Yamaha CDX-2020 (1989)
Thirty-five pounds of titanium-finished overkill, built to prove that a CD player could be worth real money.
Overview
At 35 lbs., 3 oz. — 16 kilograms — the CDX-2020 weighs more than most integrated amplifiers of its era. That mass is the first thing collectors notice, and it's the tell: this was Yamaha's second-generation Series 2000 compact disc player, a statement piece with a titanium-finished front panel and walnut side panels, priced at $1,499 when it arrived in 1989. Audio (December 1989, p.104) listed those manufacturer's specifications and the price in its equipment profile, and the numbers alone explain why the machine turned heads.
The converter architecture is the heart of the thing. Yamaha's Super Hi-bit technology pairs series-loaded 18-bit D/A converters with four-floating-bit circuitry, and the company claimed this delivered the effective linearity of a 22-bit system. Four converters are used in what Yamaha called a "balanced processing" system: the digital filter's output feeds two converters per channel, one running in normal polarity and the other in inverse polarity. According to Yamaha, that arrangement yields an excellent common-mode rejection ratio. Series-loaded converters were chosen over the more common parallel-loaded type specifically to eliminate a source of noise spikes.
The supporting circuitry is equally deliberate. Twenty-bit digital filters with eight-times oversampling, an LSI digital de-emphasis circuit, and a 20-bit digital volume control round out the digital section. Shunt-regulated power supplies and independent transformers live on separate circuit boards for the digital and analog stages. The suspension and damping systems, along with a new heavy-duty chassis, were said to minimize the effects of external and internal vibration or resonance. Audio (December 1989, p.106) noted that Yamaha's D/A conversion system made it possible to listen with or without analog final filtering.
The measured performance backed up the engineering. Audio (December 1989, p.108) reported an A-weighted signal-to-noise ratio greater than 122 dB for either channel, among the highest that publication had ever measured for a CD player. At 1 kHz, channel separation ran 127 dB left-to-right and 115.5 dB right-to-left, staying below 100 dB even at 16 kHz. SMPTE-IM distortion at maximum recorded level came in at 0.0051% for the left channel and 0.0053% for the right. Frequency response stayed within ±0.3 dB across 2 Hz to 20 kHz, and the review sample was off by no more than −0.2 dB at 20 kHz.
But the characteristic that distinguished the CDX-2020 above all else was low-level linearity. Audio (December 1989, p.112) called it the player's chief distinguishing performance characteristic. Deviation from perfect linearity at 90 dB below maximum recorded level, playing undithered signals, was no more than +0.8 dB on the left channel and slightly less on the right. With dithered signals from −70 to −100 dB, deviation at 100 dB below recorded level was no more than +0.6 dB left and a negligible +0.2 dB right. The fade-to-noise signal decreased in perfectly linear fashion right into the residual noise at −120 dB. Effective EIA dynamic range measured approximately 110 dB; under EIAJ procedures it came in at 98.2 dB per channel. Clock accuracy was −0.0046%.
The transport was no slouch either. Using a Pierre Verany test disc, the CDX-2020 tracked signals with a full 2 mm of missing digital data — nearly three times the dropout length of the older Philips test disc — and still tracked 1.5 mm dropouts at minimum track pitch, including two successive 1.5 mm dropouts. The monotonicity test came about as close to ideal as the reviewer had seen from any player.
One quirk surfaced in the measurements: the review sample's right channel output ran nearly 0.4 dB hotter than the left. Interchannel phase, by contrast, was virtually perfect from 5 Hz to 22 kHz — within a fraction of a degree at every measured frequency.
The feature set is practical rather than fussy. Four-way repeat covers the entire disc, a single selection, a marked segment, or a programmed sequence; random play is included. The multi-function display reads total time, remaining time, elapsed time of the current track, and remaining time of the current track. Up to 24 tracks can be programmed, and direct track access works from the front panel or the supplied remote. That remote duplicates every front-panel control, adding 24 numbered buttons alongside the "+10" key for higher track numbers. Rear-panel connections include left and right analog line outputs plus coaxial and optical digital outputs for anyone wanting an external DAC — though Audio (December 1989, p.108) saw little point, arguing that the converters in amplifiers so equipped had generally proven no better than the conversion in players like this one. The headphone output is rated 280 mV into 150 ohms; line output is 2.0 V into 47 ohms.
The listening verdict matched the bench numbers. Audio (December 1989, p.114) used Telarc's Bruckner Seventh and Britten's War Requiem and found soloists and chorus marvelously clear and clean, the softest orchestral passages intact, and the Bruckner dynamics delivered without a trace of distortion. The same piece held the CDX-2020 up as the answer to anyone asking whether it pays to spend more than a few hundred dollars on a CD player. The reviewer's summary was blunt: some players are worth many times that amount, and this was one of them.
Collectors should note the practical realities. The CDX-2020 is a 1989 machine, so laser assemblies and the usual age-related service items are the long-term concern; the archive's research has not surfaced a documented failure pattern or parts availability picture for this model. The rear-panel digital outputs make it usable as a transport if the analog stage ever needs work, and the front-panel access to every function means a missing remote isn't a dealbreaker — a small thing that matters more than it should three decades on.
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