Quad Artera Play Black CD Player w/ DAC

Full Description

Combining a sleek user interface with the latest high definition audio technology Artera Play CD player and DAC is the perfect match for the high power drive of Artera Stereo. Enjoy your music with ultra-high resolution playback up to 32bit/384kHz in addition to DSD64/128/256 files through the USB input. Quad gave its team of designers and engineers a specific brief for Artera: combine the qualities that have made Quad one of Britain’s most revered hi-fi marques for many decades with fresh industrial design and the very latest high-performance audio technologies. Artera’s crisp, clean aesthetic both evokes Quad’s past and looks forward to the future, with a textured aluminium front panel, thick glass top and CNC-routed heat sinks on either side. The housing provides a rugged structure that resists interference from external vibrations, while the facia of each player incorporates an intuitive touch-sensitive control, contributing greatly to its sleek design.

Iconic Amp Technology

The inclusion of full analogue/digital preamp functionality means that the Artera Play and Link can be connected directly to a power amplifier, and its perfect partner in this regard is the Artera Stereo. This compact yet potent power amp sports the latest iteration of Quad’s famous Current Dumping topology, first introduced in the legendary Quad 405 – one of the most lauded British audio components of all time and still the only amp design to have earned a Queen’s Award for Technological Achievement.

Filters To Suit Every Ear

For CD replay, a new slot-loading mechanism buffers data from the disc before feeding it asynchronously (in order to minimise time domain errors known as ‘jitter’) to the DAC section. Four digital filter options enable users to tailor the Artera Play’s, Link’s and One’s sound, with both CDs and external digital sources, to suit personal taste and the nature of the source material.

Hi-Res Compatibility

Despite their attractive simplicity, the four Artera components deliver exceptional sophistication beneath the skin. At the heart of the Artera Play, Link and One nestles the ESS Sabre32 9018; a 32-bit, eight-channel hybrid multi-bit Delta-Sigma DAC considered by many to be the finest D/A converter chip available for stereo sound.