Eclipse CD5442

This month's review subject, the high-power CD5442 CD receiver from Eclipse, continues the company's tradition of producing high-quality source units. It's obvious much care was taken in the design and execution of this receiver, from the well-designed faceplate with its large, easy-to-read display that is split between a set of segmented characters on top and a set of dot-matrix characters below, to the large segmented circle that indicates the setting level of whatever control is being adjusted.

On either side of the display are circular controls for adjustments. On the left is the NOB (No Ordinary Button) volume control, backlit with cool blue light and outfitted with raised splines, making it easy to find and adjust. On the right is the source button, which has its very own, cool little LCD display. Each of these controls has a sliding ring surrounding it for track/band selection.

I found navigation of the controls to be very easy and intuitive, although it was difficult at first to adjust the track selection ring that surrounds the volume knob without accidentally changing the volume. I really love the huge source button; it's very easy to find, and having the source display inside the button itself is a great idea.

You can adjust the angle of the faceplate for best viewing by holding the "Open" button until the desired position is reached. The deck remembers the angle setting after power-down. There is a three-level dimming adjustment for the display, which can be set to show only the top half; or you can shut off the display entirely. The bottom half of it can show either a spectrum analyzer or a digital clock. There's a novel "Memo" feature that lets you save up to five messages, which can be displayed when the unit is not turned on (so you can write notes to yourself). As with all Eclipse head units, security is handled using a "key CD" rather than a removable faceplate.

The CD mechanism has good shock resistance and a memory buffer-it's almost impossible to experience skipping. It will play standard CD, CD-R and CD-RW discs. Transport controls include pause, scan, repeat, random, and fast-forward and rewind (with audible preview). These controls work with a CD changer, as well, and you can select discs directly with the band buttons. Up to 100 user-programmable CD titles can be stored.

The excellent "StarTuner V" AM/FM tuner includes 18 FM and six AM presets stored in four bands by default. A unique feature allows you to change the number of presets available by trading them for the memory normally used by the programmable CD titles. When set to the maximum, you get eight FM bands and three AM bands for a total of 66 station presets! The ASM (Auto Station Memory) function scans for the six strongest stations and memorizes them into the current band. Also included is a preset scan function to play your presets in the current band for 5 seconds each. You can program titles for each station and also have a "Band Category" title for each band, which allows you to group your stations by genre.

Audio adjustments include volume-dependent "Loudness" and a three-band tone control with 12dB of gain centered at frequencies of 60Hz, 650Hz and 12kHz. Tone adjustments are memorized separately for each source. Add-on components can give you up to 30 bands of equalization, as well as time-domain adjustment (delay) and room ambience (reverb). The non-fading output has a gain adjustment independent of the main volume. You can switch on internal filters on the Front/Rear outputs and the non-fading output to avoid the need for an external crossover.