Montréal — Quebec-based high-end audio manufacturer Classé Audio has started shipping a high-performance DVD player that is said to be among the first to up-convert video to the 1,080p high-definition format.
Model CDP-300 ($6,500 suggested retail) is part of the company’s Delta high-performance home theater products series. In addition to playing DVD videos, the CDP-300 accepts DVD-Audio, standard CDs, DualDiscs, and discs encoded with MP3, WMA and AAC audio formats. Other supported formats include Video-CD, S-VCD and JPEG picture discs.
For video playback, the CDP-300 features newly developed video processing circuitry capable of converting signals to 480i, 480p, 576i, 576p, 720p, 1,080i and 1,080p video formats and outputting them to a display device over HDMI, the company said.
In addition to de-interlacing and scaling functions, the digital processing system is said to reduce “mosquito noise,” improve edge definition, adaptively control color/contrast ratios and improve chroma transient performance.
The player features an industrial design, a front-mounted LCD panel that doubles as a touch-screen control and video preview display.
The preview function enables audiophiles to navigate DVD-Audio or DVD-Video discs menus for music playback, without the need to turn on additional televisions or projectors.
The CDP-300 includes a slot-loader mechanism for reading discs. The slot is illuminated by a soft blue light to assist when loading discs in a darkened room.
The chassis was designed to minimize disc vibration during playback. To reduce jitter, digital audio signals are routed through a CPLD (Complex Programmable Logic Device) and sample rate converter to de-correlate them from the MPEG decoder (video) clock. Digital sources are recreated as 24-bit/192kHz signals and re-clocked before being output to the digital-to-analog converters.
The player uses three stereo DACs (with 8x filters) to convert digital audio to analog. Each channel of each stereo DAC is itself converted as a differential signal.Six channels of analog audio are output in single-ended format on RCA connectors, while the front left and right channels are also available balanced on XLR connectors.
All audio formats are decoded internally before D-to-A conversion. A concurrent IEC958 (SPDIF, AES/EBU and TOSLINK) output is provided.
DVD-Audio is output as IEC958 (SPDIF, AES/EBU and TOSLINK) for decoding in a surround sound processor with a concurrent two-channel, analog audio down mix.
Six analog audio outputs are provided with RCA connections (single-ended). Front left and right outputs are also supported in balanced format.
