The TP106 VR+ amplifier was a modern take on an old idea, the ultralinear configured push-pull tetrode integrated amplifier; the Canor CD2 VR+ Precision Tube CD Player is almost the reverse. This CD player uses an all valve analogue stage that goes as far as a valve rectified B+ supply in their brand new application of old technology in a thorough rethink of much newer technology.

Hence, Canor valve CD players are inevitably more original in design and execution, there being fewer historical models to draw on than 70 years of valve amplifier evolution. The Canor range of CD players start with a wood fascia model, the unimaginatively named Canor CD1, and regular readers will know how much I believe that wood is good. Asked about this Pavol replied "Sometime in the course of 2007, at the instigation of our customers, we decided to modify the visual design of our products, to modern, so called aluminium dress. We entrusted Joshua Creative Professional Studio with this project. The new design appeared to be so interesting and original that we decided to evolve new internal designs. The very positive feedback for the CD1 model confirmed the soundness of its circuit and wiring design, so we focused mainly on tuning and tinkering of the individual wiring circuits. Thus, the whole new design line was created. In spite of having our vast 15 year experience in designing tube [valve] amplifiers, and thirty years experience in tube-based wiring circuits, it still took us 2 full years to have developed our new VR+ products."

So, clothed in the modernist (a twist in the return to modernism from the post-modernist retro irony of so much 21st century audio) schmutter of thick solid aluminium and deluxe speckled paint of the previously reviewed TP106 VR+ this model features not just a single line driver amplification valve like most tubed CD rivals (including the modified Shanling CDT100c that lurks on my rack as one of two cd references) appended to the tail end of an otherwise solid state circuit, often cheap chips, but a fully fledged start to finish valve only analogue section. Even the Canor CD1 entry level CD player (1850€) features the lovely high gain medium Mu ECC83 (12AX7 to our American readers), the audiophile favourite driver the 6922 (a milspec nomenclature for ECC88) and best of all the EZ81 rectifier. I have never seen one of these used outside DIY designs (I'm using two in a breadboard DIY balanced phono stage you will read about if it is ever finished) although the lower voltage EZ80 pops up occasionally. The Canor CD1, CD2 and CD2 VR+ therefore use valves as they should be used. Canor claim, that the CD2 benefits from improved mechanical construction and vibration isolation over the base CD1. The CD2 VR+ takes isolation a step further with additional isolation of the analogue valves. I would hazard a guess that the output stage is a cathode follower 6922 as the output impedance is quoted at 200Ω which should be fine for driving even long cables of normal construction.

That the Canor CD2 (2450€) uses stronger more inert casework than the CD1 - 12kg is borne out by an increase of 2.4kg of chassis material, which is a lot of chassis. This contains the same Burr-Brown PCM1792A and Phillips L1210/65. Throughout the Canor range their designers have chosen not to use the ubiquitous 16 bit Phillips TDA1543, much loved for its timing but no spring chicken. Canor have instead employed the newer (2004) flagship 24 bit Burr Brown PCM1792A device (from the same series as the PCM1794 that appears in other high end players) with its 127dB (@2V) dynamic range, 132dB potential S/N ratio and considerably higher unit cost than the common or garden TDA1543. The Canor CD1 (formerly known as the Edgar CD1) collected some favourable reviews in various corners of the European press. All Canor CD models feature the Philips model L1210/65 transport. The only other player with any quality pretensions that I can recall using this transport is a Jadis (I cannot remember which, such is your scribes venerable age). This transport implementation demands that the listener wait until the transport has identified the CD tracks and duration before play can be activated; tedious or what?

However, the CD2 VR+ also features a big fancy alphanumeric display (which may be switched off or dimmed in case owners might suspect to pollute the power supply with spuriae) and Canor strictly separate the power supplies for the transport control; the power supply for the digital components and the valve rectified power supply for the analogue section to prevent 'interfering signals penetrat[ing]' the audio power supplies. Thorough and desirable in a player at this level. It's impossible to discern unseen, with any reliability or repeatability, whether the display has any effect on sound quality, so the power supply isolation is a success.

I have no way of telling whether the Canor CD2 VR+ is worth the extra 440€, as I do not have a sample CD2 to compare. However, the main efforts that raise it to plus status have concentrated on vibration isolation of the valve stage, using a vibration damper on the circuit board. My experience of the Absorb-Gel dampers would suggest this was a fruitful development improving microphony rejection. Canor's designers noted that it resulted in more detailed sound. I would expect increased clarity and dynamic range from such a modification, leading to more accurate instrumental timbre, better timing and hence more stable soundstage too.

Canor's CD USP (unique selling point) is the all valve analogue output stage; older readers will remember that Rotel UK merely replaced the chip output stage of the RB965 BX with a discrete board (as in separate component circuit featuring discrete transistors, rather than a player more likely to keep mum about its owner's indiscretions) and this alone transformed a competent player into a great one. Hence the ALL VAlVE Canor output stage might put the icing on the cake of a good player but will not turn a sow's ear into a silk purse. The Shanling CDT100c merely adds a tube buffer to the output of cascaded op-amps, merely adding its inaccuracy to those of the preceding stages, hence the glorious transformation wrought by Chevron Audio's modifications. The Canor Precision Tube CD Player CD2 VR+ even employs the EZ81 double rectifier valve to supply the DC for this circuit. One advantage of a that EZ81 double diode rectifier is that valves vary their delivery with the load, whereas solid state bridges do not. Those in the valve rectifier camp say this allows the power supply to flow with the demand made by the music; the sand camp argue that a stiffer supply is better regulated and more accurate. Regulating B+ does make the sound seem bigger. Valve rectifiers respond quicker, expensive fast recovery solid state diodes aren't that fast and additionally the overshoot injects spurious signals into the power supply and audio circuits, increasing noise and wasting power. One might expect more mellifluous flow and sweeter top end, free from power supply related artefacts from the valve rectified power supply for the analogue stages of this CD player. But this is putting the end of the story first, the source is the disc.

