Ho-hum … Cyrus?  Not a lot of audiophile credibility there!

Cyrus comes in for more than its share of flak on some of the online hifi forums, especially some of those that I frequent.  So I was more than a bit biased against the brand and I never would have gone out of my way to try it, to be honest.  But a swap deal was offered, so I thought I might as well give it a try – after all, Cyrus gear is easy enough to sell on.

In due course, the Cyrus CD8X arrived.  Neatly packed, well made in the famed half-size ‘shoe-box’ format.

I plumbed it in to my system … hmm, a bit bright & grainy, and tonally lightweight. Not very nice. But the reviews say it should be left on for a couple of days, so OK I’ll humour them and give it a go.

Of course, no way could I wait 48 hours – of my many fine personal characteristics, patience is not high on the list. So after 9 or 10 hours of playing silently on repeat I tried it again. Well, the bright graininess had largely disappeared, and a touch of welcome natural warmth was starting to intrude into the mids.  And, by gum, the soundstage is a bit awesome!

OK – more time needed? – so I left it playing on repeat overnight – by late morning when I got around to trying it again my jaw sank heavily to the floor. Wow! – this is one bloody fine player!
Whodathawtit? Not me, for sure.

The grainy texture is gone. The mids are now gorgeously rich and natural – “beautiful” would be the 1WR (One Word Review), I think. Bass is solid and deep, but it doesn’t “lead the sound” if you know what I mean. It was still a bit lightweight in tonality – especially if compared to some bass heavy-hitters like a Marantz SA KI Pearl CDP that had visited Jerry Mansions recently. But really quite fine nonetheless, in its way.

And to be perfectly honest, I’d not heard a 3D focussed soundstage as good as this before, and my MBLs are rather good at showing up that particular characteristic in equipment. Very nice indeedy.

Ultimately the CD8X was moved on as a) that’s what I do! And b) I felt it would better suit a system with a richer / warmer balance than mine, or musical tastes that enjoyed the lightweight but agile sound the Cyrus presented.

A nice bit of kit, I enjoyed my time with it.

Author -Jerry

Technical Specifications

Size (WxHxD): 22 x 8x 36cm
Weight: 3.5 kg
Digital outputs: coaxial electrical and Toslink optical

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