CD Zero

Level Zero Red Book CD Player. Our most cost-effective Red Book CD playback system for the discerning music lover. For those looking for the best possible sound quality in a single, small but perfectly formed package, there is no superior choice than the CD Zero.

While the rest of the audiophile world continues its delusional and ultimately doomed love affair with the currently fashionable crop of what are claimed to be ‘high-resolution’ computer sources, we at Audio Note (UK) continue to extract even greater degrees of information and quality from Red Book CD, which is still the best currently available digital music format.

Audio Note (UK) is highly critical of the digital medium as presented by the compact disc; we sincerely hope that you too will find this transport breaks free from the ‘digital mould’ that we are all so accustomed to, and so opens a new window on your CD collection.

It has been specifically engineered for sonic performance rather than technical specifications and fulfills all Audio Note (UK) Entry-Level criteria.

Materials and Component Quality

Housed inside its deceptively solid casework are simplified and integrated versions of our Zero-level dedicated Transport and DAC (CDT Zero/II and DAC0.1x).

The in-house custom-modified Philips front-loading CD mechanism is designed purely to read true Red Book CDs, which, in our opinion, is still the best possible digital music format currently available. The Philips TDA1543 DAC is implemented in a non-oversampling digital filterless circuit, and the analogue output stage is equipped with the quite exceptional 6111WA miniature dual triode.

Engineered with audiophile-grade components — premium drivers, hand-matched crossovers, and a hardwood enclosure tuned for natural decay. Every cabinet is internally braced and damped to suppress resonance below the threshold of audibility.

• Custom 6.5" mid-bass driver with paper-pulp cone for transient accuracy.
• Soft-dome silk tweeter with neodymium motor for airy, fatigue-free highs.
• Point-to-point hand-wired crossover using silver-foil capacitors.
• Bi-wirable terminals plated in pure copper.

Place each speaker on its dedicated stand, toed-in toward the listening position. The hardwood enclosure resonates in concert with the drivers — a deliberate, musical interaction rather than a flaw to be eliminated.

Connect to a quality amplifier using bi-wired speaker cable for the most transparent presentation. Allow 50–100 hours of break-in for the drivers and crossover capacitors to settle into their final voicing.