Resolution Audio Opus 21 Cd Player W/ Xs 21 Power Supply Reviews
Our Verdict
Revealing to a degree that sets information technology apart from the competition at way above its price point
For
- Hearing so much more music
- Blueprint and ergonomics
- Funky display
- Tremendous flexibility
Against
- Transport whine is an issue
TechRadar Verdict
Revealing to a degree that sets it apart from the contest at way above its toll point
Pros
- +
Hearing and then much more music
- +
Blueprint and ergonomics
- +
Funky display
- +
Tremendous flexibility
Cons
- -
Transport whine is an consequence
Resolution Audio'southward Opus 21 has been a reference CD role player for u.s. since it's introduction at the turn of the century. This diminutive two-box unit gives more than detail, dynamics and sheer musicality than most and we volition be very sorry to see information technology go.
Or, at least, we will be, if we tin't go our easily on its replacement, the Cantata Music Center.
Because not just does this new player look incredible, it also manages to up the sonic ante to an unprecedented degree.
And not just for CDs, plug your laptop in or even your home network and it can practise remarkable things for music stored on a PC or NAS drive.
Hence the Music Centre soubriquet, this is not just a discspinner, it's a fully featured UPnP 'renderer' with an asynchronous DAC that can exercise for digitally stored media what the Opus 21 did for CD.
Permanent waves
The Cantata came nearly because Resolution's Jeff Kalt wanted to build an iTunes client into the XS (actress sources) box that forms part of the Opus 21 series. He ended upwardly existence frustrated by the limitations of air tunes – specifically its 16-fleck/44.1kHz maximum resolution, so he started working on a streamer, CD player and USB DAC that turned into the Cantata.
While this unit retains the same 1704 multibit ladder DAC equally the Opus 21 and the aforementioned basic circuit design, information technology doesn't accept many other similarities to its predecessor. The almost obvious change is the casework, which is both radical and cute.
Machined from solid aluminium, information technology is designed to offer a significant improvement in resonance control over the sheet metal Opus 21, while also offering a large heatsink for the components within the player.
Jeff actually worked with the Neal Feay Company to come with what he describes every bit "an aesthetic that is softer, perhaps more organic, than traditional machined designs." The instance is 1 reason why the Cantata is fifty per cent more expensive than its predecessor, but the other companies that use metalwork from this source all charge significantly more – just wait up Constellation Audio and you'll get the picture.
The meaning engineering here is the degree of isolation that has been achieved inside this auto. Jeff has finer floated the DAC, so that it but grounds to the amplifier and is magnetically isolated from the power supply, internal transport, display and all of the digital sources (including USB and the host computer).
He has also developed his ain asynchronous USB software for connecting computers to the DAC. It works by pulling the bespeak from the estimator rather than the other way around, so the DAC controls the menstruum of information and provides clocking with its own precision clock.
This makes USB a potentially amend conduit than Southward/PDIF because jitter tin be nearly eliminated by the interface.
The Cantata'due south output connections no longer feature a DIN socket, just come in single-concluded XLR and RCA flavours, both of which are volume controllable. So you lot can hook this unit straight to a power amp or active speaker system and apply the onboard analogue volume control.
Alternatively if y'all want to utilize a preamp or integrated amp, then just set up the level to 100 and bypass the attenuator.
Inputs are actually what the Cantata is about and why it is dubbed a Music Eye. You tin can hook up external sources via South/PDIF in three flavours, USB and Ethernet which means that any source with a digital output can exist accommodated.
Resolution Audio too makes a device called the Pont Neuf, that converts USB to Ethernet and gives y'all much more than range than USB, which Resolution recommends keeping to a maximum of ii metres.
The transport used is a Sony device that slot-loads on the right paw side of the player. It's well hidden, simply not hard to find.
Jeff did speculate about having the slot emit a white calorie-free, but changed his heed (more's the compassion). Information technology's a loftier-speed drive just information technology'south not totally silent – which can be an event when listening to tranquility material belatedly at dark.
The dot-matrix display is particularly prissy in the context of the drilled-out fascia, it tells you lot the sample rate of incoming signals unless information technology's spinning a disc, in which case rails time and number are shown. It can be dimmed or extinguished, but looks best at its lowest effulgence.
Tactile
The quality of machining on this casework has to exist seen and fondled to be fully appreciated, information technology is something else. Whether you like the styling is plainly a matter of taste, but in our view information technology makes a refreshing change to the ubiquitous cooling fins found on every other high-end component.
It is a solid, but compact piece that'south only 230 millimetres deep and fifty millimetres high. This makes information technology like shooting fish in a barrel to adjust, but non, perhaps, every bit bulky equally one might hope for the coin. This, notwithstanding, has always been RA's approach, keep the metalwork and the indicate path to the minimum and you lot will get ameliorate sound, which is clearly the case here.
The remote is a basic plastic affair, but it'due south a defended device that allows input choice, rails select and volume control in an ergonomic if relatively ho-hum fashion. More important is that it has an eject button, something sorely missed on the Opus 21.
Information technology doesn't have a swell deal of competition, but the nigh obvious comes from Naim, whose NaimUniti and UnitiQute perform in a very like way – both are also wireless devices. For his function Jeff doesn't like mixing wireless receivers with audio electronics and the sound quality he achieves would seem to brand a expert case for this argument.
That said the Cantata is more than expensive than either Naim streamer, so it has its work cutting out in the existent globe. The alternative, of course, is to go for a standalone streamer and histrion just we haven't heard a player of this standard for less money let lone 1 with a USB DAC.
Source: https://www.techradar.com/reviews/audio-visual/hi-fi-and-audio/audio-systems/resolution-audio-cantata-704024/review
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