Musical Fidelity A1 CD PRO

The CD player A1 CD PRO is a small device with a very, I will say, uncommon appearance. But this is how it must be. This is the repetition of the looks of the A1 amplifier from 1984 the biggest hit of the company. The whole looks different but is made very well. The chassis is made from thick aluminum sheets, and the top cover is a very thick and rigid (also through corrugation) aluminum plate. In its middle part a big hole is drilled, the CD PRO is a toploader, with a manually operated black acrylic cover. This is not a novelty for Musical, the primacy must be given to the model A1008 from the top line. The disc is clamped to the shaft by a small plastic puck with a magnet, similar to the Naim one. In the Nagra and the Ancient Audio the pucks are heavier and made from metal. The cover is quite long and has no mechanism that would damp the movement, so we have to be careful operating it, or it will hit the chassis quite strongly. In the front a milky white display is placed, and below it four buttons operating the drive functions. On the side we have a mechanical power switch. The markings are blue. On the back plate we have the same, where besides an IEC socket a stereo analog output RCA based and two digital outputs were placed S/PDIF coaxial and a TOSLINK optical one.

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Pre-out impedance: 50 Ohms
DAC circuit: 24 bit Delta-Sigma (Bit stream) dual differential 8X over sampling
Total correlated jitter: < 135pS
Linearity: <0.1dB down to -96dB
Output digital 0dB level: 2.18VRMS at 1kHz nominal
Frequency response: 10Hz to 20 kHz -0.2dB max
Channel separation: >95dB 20Hz to 20 kHz
Signal / noise ratio: > 117dB A-weighted
Total harmonic distortion: <0.003% 10Hz to 20 kHz
Dimensions:
Main unit: 440mm, 17 1/3 inches wide; 78mm, 3 inches high inc. feet, lid closed (250mm [9 3/4 inches] minimum height clearance required to fully open lid) 280mm