What follows, more than a listening test, is a divertissement or a report about the way I managed improving one of the most tedious parts of my daily life. I always move with public transport. My workplace is about one hour by train and bus far from home, and I haven’t got any means of transport – I haven’t got a driving license either. That makes the account of the time regularly spent shifting from side to side of the city or waiting for buses or trains to 10 hours in a normal week, 45 hours a month on the average, 500 hours a year. A pretty nice waste of time, I’d say. Moreover, my domestic listening sessions are by a long while fully devoted to analog or to high-resolution digital standards; but I love music before all, and only a percentage – that’s always getting larger, but that’s still not enough – of what I’m interested in comes out in vinyl or high-resolution digital. It was the end of last summer when I realized that the number of the CDs stacking and the amount of those I wished to buy, exceeded by far what I ever could listen to during the evenings and the weekends. And this even if I had immediately stopped listening to other formats. I therefore decided to regain control of the time wasted commuting and use it to listen to my music, so I tried to see what the portable market had to offer.

The player for obvious reasons would have to be a CD player: as a good audiophile I’m not into lossy compression, and even the less compromised standard, the mini disc, would have forced me to waste time streaming my CDs into micro disks. The last portable player I had bought was a top-of-the-range Kenwood dating to the early 90s. I still own it since I’m the kind of guy who doesn’t throw anything in the dustbin to the great disappointment of my sweetheart, but it hasn’t been working properly along the last years. Yes it plays the CDs but it’s almost insensitive to commands, something weird must have happened to the control chipset so that if one selects “play” it performs “next”, if “back” it executes “play”. If one pushes an equalizer function it skips into “pause” and so on, and worse in a random way – not that handy. I carried out an investigation: first of all, the turnover of the models of the largest manufacturers (i.e. Sony, Panasonic, and Philips) is almost frenzy. In fact, if you pick a model from the catalog you can almost be sure that either it has not hit the shops yet or it has already been discontinued; moreover, manufacturers are not focused on playback quality but on features like compactness, looks, anti-shock memory extension, battery life. All of these are anti-audiophile features, to be straight: the compactness, and the effort to have the batteries last more than it is reasonable to expect, force the manufacturers to rely on heavily integrated chipsets leaving output stages behind. The marketing need for a fifty-second anti-shock buffer memory forces them to use lossy compression algorithms to avoid equipping the players with large memory stacks that would raise costs. So, no “audiophile” portable player in the market: the best you can expect is the possibility to bypass the lossy buffer memories, and a line out connector to plug a headphone amp a bit less anemic of the one on board.

There is no plenty of these around, by the way. Reading here and there, my attention was caught by the top models by Sony and Panasonic. I made up my mind for the Panasonic SL-CT790 because of its local availability; it is a very compact player that, not having its display fitted onto its main body, is just a bit larger than a stack of five-six CDs without their jewel-boxes. It has a wire remote control that includes the display, a 100-hours working time combining its onboard rechargeable battery set and two alkaline ones, and a completely useless set of Marketing-Dept tricks like a bass-boost circuit. Along with this, one can find a line/digital output sharing the same connector – at least in the European version; if you plug an analog wire to it, the headphones out is switched off together with all bass enhancement and equalization circuit, and the lossy compression is bypassed as well. Connecting another device to the line output the Panasonic keeps a buffer memory of ten seconds. I carried out my first tests using the normal headphone output and the factory provided earphones or a couple of “backup” Sennheiser MX400 I had bought together with the CD player. The outcome was, frankly, unacceptable. The factory earphones made the sound harmless, flat, a bit emphasized in the low frequencies, poor in detail. With the Sennheiser the result was slightly better (detail and frequency balance were recovered, even though at a still unbearable level for what concerns the first parameter). Anyway, it was clear that data compression made its effects audible, in terms of a cancellation of the smallest details and of an emphasis put on other, irrelevant parts of the message; dynamic compression was all the way evident.

