Resolution Audio Opus 21
Posted by: Top Cat on 16 October 2002
Background
I had been searching for a replacement, 'high end' cd player for well over a year, but though I managed to audition many decent and well-regarded cd players at home, I had never found 'the one' which would do justice to my own hifi system.
Rather than expand this review into a discussion of all of the different players I actually tried, I'll concentrate on a few observations to try to help anyone who might be considering
purchasing a new cd player. After all, the Opus 21 is fairly new and not so well known, so it
might easily be overlooked by many, especially as it's only stocked in a few UK dealers and I
believe in the US it is mail-order only (though I may be wrong).
The systems I have done most of my auditioning on are as follows:
System 1: Main system
DNM 3B Primus preamp
DNM PA3^S power amp
Neat Petite III speakers
Nordost SPM cabling
System 2: Secondary system
Naim Nait-2 integrated amp
Neat Petite III speakers (borrowed from System 1)
Naim NAC-A5 cabling
How did the player sound?
It's difficult to review a cd player in isolation, as without comparison to something that we're all familiar with it can be tricky to express what it does well and what it does not so well.
However, having spent time with the Simaudio Moon Eclipse (2002 model), Wadia 301, Naim CDX and
CDS-2 players I will try to compare and contrast between them - perhaps one of these players will be familiar to you and you'll be able to see where I'm coming from.
The Opus 21 is a two box player, with the Transport and DAC in one box and the power supply, LED display and control circuitry in another box - the two being connected by a special cable. The arguments for the single box transport/dac and seperate PSU are common with the Moonn Eclipse and Naim players - the idea seemingly being that the levels of jitter are minimised by keeping the DAC and clock near to the transport.
The boxes are a little smaller than the width of my DNM amps, though not obviously so. They are
roughly the same dimensions as the Naim Nait-2 amplifier, though obviously in two boxes. They
can be stacked, though the recommendation is that they each have their own shelf at at least
several inches distance from each other.
The first thing that struck me with the player was how quick the transport is, and secondly the
fact that it isn't totally silent when in operation. Both factors stem from the origins of the transport mechanism, which is based around a cd-rom drive mechanism which provides many
benefits, not least of which is the fact that the unit can be upgraded to (say) a DVD drive to
accommodate DVD-Audio should this win the format wars, or conversely an SACD unit. Key to the
design philosophy is an upsampling/native DAC which operates up to 24/196KHz. This also has a
digital input (so that an external digital source can use the sophisticated DAC) though like the
Naim players there is no digital output - which is a thing I've accepted as a compromise though
I miss the ability to use the player as source for copying cds... naughty me!
As mentioned above, the transport is quick - track access is rapid, often with no perceived
delay when skipping even ten tracks at a time. This is nice, but not that important to me.
Also, the noisy transport is supposedly a 'teething issue' with the initial batches of the player - which is a shame, as it could put some people off. To put it in context, it's just
audible during quiet sections from my listening seat (which is around 10' from the player).
It's not loud, but at the price it should be silent and I am assured that the Resolution Audio
team are working on a retrofittable upgrade which will cure this. This is some consolation but I personally think they should have ironed this issue out before releasing the player. Ah well,
never mind, it's not a major problem and this negative is easily outweighed by the player's many strengths.
I never did hear the original CD55 - though I wanted to - as it was quickly retired to make way
for the Opus 21 (which arrived on our shores in around July). I am led to believe that the Opus
21 makes considerable performance gains over the older player, specifically in both the electrical design - seperate PSU, 3D circuit design (a la DNM), etc. - and in DAC and output stage enhancements.
Listening to the player, the initial impression from cold is of a fast and detailed player with
many of the attributes which make the higher end Naim cd players popular. It holds a tune in
the way that the Wadia 301 tried to, but failed. The Wadia 301, a detailed and eager-to-please
player in itself, always seemed to somehow 'squash' the timing of short, stacatto notes - for example, crisp hi-hat beats or the ping of ride-cymbals. Its treble was lovely and clean, but I always had the impression of a slight loss of focus, as if it was missing the point of the rhythmical phrasing. The Moon player was auditioned at a much earlier date, and I suspect that the Wadia sounded more like that player than the Opus 21. Getting onto the Naim players, my biggest criticism of the CDX (apart from its irritating use of fiddly pucks) was that it sounded like an obvious cd player - a good one, no question, but a cd player with a definite digital edge. The addition of the XPS power supply really raised the stakes, but ultimately it was still a digital sound. Having heard much hype about the CDS2 I was looking forward to this
supposed LP12 beater, the lauded 'king' of the flat-earth cd players. I was disappointed -
though it sounded far less 'digital' than the CDX/XPS, it had a 'fatness' about the sound which really surprised me. Playing with different positions - away from other kit and so on - helped a bit, but the player never really did it for me - a case of 'not to my taste' rather than a criticism of it as such.
