When you mention Chinese Hi-Fi to many people, the first name which springs to mind is Shanling, the first Chinese Hi-Fi company to be associated with high end audio. The Shanling CD-T100 CD player was the first piece of Chinese audio I'd encountered, and I was left very impressed, and by the time the SCD-T200 CD/SACD arrived, I was seriously wondering if Western companies could effectively compete. Given the broad range of Shanling Hi-Fi available to it's home market, from entry level to high end, I was delighted to be offered for review Shanling's entry into the midrange marketplace, the CD-T80, to see how Shanling acquitted themselves with a more restricted budget.
The initial signs when I opened the box were not merely good, but outstanding. To start with the hewn from billet stainless steel remote of the CD-T100 and SCD-T200 has been retained on this player, together with the incredible build quality of the player itself. Let's be clear here, if this player had a Wadia or Accuphase badge on it with a £3,000 price tag, you wouldn't be the slightest bit surprised, it's that well built! Measuring 430 X 82 X 370 MM (WHD) and weighing 9 kg this is neither small or flimsy with the 5mm thick steel casework finished to a truly excellent standard. This player sports a transport mounted in the middle of the player fascia, with a single line LED display below, a power switch and upsampling LED to the left and the transport controls, with open/close, play/pause, stop, back and next controls on the front panel. Around the rear a single pair of RCA phono analogue outputs and the coaxial S/PDIF output using the same high quality connectors as it's big brothers accompany a mains switch and an IEC mains inlet. The mains switch on the back panel is the real power switch, with the front switch actually bringing the player out of standby. In standby mode the player keeps power flowing to critical audio circuits, only when fully powered up is power applied to the valve output stage.
The CD-T80 was installed in my reference system comprising the HFN award winning Musical Fidelity X-Ray V3 CD player, X-DAC V3 and X-10D V3 output buffer along with the TriVista 21 DAC, supplemented by an Inca Design Katana SE and Shanling SCD-T200 CD players. Amplification was provided by a Krell KRC-3 and Musical Fidelity A5 pre amp with Bryston 3B-SST and Musical Fidelity A5 power amps. Speakers were Martin Logan SL-3 with Leema Acoustics Xavier and PMC GB1 speakers. Cabling was courtesy of Townshend Isolda DCT interconnects and speakers cables, whilst an Isol-8 4K Qube and three Isotek Orion's provided mains filtration.
As delivered this player already had several hundred hours on it, but from being plugged in cold out of the box to fully optimal sound quality took less than 24 hours, and from standby mode to optimal sound was consistently less than 15 minutes, suggesting the standby mode applies power to an array of correctly selected circuits. The upsampling is switchable but I found that I consistently preferred the player with upsampling selected, so this is how it was reviewed. This player showed a certain sensitivity to mains filtration, with a slight brashness in the high frequencies ameliorated by the substitution of the included mains cable for an Isotek Elite cable, and then drawing power first from a Substation transformer outlet and ultimately an Orion delivering the best sound balance and imaging.
It took only a few bars to realize this is an excellent player at it's price point. What immediately strikes you is the bass, which is not only extended but has excellent timing at the price. The introduction to the Sting track 'Desert Rose' from "Brand New Day" (A&M Records 490 451-2) has a series of bass notes which are not only extended but display excellent control, whilst comparison to the award winning Musical Fidelity X-Ray V3 showed the X-Ray to have only slightly superior drive and power on these notes. The individual synthesizer notes followed by the kick drum beats are still capable of surprising the listener with their power, and given that my reference is a DAC which costs twice as much as this player, this is an excellent performance, likewise the vocals draw the listener into the music, showing a level of naturalness and fluidity which is still missing from many CD players at twice the price. Even now some CD players I hear seem to have to make an effort to project the vocals into the listening room, whereas a fine analogue front end has an ease and flow to the vocal range which is far more evocative of a live vocal performance, and it is in this aspect that the CD-T80 excels. This unforced quality is most noticeable on recordings such as Kate Bush 'Running Up That Hill' from "Hounds of Love" [EMI CDP 746164 2]. This album shows any aberration in the vocal range in a very unforgiving way, yet this player succeeded in bringing the remarkable talent of Kate Bush into my listening room. Her ability to go from whisper quiet to the edge of overloading the microphones in the space of one note has exposed problems in far more expensive players than this, yet this player succeeded in tracking these dramatic dynamic shifts without sounding in any way mechanical or forced, in fact it's presentation was much more akin to the presentation of a turntable such as the Michell Gyrodeck playing the vinyl album than what I hear from CD, and for a player at this price point to achieve this is an outstanding achievement.
The imaging and placement of the musicians on this album show this player to have a similar ease and effortlessness in this aspect of it's performance as it does in the midrange, whilst it's image just extends beyond the outer edges of the speakers, and from a plane level with the speakers to just in front of the wall. This is good but not groundbreaking territory for CD in this system, but it is the manner in which this is achieved, without etching the images onto the stage in an artificial way, instead presenting them with natural overlap and interplay between the musicians on a stage.
In the upper registers, a place where many lower cost CD players have real problems, I am delighted to report the good news continues. Whilst the high frequencies could be a touch more extended, they are still very detailed and exquisitely textured and shaded, allowing the almost imperceptible shimmer of a cymbal to be heard, and the difference between a synthesized cymbal and a real cymbal to be easily discerned. Only on a recording which is busy and aggressive such as Sophie Ellis-Bextor 'You Get Yours' from "Shoot From The Hip" [Polydor 9865837] does a slight forwardness and undue emphasis in this region manifest itself. It must, however, be remembered that my Bryston 3B-SST / Martin Logan SL-3 partnership is very open and totally unforgiving in this part of the spectrum, so this should not be a major problem in most systems which this player will be implemented in, but does bear considering when matching this player to a system.
Overall I was very impressed with this player, offering a fluid, natural sound which is still dynamic and highly involving. Whilst this player comes into a highly competitive market segment, with the Inca Design Katana at £595 just below and Musical Fidelity X-Ray V3 at £899 above, this players effortless presentation, a total lack of listening fatigue after several 6 hour plus listening sessions along with it's incredible build quality make this player excellent value. The basic transport is so good and such a pleasure to use as to make this an excellent CD player and superb transport for an outboard DAC, but this player's beguiling presentation suggests there will be very few owners in a hurry to upgrade to a DAC. This player warrants a mandatory recommendation to anyone looking for a truly outstanding player in the £500 to £1,000 area, a recommendation I am delighted to give.
Technical
The CD-T80 uses a fully encapsulated power transformer, partnered with the excellent Philips CDM 12.10 transport and CD 7 MK II servo system as used in the CD-T100. In this case the transport is itself individually shielded with an inverted 'U' shaped panel which screws to the chassis, protecting the player from stray RFI and EMI within the player and further stiffening the chassis around the transport. Following the transport is the Crystal Semiconductors CS8420 upsampling chip and Burr Brown PCM1738 DAC, with this player having switchable 96/24 upsampling. The output stage comprises a pair of Burr Brown OPA 2604 opamps followed by a pair of 6N3P dual triode valves, as this player is, like the CD-T100 and SCD-T200, equipped with a valve output stage. Unlike it's two more expensive siblings the CD-T80 has only a single pair of outlets permanently connected to the valve output stage, without an option to use a pure solid state stage. This is an unusual design, with valves located after a pair of Op-Amps, but this is shared with the other Shanling players.
