Nagra CDP

In April 2007 issue of Revue de Son both oldtime reviewers, Jean-Pierre Landragin and Jean Hiraga, gave an extremely positive review of Nagra's latest CD-player, model CDP. To refresh your memory, Nagra introduced in early 2007 three new digital, Red Book products: the CDC equipped with a built-in DAC, remote control and pre-amplifier stage; the "conventional" CDP with a built-in DAC and fixed level analogue output; and a CD transport CDT designed to be used with an external DAC (like Nagra's 192 kHz/24 bit DAC). The chassis of CDx-family identical is in dimension to the Nagra's PL-P pre-amp and PL-L line-stage and thanks to the front-loading mechanism allows the units to be stacked neatly together.

Monsieur Landragin positioned CDP against other high-end CD-players as "Between the CDP and its competitors, there is the same difference as sound re-produced through hifi-chain and a real instrument". Jean Hiraga echoed: "... quality of re-production of sound and musicality on level never heard before. This realism astonishing ...". Une reference absolue".

There were some interesting points in the review, though. Nagra's own Web-site is very thin as for technical data of CDx-family, but evidently CDP has a 352.8 kHz/24 bit DAC (i.e. higher oversampling than company's standalone DAC). RdS found than due to extra Burr Brown stage balanced outputs sounded significantly inferior to asymmetric outputs - contrary to most top CD-players. Should make then the CDP a good match with single-end only pre-amps akin Conrad -Johnson.


BTW, German Stereo magazine gave to model CDC (in picture) in 2/07 issue a full 100% for sound quality, see review here.