CD / SACD players and transports — YBA HERITAGE CD100

YBA of France built the Heritage CD100 CD player with a brushed aluminium chassis finished in black or silver, and the model now sits among the maker's discontinued products. Supported discs are standard CDs plus CD-R and CD-RW, and the player also offers a USB input so that a computer can use its converter. The case is 430 mm wide, 118 mm high and 372 mm deep, and the player weighs 5.7 kg.

Key specs that matter

A Wolfson WM8740 chip, rated for 24-bit and 192 kHz signals, does the conversion. The gold-plated RCA output delivers 2 V and the XLR output 4 V. Noise performance is rated at 108 dB SNR via RCA and 113 dB via XLR. Frequency response spans 20 Hz to 20 kHz, and THD+N is kept below 0.001%. A coaxial digital output and a coaxial digital input sit next to the USB port, so the player can pass its data stream on or convert another source.

Engineering and use context

A switch marked SRC turns on an upsampling circuit that converts the incoming data to the converter's maximum rate before the digital to analogue stage. The transport controls are toggle switches in place of the usual push buttons. The disc drive is a Philips CD80 mechanism. Its linear mains supply is fed by an R-Core transformer, and the main power switch is placed beneath the chassis rather than on the front. There is no optical input on the CD100, a connection YBA only added with the successor model, which kept the same case size while its weight rose to 7.9 kg. The front panel display uses burnt-orange characters on black, and IR input and output connections on the rear allow the player to be integrated into custom installation control systems.

Pairing

For an amplifier fitted with balanced inputs, the XLR sockets give the better rated signal-to-noise ratio and the higher output level, and amplifiers with only single-ended connections take the RCA pair. With a laptop on the USB port, a streamer or television wired to the coaxial input and discs in the transport, the CD100 can act as the single digital hub of a compact stereo system.

Alternatives

The later YBA Heritage CD200 keeps the Philips CD80 drive but moves to a Cirrus Logic WM8741 converter and an XMOS XU208 USB input with DSD64 support.