Yamaha MCX-1000

Visual Impression

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The MCX-1000 is rather a big piece of kit, taking up almost as much room as my Yamaha AV amplifier. However despite this, the unit is solidly built and it looks like it means business: albeit the CD tray which is rather plastic and delicate looking.

In my opinion the unit looks better in silver; however it does tend to lean towards the fingerprint happy look if you have small children with sticky fingers. It is a combined CD player, and Music Server. It has a hard disk of 80GB and will store music to the hard drive for playback from the unit, or distributed thought the home via WLAN/ LAN Networked terminals.

Connectivity

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The unit has plenty of outputs, to satisfy your cravings for connecting: It has s-video, and co-axial video, LAN Cat 5 terminal for connecting to the internet (and connecting to a wired network for digital music distribution) Wireless LAN Aerial,(can also distribute music via WLAN) RS232c Terminal, Digital Optical in and out terminals, Coaxial digital out, and Analogue Out.

Performance

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Ripping CD's is very impressive, the server eats CD's and swallows the data like a monkey eating bananas. You can choose to have the MP3 data, and the PCM data together, but I chose to have just MP3 as I have around 450 CDs to fit on the thing. It takes around 3 minutes per CD. Gracenote CD data is stored on the server, and also downloads CD info off the internet should you wish.

Sound Quality Direct CD Play

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Direct CD play gives a very open clear sound, and a nice controlled bass line that is tight and in time with the music. A real treat to the ears. Higher and midrange frequencies are near on perfect, although I have noticed that on some CD's where the master recording is below par, it can tend to open up flaws in the sound stage but I am nit-picking here, and this is generally down to the musicians/ sound engineers who recorded the track in the 1st place. Certainly sounds like what you would expect if you were to buy a £1000 CD player and it does not disappoint.

Sound Quality MP3

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First of all, avoid the lower MP3 sample rates, as they are nothing special to be honest and were frankly disappointing. 320 KB/s MP3 Playback off the hard drive is very good by MP3 standards, but not quite as open as Direct CD playback, and slightly muddy in the midrange (but only very slightly). Bass is also a little slower, a fast Jazz bass guitar for example sounds confused, boomy and a bit muddy in comparison. However, the overall sound quality is good for MP3s and once you have been away from the unit for a while and come back with fresh ears, MP3s do still sound very good.

Pulse Code Modulation, Lossless

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PCM Lossless playback I found a waste of time, sounded pretty much the same if not Identical to MP3 320KB/s, except took up more room on the hard disk. Can't see the advantage myself to the PCM option, if you want to be pedantic about your music you can always get the CD out and play it directly. I have a number of classical CD's that I have purposely not ripped because I know that the only way to do the music justice is to play it back directly on the CD player of the unit where the sound is nothing short of astonishing.

Music Streaming

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The wireless streaming is also very impressive, the unit streams music data to other music cast terminals all over the house. You can have up to five different terminals connected all at the same time, whilst streaming different music to each terminal. You can also, while doing this; stream music on the main terminal also, or play a CD. Sound quality does not seem to change at all, and is very impressive and copes very well with the demands placed on it.

Verdict

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A very accomplished quality audiophile CD player with more than adequate MP3 playback capability. PCM recordings are a waste of time frankly, so stick with MP3 320kb/s, you will fit more on the hard drive, and quality is still very good. If you feel like a hard intensive, aficionado listening session, the CD player can do that for you, and trust me it doesn't disappoint.