Yamaha CD-S3000 CD/SACD Player Preview

Let’s face reality: pairing a statement level integrated amplifier like the Yamaha A-S3000 with a cheap CD player is roughly the Hi-Fi equivalent of forcing your wife to wear a garbage bag to save a few bucks. Sure it can be done, and the results might even be passable for an afternoon or two; however, we wouldn’t count on the combination bringing long term satisfaction. Humans are visual creatures after all, and pride of ownership makes a huge difference in our perceptions. So what then would better complement the aforementioned Yamaha A-S3000 than the CD-S3000? Priced at a lofty $6,999.95, the CD-S3000 probably isn’t going to make its way into our budget system recommendations any time soon. Still, if you’re curious what goes into a $7000 CD/SACD player, keep reading.

Build Quality and Feature Set

The first big indicator that the CD-S3000 isn’t a run-of-the-mill CD player is its weight: a hefty 42.3 pounds. With an overbuilt chassis befitting its price tag including a 0.28” thick aluminum front plate, the CD-S3000 is built with the total elimination of vibration in mind. The drive mechanism is precisely anchored to the inert shell, and also features a high rigidity aluminum tray to reduce vibrations from the spinning disc.  In terms of external appearance, the CD-S3000 strikes a largely understated tone, with the black brushed aluminum face only broken up by a handful of controls and the glass display.

As far as features go, the CD-S3000 delivers about what you’d expect, and a few nice extras. Starting on the rear panel, you get a pair of balanced and unbalanced outputs, as well coaxial and optical digital outputs. As a useful addition, the Yamaha also boasts a trio of digital inputs (1 USB, coaxial, & optical) such that you can utilize the built in DAC of the unit for more than just CDs and SACDs. Yamaha is particularly proud of the CD-S3000's performance via the USB input, which supports the ASIO 2.3 protocol via the Yamaha Steinburg USB driver (available for download on Yamaha's website). This allows for higher throughput and lower latency than standard OS drivers, and consequently should result in practically perfect streaming of even high definition audio files from your PC. Moving to the front of the unit, the Yamaha sports standard controls for the player (play, fast forward, rewind, etc) as well as a source selector, layer selector (CD or SACD), and a pure direct button which disables the display and digital output circuitry. One notable omission to the feature set is the lack of multi-channel analog outputs; without these or an HDMI output, SACD is down-mixed into 2.0 format and fed through the analog outputs.

The Yamaha CD-S3000's rear panel.

Performance

As you would hope for a product in this price bracket, two-channel performance should be reference grade courtesy of the ESS Technology ES9018 SABRE DAC. Nominally an 8 channel audio DAC, the SABRE is implemented by Yamaha with 4 channels per side; ESS claims this configuration will deliver over 130dB of dynamic range, quite close to the human limit of roughly 140dB.  The SABRE also features a built in master clock which aides in the elimination of jitter. Yamaha has also taken extra steps to electrically isolate the internal circuitry, including separate power supplies for the digital and analog circuits. Together with the vibration reducing steps taken at the transport level, we’d expect the CD-S3000 to offer practically perfect performance.

The innards of the Yamaha CD-S3000.

Summary

If you’re a two channel enthusiast with a penchant for the finer things in life, the idea of pairing an inexpensive CD player with an otherwise top shelf system probably doesn’t sit right with you. If that’s the case, Yamaha’s CD-S3000 might be of significant interest to you. With strong potential to achieve (and potentially re-define) reference grade two-channel performance, as well as impeccable build quality, there’s not a lot to complain about. Naturally there is a price to pay to step into a statement level product; however, if you’ve got the means and the desire, the Yamaha is likely to provide years of sonic bliss and pride for the owner.

Unless otherwise indicated, this is a preview article for the featured product. A formal review may or may not follow in the future.