This is my first time ever contact with a Bel Canto product. Here were I live there are not too many around. Actually were I live there are not too many around of anything. It is a city were hi-fi interest died around 15 years ago. The reason of its dying is the same reason it died or faded almost everywhere, but there are some parts where there are more survivors then others. One of the main reason is, I guess, being exposed to mediocrity we get acustomed to it, and then we don't feel the need of somoething else, also because we have a limited capacity, either regulated by our economic power or from our personality, of desiring the not really necesary. Then it is difficult to follow many field of interest at the same time. 20 years ago if you were following hifi it was already challenging, if you were following hifi and photo it was difficult. Today we have to add to this scenario that even if we don't want to we have to be interested in PC and smartphones.This wrong or right thought has been suggested to me by my recent camera changing. A friend of mine, that I know since I was 6 years old, gave to me his "old" camera since he bought a new one. It was a fairly recent camera, with interchanchable lenses. In my youth I was passionate about cameras, but I left this passion many years ago. My friend kept the camera passion but lost his hifi passion. He has a decent stereo system, considered very good from people that don't share this passion, but considering his buying power it only shows that hifi is not one of his priority any more.
So he gave me this "new camera". I shot a picture with it of this Bel Canto. Previosly I had already shot a picture of it with my regular compact camera. The difference was not great but profund at the same time: this time in the same details there was more reality! The black is much more black. The different textures of the wood shelf were I had put the Bel Canto is more evident as the work of polishing of its front panel. In one word it is more close to reality. I was getting much more interested in portraing a recognizable object then trying to put a deeper representation of reality in the picture. Is it necesary? The answer is long and interesting to develop, but this is not the right place to do it, but if I have to resume it I would say yes: from the importance of this kind of details depends our dignity. It could sound odd but try to develop this topic by yourselves if you have the attitude or the interest in doing it.
At the end of course I have replaced the picture that I previously took with my compact camera with the one taken with my "new" camera.
And now about the sound of the Bel Canto CD3t:
the first thing I did was to immediately listen to this brand new unit to see the difference after a burn if any. Out from the box the sound is agile, light but the one characteristic that is more evident is a special expressivness in the mid high, high range. There is more life then usual in these region. And even though the bottom end is good it seems not to have the same nature. So at the end you feel it is missing a certain coherence or that the mid high and the tonal balance is slightly tilted toward the mid high.
I put a Cd on for 5 days and after I listend to it again: much better. Now the tonality is linear and the bottom end gained in strength and the mid high and high kept their special expression. Of course now this special quality is less evident since everything else is part of the whole message but still there.
So the first foundamental quality of this transport is the expression of its mid high, high range. This range is more complex then many other CD transport costing much more. In this it reminded me of the signature of an old DAC from Audio Alchemy. In comparison with many other DAC of that era it had a special complexity in the mid high, high range.
Another evident quality in this transport is its agility and ritmic capability. Yes, try to change with another transport and you will know what I mean. Maybe another transport has more gravitas, another one more depth, another one more of something else, but most don't have the same rithmic capability, the same agility. They are heavier in their movements. Only one transport was close in this field and is a very old one: the Meridian 200.
Another goodness of this unit, and I think it is the best since the lest common one, is that it is capable of beeing tidy and timing very well, that is already a very rare quality, and being tidy without sounding mechanical. I don't really know if this is the result of a shortcoming. I say it since the way it focuses. The subjects on the first field and just after behind are very well focused but the more we go deep in the soundstage the less focused are. It is true that with unit capable of excedingly good focus, also in the very depth of the sonic scene, generally we have a feeling of the music being reproduced in a mechanical way.
We are talking of a transport that is very affordable so what is missing in comparison with more expensive ones? One thing that is missing is a thing that you will notice only in a direct comparison: its dynamic does not breath in the same way of a Lector Digidrive TL3. For example in a orchestra crescendo with the right equipment the Lector can scare you, its dynamic expression behaves more like the reality does like a window that becomes bigger and bigger, a wave that grows before investing you. With the Bel Canto you won't have that. There is a large space were the dynamic can develop but its energy does not grow. If I would speak in engine term I would say the Lector has more torque. In comparison with another very expensive transport we realize what I have said before that the instruments in the depth are not well focused.
