This is a review and detailed measurements of the DAC portion of the Emotiva ERC-4 CD player. It is on kind loan from a member and costs US $649.
The display lights up in classic, intense dark blue colors of Emotiva. I am not a fan of it as it is old fashioned. Not much functionality is here other than acting as a DAC with inclusion of S/PDIF and Toslink inputs:
Wish there was a USB input however. On positive front, the remote is metal, feels substantial and has a cool, magnetic back to open and replace the AA batteries. LIke the XLR outputs and high quality RCA connectors.
As noted, this is a test of the unit using it as a DAC. I wanted to test it as a CD player as well but my test CD had broken in half.
Speaking of something broken, so was the ERC-4. It would not function even though the front panel controls were operational. I took the top off and noticed the ribbon cable plug was loose:
Pushed it in and the unit started to work. Owner had noticed intermittent problem as well. He had bought it last year. Clearly Emotiva needs to glue down that ribbon cable or tie it down better.
Emotiva ERC-4 DAC Measurements
I was shocked and quite disappointed in the dashboard measurements of the ERC-4:
Output voltage is too low (should be 4 volts). There is some kind of spurious tone at 600 Hz or so. And variable noise in the red channel. SINAD can't even clear the 16 bit mark which is embarrassing compared to even bargain DACs today:
Company spec is "0.0015%" which is about what I measured for the good channel so our measurements are representative of the company target.
RCA output is the same as XLR:
SNR is barely adequate:
Linearity is not competitive for a DAC but good enough as a CD player:
IMD distortion is what we would get out of a generic sub $60 DAC:
Jitter test shows high noise floor and jitter spikes:
Filter attenuation is poor:
Which highly reduces the performance in wideband noise+distortion test:
The dashed blue line is multi-year old $99 DAC!
Conclusions
The back panel and internal custom board makes one think the performance of ERC-4 is very good. Alas, looks are deceiving. Performance is disappointing across every measurement. Performance is not even good enough to provide transparency for 16 bit content let alone something higher. I could not help but constantly think that Emotiva has contempt for its customers to not even try to build something more performant. Clearly they put in the effort. But did not measure their work to see if they created something excellent.
I can't recommend the Emotiva ERC-4. Anyone building a CD player at this price needs to ship a superb product some 40+ years after introduction of the format!
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As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
The display lights up in classic, intense dark blue colors of Emotiva. I am not a fan of it as it is old fashioned. Not much functionality is here other than acting as a DAC with inclusion of S/PDIF and Toslink inputs:
Wish there was a USB input however. On positive front, the remote is metal, feels substantial and has a cool, magnetic back to open and replace the AA batteries. LIke the XLR outputs and high quality RCA connectors.
As noted, this is a test of the unit using it as a DAC. I wanted to test it as a CD player as well but my test CD had broken in half.
Speaking of something broken, so was the ERC-4. It would not function even though the front panel controls were operational. I took the top off and noticed the ribbon cable plug was loose:
Pushed it in and the unit started to work. Owner had noticed intermittent problem as well. He had bought it last year. Clearly Emotiva needs to glue down that ribbon cable or tie it down better.
Emotiva ERC-4 DAC Measurements
I was shocked and quite disappointed in the dashboard measurements of the ERC-4:
Output voltage is too low (should be 4 volts). There is some kind of spurious tone at 600 Hz or so. And variable noise in the red channel. SINAD can't even clear the 16 bit mark which is embarrassing compared to even bargain DACs today:
Company spec is "0.0015%" which is about what I measured for the good channel so our measurements are representative of the company target.
RCA output is the same as XLR:
SNR is barely adequate:
Linearity is not competitive for a DAC but good enough as a CD player:
IMD distortion is what we would get out of a generic sub $60 DAC:
Jitter test shows high noise floor and jitter spikes:
Filter attenuation is poor:
Which highly reduces the performance in wideband noise+distortion test:
The dashed blue line is multi-year old $99 DAC!
Conclusions
The back panel and internal custom board makes one think the performance of ERC-4 is very good. Alas, looks are deceiving. Performance is disappointing across every measurement. Performance is not even good enough to provide transparency for 16 bit content let alone something higher. I could not help but constantly think that Emotiva has contempt for its customers to not even try to build something more performant. Clearly they put in the effort. But did not measure their work to see if they created something excellent.
I can't recommend the Emotiva ERC-4. Anyone building a CD player at this price needs to ship a superb product some 40+ years after introduction of the format!
----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/