by Serge Gigučre

We owe our discovery of Chinese hi-fi to a Canadian distributor, Charisma Audio. Their introduction of the Shanling brand, which made no secret of its origin, caused some agitation at the time. However the product line was not complete at first. The arrival of the Qinpu A-1.0X integrated and the JAS Audio Musik 1.2 CD player has filled the gap and made available a superior-quality set of electronics for under $2,000.00. It's this well-priced pair that we'll be examining here.

JAS Audio is the project of a group of engineers based in Hong Kong. Its products are developed with a simple philosophy: music improves your quality of life and should be reproduced as well as possible. The company's partners describe themselves as music-lovers above all. Of JAS Audio's eleven products, eight are speakers.
According to the Wikipedia, qinpu are collections of tablatures for the guqin, an ancient Chinese seven-stringed instrument which recalls the occidental zither. For our purposes, Qinpu is a brand of the manufacturer CHPO in the province of Guangdong in China, known here for the surprising A-8000 integrated amp. On the chat sites, many audiophiles claim that the A-1.0X offers 90% of the sound of the A-8000 for a fraction of the price. In my own opinion, given some important differences between the circuitry and components used in the two, this seems rather optimistic, although not entirely impossible. The enthusiastic claims show at least that the A-1.0X owners are happy.

Looks

The JAS Audio Musik 1.2 is called a tube CD player and you can see a tube clearly behind the logo, between the disc drawer and the display. The front panel is a black anodized aluminum plate with six function buttons along the lower edge. Two LEDs indicate warm up mode and HDCD signal, and the infrared sensor for the remote completes the front. The back panel has an IEC socket for an AC power cord and three gold-plated connectors for the analog and digital outputs. The remote is also made of black anodized aluminum and it seems like a good one. It gives access to advanced functions like programmed and random play as well as track-by-track access.

It's a different brand by a different company, but by happy coincidence the integrated amplifier's front panel is identical to the CD player's in finish and size. At a glance, the two units make a pair. The aesthetics of the A-1.0X don't have the "je ne sais quoi" of the chic Musik 1.2, though. The long chromed knobs seem to me a little rough, like the front panel printing. At least the unit sits on nice gold-coloured feet. The back panel has an IEC connector, a set of loudspeaker terminals and four line level inputs. This is a minimalist economy amplifier, but it also sports the extravagance of tone controls and a preamplifier output. The pre out seems to me of little interest, since, as we'll see below, the amplifier is quite powerful and the preamp is nothing exceptional.

Circuitry

Let's go over the circuit of the Musik 1.2, the source component of this system. The optical mechanism which reads the disc is a Sony KSS2130. The digital data from that is converted to an analog signal by a Burr-Brown PCM1732 chip. The same chip decodes discs encoded in HDCD, a format developed at the end of the last century by Pacific Microsonics and acquired by Microsoft in 2000. It is a Delta-Sigma type and its clock frequency, which is variable according to the source, is eight times superior to the sampling frequency. A dozen years ago, then, this unit proudly would have worn the label "8 times oversampling filter". I mention this to point out that the PCM1732 can accept 16 to 24-bit word length data at a sampling frequency from 16 to 96 kHz. Despite this capacity, however, the only resolution and sampling frequency it will get from the disc is 16 bits at 44.1 KHz. With HDCD the PCM1732 captures extra encoded data to extend the resolution to 20 bits.

The signal passes next to OPA2604, NE5532N and OPA2134 op amp chips by Burr-Brown and Philips. The final stage is a tube buffer circuit which uses a Sovtek 12AX7LPS. The high voltage which supplies it is first rectified by a GZ4 tube, the one you can see through the front panel window. The visual effect is enriched by amber LEDs and a concave mirror. It's important to note that the Musik 1.2's analog circuitry includes precision resistors and capacitors of high quality.

Perceptive readers of this magazine may have noticed some similarities between this player and the [more expensive-trad.] Vincent CDS6 tested a few months ago. Well, you're not dreaming. The power supply, some pieces of the box and the whole remote control come from the same supplier. One entire section of the main printed circuit board is even identical. Still, there are major differences between the two players. They don't use the same brand of transport and the tube circuit is unique to each one. Given the price difference between the two, these differences in componentry are perfectly understandable.

As for the A-1.0X integrated, its circuit design is simple but effective. The massive power transformer is enclosed in a metal box at the left side of the chassis. There is a heat sink in the centre and the circuit components are at its right on three PCBs. Qinpu could have cleaned these boards up a little better. The component sides were covered with resin deposits. Although in theory the sound should not be affected, this is not the standard set by the high end. The same goes for the tiny two-button plastic remote. You may see the glass as half full or half empty, but still, even if the A-1.0X is a bargain, these are not insignificant details. A few more functions on the remote would have altered nothing sound-wise. In any case, the inputs are selected by a processor behind the front panel which controls an MC14052CP chip, so the purist position does not apply here. In short, I believe that in 2007 any audiophile with a remote in hand should be able to turn his or her system on and off.

