Yamaha CD-X1 CD-player Review

Yamaha’s “second-generation” Compact Disc player, the CD-X1, is less than half the price, less than a third the weight, and about half the size of its first-generation predecessor, the CD-1. It is, in fact, one of the most compact and least expensive CD players we have seen. The styling is very clean and simple, the controls easy to use.

A major contributor to the CD-X1’s size and price “shrinkage” is the use of two high-density large-scale integrated circuits (LSI’s) designed by Yamaha specifically for this application. Together they replace many of the IC chips and other discrete components used in the CD-1, and they perform many of the most complex functions involved in playing digital discs—including control of disc speed, laser focus, and tracking servos as well as demodulation and error correction of the digital audio data stream. One of the chips also includes a digital filter stage operating at twice the standard sampling frequency, 88.2 kHz instead of 44.1 kHz, which makes it possible to use simpler analog-output low-pass filters to minimize noise, distortion, and high-frequency phase shift.

Besides the new LSI’s, the CD-X1 has a compact new three-beam laser pickup, and molded plastic parts have replaced many of the heavy, more expensive metal castings or stampings of the first-generation CD players.

The unit’s outside dimensions are 13-3/8 x 11-3/8 x 3-5/8 inches, and its weight is just under 8 pounds. Price: $599.

Lab Tests

The CD-X1 reproduced a 1,000-Hz square wave with a few cycles of low-level 20,000-Hz ringing on its leading edge and a much smaller-amplitude ringing on its trailing edge. This result is characteristic of CD players that use digital filters for at least part of the required low-pass filtering of their outputs.

The phase shift between the channels, essentially zero at lower frequencies, reached 5 degrees at 2,500 Hz, 18 degrees at 10,000 Hz, and 32 degrees at 20,000 Hz. This is somewhat less interchannel phase shift than we have measured from other CD players, the reason being that the unit’s single digital-to-analog converter is multiplexed between the left and right channels twice as often as usual since the sampling rate has been doubled. The effect is totally inaudible.

One of the most striking areas of improvement in CD players since they were first introduced last year has been in their error-correction and tracking-servo circuits, which are crucial determinants of a machine’s ability to play defective or damaged discs. The Yamaha CD-X1 was able to play all of the Philips TS4A error-correction/tracking test disc.

Related to the ability to play defective or damaged discs is a machine’s ability to withstand physical impact without “detracking” (the CD equivalent of a skipped groove). Every CD player will skip a portion of the disc it is playing (or even stop entirely) if it is jarred or struck hard enough, but many units are especially sensitive to such ill treatment. In this respect the CD-X1 proved to be one of the best we have tested. Even moderately hard raps on the top or side of the cabinet failed to cause detracking.

We assessed the player’s cueing accuracy by noting the precision with which it could cue to a specific track on the test disc that has virtually no separation between it and the preceding track. Most players we have used will clip at least a part of the first note or syllable of the second track in this test, and we found the CD-X1 to be somewhat better than average (if not quite perfect) in this respect.

Comments

Each CD player has its individual operating characteristics, generally related to the amount of programming flexibility it offers. Although the CD-X1 cannot be programmed according to either time or recorded index locations within tracks, unless you need these particular capabilities it is more than flexible enough to satisfy any reasonable user. We found it a very easy, logical machine to operate as well as amazingly light and compact—it could hardly be any smaller without undesirable crowding of the operating controls and indicators.

With a much more affordable price than the first-generation CD players and a listening quality essentially equivalent to that of any other we have tested, it’s clear that Yamaha’s CD-X1 is a very attractive new entry into the market.

Read all

Yamaha reviews

Read all