[English Translation Test Accuphase DP-750 / image hifi Journal 01/2020]

美しさ – Utsukushisa (Beauty)
Who rolls out an SACD/CD player for almost 20,000 euros in 2019, has either
missed the trend of time – or knows exactly what he’s doing.

Our modern daily routine is marked by dealing with computers. This is not only true ofthe professional environment, but goes on after work in our listening studios – software
optimization, stable internet line, streaming DAC and audiophile switch are but a few
cues. Because the probing question – if the audio file right before us is indeed anunmodified DSD or simply a correspondingly manipulated file based on the CD
standard (or even on an mp3) – makes us involuntary beta sound testers. Who doesn’tknow the inexplicable acoustic differences with the very same recording in allegedly
identical resolution from different streaming providers and the A/B comparisons
resulting thereof?
Here also the question arises as to how long the artists will stand back and watch thissituation, because the creative part of the music scene has not been able to subsist on
the license payments from streaming and download subscriptions for quite some time.
A whole industry is changing – recording studios close their doors for hardly any artist
can still afford them, the production quality is on the decline – and we hi-fi disciples
see ourselves forced to savor productions which, often without expert help, weresomehow patched together between bedroom and kitchen table by so-called homerecorders. If art means nothing more to us than the equivalent value of an unlimited
streaming subscription, we’re in fact busy sawing off the branch on which we all sittogether! From this viewpoint a physical sound carrier, which is already subject to a1

production process based on certain technical standards and also offers a functionalbilling model for the creative folks, represents an investment in the future.
Of course, I’m hearing the numerous voices of people who would enthusiastically open
their doors for the vinyl record any time, yet with regard to the much-hated CD only
shake their heads at the buzz word “digital sound medium”. This brings us to thepresent situation of a seemingly dying device category – the high-end SACD/CD player.
Together with no more than handful of competitors, Accuphase undoubtedly deserves
a first rank today because of their seriousness and thoroughgoingness in dealing withthis topic. The immense efforts taken by the exquisite Japanese manufacture withregard to CD playback are readily apparent from the fact that they designed their own
drives, optimized for CD and SACD tracking, and have integrated them into their noble
champagne-colored devices for quite some time due to a lack of seemingly adequate
third-party solutions. In the brand-new top model DP-750 this striving for perfection
materializes to its current peak in the shape of a colossal drive weighing in at 10.5 kg[23 lbs]. You need to check it out for yourself to get an impression of this masterpiece!
It starts already with the full-metal tray moving in and out that looks as if it had been
milled from a solid block: almost silently it slides majestically on its massive stainlesssteel guides to read out the data medium just as silently then. Even when holding yourear directly to the housing, you won’t hear any running noises from the scanning unit
which is decoupled by four viscose foam damping elements. I simply couldn’t help but
compare this drive on a CD measuring facility of the public service broadcasting witha perfectly calibrated Philips measuring drive installed. The same test CD went into
both drives and each readout process was metrologically captured. The result: with theDP-750 Accuphase achieves sample values that outperform the reference drive inevery respect. According to the metrologists, this is nothing but sensational in this dayand age, where the majority of manufacturers use computer CD-ROM drives! A data
readout from the optical media as error-free as possible is the basis of all what’s
happening in the subsequent signal flow: the less drive-induced jitter and reading
errors must be corrected, the closer we get to the ideal of utilizing all information stored
on the medium for the further digital processing.
So, after a non-stop break-in phase of a good 10 days, I’m sitting pretty confused
before my sound system and listen to the first notes of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds’
masterpiece Push the Sky Away (Bad Seed Ltd., BS001CD, Europa 2013, CD), playedback by the DP-750. A first soundcheck turns into a listening session and, between
goose bumps with pleasant shivers and outbreaks of sweat, I am either sprawling2

