by Bob Herman

Let me say here and now that I’m a big fan of analog audio. That’s what got me so excited about the Audio Research REFERENCE CD7 Compact Disc Player. It’s a very special digital component.

Well, Minnesota-based Audio Research is a very special company. Its founder, Bill Johnson, began designing custom audio electronics way back in the early 1950s and operated his own retail store well into the sixties. Almost single-handedly, he revived vacuum tube designs at a time when the industry had abandoned them for musically inferior solid state products. Audio Research today ranks among the oldest continuously operating American hi-fi firms.

So it makes sense to discover that the firm’s flagship Compact Disc player sounds more like an analog unit than any digital component or combination I’ve previously heard. Just how close to analog is that, you may justifiably ask. Take it from this LP lover, the sound of the REFERENCE CD7 is often every bit as good as and sometimes even better than that of vinyl on a high end turntable.

Easy to operate, the REFERENCE CD7 has a top-loading configuration similar to that of the less expensive Audio Research CD-3 and, within, an advanced tube audio stage. The musical result is a realistic, natural sound quality that makes this component worth far more than it costs. It actually outperforms some units and two-piece CD transport/DAC combinations with price tags two, three, even four times higher.

I listened to the REFERENCE CD7 with, among others, CDs of 1960s and seventies jazz performances that had been recorded in analog. I’m intimately familiar with this material, and I’ve heard it on a wide range of revealing players and systems. Yet I was delighted to find that this player extracted musical detail I hadn’t suspected was present. At the same time, it conjured up a vivid, lifelike presence I didn’t realize existed in the world of Red-Book-standard Compact Discs.

Drums and cymbals sounded so much more real than they previously had, and the upright bass, when plucked, displayed an authentic pizzicato texture. Dynamics, large and small scale alike, were breathtaking.

The emotional impact of vocal selections was also stirring. Vowels and consonants had admirable clarity, and voices were distinct, unmuddied, and altogether free of the sonic degradation that so many other CD players and transport/DAC combos convey.

Much to my surprise, it seemed as if I were listening to vinyl source material played on a high end turntable with a carefully matched, very serious moving coil cartridge driving a top notch phono preamp.

If painstaking critical comparison based on these and newer jazz, classical and rock recordings suggested that the REFERENCE CD7 doesn’t convey some of the subtlest details that much more expensive CD playback gear can reveal, well, that’s to be expected. What was surprising, startling really, is that the rich, natural, lifelike sound of the REFERENCE CD-7 made so many of those more expensive units and combinations seem flat and dull in contrast.

Occasionally, with a favorite LP on a high end turntable (Ellington Jazz Party In Stereo: Duke Ellington and his Orchestra. Columbia CS8127), at the point on "Red Shoes" where drummer Sam Woodyard hits the ride cymbal, I’ve automatically snapped to attention and turned my head toward the sound because of its uncanny realism. That never happened with a Compact Disc until I heard the remarkable Audio Research REFERENCE CD7.

Lyric sales associate Bob Herman has immersed himself in the sound of high performance hi-fi gear for a quarter century, both at home and on the job.