AMC CD8 CD-player Review

Although CD players have been a part of the hi-fi scene for only a little over a decade, they have long since superseded the phonograph record as a prime source of recorded music and earned a place in virtually every home music system in this country.

Many of today’s CD players appear to be clones, with very similar external appearance and operating features. For the most part, only a few high-end CD players depart significantly from the norm, offering distinctive styling and more refined performance, though generally at considerably higher prices.

The AMC CD 8 represents an interesting departure from that pattern. AMC is a trademark of Weltronics Corporation. The CD8 has been designed to meet professional performance and quality standards at an affordable price. Its specifications are impressive. They include a MASH 1-bit digital-to-analog (D/A) converter with a linearity of ±0.5 dB at levels ranging from 0 to -90 dB and a signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) of 107 to 110 dB, which is substantially better than the S/N specifications of most other CD players, including some at considerably higher prices. The CD8’s other specs are typical of the best of today's CD players.

The all-black CD8 is relatively light and compact, and its front panel is simple and uncluttered, with a minimum of adornment. Its operating controls consist of eleven small round black buttons (about 3/s inch in diameter), each clearly identified by a contrasting white label. Their functions include open/close (the disc drawer accepts those hard-to-find 3-inch CD singles as well as the standard 4-3/4-inch size), play, pause, stop, program, repeat, and time. Track selection and fast search are handled by two pairs of buttons on the right side of the panel. The power switch is a slightly larger green button on the far left, with a small green pilot LED to indicate when the unit is powered.

While most CD players have rather elaborate multicolored displays, the CD8 presents just the basic information in a small (2-1/2 x 1/2-inch) yellow-green electro-luminescent window. With no disc loaded, the word disc appears in the window. After a disc is loaded, the display shows the number of tracks and the total playing time. In the play mode these are replaced by the current track’s number and elapsed time as well as the standard triangular play symbol. Although the display’s response time is somewhat leisurely compared with that of most CD players, the uncluttered window is more readily interpreted at a glance than are many larger and more complex display panels.

The CD8 can be programmed to play up to twenty-one tracks in any order. In addition, the repeat function endlessly repeats the track that is currently playing or the entire disc. The time display has three modes: elapsed time in the current track, remaining time in the current track, and remaining time on the disc.

The CD8 comes with a full-function remote control that duplicates many of its programming and operating functions. Through the remote, the player can be set to repeat a designated track segment indefinitely (A-B repeat). Although the front-panel track up/down buttons can be used to select any track, the procedure can be somewhat cumbersome since it must be done one step at a time (for example, you have to press the up button nine times to go from Track 1 to Track 10). The remote control, however, provides speedy direct access to any track via an eleven-digit numeric keypad.

All the features of the CD8 worked exactly as intended, but the response time of its transport mechanism was noticeably slower than that of most CD players when we were stepping through the tracks on a disc or using the fast-search mode.

Such idiosyncrasies seemed trivial when we measured the performance of the CD8. Its detailed performance specifications, unusual for such an inexpensive component, proved to be remarkably conservative. In fact, when we measured the low-level linearity of the D/A conversion, we suspected a flaw in our Audio Precision test equipment or setup, since the spectrum-analysis curve went below the normal lower limit of the graph (-130 dB). When we extended the range to -140 dB, it became evident that the low-frequency noise content of the CD8’s output was almost 10 dB lower than we had ever seen in all the years we have been making this measurement.

Our measurements confirmed most of the other ratings of the CD8. In fact, the only one to fall short (by an insignificant amount) was dynamic range, which is specified as 98 dB and measured “only” 93 dB! While the player’s relatively light construction makes it somewhat susceptible to physical shock on its top cover, it required some effort to induce mistracking — and in ordinary use the player was as solid as a rock.

In terms of appearance, the CD8 is rather plain, especially when compared with similarly priced models. It is also one of the few CD players in its price range (or above) to lack a headphone jack. The rear apron contains only the analog output phono jacks and a single phono jack for the digital output, should you wish to make a digital recording, use a digital signal processor, or invest in an external D/A converter (although it is hard to imagine what benefit that might provide).

Once you have read the operating instructions and familiarized yourself with the CD8’s basic features, you will find that it can do almost anything conventional higher-price players can do, and frequently better. The only sacrifice you make for the modest price of this truly state-of-the-art CD player is a headphone jack. I call that a bargain!

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