Continuing our theme of testing "older" formats, here is a review and detailed measurements of the Tascam BD-MP1. It was purchased new and kindly sent to me by a member. The BD-MP1 costs US $499.
Consistent with its marketing theme, this is a "professional" rack mounted optical player:
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I must say it looks pretty nice. Operationally though, I found it quite slow and frustrating. User interface is quite non-intuitive as well when trying to play anything from USB input. I had to connect a monitor to it to see what it was doing and then use combination of keys to navigate it. I did not get the remote control with it so maybe it is easier using that.
The back panel shows a nice array of connectivity:
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I really appreciated the balanced outputs. I don't think there ever was a player in this price range with balanced outputs.
Tascam BD-MP1 Measurements
Owner purchased this unit to play CDs so I decided to test it that way. Alas, I had thrown out all my blank CDs but fortunately my wife had some CD-Rs. So I created a few test tracks in 16 bits/44.1 kHz and burned them on one in my older PC. Navigating them was a pain as there is naturally no titles so I had to look at the signals to figure out what they were. Anyway, here is our standard dashboard but keep in mind that this is 16 bit content whereas my normal testing is always with 24-bit files:
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As you see, the output is a healthy 8 volts which is very nice. The test file is dithered so theoretical dynamic range will be around 93 dB so we are a few dBs short of that with our SINAD. Playing the same file in Audio Precision and measuring it, gives us that number:
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Notice the far lower distortion from Audio Precision than what the Tascam was showing.
Next I ran the dynamic range test:
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So we see again that we are 3 dB short of what we should be getting.
To test the limitation of its DACs, I played my standard 24-bit files using USB Thumbdrive:
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100 dB SINAD lands it at the bottom of our "very good" category of DACs which is a relief.
Measuring dynamic range now gives us a few more bits as well:
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So the underlying DAC is better than the CD format which is what you want to see.
Conclusions
This being our first CD player tested with 16-bit content from CD itself, we don't have a reference. As is, we are coming up a bit short but not enough to get me upset.
24-bit sources create good enough performance which is reassuring although nothing like what we get with desktop DACs. Those DACs won't output 8 volts though (most won't anyway) so here the Tascam has an advantage.
If you are in the market for optical drive with this kind of form factor, the Tascam BD-MP1 is not a bad option.
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