Disc Players

Densen B-420XS Naim-esque Dane with a sublime design and stunning remote is high on pace and energy In many respects Densen is Denmark’s answer to Naim; it eschews feature counting, but provides upgradeable power supplies on its amplifiers and emphasises that audio components should be all about enjoying the music. We couldn’t agree more with that sentiment, so the question is; does this latest version of the company’s midrange player provide enough entertainment to warrant its asking price? One factor that you have to consider when it comes to price is he remote handset. The Gizmo, as its dubbed, adds £150 to the cost of the player so is not a minor consideration. It is beautiful, but a plastic ‘freebie’ could be just as practical in this day and age.

A welcome blast from the past, Exposure’s new XM CD shows there’s still plenty of life left in compact disc yet

Super talented digital source that brings together CD playback and network audio streaming

Marantz SA8003 - £829 Marantz's reputation for its own 'house sound' is on show here with a player that fares well against the competition Marantz used to append the great man’s initials to models ‘breathed on’ by Ken Ishiwata, but there’s nothing in the nomenclature to give that away here. In fact, this is basically a souped-up SA7003, sharing a basic spec, but adding touches like the copper-plated chassis, toroidal mains transformer and a sprinkling of audiophile passive components. Speaking of components, this player is decidedly old-fashioned-looking inside, with the majority of electronic parts being through-hole types. There are quite a lot of discrete transistors around, made up into Marantz’s trademark HDAM circuit, which performs the same function as the more common op-amp chips, but (we’re assured) to a higher standard.

Masterful multitasker The new UD7006 universal from Marantz plays just about every digital disc you could name. Richard Black asks if more means merrier The term ‘universal’, as applied to pretty much anything in home electronics, is generally only valid for a few minutes these days. No sooner is a ‘universal’ player on the market than some new format, specification or system is launched which is beyond its ken. That said, we can’t actually think of anything this player won’t do.

Pushing the limit Jason Kennedy looks at Meridian’s £10,000 top-of-the range CD player and asks if we are approaching the performance limits of Red Book CD Meridian has been at the forefront of CD player technology since 1984 and the 808. 3 is its flagship disc spinner, so no digital stone has been left unturned in the quest to make its third incarnation the ultimate. As early pioneers in technology to reduce the ‘ringing effect’ of conventional digital filters, the 808. 3 makes use of the latest apodising filters and resolution enhancement DSP technology.

Micromega CD-10 - £820 It has a limited repertoire, but this player still divides opinion on its performance abilities Micromega’s name was made with mid-price CD players, and the company continues to enjoy a high reputation for such devices. As the baby of the range, this model doesn’t do anything particularly surprising, but it’s clearly a carefully designed piece of kit. Micromega makes particular mention of the power supply arrangements, which start with an R-core transformer. The R-core design originated in far-Eastern budget audio, but as Micromega points out, one of its characteristics is a rather narrow frequency band, which isn’t ideal for all applications but, in low-power equipment like CD players, it effectively contributes a degree of mains filtering.