So I had to find a portable headphone amp, one that could work long without recharging, light, compact, and not too expensive. Apart from the DIY, one has two chances left: amps from Headroom Corp. and from Jan Meier, a.k.a. Meier Audio. I decided for the latter on impulse, also for its better availability (Jan is located in Germany, while Headroom in the U.S. and has no resellers here); the service by Jan has been, by the way, absolutely outstanding. But the earphones included were nothing satisfying as well, and the others I had at home went back to the early 90s and were not in condition of getting the job done. I took the opportunity for a sweet tooth I had been having for a long while, that of buying the Etymotics ER-4S intra-aural earphones. I had to turn to a reseller from the US for them, since they’re not sold in Italy either. Before talking about the sound, here it comes a short description of these two objects that, in my opinion, may be unknown to most of us. The Meier Audio Porta Corda Mk.2 is a small headphone amplifier conceived for portable devices, with 3.5mm jack in/outputs. It’s made of hardy black plastic, almost the size of a thinner cigarette box, with a clip to secure it to your belt. Its circuits are based on an LM6072 operational that can be switched to A class setting two insider dip-switches. This halves the 100 hours allowed by the sole 9-V battery on board. A red led that can be turned off through another dip-switch in order to further improve battery duration indicates the unit has been switched on; a potentiometer manages the volume while a lever switch controls the insertion of a passive spatial matrix circuit. This amplifier is also available as a kit; assembly should be easy, but the difference with a “factory”-built unit is of 20 Euro only – that I’m not sure are worth saving. The unit comes with a very short, 3.5mm-3.5 mm Oehlbach-marked jack cable, that seems of a very good quality. I haven’t made double tests with other cables: I do have a life even though it doesn’t appear. An output impedance adapter (a 3.5 male/female plug with some resistors inside it) is also included: rising the impedance to 120 Ohm could deliver better results with some models of headphones.

At a first glance the phones look like ordinary earphones, but nothing is more far from the truth. First of all these are intra-aural (ear canal) gears: that means, they must be inserted into your ear like an anti-noise earplug. The headphone set is made of a couple of plastic capsules hosting a speaker that is interfaced to the exterior environment trough a replaceable filter. The package includes a tool to change it, along with four spare filters – and is ended with a kind of stalk, on which the actual “plugs” are inserted, and a cable with two plugs on the headphone end and a 3,5 mm jack on the other end. The Etymotics come with two sets of plugs: one is a three-concentric-dome shaped, white, soft-rubber one; the other is a black anti-noise-like foam one, with a small hole in its center and a small reinforcing plastic pipe. The manufacturer suggests to try both sets and to choose the one that best fits our ears; three couples of the former and four of the latter are included in the package along with a 3.5 mm - 6.5 mm jack adapter. Two other sizes of the foam plugs are available, and some independent manufacturers sell custom-ear made cushions for these earphones. The package is solid, with no purposeless luxuries but eye-catching. The outlook is a pro one, and after all that’s its real background. ER-4 is also available in two other versions, differing from the one under test here in the frequency response emphasis and in the purpose they’re intended for. In fact, the ER-4Bs for the monitoring of binaural recordings (too bright for normal recordings according to the manufacturer), and the ER-4Ps for portable usage with no phones amp, easier to drive than ER-4Ss and stronger in the low frequencies. It’s worth observing that, as far as I know, the only differences among different models lay in the cable, that includes one resistor per channel working like a sort of crossover network. It is possible to buy - from the manufacturer or from some accessories stores – a set of dedicated cables that allow changing from one configuration to the other. The great advantage of the Etymotics (and of the other, few, intra-aural earphones in the market) is the attenuation of the environmental noise that can reach 23 dB at its best. This allows not rising the volume too much in order to get a satisfying detail level, with all the advantage for your ears’ health. Well, someone among you will be asking me whether the system configured in this way is worthy its cost (the figure becomes considerable, with a street price of around 650 Euro); if you’re looking for a short answer, well if you’re in my condition it is.

