The digital-to-analog conversion is handled by a Wolfson Microelectronics WMA8740 24-bit/192kHz DAC. Like the A-9555, the DX-7555’s front panel is brushed aluminum it has a fairly heavy, antiresonant chassis, a power transformer of substantial size and weight, and features Onkyo’s proprietary Vector Linear Shaping Circuitry (VLSC), which is claimed to remove digital noise from the analog signal by using a comparator/feedback method. The DX-7555 matches the size and styling of Onkyo’s A-9555 integrated amplifier, which I reviewed in the September 2007 Stereophile, and shares with it several design features. I have a feeling that if the first CD player I heard in my system had been an Onkyo DX-7555, my impression of the format would have been much more positive. By then, it was becoming obvious that CD was the format of the future, and that resistance was futile. It was at least another year before I found a CD player (the Philips-based Mission DAD7000) I liked enough to buy. Trying not to put a damper on my friend’s enthusiasm, I made vaguely positive comments about the clarity and the lack of noise, but I wasn’t even slightly tempted to ask him if he could get me one of these players at the employee’s-discount price. Was this what they called “perfect sound forever”? And 42nd Street? The solo voices were well focused, but sounded somehow less natural, more artificial, and the soundstage depth that was present on the LP had been curtailed. The bass was good, tighter and more extended than on LP. The brass at first seemed to fare better, but then I noticed an edge, a harshness that was distinctly less plausibly realistic than recordings of brass on LPs. The background was still quiet, but-oh dear, when the massed strings came in, everything fell apart: a jumble of sound and lost definition, as if the entire string section had been replaced by a synthesizer. And, yes, the background was very quiet-no ticks or pops.Promising. The sound was sharper, crisper than I’d been used to hearing from my Lps (footnote 1). My friend was most enthusiastic: “Listen to how quiet the ackground is! No ticks and pops like you get on records!” We listened to one of the solo-piano CDs.

We connected the Sony player to my system. He also brought along a bunch of CDs, including some solo-piano discs, and Erich Kunzel and the Cincinnati Symphony’s then-famous recording of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture (Telarc CD-80041). One evening, a friend who worked for Sony and knew that I was an audiophile brought over his latest acquisition: a CDP- 501ES, the second from the top of Sony’s line of CD players. I’d even bought a CD: the original-cast recording of 42nd Street, which IĪlready had on LP. I was curious about the Compact Disc medium-I’d read about it, had listened to CDs in stores, and was eager to hear what they sounded like in my own system. I first heard a CD player in my own system in 1984 or 1985, several years before I began writing for Stereophile.

Onkyo cd player dx 7555