casually in my lounge chair or sitting on its edge like frozen while focusing on the music.
A single track extends into an entire album, the album into a pile of CDs – and only thetime of night and my social conscience did finally stop me. In order to describe thesound of this exceptional CD player, I would like to use a picture for comparison which
already after the first few bars of music had settled in my mind’s eye: there is a prima
ballerina on stage, modern expressive dance is on schedule. With apparently infinite
lightness the svelte dancer is moving through the most difficult passages of thechoreography – every acrobatic highlight appears ever so natural, so carefree … one
should assume that for this delicate creature there up on stage the laws of gravity havebeen suspended. At the same time, one realizes how her muscles are tensed under
the close-fitting ballet costume. There is always more body strength at call than whatis actually needed, so any impression of strain would never come up. On the otherhand, the precision with which the dance follows the rhythm and little musical accentsare translated into movement, is nearly surreal. An almost erotic motion interpretationof the music is building up – perfect beauty and grace. For me, this picture describes
the sound of the DP-750. It’s futile to expatiate on individual disciplines, paraphrase
the frequency response from the bass to the highest frequencies with words or shine
a light on both the coarse and the micro dynamic skills, because all this will fall short.
Here an entity is developing, something that cannot be dissected any more. This digitalmachine steps back completely from scrutiny. Like when the stage curtain goes up,
the audience is gradually falling silent and then finally the first note is to be heard –simply touching. How did Accuphase manage to do it, how is it possible to makea ”simple“ CD sound like this???
At the same time the outward appearance embodies the antithesis to the acoustic
events. Heavy, incredibly heavy this digital giant is standing in my listening room – itsalmost 30 kilos [66 lbs] distributed adamantly onto custom-made cast damper feet,totally unimpressed by any external influences. This is complemented by a housing
like I’ve probably never witnessed one in such a deep vertical range of manufacture:
the finely brushed front panel with its ultra-tight fitting controls is so incredibly wellcrafted that associations to automobiles in the absolute luxury segment suggest
themselves. No screw is to be seen, the elegant high-gloss wooden enclosure looks
as if it was made of one piece together with the player. Looking under the prestigious
hood of this powerhouse, the high-end fan will almost be faced with a general culturalproperty: like the other CD players from the long-established company, the DP-750
has been built using a chamber-type design. Three large compartments offer the3layered PC boards of the various sections a maximum of electromagnetic separation.
Two stately, fully shielded mains transformers ensure a galvanic isolation between theanalog and digital signal paths. For the filtering stages in the DP-750’s power supply
specific custom-designed low-emission capacitors were developed by Accuphase. The
extreme attention to detail culminates in a special board material: the so-called “DirectBalanced Filter Section” consists of fluorocarbon resin which shows certain similarities
to glass fiber reinforced plastic and excels by an extra high dielectricity.
With digital-analog converters two different philosophies are currently pursued in thefield of the acoustically most outstanding devices. One relies on multi-bit convertersfrom NOS (”new old stock“) supplies, for the most part in a non-oversampling topology.
A completely different approach is to reconvert the digital data streams into analog
signals by using the latest chip technology in the form of freely programmable FPGAs(Field Programmable Gate Arrays).
With their new flagship Accuphase decided to go for the second option and thus gave
filterless designs a clear rebuff. Here the incoming DSD data streams are notconverted into PCM – a consistent approach the thwarting of which by the designersof the software for the SACD mastering process (except for the Sony Sonoma systemand the Sonic Solutions DSD workstation) killed perhaps the best digital standard of
our time back then. In the sense of a totally unimpaired DSD data stream, Accuphasehas chosen the only correct way. However, this is easier said than done, because if
you want to use digital filters to fight high-frequency signal contamination, as it isimmanent in these data streams as a matter of principle, you’d be up the creek withouta paddle. And conventional designs can only handle PCM data.
Consequently, the decision for a totally independent filtering solution was taken in
Yokohama, based on a multiple converter system or, more precisely, four 8 ES9028
Pro converter chips from digital specialist ESS per channel to which the data streams
are fed, each time-displaced by half a clock interval. The result is a phase-inverted
signal that will later eliminate data errors in the summation stage. This eightfold
differential circuitry is supported by a special programmable filter in a ”linear phase
topology“ which, due to its high slew rate, frees the signal from HF interference without
the dreaded pre-echoes. Of course, that is only possible with so immensely highsampling rates if you have a freely programmable CPU (central processing unit) carryout this task. Here Accuphase relies on a custom-programmed filter in floating point
arithmetic which enables the pure DSD data stream to be processed in correct phase4and without any further conversions. In combination with the multi-differential circuitand the clock-skewed signal processing, an enormous degree of signal purity isachieved, even with extremely low-level signals. Sure, the manufacturer is well awarethat the repertoire of SACDs which can benefit from this exemplarily pure signal flow
is very limited, which is why this superb D/A converter is not only available to the DP750’s sophisticated drive: via the rear USB port the player can also be used as anexternal converter unit. One may understand this as a wink into the direction of thoseamong us who already own large archives of digital high-res files or would indeed feellike utilizing the DAC for streaming. Signals from CD drives or other digital gadgets,
which can be docked to the player’s converter section via the additional S/PDIF
interfaces (optical and RCA), are converted once from PCM into DSD and treated justlike native DSD data streams.
How Accuphase managed to leverage PCM-based signals to such an excellent grade
cannot really be grasped by simply enumerating technical subtleties. In the end it’s notjust hightech which makes this player a gold standard, but rather the kind of its acoustic
fine-tuning that leaves me totally dumbfounded. For the DP-750 sounds neither“digital“ nor “analog“, it follows an esthetic of sound which until today I have neverexperienced in this particular manifestation. Antagonisms join together which normally
would seem to be incompatible. This player has the mastery of a warm pace, thebeauty of which would rather make us think of an analog top-class turntable than ofdigital electronics. Yet you will neither miss finest details, nor will it seem to be
dynamically curbed or even rounding off transients. The opposite is true: the wealth ofdetail is overwhelming, the velocity with which soft as well as brutally loud transientsare passed on to the rest of the chain, is going to take your breath away. Micro just likemacro dynamics appear so enormously real and are only limited by the loudspeakers
or the other components in the chain. Room imaging and locatability are also among
the most impressive I’ve heard so far in a digital environment. The spooky detachment
and three-dimensionality of the events will enchain the listener to the music in adownright magical way. And whenever you think to have grasped what this technicalmasterpiece can deliver soundwise, the DP-750 will surprise you once more.
When listening e.g. to the velvety tone of Anne-Sophie Mutter’s violin on Jean Sibelius’
Violin Concerto (with the Staatskapelle Dresden under the baton of André Previn,Deutsche Grammophon, 447 895-2, Europe 1995, CD), a recording which is still basedon digital standards of days long gone by, one can hardly believe that the very samedevice renders these sounds just as infatuatingly as it places the brutal transients by5

