OK… we are so super excited about this new (to us) and fairly exclusive French brand, Advance Paris. With 25 years experience in their home market, Advance Paris started out as Advance Acoustic in 1995 with a range of five loudspeakers. After expanding its speaker range, Advance Acoustic began working on electronic products in 2002, launching its first integrated amplifier in 2004. This integrated amplifier laid the aesthetic and technological foundations for Advance Paris products as they are today. VU meters, valves and massive amplifiers play a major part in the makeup of the brand's DNA. The first product under the Advance Paris brand was launched in 2013. Advance Paris is now international and sells its products in over 40 countries, bringing a sophisticated French touch to listening rooms all around the world.

Valve Close Up

The reassuring warm orangey glow of valves

Amongst all of the lovely Frenchness from Advance Paris comes the rather lovely X-CD9 Compact Disc player which will be the subject of this little blog. The X-CD9 comes armed with both analog and digital outputs. The analogue output though has something rather special: as you can see on the above picture of the front panel, the comforting orangey glow of two miniature audio valves which provide a musical signal devoid of any aggressiveness to your amplifier.

Classic Good Looks

Great care has been taken in powering this CD player using a toroidal transformer. It provides a stable and clean power supply for all analogue and digital circuits such as the CD mechanism, laser control and digital-to-analogue converter (DAC).

Equipped with coaxial (RCA) and optical (TOSLINK) digital outputs, unbalanced (RCA) and balanced (XLR) analogue outputs, the X-CD9 could just be the ideal CD player for your Hi-Fi system and your large CD collection.

Pleasantly Surprising

I have spent rather a lot of time over the past week or so listening to this rather sexy slimline CD player as it has been going through the running in process. It started off well enough fresh out of the box but after being on now for about 100 hours it has begun to sound rather wonderful. The sound is warm and super smooth and for a CD player is very analoguey (hey I’ve invented a new word). I suspect that this warmth is the effect of those two valves on the audio output stage. I love the fact that it uses a proper drawer loading mechanism too, I am not a fan of slot loaders personally so that is another tick in another box. Internally the X-C D9 uses top quality Woolfson DACs not used so much these days but still up there with the absolute best. The CD mech itself sits on a sprung sub-chassis to cancel out any deleterious effects from both outside and internal vibrations. What all of this amounts to is that the X-CD9 performs way above what I would normally expect from a player at this price point (£890*). There has not been a single disc go through this player that I have not been very pleasantly surprised by.

Hag

I have had especially fine results with the track “Hag” off the self titled album by the band Storm Corrosion.

Storm Corrosion is the 2012 collaboration between modern prog rock geniuses Steven Wilson of Porcupine Tree fame and Mikael Akerfeldt from Opeth. Based upon both of these guys home bands I was expecting some kind of riff monster of an album but what transpired was just the opposite. This album is quiet and spaced out. There is a spooky other worldliness going on here that took me totally by surprise. To start with, I was not at all sure that it was any good but over the past few years it has grown on me to the extent that now it is one of my go-to demo albums.

Played on the Advance Paris X-CD9 the soundstage is huge in every direction. When the bass kicks in the malevolent evil beauty of this track really becomes apparent.

Elekro Kardiogramm

Another favourite demo piece is the track, Elektro Kardiogramm, from the Tour De France Soundtracks album by total legends Kraftwerk. It is possible for some CD players to make this track sound a tad bright and sterile but not here. The X-CD9 turns this track into a multi dimensional robotic elecro-lurch and just when you think that bass has gone down really low… It goes down a little bit more! Wow, this player is seriously good!

Summing Up

All I can really say is that this unit breathes new life into the CD player market at anywhere near its own more than reasonable price. I have heard many much more expensive CD players sound a lot worse than this little marvel. The Advance Paris X-CD9 is most definitely an entry level audiophile product and as such demands a place on your demonstration short list.