The Phillips L1210 transport is the usual flakey plasticky looking affair with tortuously slow access times and looking like it should flap about in the soundfield. Ed Meitner, of EMM Labs, conducted experiments that established CDs could be unseated by playing loud enough tones (particularly 800Hz) in the room, watching the error count escalating until the CD started skipping. Curiously such effects do not seem to relate to whether the transport is flimsy plastic or embedded in 2kg of solid unobtanium. This transport coped with damaged cds I keep especially for this test and in room volume did not seem to affect tracking, which has happened in other players. Pleasure of cd player ownership would be enhanced by some pretence of metalwork in the cd mechanism, this one does work fine (if slowly) but at high-end prices the psychological impact of a solid looking drawer that slides in and out silkily would prime the listener's expectations for high end sound. However, very few players do actually have custom transports, Bang & Olufson being one of the notable few, and most merely dress up the stalwarts with fancy trim, pucks and doodahs.

In response to my enquiries Canor tell me that they configure the valve analogue stages by making the connection directly after the OPA134 DAC. They believe this is unique and their ace card in creating a CD player with a uniquely natural sound quality.

For the CD2 and CD2 VR+ Canor have improved the power supply an order of magnitude beyond that of the CD1. "The precisely designed power supply helps create soft, massive and detailed sound deprived of any disruptive voltage. This was achieved by strictly separating the power supply voltage of all digital components of which might penetrate interfering signals to the sections that are being directly processed an audio signal," claim Canor. Canor found that the toroidal power transformer in the CD2 VR CD player is even more difficult to manufacture than the one in the TP106 VR amplifier, as it contains more independent supply windings and two shields. One such is a copper foil winding between the primary and secondary. The other, similarly constructed, separates the windings supplying the display, successfully as it is inaudible whether on or off. The control processor is powered by yet another separate transformer equipped with an additional filter (VF in Canor nomenclature, I suspect might be a winding tuning Zobel network that doubles as an RF filter). Amplification is nothing more than modulating a power supply so the basic ingredient of the post DAC stages ought to be high quality.

Your old scribe also asked Canor about their filter choice and the philosophy behind it, to which Pavol replied that the DAC features only a simple analogue RC filter, which, if single pole as implied will produce a minimum phase single order 6dB/8ve response. Canor do not use any additional digital filter, but only the filter defined by the PCM1792 digital-to-analog converter. There are 8 variations on this Texas Instruments (formerly Burr Brown) CMOS chip so I cannot be sure, and user programmable functions might permit variation of the 130dB stop band attenuation and some versions have sharp or soft filter selection. Here also the CANOR CD2 VR+ Precision Tube CD Player differs from the earlier design CD1, still in production, which used a more complex analog filter. The CD1 filter does filter higher frequencies better, but is responsible for strong phase shift. In the CD2 VR+ signal path there is but one Mundorf MCap (polypropylene dielectric with ZN Zinc-Tin foil) capacitor, the type common to the VR+ versions of Canor's VR ranges.

Once again the valves in the CANOR Precision Tube CD Player in the output circuits are also subjected to Canor's hi-tech TTM-1 (Tube Tester and Measurer) selection procedure for the 12AX7 (ECC83 medium mu double triode) and 6922 (milspec ECC88 double triode) will be familiar to audiophiles as probably the most popular choices of b9a based valves. The applications recommendations for the Burr Brown family right up to VAM 1794 include ludicrously complicated arrangements of their own op-amps added gain that gets wasted by successive resistor voltage dividers, up to 3 pairs of these op-amps in various data sheets. This is the junk that was removed from my Shanling CDT100c to great effect and therefore is another factor to set high expectations for the Canor CD2 VR+ for its direct-to-DAC all valve analogue connection.

The result of the high gain of that ECC83 is 2.9V output which is much higher than red book. The high output voltage may instantly seduce listeners in a store demonstration against competitors, so caveat emptor. Equally, the problem of interfacing CD players with standard line inputs will be exacerbated by this high output, possibly overdriving some amplifiers into distortion, especially those that do not feature the volume pot immediately after the input selector.

Canor chief engineer and co-owner Zdenek Brezovjak decided to use, on sound quality grounds, the proprietary I2S bus in preference to the S-pdif for internal connection between transport and that PCM1792 converter in the CANOR Precision Tube CD Player as tests showed it improved sound quality. I also found the I2S superior to alternatives when testing Zero One music server, so full marks to Canor for that decision. Another area that raises the bar for the Canor CD2 VR+.

The splendid aluminium remote control also has the pride of ownership effect. I mentioned the slightly eccentric button layout in the Canor TP106 VR+ review. The central circular 4-way rocker (amplifier input left & right and volume up & down) has a square button in its centre for CD play/pause. It would be far better if the remote had two circular 4-way rockers and if the one surrounding CD play/pause controlled skip and fast forward/backward functions L-R and CD stop function, which lurks right at the top near the on/off switches. The track selector buttons are at the bottom and are the easiest and most accurate I have used when selecting track numbers above 19.