All-purpose know-how made in China!

It had to happen. With several millennia of history, more than billion people, an economy in full growth and an increasing openness to the world and its markets, China is becoming a very big player in every manufacturing industry. And the audio field is no exception. With the democratization of the technology, now pretty much the same for all equipment manufacturers, and with affordable labour, China is gaining ground on many countries. Take Shanling for example, a company which is making a remarkable entry into the hi-fi audio domain.

Packed in a very large box, the CD-T100 comes with panoply of accessories. First of all, the player is much better looking than any photos you may have seen up to now. Next, there is an excellent AC cord, worthy on its own of a place in an audio store display case. It is remarkably well made and is terminated with a Hubbell hospital quality plug. Then there is a CD containing various samples of recorded music compatible with the CD-T100, and assorted feet (pointed cones and protective discs, truncated cones with felt surfaces and inverted discs) which can be attached to the unit, allowing it to be adapted to the surface it is placed on. The remote is of good quality and offers all the standard functions along with, yippee, a volume control. For people like me who use only an amplifier and a passive preamp, this is extremely practical because it makes it possible to connect the player directly to the amp. Finally, a piece of chamois is included for polishing the chrome.

The CD-T100's aesthetic design is very interesting indeed. No one can remain indifferent to its unusual looks. While I had it at home every visitor noticed it, both friends and family. Nobody had a negative comment to make; the player received only praise, even from those who had no interest in audio. Have a good look at the photo which accompanies this article. Isn't a picture worth a thousand words? The four metallic boxes at the back of the unit cover the two power transformers, the high voltage transformer for the tubes and their filter. In front of these boxes are the four 396A tubes, protected by cages made of chromed rings and cylinders. In the centre is a cover of plastic material, held by an immense hinge of brushed aluminum which protects the drive. The cover is illuminated by a blue diode which gives a lovely effect in the half-dark. Finally, the display window, whose brightness can be controlled from the remote, shows information about the disc being played. At each side of the front edge of the cover are the usual control buttons (Play/Pause, Stop, Prev and Next). This means you should not lose the remote, since it controls sampling, HDCD decoding, volume, etc.

The whole case is made of a thick plate of folded, chromed metal. At each corner is a pillar to which you can attach different combinations of the supplied feet. On the right side is a six-millimeter headphone jack. Just to do things differently, Shanling has decided to drive this jack with... the two right-hand tubes. At the back is a pair of very good-quality RCA connectors for the tubeless analog outputs, another analog pair using the tube circuits, and finally an RCA connector for the digital output. The player comes with four Chinese-made 396A tubes. The distributor can supply excellent substitutes made by Western Electric for just under $100 a set. A bargain!

Asian know-how

To wind up the new owner's tour of the machine; let's have a look at what's inside the CD-T100. The first impression is of maximum utilization of the limited space inside the flat case. You find four printed circuit boards, two for each pair of tubes--thus there is one circuit for the analog tube outputs and another for the headphones. Another is used for the power supply and its regulation. The last board holds all the circuits for digital/analog conversion, oversampling and HDCD. Note that all the wires which carry an audio signal seem to be shielded and have Teflon insulation. The DAC circuitry is built around four Burr-Brown 1704 decoders in parallel pairs. The analog filtering is done with Burr-Brown OPA 2604 chips. The HDCD section uses the new PMD 200 decoder from Pacific Microsonics. Finally, after removing all the circuit boards, you get to the excellent Philips CDM-1201 disc drive. To sum up, you can't help noticing the CD-T100's very high level of technological refinement. It can easily be compared with other units at several times its price.

It should be mentioned that the CD-T100 needs at least 200 hours of break-in. Nevertheless, after just 40 hours you can start to try replacing the tubes with Western Electric or other substitutes.

One of the main advantages of the CD-T100 is its flexibility. If you want to use a digital output to listen through an external converter, you've got one; if you want to listen to the analog outputs, with or without tubes, you can do that; if you want to listen with or without oversampling or HDCD, you can do that too; if you want to listen on your own you can plug in your phones! What's more, none of these configurations is irreversible, which makes the player a real Swiss army knife. I had fun testing the different configurations. Each one has advantages and disadvantages. After having found the one I liked best, I started listening with Cassandra Wilson's latest disc, Belly of the Sun. From the first bars of percussion, an impression of fullness and dimension appeared in my listening room, and then the warm and sensual voice of Miss Wilson took over. She was there, right in front of me. The percussion remained present but kept its place, slightly behind the singer and the guitarist. The CD-T100's reproduction of depth is perfectly impressive and precise. This was a magnificent recording, reproduced with many virtues.

Patricia Barber came next with her most recent recording, Verse. Here again I encountered space and dimension. The voice and piano predominated at the front of the stage with accuracy and sweetness. The piano notes seemed to stretch out and float in space; they did not fall flat, as they seem to do with some players. The subtle support of the bass and drums gave a feeling of closeness to the singer and the musicians. When the saxophone came in softly, it never stole the scene from the singer. A beautiful performance.

The latest discs from the California Guitar Trio and the Trey Gunn band plunged me into another kind of musical palette. So as not to wake the whole house, I took advantage of the opportunity to evaluate the headphone outputs. A nice surprise! Listening to the CD-T100, I told myself that if this player had been available a few years ago I would probably never have put away my headphones and never used my computer to listen to music late at night. All the hardness and acidity of my phones had disappeared. These pieces, which are simultaneously very electric, acoustic and electronic, only confirm the masterful performance of this player, even when listening alone.

Sweetness, detail and subtlety are what characterize the CD-T100. There was never the slightest trace of aggressiveness on any of the discs I listened to. This was probably due in large part to the tube outputs. And for the second time in two tests, I got to evaluate the famous 200 version of the HDCD decoder. Again, I tried the new disc from Laurie Anderson. The new version of HDCD bears no comparison to the old one. The CD-T100 succeeded in recreating a three-dimensional musical which took on life and movement before me.

The CD-T100 is a magnificent unit in every way. It is visually attractive, musically sweet and subtle and offers an extraordinary flexibility in use. Shanling has designed a unit which successfully marries two worlds which might seem incompatible at first glance. In its price class it will be difficult to beat. Christmas is not far away and I know what I'm going to ask Santa for this year!