soulution 541 SACD-Player InstanceEndEditable

Not even the best amplifier or loud­speaker can compen­sate for what has been lost at the source. That is why the quality of a recor­ding and of the device used for its play­back is so funda­mental to high fidelity.

With the soulution 541 SACD-Player you lose nothing of the original recording. Simply, it reads all the musical infor­mation and trans­fers it into the analogue world.

Purely. Authentically. Perfectly. Beautifully.

Highlights

Philosophy

In many areas the 541 SACD-Player is based on the same proven technical solutions used in the 745 SACD player. It also embodies the same principles in its design: a superb quality drive for perfect data readout, a super-precise master clock generator to avoid jitter, intelligent digital signal processing with over­sampling technology, and analogue output stages of top end preamplifier quality.

Design

As with its Series 7 sibling the 541 SACD-Player is packed with cutting-edge technology with one objective - the love of music. The parallels include a consis­tent dual mono design in the output stages and separate power supplies for digital electronics, the drive and the analogue stages. The 541 SACD-Player adds a digital volume control that allows direct connection to a power amplifier. And with its USB input the 541 SACD-Player is ready for the inte­gration of high quality computer audio. A truly versatile player.

Transport

Transport quality is critical in a high-end player. For the 540 we chose the «Esoteric» - transport from Teac

Upsampling

Audio data from the disc is buffered then upsampled to 24Bit/384kHz. We believe precision of inter­polation is more important than high clock rates. Our players use an algorithm from the highly regarded Anagram Technologies followed by Burr Brown D/A converters in a digital symmetric configuration. As we consider the PCM conversion technology as superior, the DSD signals get converted before its final D/A conversion.

The 541 SACD-Player is equipped with soulution's innovative Zero-Phase-Technology. Smallest timing errors provoked by the analog low pass filter of the D/A converter get eliminated. Every D/A-Converter requires an analog low pass filter in its output in order to suppress high frequency noise and aliasing signals. The 541's 3rd order bessel, filter with a cut-off frequency of 120kHz, does show a phase shift of up to 15° in the audio band. Due to the Zero-Phase-Technology the phase error of the analog music signal remains below 1°, 20Hz - 100kHz! The Zero-Phase-Technology brings you even closer to the beauty of the source material! The music gets even more realistic and 3-dimensional with a lot of "air" around instruments and voices. As close to the source as possible! No detail gets lost.

D/A-conversion

Burr-Brown devices perform D/A conversion only. Their internal upsampling and filter stages are not used. The output currents are converted to voltage and then filtered. With an internal bandwidth of 40 MHz, this current/voltage conversion stage allows best signal-to-noise performance and maximum dynamics in the analogue domain.

Output stage

The wideband output stage of the 541 SACD-Player has a bandwidth of 20MHz (-3dB). With such speed of response all musical details are reproduced true to life creating a three-dimensional, spatial sound to bring real listening pleasure.

Operation

The 541 SACD-Player is operated from front-panel buttons and a rotary control. Further functions can be used to optimise and match an entire audio system around different components.

Connections

Analog outputs:

- 1 x balanced output (XLR)

- 1 x unbalanced ouput (RCA)

Digital outputs:

- 1 x SPDIF (RCA)

- 1 xAES/EBU (XLR)

- 1 x Optical (Toslink)

Digital inputs:

- 1 x SPDIF (RCA)

- 1 x AES/EBU (XLR)

- 1 x Optical (Toslink)

- 1 x USB

Measurements

FFT analysis in DAC mode (96kHz, 24 bit)

All distortion components are below the -120dBr mark and thus clearly below the resolution of 16bit CD data. Only when measuring with high-resolution 24bit data, distortion components can be proven in the 541 SACD-Player.

Noise floor

The inherent noise of the 541 SACD-Player is at about -160dBr, measured with maximum output signal for both low and high frequencies. This provides the basis for a detailed and precise sound image.

Spceifications