I’m tremendously excited to introduce you to Atoll’s fabulous line of CD players. Atoll is made in France with a 3 year warranty. While all of its gear is outstanding, I want to pay special attention to my favorite source, the compact disc. It’s my favorite way of listening to music.

One of the main reasons I enjoy CDs is that they SOUND BETTER than streaming. That’s right. When you have a great player like an Atoll, just listen to a grand piano on CD vs streaming. The CD will sound more true, rich and well tuned. Or… choose a vocal with a unique, raw character. I’ll go with Willie Nelson and his “Stardust” album. With a fabulous CD player from Atoll you can smell the whiskey and hear the pick against the guitar strings. With a cheapo Chinese player Willie sounds skinny and like he’s on the radio instead of in your listening room.

I have a bit more to say about streaming. It’s very convenient and cheap. I realize the allure. It’s lots of content for very little money. Yet I prefer buying CDs. Streaming doesn’t sound as good and is a criminal enterprise against musicians. Musicians are paid by “streams.” Streaming companies manipulate their algorithms to fabricate what “a stream” is. Streaming services bamboozle musicians. Other than Taylor Swift and Beyonce, nobody makes much money streaming. I am just fine with musicians getting a fair buck from the CD I buy.

Now, I’m not saying you shouldn’t stream at all. It’s great for learning about new music or hearing something you don’t care enough to invest in a CD for. But my point is, buy CDs for music you love and will play a million times. It will sound better. You won’t have to fight with your streamer and Internet. And sure, the artist can actually make some money for their blood, sweat and tears.

We only have so much time in a busy life to enjoy our hi-fi systems. I want to put my disc in the tray and hit play. I want to play the program all the way through as the artist intended. I’m not interested in the arduous, meticulous battle of LP & stylus cleaning, worrying about VTA/azimuth- and listening through clicks/pops and noise, while PRETENDING it isn’t there. Been there, done that, and am really done with that.

When you experience an Atoll CD player in your fine system, you’re in for a real treat. Most of us have only had flimsy Chinese players with a small power supply and a pile of tiny chips. Atoll is built much better and will yield musical results well beyond that mass made brand you probably have now.

All of us who have been in the hobby a while realize that you’re not going to get acceptable vinyl sound from a lightweight Chinese turntable. The sound will be contorted by rumble, feedback and distortion due to the limitations of the table. If your turntable is a one, your amp is a ten, and your speakers are a ten, what will your system sound like? It’s the same when playing CDs. That’s why I implore you to be open to Atoll.

If you settle for a Chinese CD player that is a three pound box of chips, mass produced in a factory that will make cable TV boxes and alarm panel boards tomorrow, you can’t win. Yet this is what almost everyone has in a CD player.

We KNOW BETTER for turntables. We SHOULD know better for the CD format as well. This brings us to Atoll and fulfilling the promise of great music through silver discs with no hassle.

Let’s take a look at Atoll players and see why they’re better than your average bear.

Atoll CD Players

Transformer

Every Atoll CD player starts with a very large transformer. When you look inside an Atoll the transformer is massive and evident. When you look in a Chinese player, you’ll be hard pressed to even find the transformer. The transformer is the heart of the player and lifts all boats.

Every Atoll CD player north of the entry level MD100 will use MULTIPLE transformers to more precisely isolate electronic operations. This is a bridge too far for any of the Chinese job shops.

Atoll CD players run multiple power supplies. MD100 runs three. Its higher end siblings run 8-10. It is imperative that each section of the circuit is regulated with the proper voltage. For example, if you’re careless and overload the input of a circuit, you will actually add noise and quash dynamic range. Taking the time to recognize and optimize the ideal voltage of each stage will help curate a more clear and dynamic sound.

Power Supply Capacitors

Every Atoll player uses a strong array of power supply caps. These sizable caps, more like the value of what you would see in power amps, help control line ripple and permit a warm, robust foundation for your music. The Chinese players use a thimble in comparison.

Steel Chassis

Every Atoll CD player is built on a steel chassis instead of plastic or tin. It has a rigid brushed aluminum face plate instead of plastic. The mechanical integrity is as important to a CD player’s performance as it is to a turntable’s performance.

Transports

Atoll CD Players use Teac transports, or Drive Mechanisms. They are made to play CDs. The mass built Chinese players use DVD drives that spin at varied speeds and can be heard “revving” mechanically in your listening room. The Teacs are fast acting, excellent tracking, quiet players.

