Up to 84% in savings when you subscribe to The Absolute Sound
Logo

Begin typing your search above and press return to search. Press Esc to cancel.

T+A PDP 3000 HV CD/SACD Player and DAC

T+A PDP 3000 HV CD/SACD Player and DAC

Theory + Application Elektroakustik (T+A) may be the biggest and most technically innovative high-end audio company you’ve heard little or nothing about. The Germany company has been on a long-term growth trajectory but has intentionally kept a low profile in the U.S. so that it could focus on the European and Asian markets. That’s unfortunate for those of us in North America because T+A makes an extensive range of technically innovative, beautifully built, forward-looking, great-sounding products that are fairly priced.

Founded in 1978 by Siegfried Amft, T+A began life as a loudspeaker company with just two employees. Amft still heads the company, which has grown to a staff of more than a hundred. Fourteen of the employees are graduate-level engineers, many of them specialists in fields such as circuit-board layout, software development, and mechanical engineering. The company’s history is one of fundamental technical research driving product development. T+A is as far from a marketing-driven “me-too” company as you’ll find. For example, the company designs and builds its own disc-transport mechanisms from metal rather than buying off-the-shelf plastic mass-market drives. T+A also writes its own software, including the filters in its digital products. I was astonished to discover that T+A was creating its own software-based digital filters way back in 1989, a time when I thought that only Wadia and Theta Digital possessed that capability.

The PDP 3000 HV CD/SACD player and DAC reviewed here exemplifies T+A’s engineering-driven approach. The company’s flagship digital product is packed with sophisticated design and lavish execution. I got an inside look at the PDP 3000 HV during the Munich show where I sat down with T+A’s lead designer, Lothar Wiemann. A physicist by education, Wiemann has been with T+A for more than 30 years. The 57-pound player’s top panel features a round see-through window that shows off the internals. The massive chassis is made from aluminum, with isolated compartments for the digital and analog power supplies, and separate compartments for the digital and analog circuits. The transport is housed in its own aluminum chamber. This construction isolates the subsections magnetically and mechanically, and prevents coupling via RF. The exterior metalwork, which is available in dark grey or silver, is exemplary, as is the feel of the controls and the sophistication of their operation. Press the drawer-open button and the tray glides out with a smoothness and solidity that is unmatched in my experience. I would not have been surprised to learn that the PDP 3000 HV was priced at twice its U.S. retail of $22,500 (alas, up from $19,500 before the Euro-Dollar valuation swing this summer).

The front panel is dominated by two large knobs that select inputs and access the player’s extensive menu. Those inputs include USB, AES/EBU, three SPDIF on RCA, two SPDIF on BNC jacks, and two TosLink optical. All these inputs can be named via the remote control’s keypad. The remote control is a large, heavy unit machined from metal. The markings are a bit cryptic; you must refer to the table in the owner’s manual to decipher their meanings. The disc drawer sits beneath a large display that shows the selected input, track number or time, and the set-up functions.

T+A PDP 3000 HV CD/SACD Player and DAC

The rear panel has a couple of unusual twists. First, the PDP 3000 HV requires two AC cords, one for the player’s digital power supply and another for the analog supply. The second twist is two sets of analog outputs, one for PCM sources and the other for DSD sources. Dual outputs are offered because the PDP 3000 HV employs completely separate signal paths for PCM and DSD decoding, all the way through the analog output stages and output jacks. Most DSD-capable DACs simply convert DSD to PCM for conversion to analog. T+A wanted to build a statement product without the compromise of designing a single DAC and analog output stage that would work for both DSD and PCM. This arrangement, however, requires two pairs of interconnects between the PDP 3000 HV and your preamplifier if you plan on listening to DSD downloads or SACDs. If you’re not that hardcore, a menu setting will route all signals through the PCM output stage with a small penalty in DSD sound quality.

Much effort went into optimizing the performance with SACD and DSD sources. In addition to separate signal paths for PCM and DSD, the DSD DAC is a T+A custom design realized with discrete components rather than an off-the-shelf chip. In addition, the PDP 3000 HV allows you to select between two SACD and three DSD filters and noise-shaping algorithms to optimize the sound quality for different systems and DSD sample rates (see sidebar). I’m not aware of any other DSD DAC with either a discrete custom DSD DAC or selectable DSD filters.

