Review: Sony SCD-XA5400ES CD Player

Possible to find in Germany from hifiberlinshop.de for ~1200euros incl. shipping. Just as many reviewers / buyers, I am impressed by the blend of qualities getting out of this player, and would go even further and say that it lost the "explosive" sound that Sony elements traditionally carry, to a more refined and measured experience. I use the XLR outputs to a Plinius pre/amp and a pair of Magicos, and am very pleased with SACD playback. CD playback is excellent too, although there is a very faint amount of sibilance likely associated with linear phase upsampling that could yet improve, but this is really a minor defect.

Thank you- I have another source and the problem isn't there, nor does it happen with vinyl (although frequency extension is very different). I would attribute this to the Sony, and as previously stated, the type of filter selected to perform the CD oversampling. I have another piece of digital gear allowing to choose between 1) linear phase Half Band FIR upsampling, 2) Linear Phase Full nyquist attenuation and 3) minimum phase upsampling- settings one and two seem to lead to about the same amount (faint!) of sibilance, but with filter 3 it is completely addressed. What I am hearing on the Sony SCD-XA5400ES sounds similar, and is completely gone on SACD playback. Hopefully, first and second stage upsampling filter is performed in the SACD IC, and it may be possible to update the filter coefficients using a software update... Wouldn't that be nice? :)

Dave, this only happens on CD- SACD is clean... Digital hardly needs any break-in, analog does, and the analog signal chain is the same for both CD and SACD- IMHO this is related to their CD upsampling filter choice (although they may have had no choice in the matter if they use the filters embedded in the DAC). Also, and as previously stated, this happens with outboard DAC when regular FIR are in use, but disappear when minimum phase filters are used instead...

This does certainly not eclipse the many qualities of this player- and although it competes with the best SACD players out there, it will fail when confronted to the best CD players (or network players) because of this.

Now, regarding my signal chain- I am not too worried as I can clearly hear the personality of each source, and each change, even the smallest, clearly impact what I am hearing... But, that makes me think, maybe your Sophias do not have enough high frequency energy for you to hear the sibilance... Or, and this is quite usual, your hearing doesn't extend that high anymore? :) (I.e. right back at you there).

Last but not least- and this is because you seem to respond to everyone on this thread, but also because you attempt to knock down any criticism related to this player: who do you work for?

Alright, I did some digging and have a bit of information to offer to the general public!

The DAC used in this unit is a DSD1796 (Burr Brown / TI) - The "Triple SADAC" topology used in the 9000es is gone, likely because it isn't very cost effective, and unless properly time-shifted "à la Accuphase", offers limited benefits; it does reduce the noise floor somewhat, but getting lower than -115dB FS seems ludicrous. The DAC is followed by a OPA2132 FET input dual opamp per channel as I/V converter, followed by one JRC2114/channel for buffering the balanced outputs, and again an OPA2132 for the unbalanced one. This selection of opamps clearly highlight the midrange ambition of this player as there are many well regarding (and much highly priced) opamps to choose from. Good news for us: there will be a lot of possible mods available in the form of opamp replacement and power supply improvements! The headphone output is driven through a JRC2043 dual opamp- but, and this to my surprise, the volume control is inserted in series between the output of the opamp and the headphones- this doesn't guarantee performance at all output levels as the impedance (and by association the damping factor) of the headphone output will change with the level. Apparently the quality of that section was considered "secondary" and not worth spending money on...

The decoder IC is a CXD9927R from Sony- there isn't much available regarding this particular chipset, but my guess is that it is Sony's newer integrated DVD/SACD chipset (there is even a CVBS composite video output onboard). It is clocked by at 27MHz, another clue that this IC is dedicated to video as well. RAM and Flash are attached to it for system software storage and operations. This chipset supports the HDMI output natively, but also the S/Pdiff output, and the laser head. There is also an (unbranded) microcontroler, with a cute little connector that goes to the back of the device, likely for reprogramming. It is accessible through a small hole on the back panel, on top of the right balanced audio outputs. Both SACD and PCM signals are going to the DAC as expected, seemingly indicating that SACD is supported natively without downsampling.

