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McCormack UDP-1 Review
Nathan Jedinak
Disclaimer: I am a hobbyist, and although I make every effort to fairly review a component I am obviously constrained by time and resources more so than the average reviewer. Put whatever stock you wish in what I have to say.
I happened upon the McCormack UDP-1 in a most unexpected manner. About a year ago I sold my dCS Delius DAC and accompanying CEC transport to try some new components, and in the melee found out I was really a tube guy after all; this required me to sell all my SS gear and go tubed... And oh, brother, I also fell for some ProAc D25's... With the once-full audio coffers all but empty, I decided to look into a one-box CDP solution to tide me over for awhile. My local audio shop had a few well-regarded CDPs in various price ranges, and I settled on the Rotel RCD-1072 and Rega Jupiter for an extended audition. The Krell SACD Standard was also a front-runner, but Krell was having drive supply problems at the time so it was struck from the list as the dealer had just sold off his demo. At the time, the McCormack UDP-1 was on my radar but was but production delays kept moving the release date back again and again. Since I didn't have a CDP, and it didn't look like the McCormack would surface soon, I ended up with the Jupiter (my preferred player under $2000).
Fast forward approximately one year, when I was back at my dealer auditioning preamps. I noticed when I arrived that they had a UDP-1 in a demo room, and was told they still had one left at the old price (the price was recently increased from $2995 to $3495). I thought I might as well give it a whirl, as now would be the time to buy at a significant discount off new list. So I inserted the McCormack into a virtual copy of my system at home (only the cabling differed) to see what it could do. Immediately I was taken with the UDP-1's presentation--it made my Jupiter seem somewhat veiled and slow in comparison (and the Jupiter is no slouch in the area of PRAT, as all Regas)! I ended up bringing the UDP-1 home for a weeklong home audition.
I let the McCormack settle in it's temporary home for a few hours, on the shelf below my Jupiter (where my Rega P3 TT usually sits). After about 4 hours of warmup play, I couldn't resist switching over to the McCormack to see if my initial impressions held true. I was again immediately impressed with the speed, dynamics, and clarity. It was like removing a veil AND supercharging my rig all in one shot! I enjoyed listening to the UDP-1 off and on for the next day while allowing it to settle in some more.
After a day of warmup time, which nicely coincided with a weekend off, I sat down for some serious auditioning. Many descriptors filled my listening notes with regularity, including: speed, dynamic power, ambience retrieval, top-end air, taut and powerful bass, WIDE soundstaging, "clear window."
One of the great strengths of the UDP-1 is it's wide soundstage. I was initially quite taken aback with this when it arrived home, as I was hearing things far outside the speaker boundaries--this usually only happens in my home with well-recorded material on vinyl LP. This was a very addictive quality, especially on live material. The soundstage was also quite deep--slightly less deep than my Jupiter but not front-and-forward like some digital presentations. The depth had a real sense of 3-dimensional palpability that the Jupiter just couldn't quite muster; the images were more clearly delineated, and I believe this enhanced the depth spectacularly. Much like turning up the sharpness on a digital camera--the images get more distinct, and this seems to add more depth to a 2-d image when compared with the somewhat fuzzy initial image. More on this later, as it was also a weakness.
The next thing that really grabbed me as unique was the clarity with which the McCormack fed you into the music. I felt like I was so much closer to the recording--it was as if the Jupiter edited the music a bit, to make it more warm and weighty. The Jupiter was a very enjoyable player for this reason; I believe Roy Gandy designed it to sound similarly to a Rega Turntable, and it does offer some of the warmth of analog. However, this was obviously editing the music a bit much at times, as the UDP-1 proved much more insightful with respect to clarity, detail, and presence. Another common thread in my listening notes of the McCormack was dynamics. This is one heck of a dynamic player--if you have a soft/loud contrast in your music, it has the ability to jump you out of your chair if you're not expecting it! The UDP-1 seemed limitless in it's ability to portray dynamic swings, and this was particularly addictive on large-scale classical music. I suspect this has something to do with the power supply that Steve designed, as this is one area (along with lack of bass) that really shows a budget player up. I do get the feeling, though, that the McCormack over-emphasizes these dynamic swings a bit... Music that should be, say, p to ff became p to fff in the McCormack. This tended to make things more alive, highlight important contrasts, and usually served the music well; however there were times it could seem a bit heavy-handed. This is nitpicking, though, I certainly prefer this treatment to one of reduced dynamics (like my old NAD).