The preamp section uses two NE5532 op amps, no surprise. When the tone controls are out of the circuit, the signal passes through a high-quality Alps motorized potentiomenter and a Philips 5532. The bass and treble pots are of ordinary quality and their 5532 is generic. Like generic medicines, they are supposed to work just as well for less money, but here... . The amplifier circuit is quite minimalist and entirely made up of discrete components. The power supply filtration is done by a pair of 10,000 microfarad 63 volt capacitors. Since the power supply rail voltage is 58V, the 10% (headroom-trad.) rule is only just respected. I strongly recommend that the A-1.0X be connected to a surge protector in order to prolong its useful life.

The amplifier circuit is class AB and the bias current at idle is amazingly low. The bias adjustment, at 27.5 mA and 29 mA for each channel, is thus practically the same. Qinpu claims to use an innovative amplifier circuit, which may explain the presence of an LED as a current source in this section. The driver transistors are Hitachi 2SB649A and 2SD669 complementaries, and at the outputs we find the now-common Toshiba 2SA1943 and 2SC5200. The output is protected by a circuit using a UPC1237 chip. I was able to verify its effectiveness when I accidentally connected a 2-ohm load during the power output test. Finally, Charisma Audio should be congratulated, because the two units each have labels to attest that they meet CSA SPE-1000 certification standards.

Measurements

The measurements we took of the JAS Musik 1.2's performance were irreproachable. Frequency response was very linear, with a slight attenuation, less than 2 dB, at 20 Hz, because of the tube and output capacitors. THD was 0.027% at -20 dBfs and maximum output level was 9.7 dBu. When the player is idle a relay mutes the output, which accounts for the low noise level of -115 dBu. Digital noise, measured when a disc is playing, was -85.7 dBu which allows for a dynamic range of 95.3 decibels. At the coaxial digital output I measured 430 picoseconds of jitter.

Output power of the Qinpu A-1.0X was 111 watts into 8 ohms at 0.4% THD. At 4 ohms the integrated just managed to justify its claimed output, reaching exactly 160 watts for the two channels. Harmonic distortion at 1 watt was 0.02% and noise was 93.4 dB down from maximum output level. Frequency response showed a slight dip below 30 Hz and another above 18 kHz, but they were less than 3 dB and nothing to worry about. With tone controls engaged but centred, response was a little less linear but again the variations did not exceed 3 dB. The tone controls allowed for a correction of +/-10 dB at 100 Hz for the bass and +/- 6 dB at 10 kHz for the treble. Maximum preamp output voltage was 1.8V when the power amp section started to clip.

Listening

As professional as I may wish to be, the looks of the units under test do influence the way I feel about them. I have to admit that I started listening to this pair with some negative prejudice and an interest I would have to call moderate. Well, it only took me a few minutes to find out how pleasing and attractive their sound was. On Norah Jones' Feels Like Home, the intimate atmosphere of Sunrise was reproduced with ease. The well-defined voice at centre front had a balanced and natural timbre. The bass supporting the melody was richly harmonic and not over-heavy. The piano and guitar accompanied the singer with finesse, supporting not competing with each other. In fact it was with the piano, Louis Lortie playing, that I tested the tonal coherence of the components. His interpretation of Franz Liszt on Chandos is subtle and includes spectacular crescendos, ideal for this. At low level, when the piano notes approached silence, the system's resolution was satisfactory and the timbres of the strings remained consistent. Like a good wine, the Steinway hammers produced a lively attack and a round and woody tone. A well-defined performance for a recording which was made a bit back in the hall and consequently reveals a good deal of the acoustic space.

The test would not have been complete without trying an HDCD. I chose one by the late Chet Atkins. I don't know if it's because these recordings have special attention paid to them in the studio, or because of the HDCD technology itself, but I can clearly perceive an increase in resolution when I listen to them. So on the Almost Alone album it was once more the initial attack of the Gibson's strings which struck me. Transients were reproduced with realism and without aggressiveness. The harmonic subtleties of the guitar were very detailed, and when Chet tapped his foot lightly as he played, I could imagine he was doing it on my floor. Although the A-1.0X can play comfortably at higher volume, it needs no pushing to sparkle. The JAS player and the Qinpu integrated offer luminous sound at levels suitable for relaxation.

Conclusion

Even though it may not yet be at the level of European gear, these components prove that China can be a competitive player in the hi-fi arena.
"In 2005, electronics represented more than a third of China's total exports (36.4%), a strong increase, and according to the OECD, this country is now the largest exporter of high-tech products in the world." (La Presse, Dec. 11 2006.) If the Russian hockey players told us, "We came to learn," the Chinese manufacturers can say, "They came and showed us." After having assembled products for prestigious European, American and Japanese brands, China has learned. Slowly but surely it has moved on to the next stage: developing its own designs. Still, a certain talent is needed to separate the wheat from the chaff. Here, the people at Charisma appear to have met the challenge of finding, in China, a system which is both musical and affordable.