Firin' Up The Minimax CD

Digital Drive

Upsamplers, DACs, jitter, shakes and analogue withdrawals, this is it.

When I took hold of my friend's Eastern Electric Minimax CD, I brought it to my parents' place in San Francisco. After doing a cursory examination, I took the player to my room, and set it on top of a Roomtunes Deluxe JustaRack (bias #1). I simply took its stock powercord (bias #2), and plugged it into the wall, which uses an Oyaide SWO-XXX (bias #3). I took a Nordost Red Dawn interconnect (bias #4), and ran it to a Naim Nait 5i, which, in turn drove AKG K1000s. The only regular headphone I had at my parents' place was a Beyerdynamic DT-880, which I used to evaluate the Minimax CD's headphone jack.
I turned on the Minimax CD.....and the bright blue LED blinded me. Okay. Whew. After my eyes adjusted, I noticed that, while the blue LED was garish, it wasn't as pointedly laser-like the piercing LED on the Benchmark DAC-1.
I ran the test CD to check channel balance and phase. No problems whatsoever.
Now, my brother and I lived at home for 31 years. As we built up our CD collection, we had NO duplicates. But when I moved out, I took my CDs with me. So, the CDs at my parents' place are different from the ones I have at my home. But lay your fears aside, my brother and I have similar musical tastes.
The mind fades in an out, but here's a list of one-box CD players which have seen significant time at my parents' place: Sony CDP-520ESII, D-10, D-66; NAD 5000; Rotel RCD-971; Creek CD43 mk.2, CD50, CD53; Linn Genki; Musical Fidelity A3CD; Rega Planet (original); Naim CDx2/XPS2; Cary CD 303/300; Meridian G08. And let's not get sidetracked by all the digital separates that have flowed through. So when it comes to CD players, I'm kind of blase.
In no particular order, the songs I took notes with on the Minimax CD's maiden voyage included:
The Buggles, "Video Killed The Radio Star"
Bonham, "Wait For You"
Cyndi Lauper, "Time After Time"
Erasure, "Here I Go Impossible Again"
Jim Brickman (featuring Martina McBride), "Valentine"
King, "Love & Pride"
Motels, "Suddenly Last Summer"
Neil Diamond, "America"
Steely Dan, "FM"
Vixen, "Edge Of A Broken Heart"
I've taken many new CD players, and know full well about burn-in. However, with the Minimax CD, I only had one unit, and could not compare it to one that was fully broken-in. So all I can do is report what I heard.
I put on the K1000s, and cued up Bonham's Disregard Of Timekeeping, a flat, compressed, lost-somewhere-in-the-back-of-the-fog-bank recording. I was surprised that, straight out of the box, the Minimax CD did have some depth to the images.
As I played more songs, I noticed that, while the images weren't anchored firmly in place, the overall sound showed at least a little enthusiasm, and textures weren't completely wrong. I left some Pet Shop Boys running, while we went out for dinner. When I came back, I switched the Naim to an unused input (to silence the K1000s), and put on the DT-880s. Well, as expected, the sound through the DT-880 was different from that through the K1000. I did observe that healthy loudness (on pop CDs) was achieved at the 8:00 position of the volume control. Through the DT-880, the sound was scrunched up, and clustered towards the front of my head, rather than smack dab in the middle.
Then it was time to put away the Naim and AKGs, and bring out the Eddie Current EC-01 to drive the DT-880. At this point, I used an XLO LE-1 (bias #5) instead of the Nordost Red Dawn, and--whoa!--all I can say is, the Minimax CD LOVES the XLO LE-1! The music just became that much more accurately textured and nuanced. There was an effortlessness to the transmission that went beyond what even the (speedy) Red Dawn could do.
I was getting frustrated with the EC-01's excessive gain. With 2V sources and the Beyerdynamic DT-880, you get your ears blasted off, when the volume control is at its second (!) notch. I noticed no difference in volume control position when using the Minimax CD and Meridian G08. So I assume that the Minimax CD's output is within a few dB of the standard 2V output. It was time to knock off the headphone stuff, and bring the Minimax out to my parents' main system. And that is an episode I'll save for next time.
-Lummy The Seahorse

My Everyday Life (Open in New Window)

This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:

VH Audio

Topic - Firin' Up The Minimax CD - Luminator 11:43:48 06/07/06 (0)

You can not post to an archived thread.