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Teac 70th Anniversary Models – Teac VRDS-701 CD Player and Teac VRDS-701T CD Transport

Based on a new Teac VDRS mechanism, the new Teac VRDS-701 CD Player and Teac VRDS-701T CD Transport are launched by Teac Corporation on the occasion of the company's 70th birthday to prove that CD as a medium is by no means obsolete.

Story Highlights
  • To celebrate the 70th anniversary of Teac Corporation, the company now presents the new Teac VRDS-701 CD Player and the also new Teac VRDS-701T CD Transport.

With the Teac VRDS-701 CD Player and the Teac VRDS-701T CD Transport, the Japanese hi-fi manufacturer Teac Corporation has dedicated itself twice to the reproduction of a medium that many have long since written off as obsolete, especially in view of the flourishing music streaming segment. Teac Corporation sees the new systems as a kind of statement, namely that the audio CD is not to be written off, quite the contrary.

With the right solutions, music playback from CD is said to offer outstanding quality, and the new Teac Reference 700 Series systems, the Teac VRDS-701 CD Player and Teac VRDS-701T CD Transport, are said to represent just that.

Celebrating the 70th anniversary of Teac Corporation

The Japanese company Teac Corporation was founded in 1953 and celebrates its 70th anniversary this year. A very memorable event, which is of course celebrated with appropriate products. The two new systems Teac VRDS-701 CD Player and Teac VRDS-701T CD Transport are to be part of these celebrations, and are thus designated as Teac 70th Anniversary Models.

Teac VRDS – Vibration-free Rigid Disc-clamping System

The heart of the two new systems from Teac Corporation is, as the product name suggests, the so-called Teac VRDS, the Vibration-free Rigid Disc-clamping System. This is a completely newly developed, particularly sophisticated mechanism for reducing rotational vibrations during the playback of audio CDs.

The system relies on the CD being clamped onto an aluminium turntable of exactly the same diameter as the CD itself, maximising inertial mass and thus stabilising rotation.

Sub-chassis design

Another key feature of the Teac VRDS-701 CD Player and Teac VRDS-701T CD Transport is that they rely on a semi-floating sub-chassis assembly for the turntable. By controlling the transmission of vibrations between the CD mechanism and the chassis, the effect of vibrations is reduced, significantly helping to ensure that data can always be read accurately.

Teac VRDS-701T CD Transport

The new Teac VRDS-701T CD Transport was designed primarily for users who want to use it in conjunction with the Teac UD-701N USB DAC/ Network Player, which, like the new Teac VRDS-701T CD Transport, is part of the Teac Reference 700 Series. As is well known, this product series was introduced exactly one year ago at the High End 2022 as the new flagship line.

In combination with a Teac UD-701N, playback is possible via its particularly precise discrete DAC, including the playback of MQA-encoded content on so-called MQA CDs. Signals are output via an optical or coaxial S/PDIF interface.

Of course, the Teac VRDS-701T CD Transport can also be used with any other D/A converter, including amplifier systems with an integrated DAC. The integrated 10 MHz clock input allows flexible integration into systems that are synchronised with an external clock.

Teac VRDS-701 CD Player

The new Teac VRDS-701 CD player is said to be distinguished not only by the special drive mechanism with Teac VRDS, but also by a particularly accurate converter. The manufacturer itself refers to this as a discrete TEAC Delta Sigma converter based on an FPGA that uses unique algorithms developed by Teac Corporation.

Another special feature of the new Teac VRDS-701 CD player is that the outstanding signal processing is also available to external digital sources, with an optical and coaxial S/PDIF interface as well as a USB port for direct connection to a PC or Mac.

The converter of the Teac VRDS-701 CD player is able to process signals in Linear PCM with up to 32 bit and 384 kHz as well as DSD natively up to DSD256. Content encoded in lossy MQA is also processed in the best possible way through full deconvolution by the integrated MQA decoder.

The basis for signal processing is either a high-precision dual clock for 44.1kHz and 48 kHz or multiples thereof, or external clock generators such as the Teac CG-10M Master Clock Generator, which can be connected via a corresponding 10 MHz External Clock Input.

On the analogue side, the Teac VRDS-701 CD player uses a fully balanced dual-mono circuit. According to the manufacturer, this guarantees excellent channel separation. The so-called TEAC-HCLD2 buffer amplifier circuitry is said to boast increased output current, and volume control by means of Teac QVCS preamplifier circuitry allows this CD player or DAC to be used directly with a power amplifier or with active loudspeaker systems.

It should also be emphasised that the Teac VRDS-701 CD player has an integrated headphone amplifier, which is discretely constructed and, thanks to its high output power, can easily drive any headphones.

It should also be mentioned that the Teac VRDS-701 CD player has an impeccable power supply, with analogue and digital components as well as the CD mechanism each having their own power supplies, all based on toroidal transformers.

Prices and availability

The two systems, Teac VRDS-701 CD Player and Teac VRDS-701T CD Transport, will be offered in a choice of black or silver, with the proven emphasis on the particularly elegant design line that evokes the charm of the long-gone heyday of hi-fi in the 1960s and 1970s.

The Teac VRDS-701 CD Player and Teac VRDS-701T CD Transport solutions are to be found in specialist shops shortly; they will celebrate their premiere at the High End 2023 in Munich these days.

The price of the Teac VRDS-701 CD Player is € 2.499,- that of the Teac VRDS-701T CD Transport € 1.999,-.

Getting to the point

Teac Corporation is convinced that the audio CD is by no means obsolete. On the contrary, on the occasion of its 70th anniversary, the company is dedicating two products of the Teac Reference 700 Series to this medium: the Teac VRDS-701 CD Player and the Teac VRDS-701T CD Transport. Both are supposed to distinguish themselves by a particularly precise reading of optical data carriers, the Teac VRDS-701 CD player with an excellent DAC and an equally excellent output stage.

PRODUCTTEAC VRDS-701 CD PLAYER AND TEAC VRDS-701T CD TRANSPORT
PreisTeac VRDS-701 CD Player € 2.499,-
Teac VRDS-701T CD Transport € 1.999,-
BRANDTEAC AUDIO
ManufacturerTeac Corporation
DistributionTeac Corporation
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Michael Holzinger

Michael Holzinger, founder and editor-in-chief of HiFi BLOG and sempre-audio.at, has been working for years as a journalist in the fields of IT, photography, telecommunications and consumer electronics.

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