Tonally, the McCormack seemed to follow the roadmap laid out by the dynamic presentation; that is, the frequency extremes were very extended, and the middle was a bit less extended. I would like to avoid the word "recessed" as I don't think the midrange was recessed at all--it was just the powerful bass and ever-so-slightly-bright highs that sometimes made the midrange less emphasized. The bass in this unit is very taut, powerful, and deep. It made by Jupiter seem wooly and slow in this regard, and I realized my tube amplifier had lots more bass reserve than I realized! Overall, the tonal characteristics of the UDP-1 would fall on the bright side of neutral, primarily because of the extended highs--but the weighty bass does a very good job supporting this tonal presentation. The overall feel is not what I would call "cool," as the presentation is too lively for that. Maybe like a painting with some blues but a few well-chosen bright reds, which gives the impression of a very vibrant and eye-popping painting.
I was interested to see if the very extended top end would cause listener fatigue; I am very sensitive to the presentations of bright components, as they usually fatigue me quite quickly. I grabbed some of my most bright discs to give it a try. On some JVC XRCDs that were almost unlistenable through the Jupiter, I was quite shocked to find that not only were they listenable through the UDP-1 but actually sounded quite good! Yes, they are still very bright, and shimmered even more through the UDP-1. But for some reason the presentation was less fatiguing than the Jupiter. I have been dabbling with a Non-Oversampling DAC as of late (ack dAck! 2.0) and I am starting to think the oddities in time-coherence of some oversampling designs can cause the fatigue I usually associated with bright components. I have a hunch the Jupiter was voiced to smooth these highs over a bit, in an attempt make the resulting sound a bit more smooth and analog-like. On some recordings, I think the mind/ear is fatigued when trying to resolve the time differences that the smoothing/smearing introduces. Since the McCormack just seemed to present the highs as is, they were brighter but also more listenable.
Another great strength of the McCormack I think related to it's very extended and detailed representation of the highs--ambience retrieval and "air" was absolutely excellent. This made listening to live music much more real as I believe much of the "hall sound" we hear is high frequency in nature. I have been recording in high resolution for the past few years (24/48 and 24/96) and I have found that 24/96 seems to offer much more of this house sound and ambience--so much so that the recordings display a shocking increase in openness. The McCormack seemed to open up my 16-bit material as well; while it didn't approach the best 24-bit recordings I have made, it went a long way towards making 16/44.1 more believable. The UDP-1 seems to grab any "air" the 16/44.1 recording has and just lets it live there in a nice organic space. This has the great side-benefit of tying together many recordings better. Some studio recordings that are heavily close-miked can sound a bit like "images floating in space" but the McCormack grabs any air encoded on the disc and gives the a more coherent "musical event" presentation of the material. I occasionally thought the UDP-1 was adding "air" where none existed, but at no time did this become fatiguing or annoying, and in fact served the music quite well.
I'd like to mention here that this coherency of a musical event is something many less-expensive (and some high-priced!) CDPs just don't get right, in my opinion. In order for me to "suspend disbelief" so to speak, my brain likes to hear music as if I was listening in on the recording session. The interplay of instruments/surfaces/people in a live recording is a delicious thing--and without the ambience and air retrieval of a player like the McCormack, I just don't get into the music as much. This player is a stellar CDP for live music.
The McCormack generally did quite well with vocals, providing an incredibly clear window into the music. The microshadings in a human voice were very clearly presented, so much so that you will try figuring out what kind of mic was used if you're into that sort of thing... Here was one nit that I'd like to pick, though. There was so much clarity and detail present in this slightly tonally recessed midrange that the UDP-1 seemed to focus on the gravel in a voice as opposed to the tone. Someone with a slightly smoky tone, say Diana Krall for one, just didn't quite seem like themselves. This seemed to be related to the "sharpness factor" I mentioned earlier--the UDP-1 seemed to be cranking up the detail a bit, sharpening edges so to speak. This trait wasn't as flattering with vocals, or some wind instruments like trumpet. I know the sound of a trumpet intimately--I played one for years and always use it as a judgment factor. With trumpet, the bite or brassiness of the instrument was somewhat overemphasized, and when coupled to the dynamic power (and possible overstating of such) the McCormack gave a bit too much bite to a trumpet's crescendo.
