Philips CD960 CD-player Review

For some years, audio (and video) products made by the Dutch electronics giant Philips—the co-developer, with Sony, of the compact disc—have been sold in the U.S. under the Magnavox, Sylvania, and Philco brand names. The Philips brand itself had been absent from the American market until recently, when a number of new Philips components were introduced here. Among them is a deluxe CD player, the CD960, that offers nearly every imaginable feature.

The CD960 has separate quadruple-oversampling digital filters and digital-to-analog (d/a) converters for each channel. Most of its performance specifications are truly state of the art, including an amplitude flatness of ±0.01 dB, a phase linearity of ± 0.2 degree from 20 to 20,000 Hz, and a distortion rating of 0.0015 percent over the same range.

The outstanding performance specifications of the CD960 are complemented by the great variety of its operating features. It offers direct keypad access to any track or indexed portion on a disc, and it can be set to start playing a track at any time after its starting point. Up to twenty tracks can be programmed in one playback sequence (that number is considerably reduced if programming by index or time is also required). Any programmable sequence can also be stored in the Favorite Track Selection (FTS) memory, which retains its information, including disc identification, until erased.

Other operating modes include scan, which plays the first 10 seconds of each track before going on to the next; auto pause, which stops playback after each track until the pause button is pressed; copy pause, which inserts a 4-second interval between tracks; and single play, which plays only the current track. The repeat mode replays the entire disc, a selected track, or any selected portion of a disc.

The principal operating controls of the Philips CD960 are grouped by function, with the play, pause, stop, search, and skip buttons at the right of the front panel. An angled secondary control panel, containing the numerical keypad and the select button used for track selection and programming, extends about 1-1/4 inches out from the bottom of the player. The lower panel can also be extended further to reveal less often used controls.

The display window shows track, index, and time information in bright blue-white fluorescent numerals as well as the status of the operating controls. A button below the window toggles the display between elapsed and remaining time. Unlike any other player we have seen, the CD960 even has the disc-drawer button located in the most logical place, on the front of the drawer itself. Below the drawer are a headphone jack and its slider volume control.

The rear apron of the CD960 has three sets of signal outputs: standard analog jacks and both optical and electrical digital outputs. There are also jacks for an optional external remote control to operate the player from another room. The player is supplied with a normal wireless remote that duplicates virtually all of its controls except for play mode, Favorite Track Selection, and disc-drawer operation.

The Philips CD960, finished in black, measures 16-1/2 inches wide, 14-7/8 inches deep, and 3-7/8 inches high. It weighs 22 pounds. Price: $949.

Lab Tests

The CD960 delivered 2.07 volts per channel into an EIA-standard load from a 0-dB test signal, with a channel imbalance of 0.2 dB. Its frequency response was one of the flattest we have yet measured, within ± 0.05 dB overall from 20 to 20,000 Hz. The variations consisted entirely of high-frequency ripples above 2,000 Hz; the average playback level did not change detectably over the full range.

The 1,000-hz total harmonic distortion (thd) was 0.0024 percent at 0 dB, increasing to 0.0057 percent at — 10 dB and 0.02 percent at —20 dB. These readings were of actual harmonic components below 20,000 Hz. It was not possible to measure thd plus noise because of the presence in the output of ultrasonic signal components from the digital circuitry. While these ultrasonic components were not large enough to affect playback in any way (they measured about —70 dB, or 0.03 percent amplitude), they made it necessary to use a spectrum analyzer for our distortion measurements. We have previously encountered this same problem with other Philips-made CD players such as the Sylvania models.

The A-weighted noise from the “infinity-zero” track of a test CD was — 124 dB referred to a 0-dB level, and the dynamic range was an estimated 105 dB (the broad-band noise portion of this measurement was also obscured by the player’s ultrasonic output signals).

The measured channel separation surpassed the player’s already impressive specifications, ranging from 118 dB at 100 Hz to 109 dB at 20,000 Hz. Interchannel phase shift was zero over most of the audio range, reaching 4 degrees at 100 Hz and 0.7 degree at 20,000 Hz. The d/a converter’s linearity error at low levels was — 1.2 dB at —80 dB, — 5.4 dB at —90 dB, and — 4.5 dB at -100 dB.

The slew time of 2.4 seconds from Track 1 to Track 15 of the Philips TS4 test disc was about average for players not using a linear motor for laser slewing. The cueing accuracy was excellent, and the player had no difficulty tracking through the largest defects on the Philips TS5A test disc. The headphone volume was excellent, sufficient for very comfortable listening levels.

The CD960 excelled in its immunity to physical shock. Even hard slaps and blows with a fist on any part of its exterior did not cause audible mistracking or other effects. We were able to induce a skip only by a truly violent blow on the top plate, above the disc mechanism.

Curious about the reasons for the CD960’s considerable weight and immunity to physical impact, we removed the top cover. The chassis turned out to be a heavy, singlepiece casting, with the disc mechanism constructed on a separate cast-metal frame floating on vibration isolators. Even the top cover was made of a heavier gauge of metal than is used on most compact disc players.

Comments

Not only can the Philips CD960 do an amazing number of things (many of them quite useful), but it does them as easily and naturally as one could possibly expect from such a complex piece of equipment. This is a tribute not only to the engineering acumen of its designers but also to the talents of those who wrote its instruction manual. Rarely have we seen the instructions for such a versatile and sophisticated consumer product written so clearly and logically—in plain English. The manual tells you just what to do to achieve a desired effect, and it usually follows an instruction with a list of the proper responses to the action and possible reasons for an error indication or other undesired effect. If the same care were taken with vcr manuals, imagine how many more people would be able to program their recorders successfully!

We tried each of the many operating modes of the CD960, and they all worked exactly as they were supposed to. In fact, there was not a thing in the operation of this player that left us dissatisfied or puzzled. Possibly some users with minimal patience would wish for a fast, linear-motor drive for the laser to cut its slew time from a couple of seconds to a fraction of a second, but we did not begrudge the machine its one leisurely action, especially in view of the smoothness and silence of its operation.

Whether the Philips CD960 sounds any different from a number of other top-of-the-line CD players is debatable, but in the factors that we consider really important—such as flexibility, ease of use, state-of-the-art measured performance, immunity to external vibration, substantial construction, and similar qualities—it ranks with the very finest CD players we have had the pleasure of using.

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