
waves—as is standard convention—the MDAT-equipped CDSA SE processes (and
upsamples CD audio to DSD for conversion to analog) by dynamically adapting to
the transient nature of the musical signal. In this way, the CDSA SE is
utterly unique and singularly able to preserve the phase, frequency and dynamic
integrity of the original signal. Once you’ve heard this level of improvement in
terms of resolution, nuance and dynamic shading, there’s no going back.
Another important development that distinguishes the CDSA
SE from its competition is the world’s first and only discrete dual
differential D-to-A conversion circuit. Rather than depend on mass-market,
off-the-shelf converter chips—with all their inherent compromises and
limitations—we developed our own proprietary conversion circuitry.
This is a
monumental technical achievement. The sonic results are no less impressive. The
new conversion circuitry is utterly free from the differential non-linearity
present in every D/A chip created to date. The CDSA SE also features new
aerospace-grade composite laminate circuit boards, providing numerous
performance advantages over conventional boards:
·
Copper traces are microscopically
smooth, both top and bottom, significantly reducing skin effect issues
·
Naturally damped sandwich construction
offers superior strength and vibration resistance
·
Lower dielectric losses and superior
heat conduction ensure a more uniform temperature gradient across the circuitry,
increasing stability and longevity
All of this makes the CDSA
SE the most innovative and sophisticated CD/SACD player ever created. These
are things you can’t necessarily see. But they sure are easy to hear. See what
the reviews have to say:
“Quite simply the best
two-channel CD (and two-channel SACD) playback device of the many, many I’ve
tested in Sea Cliff over the past year. The trick to getting great digital is
reducing the multitude of distortions that came part and package with the
original transfers and players. This Ed Meitner design comes closer to that goal
than any other player I’ve heard, and does so to the point that you can listen
with pleasure, and for hours and hours!” - Harry Pearson, The Absolute
Sound, Golden Ear Award, August 2007
“A superb CD and SACD
player, it offers subtle musically natural detail, the best imaging and
soundstage I’ve heard, and excellent overall timbre without digital hardness in
the upper octaves or artificial softening of the sound. It also does a
remarkable job of salvaging bad to mediocre CDs. I could not afford it and
bought it anyway!” - Anthony Cordesman, The Absolute Sound, Golden
Ear Award, August 2007
CDSA SE Features:
• Meitner Digital Audio Translator (MDAT)
Technology
• Proprietary Dual Differential DAC Circuit
• Exclusive Composite Laminate Circuit Boards
• Remote-Controllable Polarity Inversion in the Digital Domain
• Active Power Factor Corrected (APFC) Power Supply
• Balanced and Single-Ended Outputs
• $9995
CDSA SE Reviews:
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