14 DAY TRIAL // Here's another piece of ultra-high technology that will be a serious blast on the budget of any audiophile: the CD-740 from Soulution, a stunning piece of high-end audio technology, meant to let you get the best possible sound from your CD or SACD collection. Despite the fact the CDs are slowly starting to disappear from the so-called “modern” area, it looks like top-notch audio gear manufacturers still have a strong belief in the adherence of their customers to this sound storage solution.
Moreover, far from trying to keep technology advances somewhat “at bay,” they are still pressing on, coming with new and sometimes spectacular solutions to the problems that have plagued the purity of sound so far.
Now, audiophile equals expensiveness in almost 100% of cases, and Soulution CD-740 isn't at all shy to state this once more, in that its price tag isn't for the faint-hearted: more than $60,000 (42,200 EUR) for a piece of the sonic bliss this tool promises! If you haven't had any experience with Soulution gear until now, and you take a quick look at the CD-740, most likely you'll find yourself laughing out loud, as there is no bling to it, nor anything that would make heads turn as far as exterior design is concerned.
The Soulution CD-740 comes with two minimalist-design stacked metallic boxes, which, indeed, have nothing to do with what's on the inside. One of the most important things about the Soulution CD-740 is its power supply system: it is comprised of three separate units, one for the analog circuitry, one for the digital circuitry, and one for the transport drive. This engineering solution was applied in order to eliminate crosstalk as much as possible, and to ensure a pure sonic output.
Further on, under the bonnet, you'll get an upsampling sound processor running on Anagram Sonic2 technology, which will increase the sampling rate for the digital input flow at the 24-bit/352.8 kHz standard, then send the data to the burr-Brown 1972 DACs, and finally to the Class A output stage.
Sporting BNC and RCA coaxial, optical and AES/EBU connections, the Soulution CD-740 can easily be integrated pretty much anywhere. If you are that much of an audiophile and feel like nothing can be properly done without an external clock, the Soulution CD-740 also has a special link connection. The harmonic distortion is rated below 0.0005%, which is rather inexistent with a 140 dB SNR. As for the mother-of-all-features: the Soulution CD-740 sports a jitter smaller than 1 picosecond – meaning, no one could ever hear it. Now, look again at the price tag and decide for yourselves if all of the above are worth the money. Since it's already selling, it may look like Soulution made a good move with this state-of-the-art CD player.
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