EQUIPMENT REVIEW

Accuphase DP-570
CD/SACD Player
by Steve Dickinson

Turns out it’s been a while since I
last reviewed a CD player. A fewyears, in fact. And to be honest,
given my long-term player ofchoice is the dCS Puccini thatcame in for issue 65 and never really left, any
review units following that always had to gosome to get my attention. But somewhat tomy surprise, it’s been ten years since I boughtthat dCS player. Probably the most obvious
reason why I haven’t reviewed a CD playerin a while is that there are rather fewer onoffer these days, streamers and DACs having
elbowed them out of the limelight somewhat.
But some manufacturers have kept the faith,and one, Accuphase, has also managed
consistently to produce the sort of players
which might conceivably have temptedme away from my beloved Puccini in theintervening years.

Reproduced from HI-FI+ Issue 194

The DP-570 is very new; the first units only arrived on UK soil a monthor two ago. It’s the middle in Accuphase’s lineup of one-box players, above
the (CD only) DP-430, but below the rather luxuriant DP-750 which itself sits
below the 2-box DC-/DP-950 units. It’s the least expensive player to offer both
CD and SACD playback (at £10,200 it felt wrong to call it the cheapest), and it
replaces the DP-560 which came out 5 years ago (Accuphase product cycles
are reassuringly long). You need to be a bit of an Accuphase geek to spot
the physical differences between the outgoing and incoming models, maybe
a slightly different button here, or slightly different display line there, and thefinish on the top plate is more refined but Accuphase evidently hasn’t felt theneed to revisit the styling decisions it made decades ago. And to be fair, it’sa handsome unit with a reassuringly solid build, and the sort of silkily silent
loading mechanism that just makes you go ‘Ooh!’.
The build quality is part of the company philosophy, the in-house developed
transport mech is carefully constructed and mounted so as to minimise theopportunities for vibration, motor noise and other extraneous energy affecting
the reading of the disc. The ultimate objective being the pursuit of ultra low
noise performance. Accuphase claims a signal to noise ratio of 120dB, which
is 1dB (12%) better than the outgoing player’s already excellent figures, giving
an output noise voltage of just 2.5µV. The DAC chip in the DP-570 is the same

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EQUIPMENT REVIEW / ACCUPHASE DP-570“It’s no surprise to find the Accuphase ‘house’ sound firmly establishedin the DP-570’s presentation.”

ESS Technology 32bit ES9028PRO unit
found in the DP-750, the DP-570 using half
the chip’s 8 DACs in parallel for each channel(the DP-750 doubles up on the chip count,using all 8 DACs in parallel for each channel).
This employs Accuphase’s ‘MDS+’ approach
to multiple delta-sigma D/A conversion,for improved linearity and signal to noise
performance across the entire frequency
range. Accuphase claims almost double thenoise, linearity and distortion performance ofconventional delta-sigma D/A technology.
It’s no surprise to find the Accuphase‘house’ sound firmly established in theDP-570’s presentation. I shouldn’t really refer
to it as a ‘house’ sound, though, becausethat implies the equipment is voiced to give acertain presentation, whereas I think the way
Accuphase sounds is just the way it comesout when you engineer products according
to their philosophy. At its simplest, I’d sum it
up as a very organic hint of subtle warmth,
an underpinning sense of calm, and anunforced and entirely natural-feeling level of

Reproduced from HI-FI+ Issue 194

detail. Oh, and an almost uncanny way with timing. The opening section of
Alfred Brendel’s account of the Arietta from Beethoven’s Piano Sonata no. 32
in C minor [Philips] is a study in measured calmness, exquisitely metered out
by the DP-570, making it all too easy to relax into the music, switch off yourcritical faculties and just enjoy the moment…
But enough of that sort of thing, this review isn’t going to write itself,
unfortunately. There are generous input and format options, the player reads
two-channel CD and SACD discs, including hybrid (two-layer) CD/SACD discs
and CD-R/-RW, DVD-R/-RW/+R/+RW data discs, but not Blu-Ray. There arecoaxial, optical and USB digital inputs; optical and coaxial digital outputs, andHS-Link input/output options. So you can use this as a transport, a DAC, or a
one-box player for a wide range of physical formats. The USB input will accept
sample rates of up to 384 kHz PCM and up to 11.2MHz DSD (ASIO), while thecoaxial and optical inputs accept up to 192kHz and 96kHz PCM respectively.
So the tech side seems to be thoroughly sorted. Internal layout is neat, withthe key functional blocks of componentry (power, digital, analogue and control
circuitry) carefully separated and isolated from each other, and from the transportmechanism. Accuphase talks about the handbuilt, small production volume
values of its manufacturing, and I’m going with ‘team of skilled technicians inimmaculately kitted out workshop’ rather than ‘bunch of blokes in shed withsolder-scorched workbenches, and screwdrivers and pliers on a pegboard’
which once formed the backbone of the British audio industry. Switches,buttons and mechanisms are a haptic delight – silky, positive and very nicely
weighted. This sort of thing matters when you’re dropping a five-digit sum of

