Technics CD player, SACD player, network streamer and DAC is a really interesting product \u2013 but I can\u2019t help but feel that we are witnessing something that fifteen years from now, will feel akin to one of those old hybrid VHS\/DVD video recorders from the mid-nineteen nineties. In other words, it\u2019s a super-clever do-everything design \u2013 but very much of its time.
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BEHIND THE MASK
\nTake the casing off the SL-G700, and you\u2019ll see a pair of Asahi Kasei Micro AK4497 DAC chips; good news for me personally as I\u2019m more of a fan of these than I am the ESS family. They have a clean but enjoyably musical sound, with feint shades of the old mid-eighties Philips TDA1541\u2019s character, if anyone is old enough to remember these. The sound is much smoother of course, especially with the Discrete AMP Module digital filter that uses low noise transistors and thin-film resistors, rather than an op-amp. Then there\u2019s a thorough power supply arrangement, and even the clock gets a special \u2018Battery Driven Circuit System\u2019 to isolate it from the mains supply noise. An ultra-low jitter clock is fitted. The analogue output section has its own dedicated power supply, again using discrete transistors with no ICs.
\n…..
\nSOUND QUALITY
\nThe SL-G700 has a distinctively Technics house sound \u2013 clean, crisp, dry, detailed and sinewy, this network player is a highly capable performer at the price. Perhaps this shouldn\u2019t come as a surprise to me, as I know from personal experience that the company puts an awful lot of time into voicing its products. This is no exception, the result being that you feel like you\u2019re listening to something more expensive than it really is.
\nWhat strikes me most about the SL-G700 is its clean, crystalline tonality. Digital sources at this price are quite variable, to be honest, but this one doesn\u2019t put a foot wrong. Cue up a well-recorded SACD such as Roxy Music\u2019s eighties classic Avalon, and you\u2019re instantly struck by its copious amounts of detail allied to very low noise. There\u2019s very little in the way of digital mush or hash, and at the same time, the tonal balance is exceptionally even. As far as this track goes, that meant a good, strong, firm bass, a smooth midband and a sweet and open treble; overall the sound was remarkably devoid of colouration and sounded sophisticated and svelte.
\n…..
\nTHE VERDICT
\nPretty much an unalloyed success, I\u2019d say. Given its brief \u2013 to be a do-it-all design that plays as many file formats as you one reasonably can in 2020, the Technics SL-G700 scores highly. It sounds clean and detailed yet surprisingly engaging too and is very well built \u2013 being closer to \u2018baby high end\u2019 than \u2018jazzed-up budget\u2019 fare. My only beef is its rather \u2018generic Japanese\u2019 display, but that won\u2019t put most off. If you\u2019re caught between formats, with sizeable CD and SACD collections and lots of hi-res on a NAS drive, it\u2019s hard to think what better machine to bring all these files together.
\n\u2013 David Price | July, 2020 | Stereonet<\/p>\n
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Link to product: Technics SL-G700<\/a> Technics CD player, SACD player, network streamer and DAC is a really interesting product \u2013…<\/p>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24381,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[171,182,181,175,178,183],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\nLint to review: Stereonet<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"