Arcam CD25 Review – Trusted Reviews

design

• A finish option
• OLED display

Restrained is as good a word as any to describe the design of the Arcam CD25. The majority of the chassis is made from lightly textured metal in black – your only color option – with some yellow accents to bring the design in line with the rest of Arcam’s Radia range.

The front panel is mostly made of glass and features a crisp, bright and easy-to-read OLED display. The few physical controls (power, play/pause, skip forward, skip backward, stop, and CD tray open/close) are well integrated, and there is a small yellow circle around the power button. There are also yellow highlights on the feet where no one will see them.

The standard of workmanship and finish is really good in every respect. The disc tray glides smoothly and silently, and the device reads the contents of the disc virtually silently.

The appearance of a hood over the back panel is as pointless and unwelcome here as it is on any other piece of Radia electronics – it increases the depth of the machine for no good reason and makes access to the sockets on the back panel more difficult than it would otherwise be. As a design flourish it doesn’t make much sense to me.

Features

• Dual ESS Saber ES9039Q2M DACs
• Balanced and unbalanced analog outputs
• Linear toroidal power supply

The CD25 doesn’t have a lot of features – but it is Only At least a CD player. But the features it offers are all completely useful.

Inside, the CD25 is equipped with two ESS Saber ES9039Q2M DAC chipsets with the company’s reference voltage regulators. Each DAC processes one channel completely independently of the other in balanced mode to ensure excellent channel separation and low noise.

The disk mechanism itself is mounted on a vibration-damping chassis to ensure accurate and stable signal retrieval. An oversized linear toroidal power supply delivers clean, low-noise DC power.

On the back, which is a little less accessible than usual thanks to the hood, there are balanced and unbalanced outputs with XLR and RCA connectors respectively. There are also coaxial and optical digital outputs in case the signal needs to be kept in the digital domain so that it can be processed by a DAC even more powerful than the one built into the player.

At the front, the disc loading mechanism responds quite leisurely – but that at least gives you time to explore the five digital filter options accessible in the on-screen menus via the remote control.

Your options are Linear Slow, Linear Fast, Min Slow, Min Fast and Apodizing (sic). I think it’s safe to say that the audio differences between each filter are pretty subtle – I end up doing most of my testing with Min Fast, which strikes me as the most neutral and sonically least colorful option.

Performance

• Clarity, detail and dynamics are retained
• Combines powerful authority with remarkable insight
• Deftly naturalistic tonality

Yes, £1499 is quite a lot of money to spend on a CD player. However, if you have a system that does the CD25 some justice once installed, the Arcam’s sound will justify the effort all day long.

There really isn’t an area where it isn’t impressive, and a few where it is straightforwardly excellent. On a CD from Universal Sounds of America, a collection of some pretty offbeat jazz that includes the Art Ensemble of Chicago’s particularly offbeat Thème de Yoyo, the CD25 is able to showcase some of its many attributes – not least its ability to keep order.

This is a recording that revels in its unruliness and chaos, and the Arcam never tries to neutralize its energy – but it maintains control and footing, demonstrating its authority in every way. The result is a coherent and confident reading of a recording that in less competent hands can sound like a mess (or worse).

The CD25’s sound is so clear, such attention to detail and such a remarkable level of insight that the inner workings of every element of the recording become clear.

Everything that happens takes place against a dark, quiet backdrop, and the Arcam’s work with dynamic variations of low-level harmonics ensures that the sound has real energy and vibrancy. The broader dynamic of volume and intensity is also on full display – particularly in the moments where the band all seem to have fallen down the same elevator shaft at the same time.

Switch to the altogether quieter but no less demanding sound of A Tribe Called Quest’s “Go Ahead in the Rain” and the good news keeps on coming. The CD25’s tonality is characterized by a nice neutrality, you’re not prepared to push yourself too hard – and so the combination of analog instruments and digital machines (and of course unparalleled microphone technology) sounds as natural as possible.

The low frequencies are solidly punchy but also wonderfully controlled, so the rhythmic expression is confident – and the direct, unambiguous kind of insight on offer here allows you to see the connection between all the individual elements of the recording without losing any of the consistency or timing.

In fact, “direct” is a good description of the CD25’s general attitude. It can analyze a recording and put every bit of information into a compelling context, but it is not a laboratory device.

There is a positivity in the way music is presented that basically guarantees entertainment, energy in the things that require it, and as leisurely a flow as possible in the things that don’t require it. It can provide light and shade, it can soothe and soothe, and it can just as easily perform bugeye attacks. CD25’s talents are numerous and each is as entertaining and impressive as the next.

Should you buy it?