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EQUIPMENT REVIEW / ACCUPHASE DP-570“The various parts of the music integrate so precisely, yet effortlessly,
you can’t help but be drawn into the experience.”

money, but I’ve encountered more expensive
kit that doesn’t have this level of tactility.
The display is configurable, and canshow sampling frequency and quantization
bit depth when using as a DAC, and countup or count-down timer for each track, or thecomplete disc. Output level can be adjusted
from full, to -80dB of digital attenuation andyou can programme the order of play for a
disc. Or, you can just press ‘load’, bung in adisc and press ‘play’…
Back to that Beethoven Arietta, and after
the quiet, almost meditative opening, there’s
a busy, syncopated variation on the theme
that has never quite gelled for me. It used
to sound a little like the accompaniment toa silent movie, and the contrast with theopening section felt a tiny bit crass, slightly
inappropriate and brash. I’m not saying I’ve
been turned around entirely now, but theAccuphase has shown me another side toBrendel’s interpretation, his phrasing is lessovertly bombastic, and the music is now
teasingly fugue-like in places. There’s still
plenty of musical contrast, but now it belongs
together better. An altogether more cohesiveand satisfying experience.
And that’s the particularly interesting
thing about this player – it has a remarkableability to give me new insights into music I
thought I knew well. It’s not about mere
detail, I’m not talking about those ‘oh, neverheard that before’ moments, it’s more thesheer number of ‘oh, now I get it’ moments.
Graham Fitkin is a modern, British composerof often fiendishly rhythmically complex
music. Usually, it’s piano-based, but he’sdone an album of electronica, Kaplan [BlackBox]. ‘K1’ the first track on the album, is over
15 minutes long. I’ve tended to think of it as
13 minutes building up to a great 2 minute
payoff, and the 13 minutes is just what you

Reproduced from HI-FI+ Issue 194

get through to enjoy the payoff. I believe I may have been mistaken. Theopening couple of minutes was always good, a slow-burn build to something,but I always felt a bit short-changed by what the something turned out to be.
This time, however, I was captivated, and what often seems like a long-ish
10 minutes was over in what felt more like three. There’s variety, tension, andthat slow burn comes back, redoubles itself, and urges you forward.
I admit, I was surprised, because my dCS player is better than prettymuch anything I’ve heard at unravelling complex music. So what’s goingon? Well, 10 years has passed and current DAC chip technology is clearly as
good as dCS’ discrete tech of that era. But I’m putting my money on the way
Accuphase handles the signal once its out of the DAC. The obsession with low
noise technology, preservation of the phase relationships, and their undoubted
skill with analogue stages just takes everything up a notch.
Timing is exquisite. I try not to over-use superlatives, but it feels likethe right word here. The various parts of the music integrate so precisely,
yet effortlessly, you can’t help but be drawn into the experience. It’s like yourconscious brain is bypassed and this plugs directly in to the bits that respond tomusic. Instrumental and vocal timbre also goes up a level. The way the DP-570
resolves textures off regular CDs reminds me of what I value from SACD.
There’s more three-dimensionality and solidity to performers and instruments.
I’m not talking about the old hi-fi tropes of imaging and soundstage, thoughthese are also effortlessly rendered. It’s more that it’s easier to conjure upa solid person, playing a solid instrument in a real place, rather than themore usual holographic but ultimately two-dimensional construct within thatsoundstage. And again, your brain does this without apparent effort. It’s asthough the player has found an extra bit or two of resolution from the disc. An
old favourite, any track, but let’s go with the title from Laura Jurd’s, Landing
Ground [Chaos Collective]. The string quartet backing veers from woody,stringy, string-quartetty stuff, to choppy, urgent, stabby stuff, all the better for
Jurd’s trumpet to float over, or cut through, and all compellingly enriched bybass, piano and drums. Here and now, I’ve never heard the percussion exude
such physicality, and the trumpet’s phrasing is loose and liquid; this is a living,breathing ensemble creating a vibrant and compelling musical event.
As you’d expect, SACD replay takes this to another level. ‘What a Shame’from Patricia Barber’s ‘unmastered’ SACD pressing of Café Blue [Premonition]
had almost uncanny levels of realism – real raising the hairs on the back ofyour neck and arms stuff – and while I already knew these were consummate
musicians, the way this quartet works together, playing off each other, creatingtextures, complex rhythmic interplay, and rich and interesting timbres, is just a
constant source of delight. On ‘Mourning Grace’, piano, bass and percussion
have never sounded so tangible, connected and coherent, and Barber’s vocals
were startlingly ‘present’.

