[b]Teac D70/P70[/b] If you are suddenly lucky enough to find yourself newly promoted to Upper escelons of the corporate ladder, then the obiquitory 'Class motor' comes with the territory, Humm.....want do I go for The Merc 600 SEL, The BMW M5?, the Jaguar XKR8? or the sumptuous new Bentley?. All these fine automobiles would grace any Multi story mega corporate World HQ with Style, however what happens if you secretly hanker after the Audi A8?, un convential, Unhip, not management class of executive express?, well maybe not, but it's still a fab vehicle, that punches with all but the very best. So do you, Get hip with 'in boys' in the company unisex wash rooms or do you stay out in the cold, with the 'fun gear' Tuff choices, brushed off by 'Dave' from marketing, shunned by Sophie from R+D, but Pete from the tool room is a cool guy Well this is the Problem facing the Teac P70/D70 transport and Dac combo, Mighty fine pieces of engineering they are too, serious metal work adorns these, Digital Warriors from the land of the rising sun, 25KG EACH no less, (Non pussy), not exactly beautiful, but great stuff none the less. Mind you the price of these 'Heavy weight' is in this Division too the Dac is £5000 and the Transport is £5500, so not to be taken lightly . Today W.M. was lucky enough to spend 3 hours in the esteemed company, although no where long enough, but still chance to glimpse their magic. My local Sevenoaks, was kind enough, to Twist the Good guy's from Teac, to prise one away from Oxford Audio, long enough for W.M. to assess the 'digital demon's' in full flight. I'm keen on the Transport P-70, to add to my Digital deviancy, so Today I got chance to see it rocks, like the spec's say it should, first up though, we get to settle in some of W.M's music maker into there listening room. I took along The Wadia Dac/Belcanto amp/Isolda Cable/Acoustic Zen cables Silver/Materix/ref's and 3 E=mc2 digitals'/eupen power leads and power condition 500va. The shop demo pair of Monitor Audio Gr 60's were wheeled into action (not the best to show the kit what it can do, but they didn't disgrace themselves). Also on hand was a cold Wadia 301, looking a bit lonely amidst all the stacks of 'New M/F 308 gear'. We hook up the amp/dac/ and use the Wadia 301 as transport, I forgot how soft and laid back this one is (who says transport have no difference on the overall sound) The bass was overly big and full and not as clean or accurate as the one at home, but still gave sterling service. the unmistakable Big wadia sound thus emanated from the Gr 60's, bit too full I thought (quick swoop of terminal to the bass terminal and much better) The GR 60's were power single wired, in bridged mode, (I'm not going to go too much into this sound, as it's the Teac's I was more interested in). The Teac's turned up about an hour later, now bearing in mind these were stone cold, and were used just on a glass soundstyle rack, I plugged them both into the power conditioner and using the Eupen leads. Both Units are substancial, with Blue Leds (calm down Mo), and the stock Teac/wadia display, strange how my remote worked finished in Black/Blue anodised Aluminium, great attention to detail here, 3 large circular adjustable feet (landing pads) anchored to the deck. Now I have a Gripe here (the only one with the ascetic's), it has small silver 'Toggle switches' for Word clock on/off/Sample rate/single/dual cable out's for 96/176.4khz/ algorithm selection etc, and another 3 on the back of the P70 for switching the cable inputs on/off. This baby has firewire as well. Now there are of good quality, however they protrude, and with the weight of the unit being well heavy, it won't be the unit that will break, the toggles will, also it' looks 'Not in keeping with the overall look of the unit, IE totally out of place, this doesn't affect the performance, but some people buy on looks alone. Ok, tracks played, Madonna Frozen/Swim, Crowded house, Only Natural, Whether with you, tall trees, Eric Johnson Manhattan, Chris Isaac's Lie to you, Spanish sun, couple of dynamic tracks, tried the Teac's in all modes, 44.1/88.2Khz, 24 bits, 176.4khz, word clock/word clock ram buffer/PLL only. Tone was impressed and disappointed at the same time, first It's up there with the DCS's for overall presentation and stage, openness tonally too quite damn good, better bass than the DCS too, and I ever heard some quite 'Realish' instruments too yes and from GR 60's and NOT a HARD note all day. Sound, very good, open, airy delicate superb detail retreval, nice texture (but not overly so) very neutral too, bass was clean and accurate, but not full or tight, the snares lack bite and thwack, almost manufactured (compared to the realism of home), going to 88.2Khz produced the best sounds of the day for me, keeping a lot of body and giving image stability, upsampling to full 4 times red book 176.4 khz, was an anti-climax for myself, yes it was more open 'flesh out' very airy, image was higher and holographic, but it doesn't do my Un intellicetial music any favour, the more bigger pieces and delicate jazz, really suit this presentation, Chris Isaac's Lie to you was simply stunning, even in stock red book form, it give a reassuringly solid image, and still lovely detail. Here come's the BUT's, It doesn't flow any where near as I'd hoped, it don't groove at all, or at best very little, bass and bass timing issues again raised their heads (Am I too picky?, do I want the impossible, well No, not at £11k nearly, when we put the Wad/dac and 301 as transport on after, the groove was back, not as much detail of a clean bass, but it was interesting and groovyer, and oddly more warmer mid range,) The Teac's do a better job in the Bass than the Delius and the Purcell/Wad transport did, and at the very least matches and better in nearly all other areas, (comparing the DCS equipment I've heard in my system and my brothers, Plus Henry T's Accuphase transport in his system) To sum up, It's very good Hifi, and one of the best at it's price point I really do feel, remember we were using nearly £8K worth of amps and cables/conditioners and isolation, so it had decent gear to go with it, to be fair it really needed 2 weeks warm up, and for me to have had it at home, to give a more accurate account of the Teac's, interestingly, the Wadia wouldn't accept the output signal from the Teac, what ever I did, I wouldn't lock on to it, shame as this was the point of the demo, (the manual supplied, was in German/Italian/Dutch) so not much help, no remote also, and the Dave? the rep, had only just joined Teac, so was new to the kit, had to head scratch myself, I could have done some thing wrong yes). Bottom line here, In the limited exposure I had, and I'm sure it'll improve will time on and use as do all good things, It's very good hifi, with a good stab at the musical aspects too, (which are more important for me), there in itself lies a dilemma, it is up with the big boys, it performs very well, and to the point of the post, It's not an Aston/Roller/Bentley/Merc, it's an Audi, although it can go toe to toe with all but the very best, it's not got the 'Badge', which for a lot of people, is enough to say Non', which is a crying shame, because in all things Hifi, it is top notch, just not for W.M. Would Like to say a Big thanks to Nick/Tony/Ben at Sevenaoks, for letting abuse their facilities and earDrums, thanks also to Teac and their rep Dave?, for bring the goods to the party, an enlightening experiance. Tone
