EMM Labs CDSA single-box CD / SACD player

We should be getting our own EMM Labs CDSA player in here in a few days.

Can’t wait! 🙂

It has a lot of the same technology that its bigger brother, the CDSD Signature Edition (SE) transport and DCC2 Signature Edition (SE) DAC pair, have but in a single chassis.

Sonically they are supposed to be very, very close. We’ll see, but it makes sense. There are advantages and disadvantages, again sonically, to having everything in the same box.

At around $10K, this is a great deal. Doesn’t have the built-in preamplifier or support for the myriad of inputs that the big DCC2 has, so it is not for everybody. We, for example, love the built-in pre of the DCC2, and use it most of the time – just not when we are running into the Audio Note Ongaku integrated amp or M10 linestage 🙂 . Or the Lamm L2 linestage for that matter.

We, of course, will have photos when we get it here, and reports about how it sounds during break-in. It looks just like you would think it would look (as seen in our RMAF show report last fall)… like the CDSD but with buttons on the front panel like the DCC2.

As far as we can see, this player puts to shame all solid-state competitors anywhere near this price range. Maybe, MAYBE you can get more sound by going with the $40K+ DCS or Esoteric digital combos… one might hope so, and they certainly have our respect.

But it would sure be nice to do a shootout between all these on a decent system (for a change), by people who care about subtle differences (ditto), who let the components warm up for a day or so (*sigh*), and who give the components the can-I-live-with-it-long-term-or-do-I-just-end-up-playing-vinyl-all-the-time-cause-I-think-all-digital-sucks-anyway test (which rules out the efficacy of the rest of the digital shootouts out there).