The Opus 21 is a fast, dynamic player which really digs out an incredible amount of hitherto
unheard music off the cds I played. As a drummer, I was particularly convinced by the
'likeness' of snare drum and ride cymbals - particularly in portraying the 'ping' of a good
K-Zildjian or similar. Most cd players wimp out with the ping, squashing it or deforming it in
some way but not the '21. If anything, I do wonder if engineers know how difficult it is to
replay an accurate 'ping' and enhance those frequencies accordingly, as on some tracks
(particularly late eighties 'digital remasters') the cymbals were a bit much. A case of too
much resolving power, perhaps?
Bass is deep and tuneful. Pitch accurate beyond anything I've ever heard - and that's a good
thing indeed. Imaging, if that's yer bag, is even, consistent, with considerable width (out to
the left and the right of the speakers' boundaries) and a fantastic ability to seperate out the strands of harmony - and there were a lot of tracks which turned out to have multi-harmonies going on that all the other players - with the exception, perhaps, of the Moon v2 - missed. A subtle thing, but important to me. The other thing that this player does especially well is keep a vice-like grip on the rhythmical flow of music - particularly in its ability to cleanly articulate the attack and decay of drum and bass notes without stress.
Drawbacks? Well, the only drawbacks I can mention are the noisy transport and the lack of
digital output, though I'd happily forgo the latter if the reasons for its omission are similar to that of Naim, i.e. that digital outputs transmit noise back into the DAC which affects the sound. The former drawback should be sorted soon - either some modification to the existing unit or a replacement.
In the meantime, I've never heard cd sounding so good. If you've got around three grand to drop
on a cd player, or even if you've got five grand, I thoroughly recommend you have a listen to the Opus 21 - but bear in mind that dealer samples may have the same transport noise problem and so don't be put off - it WILL be fixed.
Footnote: I have tried both the DIN plug and RCA Phono outputs from the Opus 21 and feel that the DIN plug outputs sound the best when connected into the DIN-equipped DNM and Naim kit.
However, much of the critical listening has been done using the Phono sockets due to the fact that my cables are being reterminated and I've been reduced to lesser cabling...
TC '..'
"Girl, you thought he was a man, but he was a Muffin..."
PS. In a Naim system I suspect that a CDS2/XPS will probably remain the preferred option, but the use of DIN plugs should make it easy to test this out. I really see this player more as competition for the CDX(2)/XPS, though, as it's closer in price. Haven't heard the CDX2, but the Opus 21 is certainly a better sound to my ears than the CDX/XPS which costs far more... a thought to ponder...
I had been searching for a replacement, 'high end' cd player for well over a year, but though I managed to audition many decent and well-regarded cd players at home, I had never found 'the one' which would do justice to my own hifi system.
Rather than expand this review into a discussion of all of the different players I actually tried, I'll concentrate on a few observations to try to help anyone who might be considering
purchasing a new cd player. After all, the Opus 21 is fairly new and not so well known, so it
might easily be overlooked by many, especially as it's only stocked in a few UK dealers and I
believe in the US it is mail-order only (though I may be wrong).
The systems I have done most of my auditioning on are as follows:
System 1: Main system
DNM 3B Primus preamp
DNM PA3^S power amp
Neat Petite III speakers
Nordost SPM cabling
System 2: Secondary system
Naim Nait-2 integrated amp
Neat Petite III speakers (borrowed from System 1)
Naim NAC-A5 cabling
How did the player sound?
It's difficult to review a cd player in isolation, as without comparison to something that we're all familiar with it can be tricky to express what it does well and what it does not so well.
However, having spent time with the Simaudio Moon Eclipse (2002 model), Wadia 301, Naim CDX and
CDS-2 players I will try to compare and contrast between them - perhaps one of these players will be familiar to you and you'll be able to see where I'm coming from.
The Opus 21 is a two box player, with the Transport and DAC in one box and the power supply, LED display and control circuitry in another box - the two being connected by a special cable. The arguments for the single box transport/dac and seperate PSU are common with the Moonn Eclipse and Naim players - the idea seemingly being that the levels of jitter are minimised by keeping the DAC and clock near to the transport.
The boxes are a little smaller than the width of my DNM amps, though not obviously so. They are
roughly the same dimensions as the Naim Nait-2 amplifier, though obviously in two boxes. They
can be stacked, though the recommendation is that they each have their own shelf at at least
several inches distance from each other.
The first thing that struck me with the player was how quick the transport is, and secondly the
fact that it isn't totally silent when in operation. Both factors stem from the origins of the transport mechanism, which is based around a cd-rom drive mechanism which provides many
benefits, not least of which is the fact that the unit can be upgraded to (say) a DVD drive to
accommodate DVD-Audio should this win the format wars, or conversely an SACD unit. Key to the
design philosophy is an upsampling/native DAC which operates up to 24/196KHz. This also has a
digital input (so that an external digital source can use the sophisticated DAC) though like the
Naim players there is no digital output - which is a thing I've accepted as a compromise though
I miss the ability to use the player as source for copying cds... naughty me!