The power supply is composed of 3 transformers, a small laminated unit for the control circuit, and two 0 core ones for the analog and digital sections respectively.0 cores have the primary and secondary windings located "side by side", reducing high frequency coupling, at the cost of a lower efficiency. They seem however oversized and do not get too hot during operation. The supply is classically built on 78xx/79xx series regulators with relatively large heat sinks. No frills there! They are located on a separate board on the right side of the transport.

The control panel located behind the bezel is completely passive except for the display control. The jog button is a cost down version inherited from their low-end DVD players, and isn't very practical because 1) the steps are a tad too smooth and 2) the system software response is a tad slow. However, most of us will use the remote, making the point moot... The transport is a classic DVD drive similar to the ones that can be found in Sony DVD players. The chassis has a couple of beams to support the transport and make the player more rigid. There is also a small "shelve" to support both analog and digital boards. Manufacturing techniques are pretty standard for an audio product, although careful (through hole resistors in the audio section, sealed film caps for decoupling, surface mount film from Panasonic...).

All in all, this is a well designed unit where money was spent in the right places, leading to an accessible price tag. I must admit that it sounds much better than the sum of its parts- my compliments to the Sony engineers!

Update 2: I obtained the design white paper from Sony regarding the XA5400ES... As a side note, this paper should have been peer-reviewed as it contains many contradictory statements, and hints to the player having multichannel analog outputs, which it doesn't. However, it clearly states that CD upsampling is performed by the DAC IC, the DSD1796 from Burr Brown. The datasheet for this IC is available here.
As one can see in the datasheet page 8, the CD upsampling filter is a "regular" half band FIR filter; recent developments in digital filtering points to the pre-echo of that type of filter to being detrimental to sound quality, in particular sibilance (countless papers available on the AES). There are several alternative approaches to fix this issue: one of them is to use IIR filters instead of FIR, at the cost of a lot of phase distortion. Another approach is to use a "minimum phase" transform FIR filter, which translates the traditional symmetrical impulse response to asymmetrical at the cost of some phase distortion. This enables the designer to trade off pre-echos and phase to the optimal blend. The results are quite evocative, with better high-frequency extension and integration, especially when vocals are recorded with a large amount of high-frequency content. This filtering technique is in use in the Wolfson WM8741 DAC, but also in some outboard DACs such as the Cambridge Audio MagicDAC II (in conjuction with Anagram Technology Q5 upsampler), where the user can select his favorite upsampling method.

The SACD section of the player does also use a symmetrical FIR filter, but the very smooth LPF response required for SACD filtering enables the use of a very short sequence with limited pre-echo duration (see p. 39 and 40). This would explain why the 5400ES is so good at playing back SACD, but CD playback shows a slight hint of high frequency grunge. It is small though, and will be noticeable only compared to the best players out there.

All in all, it is a very good player. You would have to spend much more to get to this level of quality, and this is true for both CD and SACD playback. But it is possible to find a better CD player out there- it'll cost you though!

Tino,

yes, I have compared the Sony with the Magic DAC II using the Sony as a source for both- the Magic DAC in minimum phase mode definitively adds transparency and a sense that "the timing is right" at high frequency. As soon as the DAC Magic is switched back to "half band filter" (Filter #1), the effect at high frequency is back, leading me to believe that what I am hearing on the Sony is the 44.1K brickwall. However, you are describing a "lack" of high frequency that I have not noticed; this could be attributed to many effects, one of them would be a noticeable decrease of distortion compared to your previous player? For most of us, distortion = loudness (at least frank, top-bottom clipping). You *could* borrow a DAC Magic from one of your favorite stores for comparison purposes. I also noticed that you used an Acoustic Zen loudspeaker which sports (if my memory serves me well) a... ribbon tweeter. As much as I like the delicacy of those devices, I also usually think they are lacking slam in the lower part of their spectra (3~6kHz) and will sometimes overemphasize the 10K region, especially since the midrange of the Zen is quite a large driver.
Now, could Sony update their digital filters? Well, that's a tricky one- I do not know what processing abilities are left in the DSD ASIC, but this is how I would do it:
- Migrate the first two stages of digital filtering to the Sony ASIC; this stage would perform the critical 44.1K -> 176.4K upsampling. I would use minimum phase filtering there (many good papers to chose from in order to design the filter).
- Set the DAC for a 176.4K input, and use the "slow slope" filter as the upper region of the spectra will already be empty (20~80kHz).