I describe the PDP 3000 HV’s technical details in the sidebar, but here’s a synopsis: custom digital filters, completely separate signal paths for DSD and PCM, an all-discrete signal path including the current-to-voltage converter, dual-differential PCM DACs, custom discrete DSD DAC, isolated digital and analog power supplies including dual power cords, custom metal transport mechanism, an elaborate power supply, massive aluminum chassis, no op-amps in the signal path, and extensive jitter reduction. That’s an impressive list of design features.

I should mention that if you find the PDP 3000 HV appealing but it’s beyond your budget, and you don’t need disc playback, consider T+A’s $3995 DAC 8. It is based on the same design concepts as the PDP 3000 HV but in a less elaborate implementation. It still offers the discrete 1-bit DSD converter, selectable DSD filters, and many other T+A technologies. I haven’t heard the DAC 8 but based on my experience with the PDP 3000 HV, I expect it to be outstanding.

 

Listening
In assessing the sound of the various inputs before beginning the evaluation, I discovered that I couldn’t get the AES/EBU input to lock to the Aurender W20. Fortunately, the PDP 3000 HV offers coaxial inputs on BNC jacks, which don’t suffer the technical and sonic compromises of RCA digital inputs. I slightly preferred the sound via the BNC inputs compared with USB, although the best-sounding configuration was with a Berkeley Alpha USB between the Aurender and the PDP 3000 HV. Note that you must use the USB input for decoding DSD files.

Starting with CD playback and PCM files of various resolutions, the PDP 3000 HV revealed itself to be a first-rate CD player and DAC. The player had certain qualities that were exceptional, particularly the sense of musical flow, rhythmic expression, and visceral involvement in the music. It’s endlessly interesting to hear familiar music through a new playback device; the new product under evaluation sometimes pushes different musical buttons. That is, the way in which I engage with music is a little different with some products. With the PDP 3000 HV I found myself more immersed in music’s rhythmic power and dynamic expression. Although the PDP 3000 HV hit all the critical listening checkmarks, it had something extra—a visceral energy that connected me with music on its most fundamental level.

Perhaps part of this character is due to the PDP 3000 HV’s powerful, robust, and dynamically “tight” presentation that conveyed the physicality of music. It wasn’t just that the bottom end was weighty and dynamic; there was more to why the player had such an energetic and upbeat quality that was deeply engaging. I think that the PDP 3000 HV more accurately reproduces the timing information in music, contributing to the sense of live music making. The PDP 3000 HV has a powerful rhythmic pull that connects on a deeper level than, for example, encouraging a dissection of the soundstage. This quality was evident on the 96/24 download of Talking Heads’ Speaking in Tongues. The PDP 3000 HV nailed the precise timing and transient pop of the exquisitely intricate percussion and James-Brown-esque rhythm guitar (and the way that they worked together), conveying this album’s remarkable whole-body propulsive feel. Many DACs, by contrast, dilute this aspect of the music. The PDP 3000 HV had an uncanny ability to convey a sense of upbeat energy, as though the musicians were not just technically better but also more engaged in the performance. Of course, a music-reproduction component can’t make musicians sound “better”; it can only more accurately convey their musicianship, which is what the PDP 3000 HV did consistently. (Incidentally, two days after listening to this album I cued it up again through the Aurender’s iPad app and after about 30 seconds thought that something had gone wrong in my system. The sound was hard, bright, spitty in the treble, flat, and generally unpleasant by comparison. Three or four songs in I realized that I was listening to an old CD rip I had made, not to the 96/24 download, both of which were on the Aurender server.)

This rhythmic energy and involvement extended to all kinds of music. The great Freddie Hubbard-penned track “Byrdlike” from George Cables’ 1979 album Cables’ Vision, an album I’ve been listening to for decades, was rendered by the T+A with freshness, the be-bop melody and extended virtuoso solos coming alive, all driven by Peter Erskine’s powerful drumming. The music just had an urgency and flow that were remarkable.


T+A PDP 3000 HV CD/SACD Player and DAC

The overall spatial perspective was on the immediate and upfront side rather than relaxed. It was like sitting a few rows closer to the orchestra rather than mid-hall. This quality conveyed startling palpability and presence, yet the sound never crossed the line into sounding forward or dry. Moreover, the immediacy was accompanied by good soundstage depth, fine layering of images within that depth, and a wonderful bloom and air around image outlines.

