RCD-100 review - Hifi News

CD player with S/PDIF and USB digital inputs
Made by: Vitus Audio, AVA Group A/S, Denmark
Supplied by: Kog Audio Ltd, UK
Telephone: 024 7722 0650
Web: www.vitusaudio.com; www.kogaudio.com
CD PLAYER/USB DAC
Vitus Audio RCD-100 (£8800)
Cool Scandinavian style and purist electronics design inside make this high-end
player/DAC an enticing contender. Can it deliver sound to match that high price tag?
Review: Steve Harris Lab: Paul Miller
B
ack in 2003, Vitus Audio’s first
products were its Reference Series
RP-100 Phonostage and RL-100
Linestage, using battery power
supplies. After that, Vitus went on to
introduce its ambitious Signature Series,
including balanced and unbalanced line
preamplifiers, a phono stage, mono and
stereo power amplifiers, and the
SCD-010 CD player. This player used a
Philips CDPro2LF drive, ‘stripped down to
its basic mechanical and electronic parts
and totally rebuilt,’ and was said to give a
lower level of errors in reading the disc.
Later, Vitus moved onwards and
upwards with a no-holds-barred CD
transport and DAC combination, the
MP-T201 and MP-D201, in its Masterpiece
series. But to provide a less costly option,
Vitus also then revived its Reference
Series, starting with the RI-100 integrated
amplifier announced in 2010.
modified Philips CDPro drive, using a
combination of different materials for
damping purposes. There is no damping
between the drive and the main chassis
however, so the platform or support on
which the unit is placed will have an
impact on sound quality when playing CDs.
Performance apart, those classy,
understated looks will win most people
over immediately. In this case the two
fascia pieces are finished in a matte grey
slate colour, which gives the impression of
an almost grainless natural stone.
This player is a completely manual
top-loader. You slide the cover open,
put on the disc and add the metal puck,
fitted with six soft feet. As you move the
lid through its last half-inch of travel to
the closed position, a switch activates the
transport and will start reading the CD’s
Table of Contents, the display indication
entry level?
Now, as a companion to that model, comes
the RCD-100 CD player reviewed here. As
far as Vitus is concerned, this is an entry
level model, but from a UK viewpoint, it’s
firmly in the category of audiophile exotica.
But as you’d expect from a new high-end
CD player in 2012, the RCD-100 also
functions as a DAC.
‘The RCD-100 is designed as a DAC
with a drive,’ says Hans Ole Vitus, ‘so even
though we have spent a large portion of
the budget on modifying the drive itself,
we have spent most of our engineering
on the digital and analogue stages of the
player. As for the USB interface, we have
also focused on sound quality, and hence
this interface is not plug and play – drivers
are needed.’
Inside, the RCD-100 has a simpler
chassis than the SCD-010, and no longer
uses clock and sample-rate modules from
Anagram. But it is still based on a heavilyRIGHT: This top-loading player uses a Philips
Pro CD drive, modified by Vitus. The USB input is
optimised for high-resolution audio but PC users
will need to download Vitus’s driver software
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changing from ‘Open’ to ‘Reading,’ then
briefly showing the number of tracks.
In fact, although that central glass panel
runs almost the height of the fascia, the
display itself only consists of a single line
near the top, with the remote receiver
‘eye’ concealed in the centre and the
elegant illuminated ‘VA’ logo providing a
neat footnote below. It’s pretty minimalist,
but it can indicate status and track times as
well as menu functions.
button pushing
Either side of the display are arrays of three
buttons, which provide basic transport
operations and also give access to the
setup menu. In ‘normal’ mode, ie, when
just playing a disc, you can use the bottom
left button to come out of Standby, then
press the top one for Play. If the disc is
already loaded, it will take about 6 seconds
from pressing Play until the music starts.
From closing the cover, it’s around 12.
On the right, the buttons
straightforwardly provide Stop, Next track
and Previous track. However, to use the
RCD-100 as a DAC, for example, you need
to enter ‘Menu mode’ by pressing the
middle left button. Then the buttons above
and below become up and down keys to
scroll through the menu choices, which
appear in the display. Menu options include
switching inputs and outputs, digital
volume control and display brightness.
Beautiful as they are, the buttons are
rather small and are also recessed slightly.
They’re fine if you have slim, artistic fingers,
but less pleasing if your digits resemble
bananas rather than bhindi [okra].
This would hardly matter if the player
could be driven entirely from the remote
control. But although the Philips RC5-based
handset will give you all the transport
functions, it doesn’t duplicate the menu
controls. So to change inputs or outputs,
you need to use the front panel controls,
and switching from the CD drive input to
USB input, for example, will take half a
dozen keystrokes.
Playing the old Hi-Fi News Test CDs
revealed an unexpected quirk. The first
HFN disc, put together by John Atkinson in
1985, has 64 tracks, but the RCD-100 was
disinclined to play more than 20. Similarly,
with both Test Disc II and Test Disc III,
which have 99 and 74 tracks respectively,
the player would run up to track 20, but
no further. The same thing happened with
other test discs having 44 and 52 tracks.
