Review in AUDIO magazine (Germany), Issue 01/2008
CD/SACD Player Accuphase DP-700
Sky High by Joachim Pfeiffer
The CD player Accuphase DP-700 is reaching for the stars - and wins more sonic points in the AUDIO test than any other integrated CD player ever before.
Audio components from Japan's noble manufacturer Accuphase are usually not coming out of the blue. In other words, the German importer P.I.A. is always going to announce them many months ahead. This time things were different, though.
P.I.A.'s boss Yasumasa Ishizuka and his sales manager "Winni" Andres agreed not to breathe a single word about the new CD player DP-700 until the upcoming spring season. Then all of a sudden there was a complete reversal of events when AUDIO
was searching some worthy components to be reviewed especially for the 30th anniversary issue which you are holding in your hands now.
The focus was to look for products which in the past 30 years were closely tied up with AUDIO - just like the ones from Accuphase. In view of this project it can well be assumed that the gentlemen from P.I.A. had an insight and, more or less overnight, took the wraps off their secret named DP-700. However the claims they've put onto this new integrated player would even make a seasoned audio reviewer to become filled with doubts: Accuphase, so they said, has seriously aimed at the same sonic fingerprint of the brilliant transport/DAC combination DP-800/DC-801 we tested in issue 03/2007.
Private Transport
That's gutsy, indeed! Even on the premise that the Japanese would, after all, have access to their own transport developed for this dream combination, rather than to acquire it off the shelf from OEM suppliers. Because only two months after the triumphant appearance of the two-part digital reference Accuphase presented the
DP-500, an integrated player featuring the genes of the combination, like for instance a stripped-down version of the proprietary transport. No question, the "little one" is sonically on top, although it could not quite get to the 125 sonic points of the DP-75
(tested 09/2006) of which the modified transport was originally from Sony still. Albeit in view of the substantial price difference in favour of the DP-500 it's all forgiven.
Now from claims to reality: there is no denying the fact that the dream score of
140 sonic points for Accuphase's super-reference DP-800/CD-801, actually deemed impossible, has in the first place been achieved by the transport. And this can be easily proved by simply docking a variety of D/A converters to the DP-800. Then just listen and be amazed &..
1
Music is Flowing
As soon as the Accuphase transport was calling the tune, the subordinate external
DACs could really shine and show what they are made of. With the DP-800 as source the flow of the music was simply more beguiling. In all fairness, though, we must say that the symbiosis of perfect timing and the tonally correct, breathing - and thus breathtaking - rendition could be completely experienced only in combination with the DC-801!
The same transport is at work in the DP-700. Some bits and pieces not
