ERC-1 scrutinized

[hawk14]

I'd thought start things up here again. Krellion, your reviews of the ERC-1 here and on another forum have been valuable to me. I can tell that you are serious about your music and equipment, but that you do not bare the snobbish attitude of some audiophiles I know when it comes to lower priced or non marquis named equipment.

For the record, I consider myself an audiophile, but I have always believed that making high quality and great sounding equipment at a lower cost is more impressive than making the $50,000 speakers, or the $10,000 power amps. For that much money, or even considerably less, that stuff had better sound good!

The ERC-1 intrigues me, so much so that I am strongly considering taking the plunge. But my question is this, I have been a fan of the Cambridge 840c since doing some extensive listening at a shop last year. However, I have been eyeing the 740c because I believe its almost as good for a few hundred less. Has anyone done a head to head with the ERC-1 and any of Cambridge's cd players. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

[roadrunner]

hawk14

We have had a few Lounge members post their results comparing the Emotiva ERC-1 against the 740/840 CD Players. The ERC-1 was reported to sound better then the Cambridge offerings. The ERC-1 is a phenomenal CD Player... far better than any CD Player I have ever listened to.

We have had some Lounge members with esoteric CD Players that retails for$3000 to $6000; and they reported the ERC-1 sounded better to them in their systems. Every Pro review I have read raved about the sound quality of the Emotiva CD Player. One of those pro reviews compared the ERC-1 to the reviewer's Naim CD Player (don't recall the model #). The Naim sold for 7 times the price of the ERC-1 and the reviewer thought the ERC-1 was better.

Emotiva has a 30-day trial period for all of their gear. Go ahead and buy one, listen to it in your own home with your equipment and decide for yourself. Should you find it is not your "cup-of-tea" just return it for a no-questions-asked refund. I am betting that if you listen to it for 30-days they will have to pry it from your cold, dead fingers to get it back. ;D

[Mr. Ben]

roadrunner, now, I know you really like your ERC-1. And that's great. But unless you've spent a good amount of quality time with the alternatives in your post, can you really take a position of how they compare? I mean, providing links to posts where other people have done this comparison would be really helpful. It lets hawk14 and others read in detail about the impressions of the person, get an idea of if they know what they're talking about, and so on. I know you have the time available.... can you find us links to all these comparisons to Esotaric, Cambridge, and Naim players that you mention, so that we can read them ourselves?

[hawk14]

Thanks for the responses guys. i would love to read the opinions of those who have compared the ERC-1 to the Cambridge gear. As Mr. Ben said, it will allow me to see how others view audio gear in general, and specifically the cdp's in question. I'll do some searches, but, RR, if you culd direct me in the way of links that would be great.

[Deleted]

Mr. Ben does the reverse apply, that whenever a Lounge member recommends or states that a non-Emo product might be superior or a suggested alternative to an Emo product discussed that said member should provide backup reference material, tests, reviews, comparisons or linked information to substantiate his recommendation?

[Mr. Ben]

Feb 3, 2010 15:47:42 GMT -5 @chuckienut said:

Mr. Ben does the reverse apply, that whenever a Lounge member recommends or states that a non-Emo product might be superior or a suggested alternative to an Emo product discussed that said member should provide backup reference material, tests, reviews, comparisons or linked information to substantiate his recommendation?

Yes, absolutely, if we're talking about sound quality and not features/specs. First-hand experience is even better. Don't get me wrong - I'm not trying to say anything negative about anyone's products, I'm simply not a fan of "someone said" or "I heard that" type posts.

[sanjaygolf]

To hawk, here's a series of reviews from the club polk forum who did a group demo and posted their results. www.polkaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?t=91863&page=3. And that board is notorious for their Emo-bashing. I personally had a Cambridge 640C before I got the ERC and it wasnt runaway win but in the end the ERC won out. I do have to share RR sentiments that your best bet is to do an in home trial of the ERC b/c it's your opinion what matters.

[SticknStones]

Feb 3, 2010 18:32:42 GMT -5 sanjaygolf said:

To hawk, here's a series of reviews from the club polk forum who did a group demo and posted their results. www.polkaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?t=91863&page=3. And that board is notorious for their Emo-bashing. I personally had a Cambridge 640C before I got the ERC and it wasnt runaway win but the ERC won out.

