General Asylum: REVIEW: Ultech UCD-100 CD Player/Recorder by Bruce from DC

At the risk of getting scorched by Nigel's discourse on congitive dissonance, here's an owner's review of a CD player that I've had for a year and a half. I am not a professional audio reviewer, familiar with everything through and including the $20,000 Linn CD-12; nor do I work in an audio store where I have the opportunity to listen to everything in the shop (most of which I couldn't afford). If you want that kind of review, read no further; go buy your favorite magazine.
The company that made this player mysteriously went out of business about a year after the player received a rave review in Stereophile and a "Class B" rating. Go figure! I've seen this player advertised used for about $500.
In shopping for a new CD player, I set an arbitrary limit of $1000. Physically, compared to everything else that I saw -- except the Rega Planet -- this machine appears to be much more heavily constructed, although I have not removed the cover to look inside. It is a basic one-disc CD player, with remote and a single set of unbalanced audio outputs. No digital output. Ergonomically, it's not the best. The front panel display can be read only from a distance of 2 feet, and the front panel controls are a series of identical, small buttons. The remote is full-functioned and works satisfactorily.
I felt the sound to be clearly superior to other, similarly-priced offerings from Marantz,Cambridge Audio and Arcam. All of these players had, to my ears, an aggressive, harsh top end. The closest contender was the Rega Planet. To me, the Planet had a "rolled-off" sound, like a classic tube amplifier. The CD "top-end nasties" were not present from the Rega, but neither was much top-end detail. So, I mildly preferred this player to the Rega. In addition, I thought HDCD, which the Rega lacks, was a minor plus for this player. There were some posts by several owners on audioreview that complained of operational problems; I have had none.
So, what's it sound like? I would characterized the sound as "delicate." Left-right and front-back rendering of the soundstage is very good. All of the top-end detail (brushes on cymbals) is rendered quite clearly, but not aggressively. Bass detail is good, but I would not characterize the sound as "warm." It renders the decay of an instrument's sound well, if that is present on the recording. So, is it perfect? Certainly not. I have not auditioned CD players in the $2,000 and up price range, so I cannot compare. However, in one sense it is clearly inferior to my very low-budget vinyl set up. With any number of records, my vinyl setup produces a far more definite left-right localization of individual instruments or voices than this CD player. Thus, the vinyl playback has an immediacy that can be startling, that the CD reproduction lacks. This may be a limitation of 16/44 digital, or it may be a limitation of this player. HDCD provides a modest improvement over the best standard CDs, but it is not dramatic. Individual instrument localization seems to be a little better with HDCD.
For now, a $3000 CD player is not in the cards for me; so I cannot tell you what $2000 more gets you in sound quality. Nor can I tell you if the "diffuse" imaging (compared to vinyl) of this player can be cured by more money. (I did not notice any more precise imaging from any of the other players in sub-$1000 price range.)

REVIEW: Ultech UCD-100 CD Player/Recorder Review by Bruce from DC at Audio Asylum