All of the preceding comments apply to the presentation of the UDP-1 when fed 16/44.1 material. I don't have enough SACD's or commercially-produced DVD-A's to determine the player's high-res capabilities. However, I'd like to mention general impressions here, taken of course with the grain of salt that I didn't listen to this as fully as 16/44.1... Overall, I felt the DVD-A reproduction was stellar. In fact, this was as good as I have ever heard 24/96 material; at least my "sonic memory" tells me so. With my own 24/96 recordings, I didn't feel as if I was missing anything as compared to my now-departed dCS Delius (being fed 24/96 via my Pioneer Elite DV-37). All of the expansive soundstage, air, bass power, and harmonic smoothness I found with 24/96 with the dCS was there. Since I am operating from memory, do not take this to mean the McCormack was as good as the dCS; most likely it is not. But I didn't feel shortchanged, and unlike some players where DVD-A is barely better than 16/44.1 I felt the McCormack excelled here. Additionally, on the single prerecorded DVD-A I had (Grateful Dead "American Beauty") I was absolutely stunned at the bass power and transparency of the delivery. I was very happy with the McCormack's high bitrate PCM delivery.
On SACD I was less impressed, to the point of wondering what the hullabaloo is about surrounding SACD. I have *very* little experience with SACD players (I have never seriously auditioned a SACD player with SACD material), but in this application I didn't feel it was generally much better than the same CD played in 16/44.1. In fact, I preferred some of the SACD's when playing the 16/44.1 layer! There was a bit of added warmth, and absolutely better bass, but the treble didn't seem as fast or extended and the UDP-1 lost it's dynamic prowess. Without having any frame of reference, I cannot say the UDP-1 is a less-than-stellar SACD player... However I will go so far as to say I wouldn't be buying many SACDs if I owned this player.
At this point in my review, I decided to purchase the UDP-1. It was such a better player than my Jupiter that I couldn't let it go... Whereas with my Jupiter in the rig I felt sometimes that I might have erred a bit on the too-tubey side of the equation, and thought I might try some more detailed and less harmonically-rich tubes in my preamp, adding the UDP-1 proved conclusively that it was the source and not the tubes. I quickly became addicted to this new immediacy and transparency, and really liked the contrast to the Jupiter for the most part (I did prefer the Jupiter with some music, but the preponderance was better via the UDP-1).So I brought the UDP-1 home and hooked it up into my combined home theater/2-channel stereo system (I use the theater passthrough on my preamp to separate or marry the two, as it were). It was here I experienced some problems.
Before I get to that I would like to take a moment to mention something that was quite unexpected--it was so very nice to just pick a piece of music, put it in the drawer, and hit play. And no more choosing between this disc and that at the store--I felt liberated to buy whatever was out there and know it would play on the UDP-1 (the DualDiscs I tried played fine on the DVD layer but not the CD layer, BTW). I came to really *like* the idea of a universal player. Want to listen to music? Put in a disc. Want to watch a movie? Put in a DVD. Have some high bitrate material? Toss it in. It really is liberating.
However, upon bringing it home and hooking everything up (2-channel out to my ARC SP16 or McCormack RLD-1 (I am switching back and forth between both right now, but for the duration of this review I used the SP16 90% of the time), 5.1 out to my Denon A/V receiver, progressive scan video to my Sony HDTV, digi out to the ack dAck! I am testing), and sitting down for a listen to make sure everything was hooked up properly, I noticed the player sounded very poor; somewhat hazed, and very irritating. Thinking this was just break-in, I let it spin for a weekend. Coming back to a listen on Sunday evening, I wondered if this player really needed a ton of break-in or if I bought a dud. Monday afternoon, after letting it burn in another 12 hours, I started looking for the issue. I had walked by my right loudspeaker on the way to switch discs, and noticed a nasty high-frequency hashy sound coming from the loudspeaker (mostly the tweeter). It sounded to my ear like gross distortion. After sitting down in between the speakers (about 9 feet closer than my listening position) I was immediately struck with the nasty distortion! No wonder the player sounded bad.