the Einstürzende Neubauten on the album Alles wieder offen (Potomak, 2007/9,Germany 2007, CD) into the room out of nowhere and with a mind-boggling dynamic
attack which gets you totally absorbed emotionally in each case. What makes thisplayer so outstanding in the end, is the incredibly fine balance between the mostdiverse properties: everything is so precisely equilibrated, seemingly placed with
pinpoint accuracy on an imaginary edge so that the DP-750 always finds the very true
timbre – absolutely breathtaking! As to its features, the designers have given this CD
player a pleasant purism to take along. Reading the user manual is definitely notnecessary here since the device explains itself to the proud owner. Almost all important
controls are arranged so clearly and logically on the front panel that its daily use is aunique enjoyment. In spite of a likewise commendably designed all-metal remotecontrol I often find myself pressing the haptically wonderful pushbuttons on the actualdevice. However, apart from the usual functions the volume level is only adjustable via
the remote which predestines the DP-750 also for direct operation with a power
amplifier while bypassing the preamp – a mode which, incidentally, works really great
since Accuphase keeps the output impedance so low that the player is compatible withany halfway practically designed amplifier (be it a pre or a power amp) and can drive
longer cable runs easily, too.
A note on placement: treat this device to a solid surface in your hi-fi rack. Yet the useof absorber bases or other tuning accessories needs to be questioned here, for witheach of my experiments its phantastic harmony suffered. Accuphase has actuallytaken all the necessary steps to decouple the DP-750 effectively from its footprint.
Those who will scratch their heads in irritation over the price asked are simply advised
to first visit their nearest Accuphase dealer to get a first-hand impression of thismachine and then calculate in their minds the costs for their analog turntables including
pickup system and tonearm. In times when sums of 8,000 euros and more are alreadycharged for an MC pickup, the asking price for this exceptional player seems to beabsolutely fair!
During music playback over the DP-750 a feeling sets in that most of us will probably
not know any more: with this piece of digital technology we have reached our ultimate
goal – nagging doubts as to whether things could still get a little better will definitely
belong to the past now.

Ekkehard Strauss6