The Advance Paris X-CD 1000 has always been one of our favourite CD players at £1499 however the UK Distributor has just announced a special offer reducing it to £999 so is this the HI Fi bargain of the Year ? Read our review to find out.
This CD player from French manufacturer Advance Paris is fairly unusual in that it has both valve and solid state output options so you can choose which suits your system best. It is also a fully balanced design and has both XLR and RCA outputs and uses the popular top of the range Burr Brown PCM1792 DAC chip set.
Inside, it is full of audiophile components with a large over specified toroidal mains transformer. It also has a very low signal to noise ratio so is very quiet. The black perspex panel looks fantastic and the build quality is frankly unrivalled at the price.
The chassis also features rigid partitioning with excellent isolation for the CD mechanism and the analogue and digital boards. The attention to detail is frankly admirable. Even down to the smallest detail, Advance Paris have left no stone unturned. You just have to lift the lid off (realistically a place most people will never see) and you can see that. Beautiful craftsmanship, small details such as the branding on the CD Tray etc... really does epitomise the way this unit is built, and the thought that has gone into it.
BUT - how does it sound?
In a word excellent. The X-CD 1000 is a superb player, it has great detail retrieval, good sound-staging and three dimensional depth and decent bass. It sounds slightly different depending on whether you choose the valve output stage or the solid state with the valve stage being slightly warmer and fully sounding. However its an impressive performer with either outperforming many more expensive units.
At £1499 this is an excellent CD player with great facilities and excellent sound however at its new price of £999 it is absolutely the bargain of the year and possibly one of the bargains of the Decade.