Yes they are a tough group but I tried to work with them. I tell you where I got clobbered by folks was on Ecoustic but I too made some mistakes in trying to communicate with these guys. One thing I learned was all forums are not created equal. With the Ecoustics you can only edit your comments for up to 20 minutes which is a shame as I always tweak stuff for accuracy or second thoughts and it made life difficult for me to try and communicate an alternative point of view. It was a thread asking the leading question is the ERC any good. Man am I glad to have that behind me. The technology is primitive with no images or advanced syntax and all colored text reads black and white in Firefox. A real clunker forum from my perspective.

This forum enables more functionality than any other forum I have seen including AVS. You do not know how good we have it till you look at the restrictions on the other sites.

[hawk14]

i have seen the Polk threads on Emotiva and quite frankly, I don't pay attention to boards that overwhelmingly bash a brand. That just means to me that they are very biased and that I give an honest opinion of gear other than their own. So, I don't post there and I will never join that forum.

[parisphoto]

Would you be so kind as to elaborate for a newbie.

"It is true that there are those out there that don't understand yet the difference between using their analog versus digital outputs on players. It's a learning process"

[sanjaygolf]

Feb 3, 2010 23:12:41 GMT -5 hawk14 said:

i have seen the Polk threads on Emotiva and quite frankly, I don't pay attention to boards that overwhelmingly bash a brand. That just means to me that they are very biased and that I give an honest opinion of gear other than their own. So, I don't post there and I will never join that forum.

I was trying to point you to a place that generally is rough on Emotiva but on this occasion of reviewing the ERC had nothing to say but great praise. And there were members who had a CA 740C/840C and they said that the ERC was as good.

[teedub21]

Feb 3, 2010 23:12:41 GMT -5 hawk14 said:

i have seen the Polk threads on Emotiva and quite frankly, I don't pay attention to boards that overwhelmingly bash a brand. That just means to me that they are very biased and that I give an honest opinion of gear other than their own. So, I don't post there and I will never join that forum.

Like Polk Audio is anything special. Sheesh.

[hawk14]

Sanjaygolf, I understood what you were pointing out and I appreciate it. Truth is, I read that thread a while ago and I thought there were a few honest, if not reluctantly favorable reviews. I just don't put too much value into people who have a hard time being unbiased.

[hawk14]

Like Polk Audio is anything special. Sheesh.[/quote]

I agree with you, the current Polk stuff, in my opinion, is not like their gear that I fell in love with back in the late 80's.

[hawk14]

I just received a "B" stock ERC-1 yesterday from FedEx. In a word, I'm very impressed. Everything that was said before about the build quality holds true. The sound? I have to admit something first, this is my first ever dedicated single disc player. Back in the day, I always thought it was more cost effective to do the multi-disc player thing, and I never thought that multi-players gave up much in the way of sound quality to singl disc players. Well I have to admit, that i hear signficant differences in very famililar recordings that I have listened to for years (Yellow Jackets, Jean Luc Ponty, Sting, etc...).

I have always kinda half-smirked when ever I heard someone say, "I am hearing things that I never heard before." Well, I'm guilty, because on one particular Yellow jackets recording, there is a very subtle clap or percussive sound during the beginning of the track that I swear I have never heard before! All I could do was shake my head.

The ERC-1 is a high quality player and has made me a believer in cd players sounding different. I don't believe its necessary to do a full on review, as everyone here by now knows how good this player is. I just had to share my experience with those who already know.

[leadliner]

ya i just lisened to the chant on forplay between the sheets i was like wow i never herd that before, im going to listen again and mark it then put it in my 5dics player for the fun of it. also i listened to the whole cd the other day. never did that before. hats off to erc-1 an xpa-2.

[hawk14]

Yep, Its a Keeper! After having spent a few days with the ERC-1, I can tell you that there is no need to continue its auditon for 30 days. As you all know, this is a great sounding Cd player, so much so that I just went out and bought several new cds to enjoy! I'm glad I took the plunge. Thanks to you all for your reviews, opinions and advice.

Happy Listening!!!

[Pauly]

Yep, it is a wonderful CDP. It's certainly the best I've had hooked up in my system.

[NorthStar]

Hey I just bumped into this thread (read it all), me like it very much so.

* Kudos to Emotiva for providing one of the very best CD player around, regardless of price!
The ERC-1 is a Classic! And a tremendous value too!