Summary:
I bought my California Audio Labs Mk II brand new when it came out years ago. I had a Nakamichi CD player I wasn't very happy with and replaced it with the Cal.
After all these years I've been having a problem with it (the left channel drops out occasionally; "rebooting" the player fixes it), so I went shopping at my local audio stores for a new CD player.
I listened to just about everything they had: several NAD players that have gotten good reviews, a $3000 U.S. Lyngdorf audio CD player, a couple of Arcam players, the Rega Apollo, the NAD M5, and the Cyrus CD8x. After doing a lot of listening and fretting about players, I've pretty much concluded that this player is really very good compared to any of the players I've listened to recently.
All the players I listened to except one of the NADs just had no driving bass. They had deep bass, but the bass guitar line was just not there. They all sounded rather "thin" to my ears. I listen to a lot of rock, jazz, electric blues, etc. and, for me, none of this music sounds "right" to my ears without a good solid bass line. If you listen to electric music at live events, the bass guitar is not shy. It provides the foundation to the music - the driving rhythm. Without this foundation, I just can't listen to a CD player for long - I lose interest in the music.
The CAL Icon Mk II has plenty of driving bass rhythm that is missing from the other players I listened to. The bass isn't sloppy or muddy - it seems pretty tight and well-defined. You can follow the bass guitar line and you can easily differentiate the bass guitar from other instruments.
The midrange is warm and a bit forward, which is good for electric music. Yet, when I listen to vocal music it sounds very good still.
The highs are good, but most of the newer players I listened to have a little sharper highs, but these same players have no "drive" to them. I guess if you lose some of the bass, the highs will sound a little sharper. The difference in the highs was small, thoujgh
What surprised me the most is that CD player technology has changed so much since the Cal Icon MK II came out - dual 24-bit D/A converter chips, multiple isolated power supplies, etc. I fully expected the new CD players to put my Cal Icon to shame. I expected that they'd all sound a lot better than my CAL Icon, they'd have a lot more detail, and they would just really open up the music and make the poorly recorded or old CDs that I have sound so much better, but that wasn't the case at all. After listening to a lot of CD players at the local audio store Saturday, I finally went home and played some of the same music I listened to at the store on my CD player and found that its sound was actually as good as and in some ways better than any of the players at the store.
I did listen to a Cyrus CD8x (a $2000 U.S. player) and I was absolutely stunned by the amount of detail in the music. The detail was truly incredible - better than anything I've ever heard! I came home and was thinking seriously about just buying it the next day the store was open. But, I was so stunned by the detail that I didn't even listen to see if it had bass too. I came to my senses and decided that buying a $2000 CD player on one listen wouldn't be very wise. By the time I got around to going back to that store to listen to it again, they had stopped carrying Cyrus because they had had a lot of problems with them.
For my money, the California Audio Labs CD player is, overall, the best player I've heard so far. It's really a shame these guys went out of business.
Strengths:
strong, powerful sound. Deep, solid bass and very solid electric bass to propel the music and provide a strong foundation.
Nice midrange.
Great ability to reproduce soundstage on a good recording.
Weaknesses:
Highs aren't as quite as bright as I'd like.
I bought my California Audio Labs Mk II brand new when it came out years ago. I had a Nakamichi CD player I wasn't very happy with and replaced it with the Cal.
After all these years I've been having a problem with it (the left channel drops out occasionally; "rebooting" the player fixes it), so I went shopping at my local audio stores for a new CD player.
I listened to just about everything they had: several NAD players that have gotten good reviews, a $3000 U.S. Lyngdorf audio CD player, a couple of Arcam players, the Rega Apollo, the NAD M5, and the Cyrus CD8x. After doing a lot of listening and fretting about players, I've pretty much concluded that this player is really very good compared to any of the players I've listened to recently.
All the players I listened to except one of the NADs just had no driving bass. They had deep bass, but the bass guitar line was just not there. They all sounded rather "thin" to my ears. I listen to a lot of rock, jazz, electric blues, etc. and, for me, none of this music sounds "right" to my ears without a good solid bass line. If you listen to electric music at live events, the bass guitar is not shy. It provides the foundation to the music - the driving rhythm. Without this foundation, I just can't listen to a CD player for long - I lose interest in the music.
The CAL Icon Mk II has plenty of driving bass rhythm that is missing from the other players I listened to. The bass isn't sloppy or muddy - it seems pretty tight and well-defined. You can follow the bass guitar line and you can easily differentiate the bass guitar from other instruments.
The midrange is warm and a bit forward, which is good for electric music. Yet, when I listen to vocal music it sounds very good still.
The highs are good, but most of the newer players I listened to have a little sharper highs, but these same players have no "drive" to them. I guess if you lose some of the bass, the highs will sound a little sharper. The difference in the highs was small, thoujgh
What surprised me the most is that CD player technology has changed so much since the Cal Icon MK II came out - dual 24-bit D/A converter chips, multiple isolated power supplies, etc. I fully expected the new CD players to put my Cal Icon to shame. I expected that they'd all sound a lot better than my CAL Icon, they'd have a lot more detail, and they would just really open up the music and make the poorly recorded or old CDs that I have sound so much better, but that wasn't the case at all. After listening to a lot of CD players at the local audio store Saturday, I finally went home and played some of the same music I listened to at the store on my CD player and found that its sound was actually as good as and in some ways better than any of the players at the store.
I did listen to a Cyrus CD8x (a $2000 U.S. player) and I was absolutely stunned by the amount of detail in the music. The detail was truly incredible - better than anything I've ever heard! I came home and was thinking seriously about just buying it the next day the store was open. But, I was so stunned by the detail that I didn't even listen to see if it had bass too. I came to my senses and decided that buying a $2000 CD player on one listen wouldn't be very wise. By the time I got around to going back to that store to listen to it again, they had stopped carrying Cyrus because they had had a lot of problems with them.
For my money, the California Audio Labs CD player is, overall, the best player I've heard so far. It's really a shame these guys went out of business.
Strengths:
strong, powerful sound. Deep, solid bass and very solid electric bass to propel the music and provide a strong foundation.
Nice midrange.
Great ability to reproduce soundstage on a good recording.
Weaknesses:
Highs aren't as quite as bright as I'd like.
