By Andrew Liszewski
If you’re curious what $3,200 worth of CD player looks like, then feast your eyes upon the Impression II from Grant Fidelity. Designed for even the most picky of audiophiles, all of the electronics in the Impression II, including the power supply, the tube and solid state circuits, the tube analog output and the tube headphone amp are placed in the four corners of the player to prevent them from interfering with the CD player which sits in an isolated aluminum chassis in the middle.
The Impression II also features “defeatable up-sampling” with 3 optional frequencies including 44.1 kHz/16bit, 96 kHz/24bit and 192 kHz/24bit, though from what I can tell it doesn’t play SACDs which seems odd given the clientele they’re targeting. And since you’re already spending over 3 grand on this thing, you might as well go ahead and opt for the $380 polished stainless steel finish instead of the standard brushed aluminum one.
[ Grant Fidelity Reference Tube CD-1000 Player AKA The Impression II ] VIA [ Born Rich ]
First of all, “the most picky of audiophiles” wouldn't listen to CDs. Second, one of the few advantages of digital media is that the reproduction quality is not dependent on build quality. Anyone can see the difference in picture quality between a cheap VCR and a top of the line VCR, but there is almost no difference in picture quality between a $20 DVD player and a $200 DVD player, unless the laser goes out of alignment, so logic would dictate that this CD player can't sound any better than every other high end CD player you could find for $100 (yes, I know that “hardcore” audiophiles don't care about logic). Finally, I still don't understand why electronics companies keep releasing digital electronics with tubes. In a real tube based system, electronic signals are passed through the tubes and modulated into a sound that the speakers can play. With digital equipment, the electronic signal passes through circuits that decode the information into sound. I can only imagine that passing that signal through tubes would only make the sound quality worse, like making an optical print of a slide made from a digital picture. Either way, $3,200 is an insane amount to pay for something that can not only be bought for one percent of the asking price, but isn't even used anymore by most people.
For less than a third of the price you could get the Bose Wave System with built-in cd-changer and mp3 support. My Bose system cranks out sound like you can't imagine, even though it does look a little bit like a humidifier!
The Bose Humidifier still looks much more attractive than this thing. The little lights on the side make it look a bit like a $5 plastic disco ball.
Soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugly!
The Bose Humidifier still looks much more attractive than this thing. The little lights on the side make it look a bit like a $5 plastic disco ball.
Soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugly!