SHANLING SCD-T200 REVIEW (preview)

[artto]

Our Forum friend Colin suggested I write a full review on this, and I shall. However I thought I would share a few thoughts (excerpts), a preview, with you now, as IMO I think the initial results are intriguing and the full length review will be somewhat lengthy.

First let me say that I really like this player. Im not one for changing gear often anymore. As many of you know, to me, the room itself and its acoustical properties are of paramount importance and Ive found make a far greater difference in overall system performance than changing any of the other components ever can. But in light of that, it should make my impressions of this particular component even more revealing.

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So how does it sound? For me, its one of those rare pieces of equipment, that when you first hook it up and begin listening, you want to keep pulling out recording after recording, just to see if these too will sound much better from what you remembered. From the first few notes it was apparent this was indeed better than anything I had heard from my system before, and would later prove to be a perfect match. Everything was right there, the sense of space, dimension, and scale, of both instruments and place. It was as if you could not only pin point the location of the instrument, but also identify the space the instrument occupied. For instance, an upright bass is much larger than a violin. Both instruments essentially start to emanate sound from a point where the bow or fingers strike the string. But there is a sense of difference in how large the instrument sounds, the dimensional space it takes up. The 3-D footprint if you will. The much smaller scale of the point where its string is first struck, the sound of fingering on the neck and its associated string noise if any, and the sense of string length tone as it relates to the size of the instrument, along with a sense of the instruments occupied three dimensional space, were all completely discernable. This was truly one step closer to the original performance. And it did so without being in-your-face.

On a new Peter Gabriel SACD (hybrid disc) I had just purchased (Up). On the (Music Hall) Maverick, I couldnt believe how bad this recording sounded. I even checked the disc documentation to make sure it was originally recorded in DSD/SACD format. I put it in my Denon CD player and it sounded better. I tried the upsampling on the Maverick in CD mode and that made things even worse! It was really atrocious. On the Shanlingholy cow! All of a sudden there were images of sounds flying around the room! The bass went down right to the center of the earth. I was hearing things that just werent there on the other players. Some sounds seemed to be within arms reach of touching them. Others were clearly well beyond the space of the room and well outside the far right or left speakers. The Shanling also seems to provide more of a vertical component to the soundstage and imaging.

Another recent SACD acquisition, Mark Levinsons (Red Rose Music) recording of Bill Elgarts A Life, recorded in 1975 at Yales Battell Chapel on a modified Studer/Revox A80 recorder using 1 30ips analog tape, was a similar experience. Here, percussionist Bill Elgart uses the sound of the space itself to be part of the music and I suspect the recording was made in the later hours of the night so that outside vehicle and pedestrian noise wouldnt interfere as much. You could not only hear an occasional car or truck go by outside in the distance, but also tell what direction and side of the building it was coming from. Because of way these outside sonic intrusions sounded, I suspected the Chapel was located near a street corner intersection, which indeed turned out to be the case! (I looked this up after-the-fact for verification after listening to the Shanling). On other players, yes you could hear the barely audible occasional traffic outside, but with the Shanling the differences in the sonic clues were apparent enough and so correct in their nature that the buildings orientation and its relationship to the streets outside could easily be heard from the space inside the church on the recording itself. This is no small feat as these outside sounds are at a very low level, and might not even be heard, much less distinguishable, on most systems, at least not until the volume is turned up to an unnatural level for Bill Elgarts very wide dynamic range performance.

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[leok]

Artto,

Interesting. Thanks for the review.

Leo

[artto]

I see the 'Rich Text' screwed up the text, as well as left things out (as usual) so I'm reposting all what I've written so far in regular text mode.

Shanling SCD-T200 Review

First let me digress for a moment as some history needs to be explained. Many years ago, when I purchased my second CD player, a Revox B225, I tried a little experiment. This player had both fixed and variable outputs. Unlike many line level components which have this feature, its volume controls were conveniently located on the front panel (as opposed to the back or underneath the chassis). One day I decided to try bypassing the preamp and connecting it directly to my power amps to eliminate as many intervening components and connections as possible to see what affect, if any, this would have on the quality of reproduction. The power amps, while having their own input level control, sounded best at the 12 oclock position. Connecting any fixed output line level component directly to them (bypassing a preamp or control center) required their input level to be turned almost all the way off (where they sounded their worst), and often this would still be too loud with most recordings. With the Revox I could now leave my power amps input level set where they sounded their best and adjust the overall gain level from the CD player. Even with a high quality and musical sounding preamp like the Audio Research SP-6B, I was amazed at much more transparent, open and noise-free the sound was bypassing the preamp.

Alas, nothing lasts forever, and my old Revox had seen its day, and I figured things had probably progressed enough that it was time for a new player, with oversampling, better error correction, pitch control, etc. Unfortunately, at the time, there really wasnt anything out there that met my all critical criteria of having a variable output so I could continue to experience the ultimate in line level signal path purity. So it was back to using a preamp/control center to properly control the gain levels.

