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Cyrus has been something of a quiet achiever of late. While other brands have been slogging it out with competing formats, some of which have simply come and gone, Cyrus has been getting on with what it knows best — how to design and make quality hi-fiand AV gear that comes in small packages.
EQUIPMENT
The Cyrus half-size ‘shoebox’ form — narrow but deep — has long been the brand’s characteristic differentiator. And while the early days saw mainly amplifier designs, Cyrus gear has become increasingly sophisticated — it must sometimes be a struggle for the designers to shoe-horn all this technology into such a compact chassis!
Few have had the pleasure of viewing what’s inside a bit of Cyrus (opening one up used to be a bit like trying to shuck an oyster with a blunt knife), but take it from us, every square centimetre of internal space is occupied. It’s quite serviceable, though, and another ‘trademark’ of the brand has been the upgradability of its products, something which has rarely been as prolific or possible as it is with Cyrus gear today.
Amplifiers remain one of Cyrus’s strongest products, but what we have here is a far cry from the classic Cyrus One and Two designs of the mid-1980s. Teaming up with the all new 8 XP d integrated amplifier ($4700- — pictured below), we’ve added the logical source, the CD 8 SE disc player ($3700, above). Add a pair of quality speakers and you have what appears to be a simple classic hi-fisystem. But there’s a lot more to these electronics than meets the eye.
Let’s start with the source. The new 8 SE CD player has been extremely well received in its native Great Britain, while this is the first time it’s been reviewed on our Antipodean soil. The SE doesn’t stand for ‘Special Edition’, as you might think — it refers to a key aspect of this CD player’s design, namely Cyrus’s latest ‘Servo Evolution’ optical data control system. In a nutshell, this circuitry greatly reduces errors when data is read from the disc, meaning less reliance on error correction, and ultimately better audio quality.
Discs are inserted into a slot-loading drive, much like a gaming console, but this is a low-contact, precision mechanism. Twin custom-made transformers individually feed the regulated power supplies, and if you fancy improving the power supply further, the company offers the PSX-R ($1600), which acts like a giant battery, claiming it can make a marked improvement to all of the Cyrus components to which it can be connected.
The 8 XP d also qualifies for the PSX-R upgrade, but is no lightweight on its lonesome. For an integrated stereo amplifier, there’s plenty going on under its lid. There’s onboard digital-to-analogue conversion for starters, and ample connectivity, with six analogue and five digital inputs, including USB. Power output is rated at 70W per channel (into 8 ohms), plus there’s a Zone 2 output for multiroom playback and control. It’s nice to see a headphone socket, while other features include biwirable speaker terminals, and there are preamplifier outputs if you’re feeling adventurous and fancy biamping the system with additional Cyrus power and monobloc amplification. A decent system remote control is also included which will control all Cyrus products, although it has no learning capacity for other brands.
There are further upgrade paths available with the 8 XP d amplifier. There’s the option of fitting Cyrus’s more sophisticated Qx DAC module (an additional $900), which provides more subtle sonic improvements, according to Cyrus. Or it can come without any on-board D-to-A conversion if you don’t need it, and that will knock $800 off the price.
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