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EQUIPMENT REVIEW / ACCUPHASE DP-570

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS
Type: One box CD/SACD player
Disc types: CD; SACD; CD-R/-RW;
DVD-R/-RW/+R/+RW
Digital inputs: HS-Link (proprietarystandard); USB; Toslink Optical;
Coaxial S/PDIF
Digital outputs: HS-Link; Toslink Optical;
Coaxial S/PDIF
Analogue outputs: Line level; Balanced(with switchable phase selector)
D/A converter: 4 per channel, parallel,
MDS+ (delta-sigma)
Frequency response: 0.5Hz–50kHz(+0, -3.0dB)
THD + noise: 0.0006% (20-20,000Hz)
Signal to noise ratio: 120dB
Dynamic range: 117dB
Output level control: 0dB to -80dB(1dB steps, digital)
Size: 465 × 151 × 393mm (W×H×D)
Weight: 19Kg

A few years ago, I heard a remarkable jazz harpist, Edmar Casteneda,
perform live at a festival. Imagine if Stanley Clarke played the harp instead of
the bass, and you’ll have some idea. He’s recently done an album of duets
Live in Montreal [Telarc], with Hiromi, the tiny-but-awesome Japanese jazzpianist. What becomes apparent, after a short while, is the similarity between
the piano and the harp. Both hugely dynamic, somewhat percussive, full-range
stringed instruments. And this lack of variety could be a problem, except that
the Accuphase brings out layers of extra colour and tonal shading that keep
you interested beyond the musical fireworks that this duo conjure up. It’s not analbum I listen to often, being used more as a crash-test for lesser equipment,
but the Accuphase has shown me that, actually, there’s more to it than justcrazy levels of energy and dynamics and yes, I can quite easily sit through thisfor the sheer pleasure of it.
When you attend live performances (assuming we ever get to do thatagain) there is always a tiny moment at the start of every classical concert,when the conductor raises the baton but before the performance starts. Totalsilence. And that feeling of living, breathing, expectant souls in the room, about
to share in something remarkable. The way the Accuphase goes about its
business reminds me of that moment. It’s in the way the music is brought forthfrom a place of untroubled calmness. I think there’s something special in their
low noise approach. The noise floor on most digital audio is, of course, well
below accepted thresholds of audibility, and it’s certainly never intrusive in anaudible sense. But I reckon noise is parasitic in nature. Even inaudible noiserobs music of vitality and colour, at a subliminal level, and at its most intrusive,
it can add an unwelcome edginess to a performance. We’re all used to it,

Reproduced from HI-FI+ Issue 194

Price: £10,200
Manufacturer: Accuphase Laboratory
Inc.
URL: accuphase.com
UK Distributor: MusicWorks (UK) Ltd
URL:PXVLFZRUNVKLÀFRP
Tel: +44 (0)161 491 2932

we accept it, and it’s only when a remarkable
performer comes along that we realise there
might be another way. The Accuphaseseems to take the precision and exactitude
we should expect from top-flight players, andoverlays that with still deeper layers of colour
and texture, coherence and timing. Beautiful
music is simply more beautiful; not airbrushed
or soft-focus, rather it’s that what makes it
beautiful is shown more clearly. We get a layerof flesh and blood, a sense of humanity that,at its heart, is what gives music its compellinginterest and character.

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