Especially if you look at it as a source of satisfaction and as a way to recover a part of your time that otherwise would go completely wasted. Nevertheless, I have a list of observations and small criticisms – small in the context of a portable system. I wish to get rid of a couple of them at user’s level. First, it would have been far better if Panasonic had provided the remote control with a true “pause” button, not just a stop/play one that makes the CD skip back to the beginning of the last track. Second, the cable of the Etymotics should have been less sensitive to external atmospherics, since you can hear not only any small bump on the cable itself, but also the wind whirling – and that’s a bit annoying in a city like Genoa. On the other hand, we have to keep into consideration that the ER-4Ss are not specifically intended for portable usage, I’ve heard that the cable of the ER-4Ps would be softer and a bit less sensitive to atmospherics, but I was looking for the most neutral set so… I keep my interference. One more doubt still to be cleared: I don’t know whether this gear can play homemade CDs. The only one I tried (I’ve got just three of them, since I’m a sort of original software extremist) has not been read, but the manufacturer declares that the machine can do it and I’ve found no complaints about this over the Net. This does not matter to me, but if it’s important to you you’d better bring a couple of homemade CDs when you go to the shop to buy it. After some trials, I went for the Class A polarization for my Porta Corda since it seems to be sweeter and to deliver a high range that is more fluid and less grainy. On the other hand, I didn’t care for the ambience corrector that operates in a discreet but a bit artificial way. With reference to the plugs of the Etymotics, I made up my mind for the foam ones. I had seen that the rubbers ones are the best at smoothing the atmospherics and sealing from external noise. But, they achieved this result at the cost of such a tight insertion into my ears that they became hurting – I had to quit using my beloved intra aural earphones for a week, for a soaring ear canal. All this said, sound quality is really satisfying, with a natural “x-rays” reproduction attitude by the earphones that is softened by the amp, a very good detail reproduction, acceptable dynamics, even a sort of soundstage reproduction (very sideward) even in the depth dimension.

The earphones deliver light but powerful bass, very fast, rich in harmonics; the performance in this range is very dependent on the coupling between one’s ear canal and the chosen plug. All the rest is, in my opinion, at reference level. I tried to compare the phone amp with the phone output of my Marantz CD57 Mk2 (the only phones out connection I happen to have at home) and the portable with the same Marantz. The latter had a street price slightly higher than the former at the moment it went out of market. With regard to the amp stage, the outcome is by far in favor of the Meier. At first the Marantz seems to have some start over the Meier for what concerns dynamics, but after longer listening sessions it comes out that what looks like dynamics is, actually, a stiffness in transients playback. The Meier melts such stiffness down in a more realistic and musical way. The Meier is just a bit noisier, and that’s all. The above sensations are based upon the usage of the Porta Corda with its battery mains. I haven’t yet said that, with a little tune-up the unit is already set up for, it is possible to plug it to the electric line with a higher voltage than the one of the battery, with superior performances according to the manufacturer. For what it concerns the comparison between the Marantz and the portable CD Player, the story is a bit different. Even if set up for its top performances (alkaline battery mains, external phones amp) the Panasonic compared to the Marantz seems to be anemic, compressed, rhythmically asleep, incapable of reproducing a completely correct timbre, floppy. In a word, a half-disaster – but if one puts its results in the proper contest, it is a fully enjoyable device that is perfectly coherent with its purpose; a noticeable feature is that its dynamic compression makes it seem very detailed. I think that this is a byproduct of the improper flattening of the gap among louder and lower signals; anyway the outcome is not completely annoying.

Two more observations: First, I never felt the need for the 48-second anti-skip buffer memory; second, the phones output of the Panasonic can by no means drive the Etymotics, you can hear almost nothing even at its maximum playback level. By the way – batteries last really long, I never measured this with a watch but surely it was long enough to allow me not to worry about the consumption of the two units. Have I got the expected result? Yes, I don’t feel guilty anymore in buying CDs and the “to be listened to” stack is by now almost zeroed. The quality of my commuting trips has hugely bettered; and now I have a good excuse to avoid small talks in the train (yes I’m not the social kind). Would I recommend this system despite its price? I’d say yes, for what it concerns the phones and the amp; the CD Player may be replaced with some other provided with a line output connector and with an utility to deselect the info-loss, anti-skip circuit. All these considerations are made always hoping that sooner or later an audiophile portable CD Player comes out, maybe a high-resolution one… let’s keep on dreaming. Another way is that of a portable phones amp with a built-in D/A converter – it seems that somebody is working on it – to be connected to the digital output: will this be the final settlement?