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Can Leema’s Antila overthrow the established high end CD player order? David Allcock thinks it shines as bright as the constellation with which it shares a name... If there is one unwritten rule in the audio industry, it is that no manufacturer makes great products across the board. Some companies do great source components and ‘less than great’ loudspeakers, with others it’s the other way around. As such, there are precious few brands that can produce a serious system from front to back, but – with their first source component in their Constellation series of electronics - British specialist Leema Acoustics intends to swell these narrow ranks by at least one... Big and heavy, the Antila tips the scales at 10kg in a chassis measuring 440x110x330mm. Leema believe mechanical integrity is just as important in electronics as it is in speakers, so the Antila is housed in a chassis with an 8mm brushed aluminium front panel with cast 10mm side panels, a 2mm rear panel and base plate, whilst the top plate is a 4mm thick aluminium sheet. Delving under the skin, the Antila is no less impressive. On the left hand side of the chassis is a large 250VA toroidal transformer - which would be impressive in an integrated amplifier, let alone a CD player. The transport is a Philips VAM1202 mechanism mated to an L1210 loader, a combination used in many players as it is one of a handful of dedicated CD playback mechanisms still in production for the audio industry, as many manufacturers have now resorted to using cheaper, more readily available CD-ROM and universal transport mechanisms. Happily, several manufacturers still believe that using a dedicated transport continues to yield superior sonic results. The unique aspect of the Antila’s design is its DAC stage, which uses ten Crystal Semiconductors surface-mount CS4345C stereo 24bit/192kHz chips controlled by a programmable FPGA, using software designed in house by Leema. This has the aim of dramatically reducing the distortion inherent when using a single or dual DAC configuration. To ensure the hard work done by the DAC stage is not undone in the following analogue stage, high quality Analog Devices OP275G surface mount op-amps are then used before feeding the dual outputs, with both single ended RCA and balanced XLR outputs which are driven simultaneously, allowing quick and easy comparison between the two outputs. Externally the player has a very simple layout, with the front panel featuring an open/close button to the left, the disc tray centrally mounted over the back lit LCD electro luminescent display, and a vertical array of play/pause, next, previous, fast forward, fast reverse, display and stop to the right. Finally a power on/ off button is on the far right, although this is more of a standby switch with the actual power switch on the rear panel, alongside the IEC power inlet. On the rear panel there are a pair of digital outputs, with both Toslink and S/PDIF catered for, and pairs of both balanced and RCA outputs, both on very high quality connectors. There are also a pair of 3.5mm jacks, which look like iPod headphone outlets, but these are for the unique Leema LIPS system, the remote protocol which allows Leema components to communicate and remotely control each other. A compact remote control is supplied with basic control functions for not only the player, but also the matching Tucana amplifier, allowing the entire system to be easily driven from a single remote. The next question was then which output to use, and as is common in my system the balanced output was preferred, though the single ended output was much closer in performance than I usually hear, with balanced having the edge in bass slam and dynamics. It should be noted that both outputs are at a 2.4V level, so ensure you level-match when A/B testing with other players, and unusually the XLR input does not have the usual 3dB increase in volume, again this should be considered when auditioning. SOUND QUALITY Leema products have a reputation for being revealing, but the Antila took this to new heights. This player didn’t so much put discs under a microscope as perform a dissection on the recording, yet it still managed to mate this ultra revealing quality with an inherent musicality and energy which is rare in any player, let alone one at this price point. The Antila, whilst highlighting differences in recordings, sought neither to flatter poor recordings nor spotlight flaws in lesser discs to the point where it hindered musical enjoyment. For example, the soundtrack to ‘Oceans 11’ has music from multiple sources (locations, studios and historical times), including some original recordings where the different studios and recording techniques could be easily discerned. Whilst these differences are easily noticeable on other players, the Antila draws you a large diagram to illustrate the point, showing not only the placement of the musicians on the stage, but also the location of the microphones relative to the musicians – such is the precision the player is capable of. Whilst the soundstage on ‘Boobytrapping’ could be clearly heard to extend well beyond the outer edges of the speakers, the mixing and production on Madonna’s ‘Confessions on a Dance Floor’ did not record this information, and to its credit the Antila’s presentation respected this, with a very well defined and precisely positioned soundstage, with every track constrained by the position of the loudspeakers. By contrast, The Corrs ‘In Blue’, which locates several instruments far beyond the outer boundaries of the speakers, was portrayed as such, with musicians being located outside the physical boundaries of the listening room. In the depth plane this player was also superb, perfectly happy when called upon to place instruments through the front wall and well down my garden, yet recordings with little depth information in them were reproduced equally faithfully. Bass notes were superb, with the bass line on ‘Gritty Shaker’ from ‘Oceans 11’ not only displaying excellent dexterity, but also having greater extension than I’d heard on this track before - with real weight on the double bass being felt through furniture as much as heard. Still, when speed was called for, this player had it in spades. On ’Future Lover’ from ‘Confessions on a Dance Floor’ the driving bass line was propelled along with incredible drive and power, yet the lightning-fast pace called for on this track sounded effortless through the Antila. The player’s midrange is sublime, not only offering tremendous transparency but also displaying superb balance. The human voice is always difficult to reproduce convincingly, simply because we are so used to hearing it, so when I heard the lines of script delivered by George Clooney and Brad Pitt reproduced so realistically, I knew this player was good - quite simply, they sounded as if they were in the room. Likewise, female vocals were outstanding, with Enya’s breathy vocal style played with gossamer-like delicacy. The track’s electronics were stripped away remorselessly, allowing me to concentrate on her voice. The track ‘Anywhere Is’ is very busy, yet Enya’s voice simply floated free of the musicians, allowing the listener to hear every inflection in her vocal delivery, free of any sonic aberrations through the midrange, the balance was that good. Cymbals and triangle in the high frequencies always seem particularly difficult for CD players to get right, yet the Antila renders these instruments beautifully, without exaggerating the high frequencies to give the illusion of more detail, or hardening them and losing the subtle tonality and slight metallic sheen. ‘Black & White X5’ from ‘Thomas Crown Affair OST’ is recorded in a large studio with a full orchestra present, yet opens with a single piano playing the melody in the top octave, and for the first time with the Antila I could hear the rest of the orchestra present during this solo, including very low level sounds such as sheet music rustling, whilst the top octave of the piano was outstanding, lacking the hard ringing often heard when digital components try to replay this range. CONCLUSION Given that Leema, a relatively young and small British company, have already come up with a highly capable mini-monitor in the shape of the Xen (HFW, December 2006) and a superb integrated amplifier in the Tucana (HFW, May 2007), it is a ‘big ask’ to expect their company’s first CD player to be of an equally high quality – but they’ve done it. The Antila is simply very difficult to fault - with a tremendously clean midband, extremely powerful bass and a shimmeringly smooth treble., it presses all the right ‘hi-fi’ buttons, but is more than this, thanks to the musical way it strings everything together. Indeed, to my ears it delivers one of the most balanced sonic performances I’ve heard from any player under £5,000. Then there’s the fact that it offers the kind of engineering usually found in players from Wadia and Esoteric, and does so in a package which is both easy to use and stylish enough to grace any living room. The only downside is the fact that some might find it just a little too starkly detailed for their musical tastes - shining as it does a bright light on every recording, it doesn’t flatter poor source material. Still, it’s never less than highly musical, and indeed with such high performance, it should worry every other machine in the sub £5,000 bracket – to my ears it takes a player like the Esoteric X-03SE to realistically compete. Overall then, thumbs firmly aloft for Leema, which now has a superb system range from source to speakers.
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