YBA YC201 CD player test

Player gives very good bass, fairly detailed sound in the middle and a noticeably strong top. Most of all I liked the performance of rock compositions and dance electronica music. In our opinion, for full playback you need an external preamplifier with the possibility of tone correction of the HF range.

Features

This turntable from the French developers stands out with its many design features that distinguish it from most of the devices of its class. The big and imposing shape of the cabinet makes you feel very massive, although the device weighs very little. Black in its original tint and the square shape of the top plate further emphasise the design identity. Instead of the standard feet, the turntable is supported on a horizontal surface by ledges on the bottom flanges of the case walls.

No inscriptions or logos on the front of the player, just a brief company symbol in the form of a stylized letter Y. No labels above or on the buttons: the explanatory icons are on the turntable’s matrix display, which is directly above the buttons. The display takes up a very large part of the front panel, but its black field is barely noticeable even when the device is on. But the big light blue indication symbols are clearly visible even from a distance.

No universal remote control included, must be purchased separately. Other YBA AV components can also be controlled with the remote.

Sounding

Pop, electronic music. The stereotractor gives you a definition and enveloping bass with a full-bodied, low-frequency kick. Bass sounds soporific and mellow in places. Transmission of the rhythm section of dance songs, especially the low-frequency beat, is excellent.

Music with a minimal presence of upper range sounds fascinating, immersive. For tracks with rich treble, you get a slight, yet intrusive, ringing effect: the treble is fluffy and bubbly, especially on top of metal drums, high-pitched mid-range parts, and tightly wound wind instruments with high voices like flutes and flutes. Especially opaque is the simultaneous sound of several high instruments. Music that is rich in high-frequency electronic special effects suffers most from these features of the top’s sound. The air and space of a sound work is not always adequately conveyed, so the atmosphere in some compositions loses some of its naturalness.

The sound is the most detailed and transparent in the middle, the bass is less detailed than in the middle, and the top is even less detailed. The aftershocks throughout the range are not very long. At the same time the dryness of the hissed consonants in the female vocals is very noticeable. Male vocals come through more openly and naturally.

Jazz

. The quality of the instruments is the best in the midrange, but in the bass and especially in the treble, you can notice some mistakes in the sound. The brass on the midrange winds sounds bright and sunny. The contrabass is reproduced most clearly in the lower half, but when you go down into the upper bass, its sound becomes noticeably less relief and even a little boomy in places. The piano’s smoothed sound above the upper midrange is not always satisfying either, and its highest notes sound with unreal brightness. The xylophone sounds very good in the middle, but over the top it has a slightly less natural ring to it. Metal drums sound satisfactory, but they often have too much “sand” in their sound.

The details are minimal again in the top such an instrument, often used in jazz compositions, as a broom, sounds like a uniform hiss without any modulations and details.

Classics

. Music played by a large musical ensemble does not sound very polyphonic, many familiar passages sound a bit simplistic. Violin parts have a monolithic sound more often than they are divided into separate voices. The trills of the soloing violas and violins are not maximally detailed either.

The sound is well-balanced: both the powerful bass of the big brass instruments and the midrange are fully represented in all pieces of music. Bass sounds wide and full, but it, as well as the rest of the sound, a little bit lacks detail. The tops almost always sound short, the percussive metal tones are very rarely well defined.

What I definitely liked was the right arrangement of the symphony orchestra instruments and adequate proportions of the music scene drawn by the player.

Rock

. The bass, which the stereo unit produces, is just what you need for rock. They sound alive and powerful

And very energetic, the unit manages to pump out a tangible low frequency wave in the room. The sound is audible in the mid-bass range, closer to the upper bass the sound becomes more refined and expressive.

A slight, but occasional percussion of sound, in our opinion, only adds more brutality to the sound. The bass beats are quite tight, although the very fast bass drum beats don’t have much definition.

As in other genres, not the best sounding high-frequency range added its own fly in the ointment. And, perhaps, the biggest spoon, because sometimes the sound of the cymbal became so bright and loaded our ears with its effervescence, that nothing left to do, how to muffle the sound volume, simultaneously reducing considerably the bass expression, what we didn’t want to do, taking into account the music genre.

Rock compositions sounded not particularly detailed even in the most detailed range – the middle. Unfortunately, quite a lot of fine modulations of vocals, fine details of guitar playing are lost when passing through the stereo channel of this player.

Price

Average price for New York is about 44 000 Dollars.