The differences in sound between the four digital filters for PCM reproduction were greater than those of filter choices I’ve heard in other DACs. The outstanding dynamic alacrity, immediacy, and front-of-the-hall perspective described are in part the result of filter I chose for most of my daily listening (T+A calls the filter “Bezier”). Choose a different filter and the sound becomes a bit more relaxed. The precise sense of timing described is diluted somewhat with the other filters, but those filters have their own merits, including a bit smoother treble. Fortunately, it’s easy to switch filters on the fly from the remote control.

With most CD/SACD players, the improvement in SACD over CD or CD-quality files is significant. But in the PDP 3000 HV, SACD and DSD files sounded massively better than CD-quality PCM. The T+A produced what was, by a wide margin, the best SACD and DSD sound I’ve ever heard. The clarity, transparency, dynamics, and resolution were simply stunning. On the terrific Chesky hybrid SACD Jazz in the Key of Blue by drummer Jimmy Cobb (the drummer on Kind of Blue, incidentally), the T+A player produced a stunningly realistic sound on Roy Hargrove’s trumpet, in timbre, dynamics, resolution of fine detail, and that ineffable impression of the instrument being in the room with you. Cobb’s gentle brush work was portrayed with tremendous resolution; this delicate sound was imbued with a dense filigreed texture that was utterly realistic. The background vocals on the track “Gaia” from James Taylor’s Hourglass were also superbly rendered; I could hear the individual voices like never before, and the soprano sax floated in three-dimensional space.


T+A PDP 3000 HV CD/SACD Player and DAC

In addition to enjoying and evaluating the sound of well-worn SACDs, I played some sample tracks from Blue Coast Music, an audiophile label that records exclusively in high-speed DSD, and makes those recordings available for download. Note that unlike many DSD recordings, Blue Coast’s titles remain in the DSD format with no intermediate conversions to PCM. This approach, along with their purist recording techniques, result in some spectacular-sounding recordings. I’m not big on singer-songwriters, a staple of the Blue Coast catalog, but I found some music to enjoy. Guitarist Alex de Grassi performing “St. James Infirmary” on solo acoustic guitar, decoded by the PDP 3000 HV, wasn’t just the most realistic guitar recording I’ve heard, but also one of the most realistic recordings of any instrument in my experience. So great was the PDP 3000 HV’s transparency to sources that the sound had an almost “fool-you” realism.

Another wonderful DSD recording is the recently released album of James Matheson’s compositions on Yarlung Records, downloaded in double-DSD from the website nativedsd.com. The album includes Matheson’s String Quartet, recorded late last year at Samueli Theater, part of the Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa, California. I was fortunate to have attended a later Yarlung recording session in this hall. The recording was made in quad-DSD (DSD256) and is available for download in that format, but I was able to listen only to the DSD128 version because the Aurender W20 doesn’t currently support DSD256. In DSD128, the string quartet was rendered by the PDP 3000 HV with exceptional vitality and timbral realism. The PDP 3000 HV’s dynamic alacrity and visceral quality described earlier beautifully conveyed this music’s unusual rhythmic flow. The album includes a piece for piano and soprano called Times Alone that was stunning in every way: the timbre and dynamics of the piano, the palpability and purity of the soprano, and the way that the instruments were presented spatially within the acoustic. It was all well served by the PDP 3000 HV.

 

As great as SACD and DSD sounded in the standard modes, the PDP 3000 HV has a trick up its sleeve that takes the sound quality to another level. The SACD and DSD filter options, mentioned earlier and described in detail in the sidebar, proved their worth. With Mode 1 engaged (what would be the only filter on other DSD DACs), DSD sound is as I’ve described—stunningly transparent, immediate, detailed, and present. Even if this setting represented the PDP 3000 HV’s DSD performance, I would have still thought it the best DSD I’ve heard. But switch to Mode 2 (a filter with a higher cutoff frequency and gentler slope) and all those qualities stepped up a notch. The sense of air and detail increased, and with it the timbral, dynamic, and spatial realism. The final step is to remove any filtering (Mode 4, or what T+A calls “True DSD”) and listen to the raw 1-bit datastream. The combination of no filter, T+A’s custom DSD DAC built from discrete components, and an analog output stage that has been optimized for DSD playback elevated the performance to new heights. The wider filters allowed more very fine detail to be resolved and stripped away that last scrim between you and the instruments. On the Alex de Grassi track with Mode 1, you can sometimes hear him breathe or shift in his chair, but it’s not very distinct. In Mode 2 these sounds are more clearly heard as what they are. But Mode 4 renders them so clearly that you get a goosebump-inducing impression of a person in front of you. In Mode 4, the illusion of hearing live music-making on the James Matheson album was absolutely startling. In fact, the third movement of the String Quartet was almost overwhelming in its intensity.

