AudioDwebe
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- May 1, 2006
- Posts
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I like to check ou my local Goodwill for stereo stuff, records and books. Today, I came across an Akai CD-A7 sitting there. I've always like the name, "Akai" from way back in the day when it was popular and I was a broke teenager.
So anyway, I plugged it in, it came on and the drawer movement was smooth, so I thought "what the hell" and picked it up for 20 bucks.
I've never seen a CD player this old, and as Akai was a pretty high end brand back then, I figured this probably was state of the art, or somewhere in the "state of the art" neighborhood. The unit is quite heavy for its size, weighing in at approximately 7-10 pounds (okay, I haven't been liftin' in quite some time so it might only be 5-7 pounds or so), and actually has slits in the top, rear portion of the cover for, and I'm guessing here, for heat relief.
Once home, I plugged it in, let it warm up for a few, and did a quick connect of the Move and listened thru the Ety ER4B's. The unit's got a headphone jack in front, along with a slide volume control on top of the jack. I turned it all the way down (why? I don't know. I always turn all headphone jack volume controls down) and listened for sound to pour forth from this ancient player. No sound. Checked the Move. Powered up. Thought, "hmm." Then I slide the volume control on the front above the jack up. This brought music out the RCA's in the back. Weird. Well, I guess not "that" weird. I've got another CDP which has both constant and variable outputs on back. One set of RCA is a line out, while the other's volume is controlled by the volume knob, again, located above the headphone jack. I guess it's meant to feed straight into an amp for a purer signal.
This things definitely got some "slam" factor to it. It actually brought out the low end in the Ety's, not an easy task. I've never heard these Ety's...not the P's or S's, no, the B's, sound this robust and full. And this after I've been listening to my Ed 9's for the last couple of days (meaning I've been listening to some quality, and I do mean, Quality, low end so the Ety's, if anything, should have sounded so anemic to be almost intolerable until my ears adjusted to their sound signature).
I put on one of my favorate CD's (Carmen Cuest-Loeb's "Daydream") and actually noticed things I've not noticed before. One was a short segment where an acoustic steel string guitar is played. I always knew it was a steel string, that part's pretty obvious, but with the Akai, it was just way more noticeable. In another song, I noticed a second, accompanying guitar backing the lead. This, to me, was rather strange, as I've got a couple of pretty decent CD players (CAL Icon II with the power boss upgrade, a carousel CAL (CD 20 or 15, not sure at the moment), along with a Audio Research CD2) and I've never noticed those parts.
Right now, I attribute that to either having the music playing louder than I normally listen, or the Akai has introduced its own sonic character to the music. My guess is that its slammin' bass (read exagerated), along with an almost hyped and etchy top end is the culprit.
I'm curious to hook it up to one of my home amps and listen through a regular pair of headphones. I'm guessing that the bass slam is going to turn into a horrendous glob of undefined bass, but the highs will be sound more neutral with headphones that aren't as bright as the ER4B's.
Oh, and this thing's got no skip forward/reverse button. It can be programmed so maybe there's a way skip around, but I'm not sure I'll be able to figure it out. It was a PIA pressing down the fast-forward button to skip through songs.
This will definitely force me to listen to entire CD's.
How will I ever manage?
Anyway, I'll add to this later after listening to the Akai some more. Apologize for all the typos and sentences that don't make much sense. I was too lazy to go back through and edit.
Ciao,
So anyway, I plugged it in, it came on and the drawer movement was smooth, so I thought "what the hell" and picked it up for 20 bucks.
I've never seen a CD player this old, and as Akai was a pretty high end brand back then, I figured this probably was state of the art, or somewhere in the "state of the art" neighborhood. The unit is quite heavy for its size, weighing in at approximately 7-10 pounds (okay, I haven't been liftin' in quite some time so it might only be 5-7 pounds or so), and actually has slits in the top, rear portion of the cover for, and I'm guessing here, for heat relief.
Once home, I plugged it in, let it warm up for a few, and did a quick connect of the Move and listened thru the Ety ER4B's. The unit's got a headphone jack in front, along with a slide volume control on top of the jack. I turned it all the way down (why? I don't know. I always turn all headphone jack volume controls down) and listened for sound to pour forth from this ancient player. No sound. Checked the Move. Powered up. Thought, "hmm." Then I slide the volume control on the front above the jack up. This brought music out the RCA's in the back. Weird. Well, I guess not "that" weird. I've got another CDP which has both constant and variable outputs on back. One set of RCA is a line out, while the other's volume is controlled by the volume knob, again, located above the headphone jack. I guess it's meant to feed straight into an amp for a purer signal.
This things definitely got some "slam" factor to it. It actually brought out the low end in the Ety's, not an easy task. I've never heard these Ety's...not the P's or S's, no, the B's, sound this robust and full. And this after I've been listening to my Ed 9's for the last couple of days (meaning I've been listening to some quality, and I do mean, Quality, low end so the Ety's, if anything, should have sounded so anemic to be almost intolerable until my ears adjusted to their sound signature).
I put on one of my favorate CD's (Carmen Cuest-Loeb's "Daydream") and actually noticed things I've not noticed before. One was a short segment where an acoustic steel string guitar is played. I always knew it was a steel string, that part's pretty obvious, but with the Akai, it was just way more noticeable. In another song, I noticed a second, accompanying guitar backing the lead. This, to me, was rather strange, as I've got a couple of pretty decent CD players (CAL Icon II with the power boss upgrade, a carousel CAL (CD 20 or 15, not sure at the moment), along with a Audio Research CD2) and I've never noticed those parts.
Right now, I attribute that to either having the music playing louder than I normally listen, or the Akai has introduced its own sonic character to the music. My guess is that its slammin' bass (read exagerated), along with an almost hyped and etchy top end is the culprit.
I'm curious to hook it up to one of my home amps and listen through a regular pair of headphones. I'm guessing that the bass slam is going to turn into a horrendous glob of undefined bass, but the highs will be sound more neutral with headphones that aren't as bright as the ER4B's.
Oh, and this thing's got no skip forward/reverse button. It can be programmed so maybe there's a way skip around, but I'm not sure I'll be able to figure it out. It was a PIA pressing down the fast-forward button to skip through songs.
This will definitely force me to listen to entire CD's.
How will I ever manage?
Anyway, I'll add to this later after listening to the Akai some more. Apologize for all the typos and sentences that don't make much sense. I was too lazy to go back through and edit.
Ciao,
