Heard the Abbingdon Music research CD player?

Hi Bob, since yesterday I am the proud owner of a CD-77. I had been looking to replace my Jadis JD3 that had been showing first mechanical signs of its age and had been auditioning a few machines in the EUR 10k-range including Burmester 001, DCS P8i and Accuphase DP-78 to find that I was not going to fork out the money for the sonic improvements (if any) they could deliver. Meanwhile, Jadis had priced themselves out of my budget, so the quest began for the outsiders.
I stumbled across AMR's website at a time when they did not even have a distributor in Germany, but could arrange with the Benelux distributor for an audition in my system. What followed was an jaw-dropper as I had experienced only once before (Tidal speakers, sure enough). I know it has become a cliché but I'm going to say it anyway: we just sat bathing in music. Mind you, the CD 77 delivers each and every detail on the cd, prominently, but it doesn't single it out and throw it at you to the dreaded extent (to me at least) that you find yourself counting notes and single noises; instead, musical flow, timing and naturalness (listen to clapping of hands!) are breathtaking. Have I heard better? The Naim CD 555 perhaps, but that was not in my system and I may have been led astray by the cranked up volume, and hey, at EUR 23k it had better be very good.
Delivery took three months but, as explained in a letter of apology from AMR, this had to do with some building parts not meeting expectations and mechanical improvements (I suspect to make it fit for dropping unharmed from a roof-top). And so I come to the topic of built quality. Having had to return both my Quad prono-stage as well as my iMac within the first few months after their purchase, both assembled in China, I had become extremely sceptical of the latter - no offence meant. Not the least bit of conspiciousness appears remotely justified here, matter of fact, this is more an example of what "Made in Germany" used to stand for (look at those handmade top of the range turntables, you'll get the drift). I was happy that the distributor has delivered the machine for the audition as well as my own player personally and carried the almost 50kg shipping weight to the second floor himself.
Regards
Karel

I can put your mind at ease: it does warm up considerably, but most certainly not to the extent you describe if you give it the top shelf (for a top loader, I think that is what most of us would do)

I have been using PS Audio's Power Plant Premier for about a week now and have noticed that even after extended listening sessions, the AMR heats up considerably less than before. Interestingly, the Premier's display shows that the incoming voltage is almost always in the range 238-242 volts instead of the nominal 230 volts it is supposed to be. I can only guess the OptiMains, OptiLevel and whatever other cicuits in the AMR can go about their task much more easily and the chassis remains cooler, or am I babbling physical nonsense?

Btw, so far I am very pleased with the Premier: I can't detect any loss of dynamics or other sonic degradation.

Cheers
Karel

Hi Brian,
Not so much on the AMR CD-77 but as requested here are my impressions of the PS Audio Power Plant Premier.
I've gone through several sessions of comparison now. The power set-up of the system was as follows:
1) without PS PPP: AMR CD-77 with AMR PC-77 power cord that comes with the player; Tidal Preos and Tidal Intra amps with Audioplan PowerCord-S; cords went into Audioplan PowerStar-S itself directly connected to the wall socket; no filter in between, no dedicated line (rented apartment, sadly)
2) with PS PPP: source's and amps' power cords as mentioned above, each one connected to its own IsoZone (European version has only one outlet per Zone, anyway); PPP connected to socket with PS Audio xStream Plus power cord.
As a preliminary, I would not like to suggest that my system didn't have musical flow, detail, blackness, good soundscape, etc. before the PPP was integrated. It is not as if this machine delivered new characteristics (it may do even that in other systems). I just mention this because sometimes I am puzzled over reviews where yesterday's megabuck Best System appears as if it had been an old crutch until the advent of another new something).
With that out of the way, then, the PPP definitely does deliver more of the good things you may already have!
I went CD per CD (listed below) from w/o PPP to with PPP. In an attempt to summarize, I'd say with PPP the music sounded more "self-evident", indeed cleaner, although certainly not in the sense of sterile but unbothered by those fidgety, freckly little bits (pun not intended) not emanating from any person or instrument in the recording room or even from the room itself, but noises, grain, haze one notices all the more when the PPP is taken back out of the chain. Case in point: "Heartbeat" from Antonio Forcione's Live CD had the combined crystal clearness and multi-faceted fullness of the Uhlen riesling from the Heymann-Loewenstein estate (now, try to beat that!).
That translated in (Achtung! buzz-words ahead) better soundscape, better discernability of detail (a tough one to illustrate this: dEUS's "Bad Timing" builds up broodingly, menacingly to a dense, apocalyptic wall of sound with not a hint of smearing and Tom Barman's voice remaining comprehensible at all times, great). However, that multitude of fine detail is always perceived as part of the musical flow, therefore never tiresome. I also thought bass benefited audibly from the additional cleanliness, there is more variation, a feeling of better understanding what the musician is trying to express (nasty slaps vs. warmly feathering gobs of bass). And of course there is deeper blackness of silence (e.g. on Wulfin Lieske's "What about this, Mr. Tarrega?", just one man playing 7 different historical guitars built between 1856 and 1958).
Perhaps one's mind is just not so busy weeding out the "dirt" that is otherwise there.
Knowing the issue many of us have with customary filters, I had set my mind especially on comparing dynamics and speed. Funnily, the first time I compared Forcione's "Acoustic Revenge", I thought it had lost bite. Until I took the PPP back out: the only thing it had lost was metallic edginess, as was confirmed by listening to sax, trumpet, hi-hat, voices. In fact, the attack actually seemed faster with the PPP (e.g. Prokofiev, "Ivan the Terrible" Overture or BS&T "Hi-De-Ho").
For the comparison, I used the PPP's normal sine wave setting; people may prefer the MultiWave function depending on the gear in the system.
Back to why I mentioned the PPP in this particular thread in the first place: I kept the AMR playing an entire day with the PPP, the next without. The AMR definitely heated up considerably more without PPP.
An odd thing with the European schuko-version of the PPP: the in- and out- antenna connectors are both male, so I had to order customized cable for that, oh well, perhaps someone can give them a hint in Boulder!
I think the PPP is a great machine, that can make listening to music in an already good system more relaxed and more engaging at the same time. I believe with the AMR it is a real winning team. I also believe there is even more to get in combination with top-of-the-range power cords; my next quest, likely.
Cheers
Karel
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CDs used (in no particular order)
Blood, Sweat & Tears, "3" (MFSL)
dEUS, "Pocket Revolution" (Universal)
Antonio Forcione, "Live!" (Naim Records)
Yes, "Fragile" (MFSL)
ON3, "Guess What?" (Challenge)
Roessler, Vogt, Vitous, "Between the Times" (ACT)
Michael Brecker, "Pilgrimage" (Emarcy)
The New Tony Williams Lifetime, "Believe It" (Columbia)
Rosa Passos & Ron Carter, "Entre Amigos" (Chesky)
Wulfin Lieske, "What about this, Mr. Tarrega?" (Tacet)
Leonard Slatkin w. St. Louis Symphony, Prokofiev - "Ivan The Terrible" (MFSL)