These filter modes are for decoding DSD files via the USB input. SACD playback also offers two filters, with the wider-bandwidth filter (Filter 2) offering a greater sense of palpability, fine detail, and sense of an instrument hanging in space surrounded by the recorded acoustic.

There’s one big caveat, however; the wider filters won’t work in all systems, and engaging those wider filters (or running with no filter, as in Mode 4) has the potential to damage tweeters. See the sidebar for more detail for why these filters are necessary and how the wider filters have the potential to damage your system.

Conclusion
The T+A PDP 3000 HV is an extremely sophisticated, versatile, and highly musical disc player. When playing CDs and decoding PCM files, the PDP 3000 HV was among the best DACs I’ve heard, particularly in its ability to convey the music’s dynamic expression and rhythmic flow. It offers the kind of presentation that draws attention to the music rather than to the sound.

Had this been all there was to the PDP 3000 HV, it would have earned an enthusiastic recommendation. But the machine also offers what is far and away the best SACD and DSD playback I’ve heard. The various SACD and DSD filter options, unique to T+A, vault the performance to new levels of transparency, resolution, and realism. The PDP 3000 HV is an SACD and DSD lover’s dream.

Although $22,500 is a lot of money for a disc player, the PDP 3000 HV nonetheless represents high value considering the performance, sophisticated technology, and battleship build-quality. Many companies charge this much or more for less. It took a long time for North American audiophiles (myself included) to discover this 38-year-old German company, but the PDP 3000 HV proves it was worth the wait.

Specs & Pricing

Type: CD/SACD player and DAC
Digital inputs: AES/EBU (x1), SPDIF on RCA (x3), SPDIF on BNC (x2), TosLink optical (x2), USB (x1)
Digital output: PCM on RCA jack (x1)
Formats supported: CD, SACD, DSD (up to DSD512), PCM up to 384/24
Analog outputs: Decoded PCM on RCA and XLR jacks, decoded DSD on RCA and XLR jacks
Conversion: Double-differential quadruple converter with four 32-bit sigma-delta DACs per channel (PCM); T+A True-1Bit DSD conveter (DSD)
Filtering and upsampling: Custom T+A PCM upsampling filter with four filter options; custom SACD filter with two filter options; custom DSD filter with three filter options
Disc mechanism: Custom T+A linear-tracking drive
Power: Dual IEC AC input jacks
Dimensions: 18″ x 6.7″ x 18″
Weight: 57.2 lbs.
Price: $22,500

T+A ELEKTROAKUSTIK GmbH & Co. KG
Planckstraße 9 – 11
D – 32052 Herford, Germany
Phone +49 (0)52 21 / 76 76 – 0
ta-hifi.com
info@ta-hifi.com

RUTHERFORD AUDIO
(U.S. Distributor)
rutherfordaudio.com

Associated Equipment
Loudspeakers: Magico Q7 Mk.II, EnigmAcoustics Sopranino self-biasing electrostatic super-tweeters
Preamplifier: Constellation Altair II
Power amplifiers: Constellation Hercules II and Berning 211/845
Digital sources: Aurender W20 music server, Berkeley Alpha USB USB-to-SPDIF converter
Support: Critical Mass Systems Maxxum equipment racks (x2), Maxxum amplifier stands (x2)
Loudspeaker cables: MIT Oracle MA-X SHD and MIT ACC 268
Interconnects: MIT MA-X SHD, AudioQuest WEL Signature and AudioQuest Wild
Digital interconnects: Audience Au24 USB, AudioQuest Wild Digital AES/EBU, AudioQuest BNC
AC: Four dedicated AC lines; Shunyata Denali conditioners, Shunyata Sigma power cords
Acoustics: ASC 16″ Full-Round Tube Traps, ASC Tower Trap, Stillpoints Aperture Panels
Accessories: Shunyata cable lifters, Stillpoints UltraSS and Ultra6 isolation

DSD Primer and the PDP 3000 HV’s DSD Modes
Direct Stream Digital (DSD) is Sony’s tradename for an encoding technique in which the audio signal is sampled very quickly (2.8224 million times per second), but with an amplitude resolution of just one step per sample. This encoding couldn’t be simpler; if the signal is increasing in amplitude, a binary “1” is recorded. If the audio signal is decreasing in amplitude, a binary “0” is recorded at each of the 2,228,400 sample points per second.