A CD laser needs to be scrupulously aligned to track well. Imagine you have a basketball hoop. The ball, or laser in this example, needs to be aligned dead center within the hoop to track well. As the machine incurs vibration and ages, there is some tendency for the ball-laser to drift and become misaligned. Teac transports are precisely tuned and have mechanical integrity so they won’t go out of alignment. You’ll find any flimsy player is likely to start skipping on the odd CD within a year. With a couple of years they’re skipping regularly. This is laser misalignment and they cannot be recalibrated. There are no such worries with Atoll.

DACs

Every Atoll CD player uses Burr Brown DACs. Atoll runs these DACs with no negative feedback. Most companies want to brag up that they are using the latest, greatest, most high processing DAC available. They want you to think that more processing equals superior sound. But it doesn’t.

Atoll wants the DACs to do their task and not process vociferously, because uber processing makes the sound more electronic and sterile. Higher processing DACs require negative feedback to tame their ringing artifacts. The sound is actually worse instead of better if you use the full processing of these high processing chips. Think of watching a TV and cranking up the contrast ratio. At a point the elevated contrast goes from detailed to unnatural and grainy.

CD Voicing

Every Atoll CD player is VOICED to produce a high level of detail, dynamics and warm musical timbre. Atoll is very proud of its refined CD sound and considers all aspects of the player to achieve this phenomenal performance. Atoll CD players run discrete line stages after the DAC processing. Atoll boards are even laid out to run symmetrically with the shortest paths possible. Atoll considers each detail vital in constructing its players.

The other guys use a cut rate DVD transport, smallest power supply possible and ask the DAC chip to do all the work. That’s the cheapest way to manufacture. You end up with players that mistrack within a year or two and a bright, thin sonic character.

Atoll pays attention to all of the details I’ve mentioned above. They consider each point of minutiae equally essential to the whole performance of the player.

The end result with Atoll is music that is more characteristic of a high end analog experience- without the high maintenance and endemic flaws of that medium.

Silver Discs

Please don’t believe that nonsense you may be hearing about CDs becoming extinct. I’m sure you remember that the same thing was said about records in the 80s.

The CDs you have now will last as long as you do- hopefully another century or two. CDs are still available for purchase by the thousands. There has never been a better time to buy Box Set compilations. Since Covid I’ve bought big boxes from Pollini, Argerich, Freire, Kissin, Lupu and Uchida. When great musicians die, their anthologies will be out in about a month, at bargain prices.

One of the best classical music sources in the USA is Berkshire Music. I checked recently and they had over 27,000 CDs in stock, and 11 records. There’s no fear of CDs becoming extinct.

CD Players

MD100 $900

(2 1/2h, 12 5/8w, 8d)

3 regulated supplies, 10VA & 2VA transformers, 11,094uF caps

CD50 $1650

(4h, 17.5w, 11d)

8 regulated supplies, 30VA transformer, 6 & 4VA transformers, 16,700uF caps

CD50 comes with DAC input card!

CD80 $1750

(4h, 17.5w, 11d)

10 regulated supplies, 30VA transformer, 6 & 4VA transformers, 21,400uF caps

CD80 comes with DAC input card!

CD100 $2200

(4h, 17.5w, 11d)

10 regulated supplies, 30VA transformer, 10 & 4VA transformers, 21,450uF caps

Uses higher end differential stage technology

CD100 comes with DAC input card!

CD200 $2950

(4h, 17.5w, 11d)

10regulated supplies, 30VA transformer, 10 & 4VA transformers, 21,450uF caps

Uses higher end differential stage technology

CD200 comes with DAC input card!

Atoll CD Transports

If you already have a DAC you love in your system, you can run an Atoll CD TRANSPORT into it. I still prefer an Atoll CD player where all aspects of your performance are hand tuned by Atoll. But if you think your DAC is unbeatable, an Atoll CD transport will make your DAC sound its best.

DR100 $1200

(4h, 17.5w, 11d)

30VA transformer, 1.6VA transformer, 15,000uF filter caps

Optimized for jitter reduction

DR200 $2000

(4h, 17.5w, 11d)

30 VA transformer,1.6VA transformer, 23,000uF filter caps,

Supports AES/EBU

Optimized for jitter reduction