But there is for me a bad point in this transport , and I don't really understand why they could not fix it, maybe the conceptor does not think it is a bad point. The CD3t in its operation is space. It is space means it is strange. For example if you play track number 4 with any other CD player or transport you just press play and it will play from the beginning the same track again. The Bel Canto won't do it. You have to compose the number of the track that you are playing again to listen to it again from the begining. Another strange thing: when you power it up the drive is going to operate in the emptiness for about one minute but not in search of a disc, just for the hell of it! Then it stops and you are ready to introduce in it your chosen CD. I have to say that after this strange waking up ritual it recognizes the disc immediately, the tracks access and the stop and the play and every other operation is fast, like in a Marantz CD player that are a dream in their operation, and not like some old Cyrus, and maybe the new ones too, I don't know since it has been a while since I didn't listen to a Cyrus CD, that had to take its time to do everything.
Another thing to notice. The CD3t does accepts only BNC and AES, I think they opted to this choice to be more sure the buyer would use at least a decent digital cable. Because it is true that you have some extremely good digital SPDIF cables that I prefer to their AES version, but there are also some very bad ones. I don't know very bad AES or BNC digital cables.
So my conclusion is clear: great product, a very great accomplishement for the price. If you don't have a lot of money to invest for a CD transport but you still want to have a very good one, now you don't need to search for it in the second hand market any more.
the first thing I did was to immediately listen to this brand new unit to see the difference after a burn if any. Out from the box the sound is agile, light but the one characteristic that is more evident is a special expressivness in the mid high, high range. There is more life then usual in these region. And even though the bottom end is good it seems not to have the same nature. So at the end you feel it is missing a certain coherence or that the mid high and the tonal balance is slightly tilted toward the mid high.
I put a Cd on for 5 days and after I listend to it again: much better. Now the tonality is linear and the bottom end gained in strength and the mid high and high kept their special expression. Of course now this special quality is less evident since everything else is part of the whole message but still there.
So the first foundamental quality of this transport is the expression of its mid high, high range. This range is more complex then many other CD transport costing much more. In this it reminded me of the signature of an old DAC from Audio Alchemy. In comparison with many other DAC of that era it had a special complexity in the mid high, high range.
Another evident quality in this transport is its agility and ritmic capability. Yes, try to change with another transport and you will know what I mean. Maybe another transport has more gravitas, another one more depth, another one more of something else, but most don't have the same rithmic capability, the same agility. They are heavier in their movements. Only one transport was close in this field and is a very old one: the Meridian 200.
Another goodness of this unit, and I think it is the best since the lest common one, is that it is capable of beeing tidy and timing very well, that is already a very rare quality, and being tidy without sounding mechanical. I don't really know if this is the result of a shortcoming. I say it since the way it focuses. The subjects on the first field and just after behind are very well focused but the more we go deep in the soundstage the less focused are. It is true that with unit capable of excedingly good focus, also in the very depth of the sonic scene, generally we have a feeling of the music being reproduced in a mechanical way.
We are talking of a transport that is very affordable so what is missing in comparison with more expensive ones? One thing that is missing is a thing that you will notice only in a direct comparison: its dynamic does not breath in the same way of a Lector Digidrive TL3. For example in a orchestra crescendo with the right equipment the Lector can scare you, its dynamic expression behaves more like the reality does like a window that becomes bigger and bigger, a wave that grows before investing you. With the Bel Canto you won't have that. There is a large space were the dynamic can develop but its energy does not grow. If I would speak in engine term I would say the Lector has more torque. In comparison with another very expensive transport we realize what I have said before that the instruments in the depth are not well focused.
But there is for me a bad point in this transport , and I don't really understand why they could not fix it, maybe the conceptor does not think it is a bad point. The CD3t in its operation is space. It is space means it is strange. For example if you play track number 4 with any other CD player or transport you just press play and it will play from the beginning the same track again. The Bel Canto won't do it. You have to compose the number of the track that you are playing again to listen to it again from the begining. Another strange thing: when you power it up the drive is going to operate in the emptiness for about one minute but not in search of a disc, just for the hell of it! Then it stops and you are ready to introduce in it your chosen CD. I have to say that after this strange waking up ritual it recognizes the disc immediately, the tracks access and the stop and the play and every other operation is fast, like in a Marantz CD player that are a dream in their operation, and not like some old Cyrus, and maybe the new ones too, I don't know since it has been a while since I didn't listen to a Cyrus CD, that had to take its time to do everything.
Another thing to notice. The CD3t does accepts only BNC and AES, I think they opted to this choice to be more sure the buyer would use at least a decent digital cable. Because it is true that you have some extremely good digital SPDIF cables that I prefer to their AES version, but there are also some very bad ones. I don't know very bad AES or BNC digital cables.
So my conclusion is clear: great product, a very great accomplishement for the price. If you don't have a lot of money to invest for a CD transport but you still want to have a very good one, now you don't need to search for it in the second hand market any more.
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