This technique produces a signal with a very wide bandwidth but a very high level of quantization noise. In fact, the signal-to-noise ratio of raw DSD encoding is just 6dB. You may recall that a digital audio system’s signal-to-noise ratio is determined by the number of bits in each sample. A 16-bit system gives us a signal-to-noise ratio of about 98dB, or 6.01dB per bit.

So how can a digital encoding system with such high noise work? A technique called “noise shaping” shifts the noise out of the audioband to a higher frequency. With standard-rate DSD encoding as found on SACD (called “DSD64” because the 2.8224MHz sampling frequency is 64 times that of CD’s 44.1kHz rate) the noise begins rising just above 20kHz, with most of its energy between 40kHz and 100kHz. All SACD players and DSD DACs incorporate a low-pass filter (typically at 50kHz) to prevent this noise from appearing at the product’s analog output jacks. If left unfiltered, this ultrasonic noise could cause your power amplifier to become unstable or oscillate, potentially overdriving your tweeters. The amplifier can also create intermodulation products by this combination of high noise level and the audioband musical signal. Even if the amplifier is well behaved when driven by a high level of ultrasonic noise, that noise puts a burden on tweeters. You don’t hear the noise, but the tweeter’s voice coil must still dissipate that energy. The wider the amplifier’s bandwidth, and the more stable and linear it is at those ultrasonic frequencies, the less problem DSD’s ultrasonic noise poses. Moreover, today’s tweeters are better at handling higher power levels that tweeters of twenty years ago.

As the DSD rate is doubled (“double-DSD” or “DSD128”), the noise energy can be spread out over a wider bandwidth than with standard-rate DSD. The filter requirements are thus relaxed for DSD128 compared with DSD64. Quad-rate DSD (DSD256) allows the noise to be spread out over an even wider frequency band, again changing the optimal filter characteristics.

Almost every other DSD playback device I’m aware of employs a single filter and noise-shaping algorithm for all DSD rates, compromising the performance of higher-rate DSD files. But the PDP 3000 HV allows you to select between two different SACD filters and noise-shaping algorithms when playing SACD, and four different DSD “Modes” when decoding DSD files via the USB input. These Modes correspond to three different DSD filter characteristics.

The SACD 1 mode is a standard filter just as you’d find in any SACD player. The owner’s manual doesn’t specify the cutoff frequency, but my guess is it’s around 50kHz. SACD 2 has a higher cutoff frequency and a more gentle slope. T+A recommends this filter for systems with amplifiers that can handle a higher level of ultrasonic noise.

Moving to the DSD DAC Modes, when playing files through the USB input, Mode 1 is a standard low-pass filter that is suitable for DSD64 and any playback system. It removes all the ultrasonic noise. With Mode 1 engaged, the PDP 3000 HV sounds as I described it: the best DSD64 playback I’ve heard. But switch to Mode 2 (a higher cutoff frequency and gentler filter slope) and the sound takes on an increased transparency, resolution, and timbral realism.

Mode 4 is what T+A calls “True DSD.” This mode imposes no filter whatsoever, letting the DSD DAC run wide open. T+A recommends this mode only for higher-speed DSD, and if your amplifier has a wide bandwidth with very low transient intermodulation distortion. As described in the review, Mode 4 is absolutely startling in its transparency. Very fine detail, such as the sound of fingers moving on strings on the Alex de Grassi track, for example, took on a greater vividness.

Mode 3 isn’t a fourth filter option. Rather, Mode 3 automatically engages the Mode 2 filter for DSD64 files, and switches to Mode 4 (no filter) for DSD128 and higher sources.

The PDP 3000 HV’s manual cautions against using the True DSD mode (no filter) unless your amplifier and loudspeaker can handle the high levels of ultrasonic noise. I listened in Mode 4 with DSD64 files without a problem, although I kept the volume level moderate. As a safety measure, you must allow the PDP 3000 HV to engage True DSD in the basic system configuration menu in additional to selecting it from the DSD Mode menu.

Tags: FEATURED

By Robert Harley

My older brother Stephen introduced me to music when I was about 12 years old. Stephen was a prodigious musical talent (he went on to get a degree in Composition) who generously shared his records and passion for music with his little brother.

More articles from this editor

Read Next From Review

See all

Adblocker Detected

"Neque porro quisquam est qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit..."

"There is no one who loves pain itself, who seeks after it and wants to have it, simply because it is pain..."