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HIFIREVIEW Tandy's CD-1500 remote controlled CD player Compact disc players continue to become cheaper, smaller and lighter. Typical of this trend is Tandy's latest CD player, the remote-controlled Realistic CD-1500. Reviewed by LEO SIMPSON Even though compact disc players have been with us now for five years we are still amazed at their inherent complexity. Yet each new model brings more refinements, whether in user facilities, simplification in manufacturing, or both. This latest CD player from Tandy is one of the smallest units on the market, apart from those specifically intended for portable or car use. It measures 370mm wide, 270mm from front to back and 73mm high and weighs just 2.9kg. Inevitably, it has an all-black finish; plastic front panel and a painted steel chassis and cover. The digital display is a very fine white vacuum fluorescent unit, not the rather coarse liquid crystal display depicted in the current Tandy catalog. The display indicates track, elapsed time and playing mode. It also has provision on the display for index information. Controls Playing controls are relatively simple although there are eleven pushbuttons in all. On the left is the power button and adjacent to the disc drawer is the open/close button. Underneath the display are buttons for Auto Space, Repeat Memory, and further to the right, Track/ ASMS, index forward and reverse. To the right of the display is the play/pause button and below that, the stop/clear button. On the back, the chassis is bare expect for a pair of RCA sockets The remote control is supplied as standard with the CD-1500 and duplicates most of the front panel controls. 16 SILICON CHIP and power cord entry. No headphone socket is fitted which is a pity really since we believe that many people these days wish to listen to their CDs direct on headphones, without the need of a separate amplifier. Inside the chassis, the CD-1500 is revealed as one of the simplest players we have seen. It has the smallest CD player mechanism, made largely from plastic and with a flexible multiway printed conductor strip coupling the digital signals to the large printed board. This accommodates four LSI (large scale integration) chips with one being a surface mount type. Other printed boards are provided for mains termination and the mains switch (near the power transformer) and the front panel display and pushbuttons. All told, it is hard to see how a CD player could be made simpler although future models will be just that; such is the march of progress. Playing it Pushing the open/close button on the CD-1500 extends the drawer ready to accept a disc. The drawer is different from most CD players in that it pushes a door flap down as it The interior of the Realistic CD1500 is neat and uncluttered and uses just four LSI chips. The player mechanism is made mainly from plastic. emerges, a difference which is not important but a difference nonetheless. Pushing the open/close button causes the disc drawer to go back into the player whereupon the number of tracks and total playing time are shown on the display. Alternatively, after placing the disc on the extended drawer, you can push the Play button to initiate playing immediately. You can push the disc drawer in by hand and it will withdraw by itself although the instruction manual warns against this. We deliberately did it a number of times to see if the mechanism would jam but it didn't. We think this is important because users will abuse players in this way in spite of any warning to the contrary. An interesting feature is the Auto-Space button. If this is pushed, a four-second interval is inserted at the end of each track. This can be handy if you are dubbing CDs to cassettes and wish to use the automatic music search facility now on a lot of cassette decks. The Memory button allows the playing order of the disc tracks to be programmed before playing starts. Up to 24 tracks can be programmed in this way. Pushing the Stop/Clear button clears the memory. The next facility, Track/ASMS, functions differently to that on other CD players. Pushing the lefthand button during play puts the Specifications Audio Frequency response Dynamic range Signal-to-noise ratio Harmonic distortion Separation Line output at 0dB 5Hz-20kHz, ± 1 dB 90dB 90dB .006% (at 1 kHz) 90dB 2V RMS Signal format Sampling frequency Quantisation Transmission 44.1 kHz 1 6 bit linear 4 .3218 Mb/s laser pickup back to the start of the track being played whereupon playing recommences. Further pushes put the pickup back to subsequent tracks. Pushing the righthand button moves the pickup to the start of the next track so that play starts there. So where does the ASMS (Automatic Search Music System) feature come in? The owner's manual does not explain it except to give the explanation just described. It certainly does not function in the way of Automatic Music Selection on a number of CD players we have seen whereby they will play the first ten seconds of each track until you stop it. From the foregoing, we think the ASMS designation is a misnomer. The Index buttons were similarly confusing. They function as skip forward or skip back buttons but at no time were we able to locate indexed points on discs using these buttons. Nor were index numbers