CDP Group test Part - II Cyrus CD 6S

Cyrus CD6S:


Cyrus CD 6S looks like a slick British gentleman in a formal executive attire. This player is every bit of British; slick, smart, fast, tight lipped, formal and needless to mention ‘boring’!

This compact looking unit in shoe box styled enclosure is in typical British dull grey color scheme. This light weight body is made up of a single die cast magnesium alloy with built in fins for better heat dissipation. Cyrus literature talks about some distinct electrical and mechanical advantages of this construction mainly minimizing micro phonic effects dues to the non-resonant nature of the alloy, effective shielding from external electro-magnetic disturbances attributed to its non-ferrous composition and eliminating coupling of the power transformer stray magnetic fields to the sensitive audio circuitry. And after evaluating the performance I started believing it.

This slick ness is good when it saves rack space and bad when it comes to User Interface. Narrow width fancy has taken its toll, key pad is squeezed in what so ever space left after accommodating CD tray and that fatty overpowering display. These cheap plastic Keys are small and configured in the most awkward matter. When the CD tray opens, all of front-panel buttons get obscured. Display is bright but quite over powering with dull yellowish green backlit with larger than life character fonts.This display really scared me and often reminded me of the PT teacher I had in my school days!

The biggest upset came from the CD tray. It is crappy, noisy, fragile and cheap. One look at it and I immediately started doubting about its durability and its noise really made me sick. This was not expected from a CD player costing 65K price, even my 5K Pioneer DVDP has got a swift, silk smooth CD tray mechanism.

And to add salt to injury, Cyrus has provided a cheapo plastic bar as Remote! It is as stupid and as ugly as Rajendra Nath’s comedy otherwise who would think of using UP arrow key for advancing to the next track?

OK, now enough of beating the Brit, let us talk business err Music.


Listening:

Hooking up Cyrus was simple and straight forward, no need to refer the manual. The moment I heard the first bar of music delivered by Cyrus, I got surprised by its natural sound with full of bass, details, separation, dynamics and huge soundstage ! And this surprise continued track after track with its precise tonal accuracy, out and out clean sound with no trace of any background noise.

Regardless of type of music, Jazz, classical, pop, rock Cyrus always sounded confident, composed and with authority assuring me , every time, without fail, that I am listening to a winner!

With Western classical music, Cyrus offered far greater clarity and dynamics while tracking complex music. Its tonal accuracy and ruler flat frequency response amazed me. From top to bottom everything is precise, clear, dynamic and realistic.

It is the bass performance from Cyrus that won my heart, it was tightly controlled and with true punch and lots of weight. Tonal accuracy is another area where Cyrus excelled, every instrument presented with at most accuracy and authority, the saxophone from Ben Webster sounded like the instrument it is. It presented Salil Bhat‘s Saatvik Veena (a modified Guitar) with every details, it was amazing to hear each note clearly defined with just the right amount of ambience.

Vocals were pure, open , effortless and with plenty of character. Chorus sounded the way it should sound. I could hear individual voices summing the chorus with Chants from ‘The Benedictine Monks of Santo Domingo De Silos’.

But with all this goody things, I did notice somewhat dry presentation [remember that PT Drill?] . There was no emotional involvement that Jolida offered. For Jazz and Indian classical this Govt Of India style dryness was rather disturbing.

Conclusion:

I do have some minor quibbles about the CD drawer mechanism and remote control as well as some operational features of the player. Cyrus with its built in dryness sometimes disconnects you from the music but overall I was quite happy with the sound.

It definitely represents a well engineered, excellent value product. It is an outcome of years of dedicated research and development. With every iteration Cyrus products are improving by reaping the benefits of newer technologies, material and practices.

As compared to offerings from NAD, CA, Arcam , Marantz this player costs more but it is worth that extra spending .This is the player that can bring in truck loads of improvements to your system regardless of other components. And to outperform this player you might need to spend 2x/ 3x the amount.

When Cyrus guys proudly talk about out-perform most players in its class. With its ruler-flat linearity performance, exceptionally low background noise and superb jitter rejection, they really mean. Yes, I repeat, they really mean it!


SUhas

[ In part III , I will cover Arcam CD 73T]

Contd...

[quote="Neutral
Whereas, in the good music, the bass is alive and has a breadth of notes. When Diana isn't singing, the bass is very audible and sounds rich. It adds body to the sound. In Honey Dripper, there appears to be a musical conversation between the instruments.

I don't use a sub. I have 12" drivers in the main speakers and they can produce deep bass (even pipe organs) very cleanly and without any boom. I feel that small BS speakers simply cheat the audiophile. They are definitely lifestyle and have WAF , but where's the bass. I doubt a sub can ever match the magic of huge bass drivers in the fronts.[/quote]


i think you have a problem in your Bass reponse.
either your bass drivers are not able to articulate the lower range well or your room boom is clouding everything with a thump. perhaps a case of 1 single harmonic overwhelming everything else.

Bass below 100Hz is non directional and usually the "timbre" is quite the same. hence sub/full range etc do not matter. what is important is the cabability of the driver to go beyond one note thumps and more importantly its integration with the mids.

if you hear a high qualty BS which goes down to 45Hz at -6db more than 90% of the music is still there. what is missing is some harmonics which does add richness but not having it is not going to take the enjoyment away unless you hear huge orchestral works and organ music.

that is anyday preferable to a floorstander ,equivalently priced, which goes down to 30s.