Musical Fidelity AMSCD CD Player / DAC – Black

Here we have a former top of the range compact disc player and digital to analogue converter from former British company Musical Fidelity. The AMS CD came from the Signature series – literally – as founder Antony Michalson put his initials on this series of high quality components. Our example dates from 2009, comes in very good condition and will be professionally packaged. It is also supplied with a remote control unit, mains cable, reprinted manual and our standard three month warranty.
Musical Fidelity Said….
The AMS CD-DAC has been designed to deliver top notch technical and sonic performance.
Musical Fidelity were the first in the world to produce a DAC. Since then, we have consistently made state-of-the-art digital components which have equally consistently received unstinting praise for their cutting edge technical performance and fair pricing.
The AMS CD-DAC is a continuation of this long tradition and its ultimate expression. We have done everything possible to create superlative performance.
Selected, custom made Phillips CD pro mechanisms.
At the heart of the AMS CD-DAC is a selected, custom made Phillips CD Pro mechanism. The Phillips CD Pro is generally regarded as being about the best CD mechanism ever made. It is extremely reliable and stable in operation, has excellent long life and astonishing data retrieval properties. Even though this custom CD Pro mechanism is remarkable, we further test them to make sure they meet our even higher standards.
Virtually perfect data retrieval is only the beginning.
Power supplies are an extremely important part of any digital product. This is because digital circuitry can ‘inject back’ digital artefacts that can reduce the performance of other stages. The AMS CD-DAC has 12 power supplies that are
designed to offer outstanding regulation, low noise and, perhaps more importantly for a digital product, ensure that there is no ‘back injection.’
Almost perfect data retrieval and stable, low noise, high performance power supplies were just our starting point. Then we could move on to the digital electronics. The keys to digital performance are the data retrieval, the power supply and the printed circuit board layout. Using the best and most expensive DACs and sampling chips is no guarantee of performance, as poor power supplies and bad printed circuit board layout can compromise even the most brilliant DACs and chips.
Through experience Musical Fidelity has become expert at wringing the last molecule of performance from digital components. It is the areas of power supplies and printed circuit board layout that Musical Fidelity stands out from other companies.
The fully balanced, quad, dual differential DAC system in the AMS CD player is state-of-the-art. It has super low noise, incredible linearity, wide bandwidth, low distortion, very low jitter and consistent performance. Because it has true 192K
upsampling, all the noise and jitter are out of band.
The DAC’s performance is outstanding, due to proper power supply and printed circuit board layout, coupled with the exceptional data retrieval properties of our custom Phillips CD Pro mechanism.
So what does it sound like?
Paradoxically, the AMS CD-DAC doesn’t sound at all. It is absolutely, completely neutral, truthful, honest and revealing. You hear what was on the disc, what was in the performer’s mind and heart. You get the music, the whole music and nothing
but the music.
In audio terms, the most immediate effect is amazing spaciousness and air. Instruments are precisely positioned yet intimately related to each other. In live performance, there is a fascinating effect when all the instruments play properly
in tune with each other: a whole new layer of harmonics is created above the fundamentals. This is what the AMS CD-DAC reproduces so faithfully.
The bottom end is extended, tight, fast and never overblown. Mid-range is clear and even. High frequencies are sweet and transparent. Transients are breathtakingly fast and, perhaps more important, their decay is equally as quick. There is absolutely no overhang anywhere.
The AMS CD-DAC produces a rich, full, clear sound but, at the same time, is lightning fast.
Having developed such a great DAC system, it seemed a shame not to include digital inputs, so that other digital sources could benefit from its excellent performance. Hence, the AMS CD-DAC has switchable inputs for optical, coax and balanced digital.
We have done our absolute best to make the finest possible CD player. We used the best mechanism available and then selected for even higher performance. We made the best DAC we know how, laid out to achieve the maximum performance,
and designed power supplies that are a perfect complement. Then, after all that, we reached the output stage.
The AMS CD-DAC has a pure Class A, fully balanced, low impedance output stage. This has very low input impedance, which means that it has plenty of muscle to drive any preamp or integrated amp through any reasonably conceivable length of cable.
The technical performance of the AMS CD-DAC’s output stage is excellent, with wide bandwidth, low noise, low impedance and low distortion. It is completely transparent.
We have done our best to design the AMS CD-DAC electronics to offer the highest levels of performance for musical
satisfaction for many years. We have worked equally hard to make the build quality and appearance as fine and timeless
as we know how.
The front panel of the AMS CDDAC is machined from solid, military spec aluminium. The badge and CD drawer are machined from medical grade stainless steel. The push buttons are custom machined from solid aluminium. The top, sides and back are all machined from solid metal as well. Even the AMS CD remote control has been machined from solid metal. The surface of every component has been finished to the highest level we could obtain.
We have tried to make the AMS CD-DAC classic and elegant, with superb build quality, so that it will stand the test of time.
Features:
Mu-metal screened
Fully balanced
Quad, dual differential DACs
Custom Phillips CD Pro mechanism
Pure Class A analogue electronics
Additional switchable digital inputs
Specifications:
Output Impedance: 50 ohms balanced or single ended
Output, Digital Level 0 dB: XLR output – 4.4 Vrms balanced nominal; RCA output – 2.2 Vrms single ended nominal
DAC Circuit: 24 bit Delta-Sigma (bit-stream) dual differential 8x oversampling
Total Correlated Jitter: < 15 picoseconds peak to peak
Linearity: < 0.1 dB down to – 96 dB
Frequency Response: 10 Hz to 20 kHz, – 0.2 dB max
Channel Separation: > 105 dB, 20 Hz to 20 kHz
Signal-to-Noise Ratio: > 117 dB ‘A’ – weighted
Total Harmonic Distortion: < 0.003%, 10 Hz to 20 kHz
Line Level Outputs: One pair line level RCA connectors left and right outputs; One pair line level XLR connectors left and right outputs
Digital Outputs: One RCA coaxial connector SPDIF; One TOSLINK optical connector; One XLR AES output connector
Digital Inputs: One RCA coaxial connector SPDIF; One TOSLINK optical connector; One XLR AES input connector
Power Requirement: 115/230 VAC, 50/60 Hz
Power Consumption: 20 Watts maximum
Dimensions: 440 (W) x 385 (D) x 125 (H) mm
Weight: 11.2 kg