CD/SACD-проигрыватели и транспорты — Audio Note CDT Five

The CDT Five is a top-loading CD transport from Audio Note (UK), built to the company's Level 5 criteria, which Audio Note describes as a reference-class design. Audio Note organises its components into levels from Zero to Six, and within its CD transport range the CDT Five sits between the CDT Four and the two-box CDT Six/Force. Like every Audio Note transport, it reads only Red Book CD, and the company states that it is engineered for performance in listening rather than for technical specification figures.

Key specs that matter

Audio Note uses a Philips CD Pro2LF drive, modified in-house and mounted on a sprung sub-chassis. A three-beam semiconductor laser with a wavelength of 780 nm reads the disc. The digital output stage uses valves, with a valve-rectified power supply and a custom output transformer. The single digital output is an RCA socket at 75 ohm for S/PDIF. An XLR socket is fitted but not connected, and it can be specified as a working output when ordering. Maximum power consumption is 60 W. The transport measures 142 mm high, 445 mm wide and 428 mm deep and weighs 22 kg. It runs on 100-120 V or 220-240 V mains at 50 or 60 Hz, and two fascia options are offered, black acrylic or anodised aluminium.

Engineering and use context

The sprung sub-chassis isolates the mechanism from vibration reaching the case, so the laser servo has less external movement to correct while it tracks the disc. Where most transports use a solid-state line driver for the digital output, the CDT Five drives its S/PDIF signal through a valve stage and couples it to the socket with a transformer, which also isolates the transport electrically from the DAC it feeds. The valve stage draws its high voltage from a valve-rectified supply. Internal wiring is pure silver, Black Gate capacitors are used throughout, and data passes from the drive to the output stage over Audio Note's own PALLAS digital interconnect. It is much heavier than the CDT Four in the same size of case, reflecting the heavier power supply and output stage. The CDT Five is supplied with a clamp, 1 m of Audio Note Black Palace digital cable and a 1.5 m Sogon mains cable.

Pairing

Audio Note matches its transports with converters of the same level, so the DAC Five is the intended partner, connected with the supplied Black Palace cable. Converters from other makers connect through their coaxial input, and an AES/EBU connection is available if the XLR output is specified at the time of order.

Alternatives

The Audio Note CDT Four uses the same Pro2LF mechanism with transformer-coupled RCA and XLR outputs.