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Emotiva ERC-4 CD Player (DAC) Review

Rate this CD Player/DAC:

  • 1. Poor (headless panther)

    Votes: 133 84.2%
  • 2. Not terrible (postman panther)

    Votes: 23 14.6%
  • 3. Fine (happy panther)

    Votes: 2 1.3%
  • 4. Great (golfing panther)

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    158

JaccoW

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As always, thank you for the review,
Recently, it was reported that there were more LPs sold than CDs, last year:
Do you feel any responsibility to start testing some turntables?;)
More money goes around in vinyl than CDs. But they still outsell in raw numbers. ;)
 

dougi

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Obviously not a good performer. But I bet it's not very different in its performance from any number of CD players of the same vintage. I suspect that a whole lot of them basically sucked even onto the point where it was audible.

Moreover, it would be extremely interesting if someone would find a really early, 1980's vintage CD player and send it in for testing to Amir. I, for one, would like to see how it measured. The betting is it would come nowhere near even some of the poorer performing DAC units that get the shrugging or even the headless panther. If we look at and measure a few of those units we might see how digital acquired its initially terrible reputation among audiophiles. Would be an interesting exercise.
Hfnrr do a fair bit of vintage product testing, including cd players. Especially the early ones.
 

kongwee

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Isn't the cheapest balanced CD player around? new of course.
 

pseudoid

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More money goes around in vinyl than CDs. But they still outsell in raw numbers. ;)
Yes, you are correct (=I was wrong): It's not the quantity of sales but \/\/
202303_MusicRevenue.png
 

Guerilla

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So there is a standard for outputting 2.1 volt??? I have tested probably 100+ balanced DACs that output 4 volt. I call that a standard. De-facto standard. And input version of those devices expect 4 volts on XLR input, not 2.1. So I am going to advocate 4 volts nominal.
You are wrong. Already 2V can overload inputs on very good amplifiers. 4v is for cheating with distortion and seem more "professional" I always wondered how you got away with penalising equipment that had higher distortion above 2 volts. I hope you redo all your previous DAC measurements now that you have been corrected.
Cheers!
 

lewdish

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Thats sucks, I actually considered getting one at some point as a CD transport since not too many CD players have digital outs nowadays.
 

Nathan Raymond

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I don't think you'd find the results you expect. @restorer-john can supply some of the specs that they met long ago. Many were quite good. Not 24 bit good because it was a 16 bit medium, but CD players didn't sound as bad as the revisionist history makes you think.

Emotiva seems to want to supply everything you see to make you think it is a bargain with quality equivalent to more expensive gear while giving you performance substandard for the price. What is odd, is it likely wouldn't take more than a very small amount of effort to give reasonably good performance and likely at no additional cost.

I'd like to see performance of a couple of current inexpensive bluray players (which can play CDs).
CDs were not just a 16-bit medium. In 1995 it was extended to 20-bits (though not a true 20-bit format) via the HDCD format, and about 5,000 titles were released in the HDCD format (and are backward compatible with 16-bit CD players):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Definition_Compatible_Digital

I don't think any Blu-Ray players can play detect/play the HDCD format.
 

pseudoid

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restorer-john

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There is no standard actually. The 2Vrms (+6dBV) voltage we see comes from the -10dBV "consumer" operating level from old analog days to allow for 16dB of headroom with digital sources (CD, and that level was agreed on by Sony and Philips).

Actually there was an agreed standard. And it wasn't 2.0V either. It was 1.4V. Sony and Philips weren't in agreement on much at all at that point, letalone output voltage.

The agreed output level was changed at the last minute by the consortium of Japanese manufacturers and several of them had to release urgent updates prior to the March 1983 world release, for already shipped machines to have their buffer stage gain adjusted. Here's the Hitachi DA-1000 urgent service bulletin- notice the date.

1678924899885.png


Sony had already released the CDP-101 and with a nominal 2.0V output, it was loud! And we all know louder sounds better...
 

pseudoid

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Actually there was an agreed standard. And it wasn't 2.0V either. It was 1.4V. Sony and Philips weren't in agreement on much at all at that point, letalone output voltage.

The agreed output level was changed at the last minute by the consortium of Japanese manufacturers and several of them had to release urgent updates prior to the March 1983 world release, for already shipped machines to have their buffer stage gain adjusted. Here's the Hitachi DA-1000 urgent service bulletin- notice the date.

View attachment 272043

Sony had already released the CDP-101 and with a nominal 2.0V output, it was loud! And we all know louder sounds better...
Amazing, you dug it up!
Funny that such a techie bulletin does NOT properly specify the voltage as either RMS or p-p?
The 1V level (discussed) seems RMS and the 1.4V suspiciously the same number in p-p.
I am wondering if NOT specifying "1.0Vrms" or "1.4Vp-p" is part of specman-ship games our Japanese friends have used during those years.:oops:
 

restorer-john

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Amazing, you dug it up!
Funny that such a techie bulletin does NOT properly specify the voltage as either RMS or p-p?
The 1V level (discussed) seems RMS and the 1.4V suspiciously the same number in p-p.
I am wondering if NOT specifying "1.0Vrms" or "1.4Vp-p" is part of specman-ship games our Japanese friends have used during those years.:oops:

They all hit the market with a nominal 2.0V (RMS), although a few were a bit cheeky with measured 2.1-2.2V, no doubt to sound better (louder) in A/B comparisons...

