Out of curiosity, I have burnt NTTY's test CD in order to check the performance of my CD players on the ISO tests with modest analogue equipment.
Here are the results (comments below) :
The Sony SCD-555ES is an European and Japan only 2 channels SA-CD/CD player. It uses a Sony standalone interpolation filter (CXD8762) which precedes the DAC (one of the last Sony PLM converter, a descendant of the CXD2552). The DSP offers the choice between 5 different types of digital filter for CD replay. Obviously, none of them have any headroom.
I also own a Sony DVP-S9000ES, which uses the same interpolation filter built-in within the DAC chip (Sony CXD9556), with only a choice of 2 filter types and, interestingly, the added possibility to apply a fixed digital attenuation. Unfortunately, the drive of the DVP-S9000ES does not read CD-R and I was unable to test this player and the effect of the digital attenuator.
The Marantz DV-12S2 uses Cirrus Logic CS4392 DAC chips with built-in interpolation filter. It is my belief that the wide-band THD+N only shows the effect of the aggressive noise-shaping this DAC is known for. When the measurement bandwidth is restricted to 30 kHz (the Boonton 1130 cannot do better), the THD+N drops to about 0.04 %, even with the two first ISO test signals. Only with the 11,025 Hz +3dBFS test signal does the THD+N rise to 2.83 % (-30.9 dB) over a 30 kHz measurement bandwidth. The interpolator in the CS4392 DAC chip seems to have some kind of headroom to accommodate ISO.
The Pioneer DV-868AVi (known as Elite DV-59AVi in the US or DV-S969 in Japan) is a complicated topic. It uses Burr Brown PCM1738 DAC chips with built-in interpolation filter, but there is a user choice to add to the two front (stereo) channels an optional Pioneer standalone DSP (PD0274) with two different functions : (1) a "bit extension" function (?) dubbed "Hi-Bit" from 16 (or 20) to 24 bits depth and (2) four different user defined interpolation filters (dubbed "Legato Pro", standard through 3). The effect of those functionalities and their interaction with the DAC chips are not clear to me. With CD data, the "Hi Bit" function appears to be transparent, because nothing changes with or without it. As navigating through the on-TV screen menu in order to select the various "Legato Pro" filters is very cumbersome (
I hate that kind of user interface!), I only take measurements with one filter position. The Pioneer seems to perform not much better than the older Sony.
The Pioneer CLD-2950 is an old European-only Laserdisc player which is also able to play CDs. It uses a Pioneer DAC chip (PD2026). It also has a built-in digital attenuator which can bring 25 dB of attenuation in 1 dB step. I have not yet tested that function. The behavior of the converter is odd, as it mutes the output with two ISO test signals, but seems to be happy with the 7,350 Hz test signal.
I have not tested the digital level trim function of every channels of the Marantz and Pioneer DVD players. I am not sure this trimming function does work on CD replay. I will give them a try if I find the time.