California Audio Labs SLC-1

 California Audio Labs SLC-1 is a new reference standard for Compact Disc throughput to your amplifier and speakers. Eliminating the often substandard high level stages of today's preamps and the inevitable frequency variance problem with potentiometers and so-called line stages, we/ve created the inevitable next wave in Compact Disc performance. The Stereo Line Control One.

World-wide acceptance of the Tempest and Aria established CAL as the manufacturer of choice in producing reference standard CD players. Realizing that many people have made a complete transition from records to compact disc's, and that they want something better than a preamplifier to pass information along to their amplifier and speakers, we began investigating the effects on sonic quality that preamplifiers, potentiometers and gain stages have on compact disc performance.

We established that when you plug your CD player into a preamp your sound is degraded due to the design of the preamp's line stages. That they are designed in lesser preamps, to compensate for the problems that exist in the phono stage, or, in even the best of preamps to compliment the tonal character of the phone stage, thus in using any preamplifier you are altering the quality of information available from CD . Moreover, components used in line stages were inferior, and invariably altered and sonic quality at great cost to dimensionality and tonal character. Also, that the preamp's volume controls often added as much coloration as the gain stages themselves.

To solve these problems we designed the SLC-1. signal is first routed directly to the source selector, the (SLC offers inputs for your CD, VCR, Tape Deck, Tuner and Aux) then to a buffer, optionally bt passing the mode selector and gain stage, then to the volume and balance control to another buffer and out to your amp. Our use of dual buffers gives you the advantage of running as long a set of cables from your CD or other source input as needed to the SLC-1.

California Audio Labs Tercet CD player

 California Audio Labs Tercet is an affordable reference quality compact disc player incorporating Waveshaping. Having established new reference benchmarks in CD performance with our tempest, and Aria, we looked to see whether what we had learned could be applied to an affordable or "budget audiophile" CD player.

The majority of today's compact disc players suffer from one or more of the following; glare, hardness, brightness; lack of dimension; and lack of focus. The design research we do at California Audio Labs helps us to understand why these things occur, and how to eliminate them from interfering with the music. With the Tercet we started with 16 bit, 4x oversampling and added our Waveshaping circuit which shapes and aligns the timing of the digital pulses before they arrive at the Digital to Analog converter. Waveshaping negates the spurious third to seventeenth order harmonics which are what create some of that glare, edge, hardness, and lack of focus and dimension found in other players.

 

Next we designed an audiophile quality analog stage, featuring a large, separate power supply and selected components from Monster Cable, Wima, and Sidereal, in a circuit design that is a leap forward in performance for the budget audiophile. The Tercet's unprecedented smoothness from one end of the frequency extreme to the other, the sense of three-dimensionally and focus is superseded only by out Aria, and Tempest II.

 

Other manufacturers have had varying success with the reduction of the edge and glare in their players, but have yet to achieve as great a sense of "being there". What separates the Tercet from those players, aside from it's superior tonal neutrality, is imaging, that sense of attending a live concert, imaging is the illusion in your 're seeing the separate and distinct positions of the performance and instruments, on the stage. This depth, width, and height is a representation that only the best players can extract from compact discs.

If the players you've auditioned or owned don't achieve this sensation bring some of your favorite discs, and perhaps your own player into your local California Audio Labs  dealer and compare the Tercet. There's a whole new world out there waiting for your ears, and as we know, all the world's a stage.

 

 

California Audio Labs Aria CD player

 Because of the revolutionary transformations in CD performance available through the inclusion of Waveshaping cicuitry, California Audio Labs has been able to design a tube/solid-state hybridCD player offering near-Tempest performance at a greatly reduced price. Called the Aria , this new CD player uses vacuu, tubes in the most critical areas, thus retaining the foremost features which distinguish California Audio Labs CD players from all others.

Using the latest 16-bit, 4x over-sampling technology as the basis for the Aria, California Audio Labs has integrated tube analog circuity with an entirely new design, as with the Tempest II, the circuit operates in Class-A mode and the de-emphasis is passive. Because of the inclusion of the Waveshaping circuitry, the Aria offers improved low level resolution, better imaging capabilities, and greater tonal accuracy.

Other details include separate power supplies for both the analog and digital stages, carefully selected components from leading suppliers like Gold Aero, Sidereal and Tiffany, and the use of high quality linear-crystal cable, for internal wiring. The handsomely-styled Aria comes complete with built-in , full-function remote control.

The Aria will enable even greater numbers of music lovers to experience the benefits of Waveshaping and tube technology . It is the affordable state-of-the-art..

 

 

 

California Audio Labs Tempest II CD player

 When plans for the Tempest were originally conceived, we knew that our player would require more than the mere modification of an existing unit. Having already selected the best available laser transport and digital technology, we integrated them with our optically coupled all-tube analog circuit. The Tempest II's analog stage is a full triode, pure Class-A design, and uses no overall negative feedback, and neither transistors nor integrated circuits contaminate the signal path. Other circuit details included passive deemphasis, the elimination of gain stages for a further reduction of noise-induced distortion, separate power supplies for the digital and analog sections, and a Class-A triode current-to-voltage converter. 

 

Naturally, the Tempest II features our Waveshaping circuitry, thus guaranteeing that the signal fed into the analog stages is as coherent and accurate as possible.

To ensure the reliability of the Tempest II as well as its performance, we have specified only the finest components. Tubes are supplied by Gold Aero, connectors are by Tiffany and internal wiring consists of high quality linear-crystal cable.

 

The combination of novel circuitry, attention to detail, parts specified to laboratory standards, as well as through subjective design input and assessment blend together to form the California Audio Labs Tempest II. It is the CD player of choice for music lovers the world over.