Arcam CDS50 CD/SACD Network Player

The design of the HDA range draws upon all of Arcam’s experience as one of the UK’s most respected audio companies, to produce Arcam’s best performing range of audio products yet – using the best quality components and engineering practices, the HDA range is designed and built to give you years of listening enjoyment.

Features

• Plays all disc formats, including SACD, CD-A, CD-R, and CD-RW
• Supports audio file formats including FLAC, WAV, AIFF, OGG, MP3, AAC, and WMA
• USB input
• Superb 32-bit DAC built in
• Streaming through the music life app
• Total harmonic distortion + noise = 0.002%
• Our most advanced cd, digital audio and network streaming player yet

In a sense, digital audio doesn’t exist. You’d have to be a particularly dull superhero to possess ears that can decode the millions of 1’s and 0’s that make up your CD collection or iTunes library. Whatever the source – be it a laptop, CD player, smartphone, USB stick – the result is just a vibration in your speakers. In other words, it all winds up analogue in the end.

Arguably, when playing from a digital format, the most vital component is the DAC, or Digital to Analogue Converter. We’ll spare you the bulk of the science, but this is what translates that otherwise lifeless binary code into audible sound energy. Bit-depth, meanwhile, is a key measure of audio quality.

So, if you’re listening to a 24-bit WAV copy of your favorite album through a DAC that only converts to 16-bit, there’s a good chunk of detail going to waste right there. That’s why Arcam included 32-bit DACs on the entire HDA range – the most commonly used bit-depth in digital recording – so you’re guaranteed the full aural picture of whatever the artist intended.