Sony CDP-R10

preliminary

Ultra-ultra-ultra rare.

Received not only a COTY Award but the Golden Sound distinction for 1993 !
Quite a few other awards, too, but as for many other superlative Sony units... nobody knows about it. Or nobody is willing to.

The CDP-R10 drive took on a very old idea : the Fixed Pickup Mechanism - introduced by Sony in... 1982 in the first commercially available CD player (CDP-5000), reintroduced here and later in 1994 with the CDP-XA7ES and CDP-X5000 and later again in the SCD-1 and SCD-777ES.

Unlike the later (smaller) FPMs, there is a diecast aluminium alloy platter on which the CD resides (upside down) ; the drive's codename is "CDM26" and it has a lens tracking range of ±50µm. The extruded aluminium rails on which it is magnetically driven are finished with 1µm ; the motor is a 3-phase BSL ; the laser-block itself is the KSS-332A.

The back holds the following outputs : 1x BNC for DAS-R10 sync, 1x BNC, 1x RCA, 1x AES, 1x optical (TOS), 1x optical (ST), and the Twin Link, the latter in upgraded "S" version.

Dedicated switches are simple on/offs for each digital output with only the Twin Link and sync BNC that cannot be switched off.
The two left switches are for the Twin Link : on/off and sync with the DAS-R10 through the BNC, AES output or no sync at all.

The front display surprisingly uses an LCD screen instead of an FL or DotMatrix - LCD displays are supposed to not radiate bad waves onto the surrounding electronics...
The last pre-production sample had a vertical opening through the lid - like a CDP-5000 :)


These penultimate R10s were launched as a commemorative items to celebrate CD's 10th Anniversary so, at least, here, this new / old / new surprise makes sense.
The production run was set at a bit more than one hundred but the highest CDP-R10 s/n spotted is the japanese 200 212 ; we can therefore assume a total/world run of less than 250.

At 2,000,000¥ with the DAS-R10, Sony made these as showpieces available on order only. The CDP and DAS-R10 thus did not put to oblivion the previous CDP-R1a and DAS-R1a and both combos remained available together for a couple of years.

Like the TA-ER1, the DAS-R10 and CDP-R10 are part of the all-time absolute best audio components ever made and we all want them.


A real CDP-R10 here, with serial #200 052.

I have an astounding amount of quality images, articles, reviews and long interviews with the developing team at Sony but none of this is translated...