After much troubleshooting, I eventually traced this distortion to having both the L/R 2-channel and L/R 5.1 outputs hooked up simultaneously. To make a long story short (as there are some variables involved), the 2-channel outputs behaved very badly when the 5.1 outputs were simultaneously hooked up to the Denon. I am not going to take a guess as to why this is the case, but I would like to mention that Steve McCormack (who is very accessible and great to talk to, BTW) said this is not normal and therefore this must be an issue with my particular choice of components. I want to mention it, however, because this could happen in other systems, so try before you buy, if at all possible. I will also note that this problem occurred whether the 5.1 outputs were turned "on" (via the setup menu) or off--it was th physical connection of the outputs that caused the problem.
Additionally, I would like to mention an issue that I do believe will occur to most listeners. When I had the 5.1 outputs turned "on" (via the setup menu), playback level changed significantly. I did not measure in db, but I needed to turn up my preamplifier considerably more to attain my normal listening volume. This happened whether the 5.1 outputs were actually hooked up or not (as when I didn't have the outputs physically hooked up, I didn't get the distortion mentioned above), so I assume this is not related to my above issue. This didn't pose a gain problem in my system, but I do believe the sound changed for the worse. The player seemed less dynamic, less alive. The dynamic power and contrast that were such a sound of the UDP-1 in 2-channel mode was somewhat subdued. I need to admit, though, that sonic conclusions I drew from this were from much less rigorous listening sessions. I simply preferred the player with the 5.1 outputs shut off, and after figuring that out I always critically listened in this mode. This would be something I would have looked into more if I had kept the UDP-1--however, at this point I returned it to the store as hooking and unhooking the 5.1 outputs every time I wanted to listen to 2-channel music was not something I was willing to do, even to obtain the sonic excellence of the McCormack.
I am not a videophile by any stretch of the imagination, so I will refrain from much comment on picture and movie quality here. I didn't feel the UDP-1 had as good of a picture as our Pioneer Elite DV-37, which actually shocked me--I figured that being based upon a Pioneer Elite DV-45 the UDP-1 would actually surpass that of our DV-37. I played with the settings a bit, but (keeping in mind I do not use a setup disc and therefore adjust by "eye") I wasn't able to get as good of a picture out of it. The UDP-1 wasn't as smooth or as film like. Sound, on the other hand, was incredible. I normally use the digital out of our DV-37 to the Denon 1802 revceiver which performs Dolby Digital and DTS decoding. Letting the McCormack do the job and feeding the 5.1 output through the Denon (removing the Denon's processing) was an incredible revelation. The sound was so much more enveloping and realistic that I now feel the need to upgrade my receiver!
Aside from the issues I mention above, I quite enjoyed the overall presentation of the UDP-1. It was an incredibly engaging player that made you sit up in your seat and listen, darnit! Because it doesn’t exhibit the incredible liquidity and smoothness of some of the megabuck players, with the slight reservation that the grit in music is somewhat emphasized by the "sharpness factor" I mentioned earlier, and with the extremely lively and dynamic presentation, this player will need to be auditioned before purchase (as should all digital front ends, IMO!). I believe the tonal characteristics require some careful system matching--those with overly bright or hyper-detailed systems might feel the presentation a bit relentless; but those with more tonally neutral systems will probably love this player. Especially on live music! This is easily among the best 16/44.1 players I have heard in it's price range--and even beyond. The fact that the UDP-1 can play virtually any silver disk can be viewed as a huge bonus!
Associated Components:
Rega Jupiter
Audio Research SP16 preamplifier, McCormack RLD-1 preamplifier
Audio Research VS55 amplifier
ProAc D25 loudspeakers
MIT MH330+ S2 interconnects
MIT MH750+ S3 biwire speaker cables
2 Dedicated 20A circuits to the hifi, one for analog (preamp/amp), one for digital (CDPs)
Home Theater components:
Denon AVR-1802
B&W CC3 center channel
B&W DM302 rear channels
Pioneer Elite DV-37 DVD Player
Sony 30” Widescreen HDTV
Various MIT interconnects, MH750+S3 biwire speaker cable to center, CAT5 to the rear channels
Topic: McCormack UDP-1 Universal Player Review (Read 3451 times)