【SACD Player ONKYO C-S5VL Detailed Review】
Announcement｜Purchase｜Part 1｜Part 2｜Part 3｜Part 4｜Part 5｜Part 6｜Part 7
The ONKYO A-1VL reigns over Sub-system A. It used to be paired with the C-1VL, but at some point that spot was taken over by the CREEK EVO-CD, and so it has remained to this day. The C-1VL was objectively the better-sounding source, but the Evolution-CD has a certain unique charm and atmosphere to its sound — so, as is typical, chalk this one up to the author’s eccentric personal selection, and how did things end up this way…
So, the C-S5VL is the first ONKYO CD player I’ve had in quite a while — I had the CREEK EVO-CD temporarily moved to the centre of the main living-room system, and tried placing the C-S5VL on top of the A-1VL. The yellow stuffed toy is the “Nakayoshi Kero-chan” from Card Captor Sakura. Hmm. The silver-and-black combination doesn’t quite work here… I got the colours wrong, oops. Other than that, in terms of size and overall design, I think they sit together without much of a sense of mismatch. For cabling, I simply carried over what had been in use with the EVO-CD: the Dutch Kharma AC cable Kharma KPL Reference/1a — which costs about the same as the C-S5VL itself — and for the RCA cable, the Phantom (under construction) from American company DH Labs. This interconnect is quite affordable, but it happens to produce the sort of sound I rather like.
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The A-1VL and C-S5VL are both ONKYO products, and in fact this pairing in Sub-system A was the original intention behind bringing the C-S5VL in. That said, in terms of price, the A-1VL sits a good three classes higher as an amplifier, so it will be interesting to see how things turn out.
And so, with a certain solemnity, I start playing some music. One thing I noticed here: the C-S5VL’s remote control can operate the A-1VL’s volume and so on. I had actually never taken the A-1VL’s own remote out of its packaging, so this felt rather novel. Even if the amplifier is within arm’s reach in the study, a remote really is quite convenient. And the feel of the A-1VL’s volume knob when you actually touch it is, well, not exactly satisfying…
……And now, the all-important question of sound quality…
What on earth… Ah, it’s not bad exactly, but… the sound has this floating, airy quality, almost like an electrostatic speaker. A sense of déjà vu from when I paired it with the ARCAM CD72T… The A-1VL seems to be saying: shy young girls need not apply. And also: hurry up and make a proper SACD player as the successor to the C-1VL. With the main system’s TAG McLaren 60i (under construction), that slight lightness was smoothly absorbed by the amplifier’s silky tonal character, and the delicacy and nuance were rendered with great refinement, leaving only the music’s floating, drifting quality to come through freely and naturally. But with the straight-talking A-1VL, for better or worse, there is no softening of the picture. Oddly enough, this whole exercise made me re-confirm — belatedly — that the A-1VL really does have extraordinary sound quality; its virtues were argued for paradoxically, in a roundabout way. People tend to grow tired of the things they own and gradually downgrade their assessment of them, but somehow the pairing with the C-S5VL brought into relief an aspect of the A-1VL I had never quite noticed before, and I found myself falling for its resolution and everything else all over again.
The tonal character of the ONKYO C-S5VL is like a glass of delicious sparkling white wine at the daily dinner table — refreshing, with a smooth and easy quality. Since they are both products from the same manufacturer, and their tonal direction of high-resolution, contemporary sound is not wildly different, the compatibility between the two is by no means poor; but there is a slight difference in their power-handling character — a bit like saying the age gap makes it difficult to develop into a romance, one of them being rather young. Well… it is also something of a contest against the memory of the rather high-and-mighty C-1VL, which is perhaps a little hard on the C-S5VL. I suspect the lower-tier digital amplifier A-5VL, or ideally the A-7VL, would offer a better-matched pairing. Indeed, personally, for use with the C-S5VL I would recommend the DAC-equipped “VL digital” integrated amplifier, the A-7VL.
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But giving up here would be no fun at all. As it happens, I somehow have a DAC-1000 to hand — so on we go. I’m fairly confident of the outcome even before trying, if I’m honest…
※ Next time: the much-rumoured weaknesses of the C-S5VL, and how to get the best from it.
【SACD Player ONKYO C-S5VL Detailed Review】
Announcement｜Purchase｜Part 1｜Part 2｜Part 3｜Part 4｜Part 5｜Part 6｜Part 7
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List of comments （3）
こにゃにゃちわ～
ということで。
DAC-1000の感想楽しみにまっとるさかい，よろしく頼むでー
などと，昔の記憶を引っ張り出して口調を真似
あのころのアニメは良かったなーなんて。
プレーヤーとぬいぐるみで大阪繋がりのつもりです。 あの頃のアニメか～。CCSのLDボックスセットとLDプレーヤーはPHILIPSのPLD600WS持ってるで。何年も通電無しでホコリを被ってますので動くか判らんけどな～ｗ
でも去年？だったか教育テレビでカードキャプターさくらの再放送を久しぶりに少し観ましたけど、当時なんでこれを有りがたがって観てたのか、もう理解できなくなってた寂しい自分がいました。きっとあれはあの時代の熱病みたいなモノだったんだろうと･･･。
感想･･･DAC-1000は箱がでかい(謎)
初めまして。A-1VLとC-S5VLの組み合わせで聴いているオーディオ初心者です。SACDのコレクションを増やしているところですが、通常のCDの数にはまだまだ及びません。通常のCDを現在よりも良い音で聴いてみたいという興味があります。最近のDACで、オススメのモデルなどありましたら教えていただけますでしょうか。宜しくお願いいたします。