As mentioned above, the transport is quick - track access is rapid, often with no perceived
delay when skipping even ten tracks at a time. This is nice, but not that important to me.
Also, the noisy transport is supposedly a 'teething issue' with the initial batches of the player - which is a shame, as it could put some people off. To put it in context, it's just
audible during quiet sections from my listening seat (which is around 10' from the player).
It's not loud, but at the price it should be silent and I am assured that the Resolution Audio
team are working on a retrofittable upgrade which will cure this. This is some consolation but I personally think they should have ironed this issue out before releasing the player. Ah well,
never mind, it's not a major problem and this negative is easily outweighed by the player's many strengths.
I never did hear the original CD55 - though I wanted to - as it was quickly retired to make way
for the Opus 21 (which arrived on our shores in around July). I am led to believe that the Opus
21 makes considerable performance gains over the older player, specifically in both the electrical design - seperate PSU, 3D circuit design (a la DNM), etc. - and in DAC and output stage enhancements.
Listening to the player, the initial impression from cold is of a fast and detailed player with
many of the attributes which make the higher end Naim cd players popular. It holds a tune in
the way that the Wadia 301 tried to, but failed. The Wadia 301, a detailed and eager-to-please
player in itself, always seemed to somehow 'squash' the timing of short, stacatto notes - for example, crisp hi-hat beats or the ping of ride-cymbals. Its treble was lovely and clean, but I always had the impression of a slight loss of focus, as if it was missing the point of the rhythmical phrasing. The Moon player was auditioned at a much earlier date, and I suspect that the Wadia sounded more like that player than the Opus 21. Getting onto the Naim players, my biggest criticism of the CDX (apart from its irritating use of fiddly pucks) was that it sounded like an obvious cd player - a good one, no question, but a cd player with a definite digital edge. The addition of the XPS power supply really raised the stakes, but ultimately it was still a digital sound. Having heard much hype about the CDS2 I was looking forward to this
supposed LP12 beater, the lauded 'king' of the flat-earth cd players. I was disappointed -
though it sounded far less 'digital' than the CDX/XPS, it had a 'fatness' about the sound which really surprised me. Playing with different positions - away from other kit and so on - helped a bit, but the player never really did it for me - a case of 'not to my taste' rather than a criticism of it as such.
The Opus 21 is a fast, dynamic player which really digs out an incredible amount of hitherto
unheard music off the cds I played. As a drummer, I was particularly convinced by the
'likeness' of snare drum and ride cymbals - particularly in portraying the 'ping' of a good
K-Zildjian or similar. Most cd players wimp out with the ping, squashing it or deforming it in
some way but not the '21. If anything, I do wonder if engineers know how difficult it is to
replay an accurate 'ping' and enhance those frequencies accordingly, as on some tracks
(particularly late eighties 'digital remasters') the cymbals were a bit much. A case of too
much resolving power, perhaps?
Bass is deep and tuneful. Pitch accurate beyond anything I've ever heard - and that's a good
thing indeed. Imaging, if that's yer bag, is even, consistent, with considerable width (out to
the left and the right of the speakers' boundaries) and a fantastic ability to seperate out the strands of harmony - and there were a lot of tracks which turned out to have multi-harmonies going on that all the other players - with the exception, perhaps, of the Moon v2 - missed. A subtle thing, but important to me. The other thing that this player does especially well is keep a vice-like grip on the rhythmical flow of music - particularly in its ability to cleanly articulate the attack and decay of drum and bass notes without stress.
Drawbacks? Well, the only drawbacks I can mention are the noisy transport and the lack of
digital output, though I'd happily forgo the latter if the reasons for its omission are similar to that of Naim, i.e. that digital outputs transmit noise back into the DAC which affects the sound. The former drawback should be sorted soon - either some modification to the existing unit or a replacement.
In the meantime, I've never heard cd sounding so good. If you've got around three grand to drop
on a cd player, or even if you've got five grand, I thoroughly recommend you have a listen to the Opus 21 - but bear in mind that dealer samples may have the same transport noise problem and so don't be put off - it WILL be fixed.
Footnote: I have tried both the DIN plug and RCA Phono outputs from the Opus 21 and feel that the DIN plug outputs sound the best when connected into the DIN-equipped DNM and Naim kit.
However, much of the critical listening has been done using the Phono sockets due to the fact that my cables are being reterminated and I've been reduced to lesser cabling...
TC '..'
"Girl, you thought he was a man, but he was a Muffin..."
PS. In a Naim system I suspect that a CDS2/XPS will probably remain the preferred option, but the use of DIN plugs should make it easy to test this out. I really see this player more as competition for the CDX(2)/XPS, though, as it's closer in price. Haven't heard the CDX2, but the Opus 21 is certainly a better sound to my ears than the CDX/XPS which costs far more... a thought to ponder...