Item Category:	CD Players and DACs
Make:	Primare
Model:	Cd31
Age:	8 years 0 months
Condition (?):	8/10
Voltage:	230V 50Hz
Price New (if known):	£ 1600
Choice Hi-fi price:	£ 600
Conditions of payment:	Or nearest offer
Image ( actual ) : click on the image to view original size
Image ( actual ) : click on the image to view original size

Additional Details:

DIRECT SALE
Five stars from WhatHiFi and HiFi Choice. Very favourable reviews in stereophile and The Absolute Sound. Perfect working order. Bought new in 2008. Was £1,600. Titanium finish. No box or remote but apart from that in excellent condition.

PRIMARE C31
Every component of the CD31, from the CD transport to the audio output stage, has been designed to achieve the highest possible audio performance.

Careful design for mechanical stability

The Primare CD31 Compact Disc Player uses an advanced DVS mechanism.

As with all Primare units, the CD31 Compact Disc Player is housed in an alloy heavy gauge steel chassis, which provides strength, rigidity, and screening, while being effective at damping vibrations from external sources.

Display and audio circuits are isolated

The front panel design isolates the display circuitry from the audio circuitry to avoid interference

The purest digital stream

From the CD-transport we extract the SPDIF signal, which is fed to a DIR1703 digital receiver. DIR 1703 has excellent jitter suppression abilities ensuring that the DACs receive as clean a digital signal as possible – giving the most natural sound. We have chosen not to incorporate any other signal treatment such as up-sampling, which can colour the sound.

Balanced design all the way to the outputs

For precise digital to analogue conversion, the CD31 uses four 24 bit/96 kHz Burr-Brown PCM1704 K-graded DACs – one of the best analogue to digital converters available today.

The DACs are configured in a truly balanced configuration: two DACs per channel. Each DAC carries the same signal with opposite phase. On the receiver side (before the DACs) the signals are mixed, and since any interference that has arisen during the transmission will be present in both lines with identical phase, such noise and distortion products are cancelled out leaving only the pure original signal. Interpolation filtering is carried out by the excellent DF1704. Each DAC uses its own current to voltage converter stage, Burr-Brown’s OPA2134, a sonically excellent operational amplifier. The signal path is finished in a single-ended output stage with a discrete MosFet transistor driven by an active current source instead of the use of passive resistors.

Shortest signal paths

SMD technology is used whenever possibly to keep the signal path as short as possible.

No compromise power supply for the best possible performance

Each part of an electronic design has specific power requirements. Primare’s forensic approach to ensuring that clean power is supplied throughout the design is a key part of its design philosophy and has significant sonic benefits. An internal mains filter ensures that any high frequency disturbance is removed before it reaches the power transformer, which is placed as far away as possible from the delicate analogue circuits. The player incorporates a fantastic R-core transformer with separate windings for all of the player’s different power requirements (mechanical, analogue, digital, etc) – eight in all! Each is individually regulated in thirteen steps to ensure that enough power is constantly available. For the critical analogue audio stage, the player incorporates ultra-fast discrete power regulation, ensuring that enough regulated power is available for even the deepest sonic transient that can be recorded on a compact disc.

This power supply configuration together with different ground planes for all kinds of signal layers gives the player the usually extremely high signal to noise ratio allowing you to take full advantage of the dynamic range possible with CD.


Selected reviews:

http://www.stereophile.com/cdplayers/707pri/#oCay316YL6qWdv2j.97

The CD31's reasonable price is almost irrelevant in light of its performance, but profound in that it makes that performance available to many more people than is usually the case. The CD31 isn't perfect—but it's sublime.

http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/primare-130-integrated-amplifier-and-cd31-compact-disc-player-1/

After first pairing the 130 with the Musical Fidelity A5 CD player, I put in the Primare CD31 ($2295), which, initially, was startling. This little unit, like its integrated sister, has that remarkable combination of clarity and balance, and a silence that leaves the music floating on what sounds like real air and not a bed of fog or grain. On good recordings, nothing stood out in any frequency range, and the sweetness of the instrumental voice, any instrumental voice, had the stunning drama of a child soprano. The CD31 doesn’t have the depth that makes the midbass to bottom octave on my reference MF unit stand apart. But its lovely balance point, like a fine hairspring, held the fabric of the music under control, and the noiseless background kept the delicacies sweet while retaining the rich wash of the music. After a couple of months of listening, and rereading my notes about recent visiting amps and players, I began to think that the difference between these and other units I’ve heard under $2500 lies in that silence of the background. (The 130 integrated is a true dual-mono, differential circuit design, and has other important-sounding elements that lie beyond my ken. The CD player has multiple isolated power supplies. These things may explain their golden silence. Or not.)

Contact Choice Hi-Fi to purchase this item >>>