Sherwood CD-3050R CD-player
The sound of the Sherwood CD-3050R CD-player is a bit cold-aspectful, old-fashioned in a good way. At the first listening (shelf speaker system) I got the impression of frequency response sloping - less bass, more treble. Sweep-tone test didn't confirm it: unevenness of AFC didn't exceed 0.5 dB (against ±0.5 in the passport). The floor speakers had a different picture - the middle frequencies seemed to be roundly convex, but not protruding, but just more embossed. You do not need to listen to trace the bass line - it is clearly marked.
By overall sound impression Sherwood can be placed somewhere between Marantz CD-48 and Denon DCD-425 - everything is authentic and accurate enough as Denon, but more musical and still not as luscious as Marantz. The single-bit DAC with 8X oversampling is not as nice and transparent at the very top of the spectrum as, for example, the Sony CDP-XE510, but it plays easily and not aggressively and does not cause fatigue. The CD-3050R has the highest harmonic coefficient of all nine units at 0.5%. Such a catastrophic difference (almost two orders of magnitude) is not reflected in the sound on such a grand scale, even at first glance almost not at all. But if you put the same discs on two different units (Sherwood and any other from this test) and switch the preamplifier inputs, you get the impression that when you switch to Sherwood CD-3050R the orchestra is being ripped off. There are no significant problems with the rest of the sound criteria.
The editing and programming options are not impressive, except for the direct selection of tracks with two-digit numbers - just two clicks. Only 20 tracks in the program, the choice of tape length from a set of fixed values - not enough for today's times. To erase the program, for some reason you have to hold down the button for four seconds. There is no digital output. There is an adjustable headphone output. The absence of line output control, besides the inconvenience, has a positive side - an unnecessary potential source of non-linearity is excluded from the tract. I was pleased with the ability to change the brightness of the display before it is completely turned off.