Enter the Shanling SCD-T200. This is, in my opinion, one of, if not, thee coolest looking CD/SACD players on the market. When I brought one home on loan from a local dealer for audition, I first carried it to the kitchen to show my wife. Her paused response was It looks like something from a 1950s sci-fi movie. Later I ran across some reviews commenting exactly the same thing. At any rate, it is a site to behold. Probably the only thing I would have changed cosmetically is possibly making the skyline of transformer covers chrome or anodized gold, something a little more shiny & metallic. With the lights down low this thing looks even cooler! You could even use it as a table centerpiece for a romantic candlelight dinner with your loved one and I really dont think they would mind! Retro and modern all rolled into one.

First let me say that the reason I was primarily interested in this unit is because it has a volume control. And the volume control was available on the remote control which makes things very convenient in my somewhat large listening room. One of our Forum members, Dan Hirschler (gullahisland) had kindly alerted me to the Music Hall Maverick as having a volume control. I bought one, only to discover that this particular unit didnt have volume control. Unfortunately, this is apparently a very recent development. It seemed even most dealers were not aware of this and there was some confusion from reputable sources as to whether this beast actually existed (yet). After much frustration (and not really liking the sound of the Maverick anyway.the upsampling for CD really sucked too, but thats another story) I decided to bite the bullet and audition the Shanling SCD-T200 at nearly twice the price.

Before ever listening to one of these, I had some initial concerns. The first one was potential noise from the line level tube output stage. Another concern was possible coloration introduced by the tubes, such as tubby bass, or a high end that was too polite and overly warm, pleasant sounding, but not accurate. On the other hand this player has two stereo outputs, one utilizing the tube section and the other straight through solid state. If I found the tube section to be too noisy or colored, I figured I could switch to the solid state outputs and still have the volume control. And last but not least, considering its made in China, and comes with a U.S. MSRP of $2,700.00, general product quality was a concern. I guess you could consider me biased in this respect, but my personal feeling was that China is not nearly as technologically competent as, say, the United States, western Europe, or even their neighbor Japan. Well, Im happy to report that my bias has been completely dispelled. According to the owners manual their SACD super audio player is a breakthrough product. It uses a simple but highly developed decoding technique in a unique design by Shanling engineers. Yeah, right. Im always skeptical of those kinds of claims. The proof is in the pudding.

So how does it sound? For me, its one of those rare pieces of equipment, that when you first hook it up and begin listening, you want to keep pulling out recording after recording, just to see if these too will sound much better from what you remembered. From the first few notes it was apparent this was indeed better than anything I had heard from my system before, and would later prove to be a perfect match. Everything was right there, the sense of space, dimension, and scale, of both instruments and place. It was as if you could not only pin point the location of the instrument, but also identify the space the instrument occupied. For instance, an upright bass is much larger than a violin. Both instruments essentially start to emanate sound from a point where the bow or fingers strike the string. But there is a sense of difference in how large the instrument sounds, the dimensional space it takes up. The 3-D footprint if you will. The much smaller scale of the point where its string is first struck, the sound of fingering on the neck and its associated string noise if any, and the sense of string length tone as it relates to the size of the instrument, along with a sense of the instruments occupied three dimensional space, were all completely discernable. This was truly one step closer to the original performance. And it did so without being in-your-face.

For reference I would turn back to the Maverick (interestingly, the Maverick is made for Music Hall by Shanling) only to find my wanting to do just the opposite I did when I first listened to music played by the Shanling. With the Maverick, instead of pulling out recording after recording to see how much better they might sound, I would find myself pulling out additional recordings just to see if it was just this one recording that seemed to sound so bad on this player or if all of them sounded this way. This was particularly apparent on a new Peter Gabriel SACD (hybrid disc) I had just purchased (Up). On the Maverick, I couldnt believe how bad this recording sounded. I even checked the disc documentation to make sure it was originally recorded in DSD/SACD format. I put it in my Denon CD player and it sounded better. I tried the upsampling on the Maverick in CD mode and that made things even worse! It was really atrocious. On the Shanlingholy cow! All of a sudden there were images of sounds flying around the room! The bass went down right to the center of the earth. I was hearing things that just werent there on the other players. Some sounds seemed to be within arms reach of touching them. Others were clearly well beyond the space of the room and well outside the far right or left speakers. The Shanling also seems to provide more of a vertical component to the soundstage and imaging. This thing was clearly in another league!

On the Telarc recording Superbass 2 with Ray Brown, John Clayton & Christian McBride (recorded live at the Blue Note, NYC), it was as if I was really there, in the audience. My wife said the same thing. It was so involving that we both actually started clapping after the first song finished!

