CD Player/Transport Reviews

Sample 2 Auditioning, from March 2017 (Vol.40 No.3)

At first glance, EAR's Acute Classic CD player ($6795) offers a great deal: USB input, 24-bit/192kHz Wolfson DAC, tubed gain stage, custom output transformers, and the pedigree of having been designed by Tim de Paravicini, one of audio engineering's true giants (literally as well as figuratively: he's exceedingly tall). All that plus casework that's as pretty as it is reasonably sized (17" wide by 3" high by 12" deep, and weighing less than 18 lbs), and a price that, while not cheerfully cheap, is not beyond the credit limits of mortal men and women.

Thus my very real disappointment when the Acute Classic review sample endowed one after another recording with "grainy and ultimately edgy trebles"—quirks with apparent possible corollaries in the measurements, by John Atkinson, that accompanied my review.

Tim de Paravicini responded to that review by noting that some of JA's findings weren't consistent with an up-to-spec Acute Classic. By mid-December, JA received from EAR USA a second review sample, which he confirmed behaved differently enough from the first to warrant another listen—and so sent it on to me after performing a complete set of measurements.

After a few hours of running-in the EAR with the volume turned down, I sat down for an afternoon of serious listening. If the first sample of the Acute Classic was an out-of-control terrier, the second sample was the same dog after a couple of months at obedience school: It still had a good measure of energetic charm, but unlike before, never to excess: that energy was now under control.

With the second sample, I began by listening to XTC's Skylarking (CD, Geffen/Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab UDCD 615), partly because it was what I felt like hearing, partly because the recording is a bit bright and I wanted to hear how that quality would fare through the new review sample. I first listened to a couple of selections through my Sony SCD-777ES SACD/CD player, then repeated them through the EAR, and was delighted to hear, in the strings in "1000 Umbrellas," abundant texture and crisp note attacks—but not too crisp. Not only was the sound obviously more detailed through the EAR than the Sony, there was also greater musical incisiveness: more drive, more momentum, and sharper note attacks—but, again, not too sharp.

While in the mood for thoughtful, quasi-progressive UK rock—inspired, at least in part, by Jon Iverson's mention of Stand Up in his review of the Auralic Altair, elsewhere in this issue—I turned to Jethro Tull: specifically, "Witches Promise," from the surprisingly consistent odd-socks collection Living in the Past (2 CDs, Chrysalis/Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab UDCD 2-708). This is another brightish recording, and the second sample of the Acute Classic again communicated that, but without going overboard to make the music unlistenable. At times, drummer Clive Bunker's ride cymbal bordered on the relentless, but no more so than through my Sony player. And there was no excess of artificial-sounding grain, the likes of which I heard from so many CDs played on the first EAR sample.

It was time to revisit some of the selections with which the first Acute Classic disappointed, so I began with the Del McCoury Band's recording of "1952 Vincent Black Lightning," from Del and the Boys (Ceili Music CEIL 2006), focusing in particular on the sound of Del's lead vocal. What once was aggressive was now simply forward and punchy and vivid—listenably so. And once again, the new EAR sample impressed with its terrific momentum and drive.

And the voices—and the flutes!—in Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde, with mezzo-soprano Michelle DeYoung, tenor Jon Villars, and the Minnesota Orchestra, conducted by Eiji Oue (CD, Reference RR-88CD), were no longer overbearing: the flutes sounded like the bright, silvery things they are, but no brighter and no more silvery than that. And the chord at the end of "The Drinking Song of the Earth's Sorrow" was to die for: big, forceful, and cutting—but not crunchy. Indeed, although I intended to listen to only a few brief snippets from this fine if forward-sounding recording, its sound through the new EAR—big, vivid, realistically textured, and colorful—compelled me to listen to the whole thing.

And that kind of says it all: While there were moments with the first Acute Classic sample when I would happily have packed it away and sent it back, the second sample kept me coming back for more, and as afternoon turned into evening, my wife and I enjoyed disc after disc for hours on end.

The next day I got out my AudioQuest NightHawks to check the new sample's headphone amp—and heard a categorically similar smoothing of rough edges, perhaps to an even greater degree than the improvements described above. Gene Ammons's Boss Tenor (CD, Prestige/JVC JVCXR-0033-2), which I recalled sounding especially edgy through EAR sample one, was now a delight. And with that treble stridency no longer in the way, I could relax and appreciate details both musical (the timing of Ray Barretto's congas in "Hittin' the Jug") and sonic (is it just me, or is all of the saxophone's reverb in that number in the right channel, even though the instrument itself is in the left?).

Make no mistake: Even this second sample of the Acute Classic could never be described as anything but a player whose sound is vivid, up-front, and detailed. It could sound crisp when called for, as with note attacks on flatpicked guitars and mandolins; and through it, flutes and brass had metal. All of those qualities were in realistic full measure—but they didn't cross the line.

Evidently, there was something awry in that first Acute Classic that did push those sounds over that line. With that idiosyncrasy out of the way, the EAR player goes from being one I can't recommend to one that seems a bargain, compared to the ca $10,000 players I've been reviewing of late—and one that I can keenly recommend.—Art Dudley