I can remember a few players from Toshiba which were nominally lower (around 1.0V)- I'd have to look it up, but they were intended as add-on CD players for compact systems around 1984/5 IIRC.
 

Orion76

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Very interesting. This makes me wonder how my old Marantz CD6005 would measure up. It was priced close to the Emotiva tested here when I bought it 7 or 8 years ago.

Hah, just looked and they have made a CD6006 and CD6007 since then!
 
OP
amirm

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An unfortunate update on this unit.

Owner contacted the company asking for a refund. They told him that it was past the period where they offer that money back guarantee. But then proceeded to tell him since I had opened the unit, his warranty was no longer valid!!! Here I go fixing a problem with their product, saving them money to fix the unit, and they retaliate against the owner???

I escalated to my contact at Emotiva who runs engineering (I think). He said the decision was out of his hands and it was up to the company founder to opine. Alas, even after reminding him to get me an answer, nothing has come back.

It is not like I went in there and soldered/modified the unit. I simply plugged the cable back in. And for that, they are claiming the unit can no longer be warranted? Other companies have thanked me in the past for same fixes and Emotiva chooses to punish the owner.

If there was one way to make a negative review much worse, it is this kind of action. I don't know what school of business these companies have gone to, to make decisions like this. Very, very disappointing Emotiva. While I will continue to fairly evaluate any of their product in the future, personally would never recommend anyone purchase a product from them. :(

P.S. I have told the owner I will be his warranty. Should his unit break in the next five years, I will make him whole.
 

pseudoid

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...personally would never recommend anyone purchase a product from them.
...except possibly in the used-market, where the prices should be tanking as I write this reply...:cool:

ADD: One would hope that Emotiva would do a HUGE bit of internal restoration of their marketing department. Seems like it has become a swamp needing to be drained.
 
Last edited:

restorer-john

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An unfortunate update on this unit.

Owner contacted the company asking for a refund. They told him that it was past the period where they offer that money back guarantee. But then proceeded to tell him since I had opened the unit, his warranty was no longer valid!!! Here I go fixing a problem with their product, saving them money to fix the unit, and they retaliate against the owner???

I escalated to my contact at Emotiva who runs engineering (I think). He said the decision was out of his hands and it was up to the company founder to opine. Alas, even after reminding him to get me an answer, nothing has come back.

It is not like I went in there and soldered/modified the unit. I simply plugged the cable back in. And for that, they are claiming the unit can no longer be warranted? Other companies have thanked me in the past for same fixes and Emotiva chooses to punish the owner.

If there was one way to make a negative review much worse, it is this kind of action. I don't know what school of business these companies have gone to, to make decisions like this. Very, very disappointing Emotiva. While I will continue to fairly evaluate any of their product in the future, personally would never recommend anyone purchase a product from them. :(

P.S. I have told the owner I will be his warranty. Should his unit break in the next five years, I will make him whole.

Warranties cannot be voided for removing the cover and inspecting a unit or rectifying an obvious issue.

Who do Emotiva think they are? Seriously.
 

Doodski

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An unfortunate update on this unit.

Owner contacted the company asking for a refund. They told him that it was past the period where they offer that money back guarantee. But then proceeded to tell him since I had opened the unit, his warranty was no longer valid!!! Here I go fixing a problem with their product, saving them money to fix the unit, and they retaliate against the owner???

I escalated to my contact at Emotiva who runs engineering (I think). He said the decision was out of his hands and it was up to the company founder to opine. Alas, even after reminding him to get me an answer, nothing has come back.

It is not like I went in there and soldered/modified the unit. I simply plugged the cable back in. And for that, they are claiming the unit can no longer be warranted? Other companies have thanked me in the past for same fixes and Emotiva chooses to punish the owner.

If there was one way to make a negative review much worse, it is this kind of action. I don't know what school of business these companies have gone to, to make decisions like this. Very, very disappointing Emotiva. While I will continue to fairly evaluate any of their product in the future, personally would never recommend anyone purchase a product from them. :(

P.S. I have told the owner I will be his warranty. Should his unit break in the next five years, I will make him whole.
I've seen so many repair units that where opened by the customer and I never once even discussed that with the customer never mind voided the warranty... BS!
 

Doodski

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Warranties cannot be voided for removing the cover and inspecting a unit or rectifying an obvious issue.
Some companies intimidate the customers with this, Rule." I don't know of any situation in Canada where voiding warranty has occurred due to the customer inspecting the internals. :facepalm:
 

pseudoid

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You see their hardware provide a je-ne-sais-quoi emotional bond with the buyer, which can never be broken...
.....until that little seal has been removed!
Their marketing department musta created the company name with that philosophy in mind!
But I think there is a dig in not honoring their warranty; based on the fact that this unit had pooped all over the test-bench!
 
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