Digital Drive: REVIEW: NEC CDR-601 CD Player/Recorder by Maxxfell

Model:	CDR-601
Category:	CD Player/Recorder
Suggested Retail Price:	unknown
Description:	obsolete CD-ROM drive used as transport
Manufacturer URL:	Not Available
Manufacturer URL:	Not Available

Review by Maxxfell ( A ) on May 13, 2003 at 08:21:08
IP Address: 144.81.121.30

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for the CDR-601

How good a CD transport can you get for the price of a set of Bullet-Plugs?
Item: 1 NEC CDR-601 CD-ROM drive on E-bay $9.95
Item: 4 Disc caddies to use in above $1.25
Item: E-bay shipping charges (inflated at the usual rate) $18.80 or so.
Inspired by Ed Morawski’s article in Positive Feedback, and wishing to find out what difference a change of transport would make to my relatively new Bel Canto DAC 2, I frittered away $30 as detailed above. The CDR-601 is identical to the CDR-602 that Ed recommended, except that the latter jigs through CD-ROMs at 6x, whereas the older 601 reels along in 4. Makes no difference when reading Audio CD’s, so I reckoned the 601 would probably be just as good. Like the 602 it uses caddies, has a coaxial digital out, and has a small but useful backlit display to tell you what track is playing. The power supply is internal, and takes power through an IEC connector. I loved the idea of powering the CDR-601 through one of the spare $1,899 power cords I have lying around. But as usual when I checked through my equipment drawer all said cords were AWOL (Do you believe in the cable fairy?). So I powered the drive with a generic cord—actually the stock cord from my YBA Integre amp.
The 601 had a very obvious effect on my system’s sound as soon as it was plugged in and connected (DH-labs D75) to the Bel Canto DAC 2. Unfortunately said effect was a low but persistent hum. But it was a polite hum and did not long out-stay its welcome. Once I’d made clear, by disconnecting the ground lead of the 601, that the hum was not wanted, it was never heard from again. (And at this point I trust inmates to let me know if that disconnection was a dangerously foolish thing to do.) One invited guest sadly absent at the beginning of the party was the digital signal. When I jiggled the connections, the signal made a fleeting, even tantalizing, appearance, and music, rather than hum, flooded the room. But it drained instantly away when the signal went off again. Perhaps this skittishness on the signal’s part was somehow a side-effect of the ground-loop, or perhaps it was a loose plug inside the unit. But anyway, when I opened up the case to disconnect the ground, I took the opportunity to tighten up the plugs on the wire that carries the digital signal from the drive itself to the S/PDIF output. After I’d done these things, the signal came to stay.
Initial frustrations aside, using the NEC was quite fun. I like the ritual aspects of playing vinyl, and the business of loading a caddy brought some of the same feel to playing a CD. Having no remote added to the illusion. Other inconveniences were a little more grating, however. Sometimes (admittedly not all that often) I want to cue to a point within a track. But the forward and back controls on the NEC are for skipping from track to track only. Nor does the display show the elapsed time on a track. Programming is another feature that I can do without, but really would prefer to have. It’s how I reconstruct from the boxed sets of Trane, Miles, or Ornette CD’s the classic albums on which the music was originally released.
Arriving at a definitive assessment of the sonic performance was quite a long story that ultimately had a surprisingly sudden ending. Not wishing to strain your patience, I’ll be brief. It was clear from the get go that the NEC in the system produced a different sound than my default transport—a Rega Planet. The bass and lower-mids were relatively de-emphasized, which made female vocalists, for example, step forward in the mix. And the overall sound was drier as well as less full. Notes on the string bass stopped more quickly and reverberations were less obvious. My initial reading of these changes was guardedly positive. Because of the tonal shift, I found that I heard things previously unnoticed in familiar tracks. And the quick stopping of bass notes clarified the texture of some rhythmically complex tracks.
But all changed at around midnight on the night of May 3-4. I’d been working to get some necessary writing done (“I like deadlines. I love the swooshing noise they make as they go by” – thank you, Douglas Adams), and decided to let Dave Holland’s Big Band jolt the words out of my head via Grado SR125’s. I started to listen to the title track of “What goes around”, which I’d tucked into a caddy and set spinning in the NEC. It didn’t sound quite right. In fact it sounded a touch anemic. And when the ensemble passages hit, the lines of the arrangement became hard to follow. I switched the cable over, uncaddied the disc, and tried the Planet instead. It was just much, much better: much more a red-blooded big band playing with swinging precision.
From then on, my assessment switched its polarity and lost its ambivalence. It seems to me now that the drier, less full sound that I was getting using the NEC was a result of its somehow getting in the way of the communication between the disc and the DAC. The fullness and the longer decay of notes were there in the recording, and the Planet was letting them through. All my comparisons now reached the same conclusion, and after a while I stopped making them and disconnected the NEC from the system—an interesting and useful experiment over. In the end I found it produced a slightly edgy sound towards the upper end of the spectrum combined with a somewhat, as I said, anemic effect lower down.
One other thing that should be said about the NEC is its high susceptibility to tweaking. The low cost certainly reduces the intimidation factor. And then there are some obvious things to try—like improving the connection between the drive and the S/PDIF output, or shielding the power supply, or replacing the power supply. I didn’t do any of these things, but they could make a big improvement. On a whim, I did try painting one of my caddies black. Perhaps this would further reduce light scatter. Well, may be it did. But it didn’t change the sound at all, that I could hear.
And the usual final disclaimer: this is what I heard on my system. In a different system, and especially with a different DAC, the results might have been different. Ed Morawski and others on this board have recommended NEC CD-ROM drives as a partner to older DAC’s, and I’ve no reason to doubt that it can work well. But even with its low price, I wouldn’t be able to recommend the CDR-601 as a transport for the Bel Canto. A cheapish DVD player would probably be a better choice—it’s what the folks at Bel Canto recommend; it would have functionality that the CD-ROM drive lacks; and its digital output is not a mere afterthought. I’m happy with the way the system is sounding with the Planet, so I’ve no motive but curiosity to try out how a DVD player would sound. Then again, curiosity can be a powerful motive.

Product Weakness: Limited functionality, ultimately unsatisfying sound
Product Strengths: Cheap, fun to play with, tweakable

Associated Equipment for this Review:
Amplifier:	YBA Integre DT alpha
Preamplifier (or None if Integrated):	none
Sources (CDP/Turntable):	Bel Canto DAC 2; Rega Planet
Speakers:	JM Reynaud Evolution 3
Cables/Interconnects:	DH-Labs D75, Bogdan IC, CAT-5 DIY speaker cable
Music Used (Genre/Selections):	Dave Holland
Room Size (LxWxH):	15'-18' x 20' x 9'6
Room Comments/Treatments:	irregularly shaped room, wood panelled with quite a few books
Time Period/Length of Audition:	4 weeks or so
Other (Power Conditioner etc.):	Grado SR125 headphones & Creek headphone amp
Type of Audition/Review:	Product Owner

Product Weakness:	Limited functionality, ultimately unsatisfying sound
Product Strengths:	Cheap, fun to play with, tweakable