Fortunately, though, this wouldn’t affect
music in normal use. I listened happily to
compilation albums of up to 25 tracks with
no problem.
big spaces
Since the RCD-100 offers both balanced
and unbalanced outputs, I first settled
down to try both, using a CD copy of White
EP from the Canadian duo Give [http//give.
bandcamp.com, now only
available as a download].
Playing the vibrantlyrecorded ‘Disappearing’
again and again, I found
it nearly impossible to
distinguish between the
two modes. Which is
probably as it should be,
when using normal-length interconnects.
Although the RCD-100 can’t play
SACD, I enjoyed listening to the CD layer
on Rebecca Pidgeon’s The Raven [Chesky
SACD329]. On the opening ‘Kalerka’ the
player seemed to bring out the mellow
warmth in the vocal, rather than the sheen
at the top, while the accompaniment
rolled on nicely. It was particularly telling
ABOVE: Minimalist front-panel controls are
combined with a single-line display to provide
menu functions such as input/output selection
and digital volume control setting
on the title track, where the singer’s
lovely yearning vocal quality is so well
counterpointed by the string group.
With one of the several audiophile CD
versions of Muddy Waters: Folk Singer
[Discovery HDRCD 1001] the Vitus happily
gave you the big space of the recording,
as Muddy seemingly makes full use of the
big echoey sound to create this recording’s
unique atmosphere. And on ‘My Captain’
it was great to hear the
interplay as the young
Buddy Guy’s guitar
accompanies and solos
against the singer’s deepdown rhythm part on
the lower strings. Later
you can hear the roles
reverse with Guy playing
rhythm figures under the scarifying sound
of Muddy’s bottleneck playing.
Moving on to female vocal in a
modern production, I put on Gwyneth
Herbert’s Clangers And Mash [NaimEdge
naimCD137]. On ‘Perfect Fit (Original)’
Gwyneth’s engaging vocal had warmth and
intimacy; the handclaps were believable
and catchy, while the ‘boingy’ bass drum
had just the right weight and power.
Actually the Vitus player did a great job
on the album’s closing track, the plaintive
unaccompanied vocal of ‘Midnight Oil’,
especially in the final moments where you
hear Gwyneth’s solitary footsteps crossing
the stage and leaving the scene.
For ‘Rolling In The Deep’ from Adele’s
21, the RCD-100 created a truly huge
sound, powerful and clean too, and it
stayed clean even as the sound built up to
that chorus where it seems that everything
is turned up to 11. Even the background
vocals stayed clear and distinct, while the
bass reached subterranean depths. Yet I
‘It created a truly
huge sound,
powerful and
clean too’
THE VITUS TOUCH
It was only after a long gestation period that Vitus Audio brought forth its audio
firstborn. Its perfectionist designer, Hans Ole Vitus, started the company in early
1995, but spent eight years developing the products before he was satisfied
with them. Hans Ole had got the hi-fi bug in his teens, modifying existing
products and building his own, and he graduated in electronics in 1990. He’d
also played drums in a rock band, but later came to enjoy all kinds of music.
He joined Texas Instruments in 1998 as area sales manager for Denmark and
Norway, and he says his six years with company gave him priceless experience
of working with leading-edge technology. Today, the company comprises nine
people, and is still growing, with future plans for an additional new brand under
the same AVA Group umbrella. And Hans Ole still plays drums for fun…
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Lab
report
CD PLAYER/USB DAC
VITUS AUDIO RCD-100 (£8800)
ABOVE: The RCD-100’s digital inputs cater for USB and S/PDIF, and
there are balanced and unbalanced outputs. A Philips RC5-based
remote control provides direct access transport functions
had the nagging feeling that some
other players, perhaps less pristine
and ‘correct,’ might actually convey
that tension slightly better.
Listening to Art Pepper Meets
The Rhythm Section [Contemporary/
Original Jazz Classics] I found that
the Vitus gave a very neutral, clean
presentation of this great smallgroup recording. At the bottom end,
you felt that Paul Chambers’ bass
was full and rounded but with good
definition, while in the midrange
it captured Pepper’s complex
saxophone sound, shifting moment
by moment from confidence to
an edgy nervousness – almost
to hesitancy sometimes, before
returning to magnificently powerful
and fluid phrasing.
Listening with a colleague to
the first track ‘You’d Be So Nice To
Come Home To,’ we both laughed
in delight at Philly Joe Jones’s
incredible four-bar breaks. It was
interesting to compare this with
the same track played on a Naim
CD3, which had an altogether more
rough-hewn sound and yet also
seemed to give an even zippier kind
of impact to Philly Joe’s drumming.
radio streaming
Fortunately, the RCD-100’s USB
input is capable of handling
96kHz and 192kHz hi-res data. An
impressive example was Dean Peer’s
2010 album Airborne [available in
24-bit/96kHz WAV form from www.
deanpeer.com]. The mega-bassist’s
incredible harmonics and huge
sound came over really well.