ever displayed. The owner's manual makes no mention of the Index facility so we are inclined to the view that this feature was planned but left out in production models. One very worthwhile geature of the CD-1500 is the remote control handpiece. This duplicates the front panel controls with the exception of the power, open/close and auto space buttons. It has a range of about five metres and uses two penlight AA cells. Performance As the accompanying spec panel shows, the CD-1500 is pretty standard. It uses a single D-A converter and samples at the 44. lkHz rate. Our tests confirmed the specifications pretty closely. For example,, we measured harmonic distortion at lkHz and 0dB at 0.007% versus the specified figure of 0.006%. The small discrepancy is due to the residual 44. lkHz in the output which is about 83dB down. The frequency response is ruler flat over much of the range but has the usual small irregularities at the extreme top which is the result of the steep filtering used to remove the 44 . lkHz sampling artefacts. It also has the (inaudible) 24.lkHz beat which is present when you atcontinued on page 89 MARCH 1988 17 Band (MHz) Sensitivity (12dB SINAD) Channel Steps 29-30 30-50 50-54 118-135.975 136-144 144-148 148-174 0.3µV 0 .3µV 0.3µV 0.8µV 0.3µV 0.3µV 0 .3µV 5kHz 5kHz 5kHz 5kHz 5kHz 5kHz 5kHz 406-420 0 .5µV 12.5kHz 420-450 450-470 0.5µV 0.5µV 12.5kHz 12.5kHz 470-512 0 .5µV 12.5kHz 806-912 0 .7µV 12.5kHz Supplied with the 800XLT are two antennas, one for the VHF/UHF bands (telescopic) and the other for the 800-900MHz band. These attach to sockets on the top and rear panels. Alternatively, an external antenna can be used for better reception of weak or noisy signals. Because the 800XLT scanner is a US version, it does have a couple of minor drawbacks. First, the squelch controls operates in reverse; ie, you rotate it anticlockwise to mute the receiver. Second, the scanner has a key marked Service continued from page 17 10-metre amateur Cordless phones 6-metre amateur AM aircraft Polar orbiting satellites 2-metre amateur VHF commercial; VHF marine UHF low band commercial 7 0cm amateur Ul-iF commercial; police rescue helicopter UHF CB; PAMTS mobile phones Cellular telephones "WX" which is designed to scan local weather stations in the US (162.4MHz-162 .55MHz). Unfortunately, this feature is of no use in Australia. But, apart from these quibbles and the fact that the unit is only available for 12V DC operation, the BC800XLT is well worth consideration by those with an interest in VHF and UHF communications. It is priced at $749 and is available from Santronic Corporation, 345 Princess Highway, Rockdale 2216. Phone 599 3355. (Garry Cratt). Spot light for video film-making Most recent model domestic video cameras are usable in quite low values of light, down to only 5 or 6 lux in some cases. But to really give the best results, with bright colours, they need lots of light. This video accessory light from Arista gives plenty of that. It consists of a lightweight holder with a quartz halogen lamp which can be attached to most video cameras via a bracket. Four "barn doors" on the lamp housing allow the beam to be controlled. The unit is powered from a 12V gel battery which is held in a shoulder pack and weighs Hifi Review 2.75kg. The unit comes with a charger. For further information, contact Arista Electronics Pty Ltd, 57 Vore Street, Silverwater, NSW 2141. Phone (02) 648 3488. tempt to measure distortion at 20kHz. In other words, the performance is well up to standard for a medium-priced CD player. The CD-1500 also went through our usual tests for tracking and error correction and showed up well. Nor is it fazed by physical shock to the case and it is better in this respect than a number of more expensive players. In summary, the Realistic CD-1500 is a good machine which performs well and has most of the facilities which most people want. The only drawback is that, considering it is basically a no-frills player with remote control, it is a touch dear. To be fair though, it is backed up by the largest electronic retail network in the country with a service record second to none. That being the case, it is worth paying a premium for the CD-1500. It is priced at $529.00. You can hear it at any Tandy store. ~ Tape Player continued from page 42 work first so that it can be used as a drilling template (optional). A small clamp made from scrap aluminium was used to hold the batteries in position and is secured to one end of the case using a screw and nut. It's now simply a matter of mounting the parts and completing the wiring as shown in the coded photograph. The electret microphone should be wired using shielded cable, while the remaining wiring can be light-duty hookup wire. Be sure to connect the battery leads the right way around. To test the unit, first press the run button and check that the tape motor runs. If it does, you can now record a message by pressing the run and record buttons at the same time while speaking into the microphone. Check that the message plays back and repeats if the run button is held down. Finally, you can add a volume control by connecting a 5000 potentiometer in series with the speaker. Connect the amplifier output to one side of the pot and connect the loudspeaker to the pot ·wiper. .~ MARCH 1988 89