Review: Carver TL-3200 CD player
William Spencer
Carver TL-3200
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Armed with a pair of Sennheiser headphones (not the best way to audition)
and my Eric Johnson CD, I compared the CD players in the local Audio Buys
store. The bottom of the line Sony sounded thin while the ES was better.
The high-end ES was maybe better still. The Adcom and Onkyo, best I could tell,
were no better. But the Carver gave me a surprise. I had never noticed the
discrete echoes in the reverb on my CD -- in fact, I first thought something
was wrong, so obvious were the echoes.
The TL-3200 has a warmer sound than many players. Knowing that Bob Carver
knows the power of a half a dB, this may be a variation from neutrality.
But it does sound good. Detail is still good too. The laid back sound
may be considered a definite plus to most anti-CD types.
The TL-3200 features the Yamaha YM3414 filter and Burr-Brown DACs with
MSB trimmers, +,- 8V supplies and low volt op amps (NEC C4570C's -- anyone
have a NEC databook?), and is unusual in the use of a sample-and-hold
circuit. I expect listening tests were conducted. The sample-and-hold
is potentially a source of trouble, but it may reduce glitch area
and therefore sensitivity to slight differences in the timing of the digital
bits coming into the DAC, and also reduce crosstalk between the digital and
analog sections. Analog circuitry is layed out the same
for both channels.
Looks are good due to use of brushed aluminum and few buttons on the front.
However, the handles don't look as good when paired with non-Carver equipment.
A few drawbacks should be mentioned. Mechanical noise of the tray and
track seeking is high. Remote is weak. Programming is delete -ONLY.
The ability to simply find out the length of the tracks is NOT provided.
I don't consider that a missing "feature", I consider it a major flaw; even
with phono records you can at least get some sense of the track length by
looking at the record, but the Carver is blind (you can go to the end of the
track and back up to find out the length of the tune however).
There is no digital output. Dispite the Carver name, it is made in Japan.
This is one step down the line from the TL-3220 reviewed by _The Audio Critic_.
Their double-blind testing found no difference between the Carver and
highest-end transport-processor combos. The 3200 is the same except for
16 instead of 18 bit DACs and some features. We know CD is 16 bit, right?
The _Critic_ found the MSB trimmers to be reasonably well aligned.
Well, I don't know about high-end players, but you'd have to be deaf
not to hear the difference between the Carver and my Pioneer PD-4350.
Tone is much different. Switching between identical CD's playing, the tone
difference is as noticable as pushing in a "loudness" button.
The Pioneer makes cymbals sound tinny and trashy. On the Carver the
bell tones are brought out instead. Bass is deeper. Playing a bass warble tone
revealed the differences to be not simple. The Pioneer seemed louder
(bassier and more treble content) in that
case but the Carver gave more of the fundamental.
If two players are spec'ed to be flat within +,- 0.4 dB, that still
allows a total of 1.6 dB difference in frequency response between them,
so all this difference of tone may be pure frequency response differences.
The bright, glary sound that many associate with CD is often blamed on
distortions caused by real-world digital processing, and the Carver may
provide some advantage in this respect (it sure isn't too bad) but there
is no way for me to know for sure at this point. Perhaps I could see if
players can truly be equalized to sound like one another.
I might point out that the Pioneer is not a bad sounding player and
came off very well when compared to a Hitachi player.
One benefit of the Carver was better matching of tone to my
turntable. I can now optimize
the system for both sources.
Carver includes the DTL (Digital Time Lens) circuit. It boosts bass and
channel seperation. I found it mostly useless, although it may be useful at
some point. Getting rid of the psuedo-stereo effect would make it more
useful. A complete bypass may be in order.
Modification should be easy due to placement of drive electronics on a seperate
board. The main board is not too hard to remove.
The Carver TL-3200 seems to provide an answer to CD glare and fatigue.
At about half price ($250), I bought it. At full price, however,
it would be up against some more severe competition.
Bill Spencer