Musical Fidelity X-RAY CD Players
Musical Fidelity X-RAY CD Players
USER REVIEWS
[Mar 15, 2002]
ariecol
AudioPhile
Strength:
Produce sweet musical high yet accompanied by bass.
Weakness:
Rather aged, might not be the best CD player currently. A love it or hate it affair due to its sheer transparency. BEWARE: ACCURATE SOUNDS REPRODUCTION: keep bad recordings CD away.... Question is: Will the rest of your system be the weakest link? If clarity and accurate sounds reproduction is what you want. Hunt no more. If classical is what you hate, listen to it classical using X-ray will change your taste of music towards classical. Dont get me wrong, this CD player has a very clear transparent sound reproduction giving superb sounstage that will smack right in front of your face for all type of music as well. This CDP will last me "forever" unless it die. Hope not :) MF X-ray, Arcam FMJA22, PSS Octet IC, Mordaunt Short 908, QED silveranniversary biwire - High, Kimber 8TC low. Similar Products Used: Marantz CD6000KI (my friend''''s not mine) Marantz CD6000OSE (auditioned) Rotel CD player (auditioned) |
[Mar 16, 2000]
Mark Allen
Audio Enthusiast
Strength:
Absolutely stunning clarity!
Weakness:
None. Equipment: |
[Apr 07, 2000]
Peter Walker
Audiophile
Strength:
Detail, imaging and ambient information. Major improvement over my 10-year old Mission 16-bit player - and pretty close to my Meridian 500/566 combo.
Weakness:
Not much for a £800 product. Fit and finish on the front panel could improve a bit - but I'm just being picky. As I write this I'm listening to Ladysmith Black Mambazo and they could be in the room. The only other thing is that they are stylistically very different from the average box. Are you willing to buy the rest to match appearances? If you're in the market - check out the Arcam 9 CD deck and the FMJ variant - but nothing else I heard in the UK came close at the price. Similar Products Used: Just got the xp-100 pre-amp (see above comments) - a great match to the Rotel RB991 power amp. See recent Stereophile review.If you guys can't get the pre-amp in the States - why on earth not? This is a great product - same circuit as the Nuvista pre-amp with J-FETs instead. Separate power supply box and built like a tank. |
[Jun 05, 2000]
Reon Brand
Audio Enthusiast
Strength:
The X-Ray must be the reference in its class. It elictits incredible detail from CDs, yet it retains its musicality and neutrality.
Weakness:
None at this price. Idiosyncratic appearance may not be to everyone's taste. The X-Ray is able to render a very realistic and stable sound stage that retains its focus, resolution and transparancy throughout complex musical passages. I disagree with one of the other reviewers. The sound is neutral, but definitvely not cold. In fact, the top end is exceptionally smooth and the base fast, realistic and very controlled. |
[Sep 26, 2001]
Mat Conboy
Casual Listener
Strength:
build
Weakness:
the loading draw does not come out far enough! what a design fault!!! four more mil's and a CD would slide in without obstruction! First of all I would like to say that most listeners I hear complain about their equipment do not or have not had the experience of live performances. And I believe their reviews to be irrelevant. |
[Jan 19, 2001]
Mike F-B
Strength:
Stunning sound, build quality, top notch dealer
Weakness:
Boy, I'm not sure about weaknesses, maybe HDCD or DVD-A, but not much This may be the last Cd-Player I purchase for a while, which is unusual for me. Not that I hated all my previous CD-Players, but I seem to have developed this pattern. I buy a CD Player, fall in love with it, then sell it (man I love ebay) within a year. Similar Products Used: Musical Fidelity A3-CD, Rega Planet, McIntosh 7005, Audio Alchemy. etc. |
[Oct 07, 1999]
Kris
an Audio Enthusiast
I picked up an X-Ray, X-10D, X-Cans and Sennheiser 600's as my headphone system for the office. The X-Ray (and this combination) has and amazing amount of clarity, resolution and granularity. |
[Nov 28, 1999]
Susumu M
Audio Enthusiast
As the others write, it plays the last bit of information buried in the disk. Due to newly developed ultra low impedance circuit, you'd make out all of things happened in the studio. |
[Sep 26, 2001]
Matthew Kirkcaldie
Casual Listener
Strength:
Industrial design
Weakness:
44kHz, 16 bit limitations of CD audio I would take Mr Conboy's remarks with a grain of salt, since he wants to justify the considerable outlay he made for the player. That said, I have no reason to doubt the quality of the X-Ray, and believe it is held back primarily by the limitations of CD audio. Similar Products Used: Rotel RCD 971 (similar Burr-Brown DACs) |
[Jan 21, 2002]
Bob Stevens
Audiophile
Strength:
Good value for money. Neither adds nor takes away. Try it with a statmat for best performance.
Weakness:
Can't find any major problems Very hard to beat for value. Having read all the reviews, I suspect that the other components in the system will colour appreciation of this player. I am running it with a Hovland HP100 pre-amp. Bryston 4bST and Zingali studio monitors. Gives a very true reproduction of both voice and instruments. It reproduces drums accurately, (compared it with my Sonor 6 piece kit).It does not always get the soundstage quite right, but hell, for the price it takes some beating. However, if you really want to hear it at its best, you've got to try putting in a Ringmat CDI blue statmat on top of the CD. Sounds crazy I know, why should a stupid piece of plastic on top of the CD improve the sound? It does believe me!! I recently auditioned the Chord 64 DAC with the X-ray and it sounded worse than the X-Ray with the statmat. Saved myself over $2500. |