CD / SACD players and transports — ToneWinner TY-1CD

The TY-1CD is a CD player from Tone Winner, the Guangzhou manufacturer that has designed and built audio products for more than 30 years. Its chassis pairs a dull-polished silver aluminium centre section with brushed black aluminium sides. It plays commercial CD, HDCD, CD-R and CD-RW, the CD layer of hybrid SACDs, and MP3 and WMA discs, and it has both analogue and digital outputs.

Key specs that matter

An ESS ES9028 DAC converts the signal at up to 32-bit/384 kHz, followed by OPA1632 and OPA1612 operational amplifiers in the output stage. Reference output is 2 V (+/-1 dB at 1 kHz), THD is 0.002% or lower, signal-to-noise is 110 dB or better (A-weighted), crosstalk is at least 105 dB and channel imbalance no more than 1 dB. Frequency response is 20 Hz to 20 kHz (+0/-1 dB). The analogue outputs are one balanced XLR pair and two RCA pairs, and the digital outputs are coaxial and optical. The player weighs 10.75 kg.

Engineering and use context

A custom mechanism, selected and tested by Tone Winner, sits in an anti-vibration chassis that reduces stress on the laser pickup and improves reading accuracy. The disc drive, power supply and D/A converter occupy separate shielded chambers, which keeps interference and vibration from the mechanism and transformer away from the conversion circuit. A 50 W toroidal transformer feeds the linear power supply, with separate supply lines for the digital and analogue sections and ELNA filter and coupling capacitors. The OPA1632 is a fully differential operational amplifier, a natural fit for the balanced output. With three analogue outputs the player can feed two systems at once, or a preamplifier and a separate recorder, while the coaxial and optical outputs hand conversion to an external DAC when needed. The usual transport functions are controlled from the display panel and a full-size remote, and the player runs on 220 V to 240 V mains.

Pairing

The standard output level suits any integrated amplifier or preamplifier. Tone Winner's AD-series integrated amplifiers share the same aluminium styling and make a matched system. With a separate DAC, the TY-1CD can serve as a transport through its coaxial or optical output.

Alternatives

Tone Winner's TY-1CDPRO develops the same concept with an ES9038 DAC, an AES/EBU output and a magnetic levitation disc mechanism.