The Cantata Music Center
by Resolution Audio
$6500.00
Okay, okay, it looks cool, but how does it sound?
We've sold Resolution Audio disk players for some time, now. By the time the Resolution Opus 21 CD player ($3500 US) was released, it had become the only disk player we would sell.
So when Jeff Kalt (the man behind Resolution Audio) announced that there was going to be a new disk player, it was pretty big news. The fact that is was going to have all kinds of digital inputs, including USB, and that it was going to be incredibly easy to use the Cantata Music Center to stream your digital music library was pretty big news too. (To be fair, the Opus 21 had the optional XS Extra Sources box, which has all kinds of digital inputs, including USB.)
But let's back up, because the Cantata Music Center does a lot of things and has a lot of inputs, and you can use an iPhone as a remote, but none of this matters to us as much as how the thing sounds.
Luckily, it sounds better than any digital player we've ever heard. We're not kidding. Jeff Kalt has hit this one out of the park.
The Opus 21 CD Player did just about everything as well as a disk player could; it had exceptional timing. Nothing ever felt sluggish or mechanical and it sounded less digital than any CD player we'd ever heard.
The Cantata Music Center, on the other hand, just disappears, like there's no player at all. You just hear music. Our first thought was "wow, so there really is music on those little silver disks after all."
Then we plugged a Macbook into the USB input on the player. The Cantata showed up as an output device; we had music playing in less than a minute. That's pretty user friendly. We're not new to the idea of using a computer to play digital files, but until now, it's always been a bit of a compromise, sound-wise. Not anymore. The Cantata makes the computer playback sound so good, we'd actually use it! This is a first!
Yes, it does all kinds of fancy stuff, and there's a lot of talk about all the fancy stuff it can do, and how cool the lights on the front panel look (hint: they look very cool!) So we think it's important to stress that the Cantata Music Center is the best disk player we've ever heard. And even if you're exclusively playing CDs right now, it's nice to know that it'll do all the other stuff.
Here are a couple of things that we wanted to mention:
• The Cantata Music Center sounds best when it's had a chance to warm up a bit.
• It also sounds best when the dislplay is extinguished completely, which may be done from the remote. Once your friends have been completely wowed by the cool-looking display, you can turn it off and wow them with the sound.
• The Cantata comes in a cool wood crate, just like the Opus 21 did.
If you'd like to read more about the Cantata Music Center, visit Resolution Audio.
Here's an interesting review of the Cantata Music Center from HIFI Choice magazine.
As always, if you'd like more info or just want to talk about hifi stuff, call us at (512) 236-9100 or email us at: info@austinhifi.com