There would still be pre-echos in the output stream as some filters are still half-band FIRs, but the longest filters (x2, then x4 have the largest number of taps) would not have pre-echos, thus limiting the duration of this effect in time. Now, does Sony read this column? I am ready for a flash update CD:)

Regarding modding the player- most dual opamps have the same pinout, so you should not have any issue trying some new friends. Keep in mind that opamps used in various locations need a different subset of optimizations, in particular:
- I/V converter needs fast settling time and slew rate, low current noise, and stability when a capacitor is connected from inverting input to output. This means that current feedback opamps are not recommended in this location. Sony selected a FET input device (OPA2132) for this application, also bringing very good DC characteristics and possibly removing the need for AC coupling capacitors between this stage and the LPF/Buffer stage. I would look at high performance, high slew rate opamps from ADI and National here. Please keep in mind that the noise of this circuit will be largely defined by the value of the feedback resistor (the lower the better), so output drive of the opamp also matters.
- Filter / buffer: low voltage noise, high slew rate and high output drive are a must to keep the performance up. I do not know the exact topology of the Sony's output stage, but I would also consider keeping good DC characteristics in order to minimize offset. A new, fully differential audio opamp was just released by National- it may just be the right device for this player, as nothing indicates that they are using an "auto-balancing" ciruit on the XLRs... This however would require the addition of a small PCB as it has a non-conventional pinout.

A side note regarding the NE5532 / 5534: they definitively bring a signature to the signal- signature that we have been hearing for over 25 years. Aren't we ready for something a bit more transparent? :)
Another side note regarding Tube output stages: properly designed SRPP stages will likely be the only topology that will keep the inherent noise floor and low distortion of this player, while adding the "glow" so many people seem to love. I would shy away from SET circuits as there is almost no voltage gain needed (the I/V brings the signal to the proper amplitude, not the output filter/buffer). The supply for a SRPP stage will likely be high (250 ~ 300V) and will make the integration in the player difficult. Another valid approach would be to use a discrete transistor based output stage, which would not require a very high supply...

So much for the case of "little understanding"... http://www.linkedin.com/in/cyrilmartin

Now Dave B., when it comes to your extensive ownership of expensive digital gear, all of them with no exception were using symmetrical FIR designs. Sad, very sad... Your offer to debug a system "a distance" is presumptuous at best- a bit like phone psychics.. And the statement about "not having hearing loss" is always incorrect- everybody does, that process is called "aging"... unless of course you also have a potion to reverse Corti organ damage (and did it ship with the Sony player?).

As many will notice, that "discussion" is going nowhere. I will summarize as best as I can: if you have $1K laying around and you want a very good all around player, the Sony is for you. If you also have a soldering iron and are not afraid of playing wizard with SMT packages, you may even have the pleasure of doing some experimentation with opamps and see where you get; you will notice that Sony is pretty much in bed with TI (Burr Brown was acquired by TI in 2001) so you have all the ADI and National offering at hand, likely unexplored by the Sony design team.
Now, if you want the best redbook CD player available today (and you are independently wealthy!) go check our the Meridian 808.2 CD player- You will not regret it... And, if you also want to check how devilishly good your SACDs can sound, check out the DCS stuff (N.B: look at the pro gear- it is precisely the same as the audiophile offering in a more rugged packaging, and at more realistic prices... *realistic* still means a wad of cash though!).

And this was only naming a few :)... Contrary to some, I tend to avoid definitive statements as the future would too often prove me wrong!

Peace.