Then I spent a lot of time
listening to Patrica Barber’s 1999
album Companion [Blue Note 7243
5 22963 2 3], recorded live on
her home turf at the Green Mill in
Chicago with an audibly appreciative
audience. On Barber’s dynamically
challenging version of Bill Withers’
‘Use Me’ the RCD-100 gave the
full weight to Michael Arnopol’s
bass, and highlighted the interplay
between John McLean’s guitar and
Barber’s voice.
Naturally, I also turned to Radio
3’s HD internet streaming, first
catching up with the Nash Ensemble
at LSO St Luke’s, with the Haydn
‘Gypsy Rondo’ piano trio. With the
Vitus DAC, the streamed audio
certainly captured the sometimes
almost glutinous acoustic of St
Luke’s, while the detail and clarity
of sound here made it intriguing to
wonder about the occasional ‘noises
off’ that could be heard. More
important, though, there was a fine
presentation of the instrumentalists,
with the piano sounding full and
rounded, while violin and cello were
tangibly realistic.
It was fascinating, thanks to the
BBC iPlayer, to be able to contrast
this sound with that of pianist
Nikolai Lugansky in the Wigmore
Hall, and with the Britten Sinfonia
in the more artificial-sounding
grandeur of the Queen Elizabeth
Hall. Then, with the Ulster and RTE
Orchestras ‘together in the Ulster
Hall’, playing Korngold and RimskyKorsakov, I was swept away.
If the core of this player is its Philips CDPro2LF mechanism,
then its heart as an outboard converter is defined as much by
VA’s use of Analogue Devices’ AD1955 DAC and TI’s SRC4192
upsampler. Via its balanced XLR’s, the RCD-100 delivers a
full 4.1V from a low 73ohm source impedance, but it’s the
DAC that helps achieve the ultra-low distortion – as low as
0.0002% over the top 10-15dB of its dynamic range – with true
24-bit inputs [see red infill, Graph 1 below]. The proprietary
analogue stage is similarly robust, so distortion increases only
marginally at the highest frequencies – 0.0005% up to 40kHz
with 24-bit/96kHz inputs. The RCD-100 successfully decodes
all inputs up to 24-bit/192kHz through both S/PDIF and USB
inputs although, as we’ve seen with other (but not all) 3rdparty drivers, the A-wtd S/N ratio falls from 110dB via S/PDIF to
95.8dB via USB which suggests a 16-bit performance here.
The responses via USB and S/PDIF are identical, however,
stretching from –0.05dB/20kHz (44/48kFs), –0.9dB/45kHz
(96kFs) to –4.3dB/90kHz (192kFs). Unusually, the bass end is
tailored with a roll-off that reaches –0.75dB/20Hz but there’s
no increase in output impedance to suggest this is a simple
capacitor-coupled output. Of course, the huge >105dB
stereo separation (20Hz-20kHz) indicates the RCD-100 has no
ordinary analogue output stage. And the digital path is no less
considered, with 16-bit/CD jitter as low as possible at 115psec,
falling to <50psec with 24-bit LPCM inputs. Readers are invited
to view comprehensive CD, LPCM (S/PDIF) and USB QC Suite
test reports for Vitus Audio’s RCD-100 by navigating to www.
hifinews.co.uk and clicking on the red ‘download’ button. PM
ABOVE: Distortion versus digital signal level over
a 120dB dynamic range comparing 24-bit/48kHz
(1kHz, red) and 16-bit CD (1kHz black, 20kHz blue)
HI-FI NEWS VERDICT
Beautifully designed, built and
finished, this piece of Nordic
audio art aims at offering pride
of ownership as well as faultless
performance. With its USB input
as well as S/PDIF, the RCD-100
offers a high-quality DAC function
for digital sources including hi-res,
but majors on simple elegance
rather than facilities. It faces
very strong competition at this
elevated price level but has an
appeal all of its own.
Sound Quality: 78%
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ABOVE: High resolution jitter plot comparing 24bit/48kHz LPCM (black) and USB digital inputs (red)
HI-FI NEWS SPECIFICATIONS
Maximum Output Level (Balanced)
4.10Vrms at 73ohm
A-wtd S/N Ratio (CD / LPCM in / USB in)
110.9dB/109.5dB/95.8dB
Distortion (1kHz, 0dBFs/–30dBFs)
0.00045% / 0.0015%
Distortion & Noise (20kHz, 0dBFs/–30dBFs)
0.00062% / 0.0035%
Frequency response (20Hz-20kHz)
–0.75dB to –0.05dB
Digital jitter (CD / LPCM in / USB in)
115psec / 50psec / <10psec
Resolution @ –100dB (CD / LPCM input)
±0.3dB / ±0.5dB
Power consumption
16W
Dimensions (WHD)
435x100x377mm
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