On the classic Miles Davis Kind of Blue the drummers ride cymbal often gets spread out too far, too wide, with other players, or going through a preamp. Not this time. Perfectly dimensioned. Even with the Khorns on a 28 foot wide wall. And again, you could easily discern the scale of the cymbal, its size, the point of contact of the drum stick tip. I would even go so far as to say I tell whether the drummer was using sticks with a teardrop wood tip or a nylon/plastic tip. The sheen and shimmer were all there. The proper space and placement of all the individual drums and cymbals in relation to each other could be heard. All of the horns had their appropriate bite and spit, without getting in your face and too up close. It seemed as though you could hear that the horn players were not standing perfectly still, as they turned a little from side to side or tilted up and down as horn players do.

Another recent SACD acquisition, Mark Levinsons (Red Rose Music) recording of Bill Elgarts A Life, recorded in 1975 at Yales Battell Chapel on a modified Studer/Revox A80 recorder using 1 30ips analog tape, was a similar experience. Here, percussionist Bill Elgart uses the sound of the space itself to be part of the music and I suspect the recording was made in the later hours of the night so that outside vehicle and pedestrian noise wouldnt interfere as much. You could not only hear an occasional car or truck go by outside in the distance, but also tell what direction and side of the building it was coming from. Because of way these outside sonic intrusions sounded, I suspected the Chapel was located near a street corner intersection, which indeed turned out to be the case! (I looked this up after-the-fact for verification after listening to the Shanling). On other players, yes you could hear the barely audible occasional traffic outside, but with the Shanling the sonic clues were apparent enough and so correct in their nature that the buildings orientation and its relationship to the streets outside could easily be heard from the space inside the church on the recording itself. This is no small feat as these outside sounds are at a very low level, and might not even be heard, much less distinguishable, on most systems, at least not until the volume is turned up to an unnatural level for Bill Elgarts very wide dynamic range performance.

As for the line level noise I was afraid of getting from the tube output, forget about it. Even in my super quiet room its dead silent. And the tubby bass I was concerned about, forget about that too. This thing is solid. And the bass is very extended. It goes down deep, powerful, and full, plenty of weight, without ever getting too heavy, ill-defined, bloated or tubby. Its that kind of bass that while being firm and well-defined, still seems to go down deep and spread out as it hits bottom. The kind of low-end you hear at a live concert as the stage vibration helps radiate the lowest frequencies of bloom from double bass or large drums.

I could go on & on, but Im sure you get the point. This isnt easy for me to say, but, I love this player!

Any down sides? Yep. The first one I had on loan had some operational issues. It would start playing immediately after the TOC reading, which I found annoying. When skipping to a next or previous track, there was also no pause or space whatsoever. It was as if the sound of the next track was spliced into the point of exit on the previous track. The unit also made some electrical snapping sound when going from stop to play or pause to play or play to stop, etc. or turning it on/off. This unit was newer production than the one I wound up purchasing. The one I have now does not have these problems. The one other thing I found somewhat annoying, is since the transport is top-loading completely open type of a design (which looks cool), I could hear the motor whirring and the disc start spinning. This may or may not be a problem for you. As mentioned earlier my room is very quiet and probably exposes this more than most typical listening spaces will allow. I plan on making a clear plexiglass something or other to block the sound from the top of the player. Hopefully, if Im creative enough, this will add to the players good looks instead of subtract from it.

Ive listened to the player with several different tube types. The dealer loaner I had for three days used the original 6N3P dual triodes. The unit I purchased (used) came with General Electric JAN 5670W installed. The 5670 is a military spec version of the 396A. Underwood Hi-Fi uses the 396A in their Level 1 and Level 1+ upgrades of the Shanling SCD-T200.

The 6N3P which are the originals supplied, Western Electric 396A which is what Underwood HiFi uses in their Level 1 and Level 1+ upgrades, and General Electric JAN 5670W which is a military spec replacement for the 396A. The power transformer runs somewhat cooler with the 5670 and seems to take longer to warm up and sound its best (hours).

Recordings used in evaluation so far:

'Up', Peter Gabriel, SACD

Superbass 2 Ray Brown, John Clayton Jr., Christian McBride. Telarc, SACD

A Life, Bill Elgart, Red Rose Music, SACD

Kind of Blue, Miles Davis, SACD

CD-3 Burmester (sampler), CD

Carmina burana Telarc, SACD

Patriot Games CD

Carols & Lullabies The Glen Ellyn-Wheaton Chorale, CD, Arthur J. Kulak

Beethoven Symphony No. 9, Telarc, SACD

Rainbow Body, Telarc, SACD

Solo Yo Yo Ma, Sony SACD

Tchaikovsky:1812 Overture, Riener, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, JVC, XRCD

The Look of Love, Dianna Krall, SACD

Copyright 2004 Arthur J. Kulak, all rights reserved.

[Bill H.]

Thanks for the excellent review...........wow what a handsome unit...........

List Price: $2,695.00 HCM Price: $2,425.00

Shanling SCD-T200 SACD Player

The SCD-T200 SACD player uses the latest Sony KHM-2334AAA drive and the Sony CXD2752R SACD decoding chip. The DAC is a Burr Brown PCM 1738 24 bit/192kHz custom made for SACD technology. The line output is tube and the headphone output tube amplified. The volume control is electronic.