Soulution540usedSoulution 540- CD/SACD Player + DAC + USB DAC + Transport - Beautiful Customer Trade-In!!!****SOLD AS OF 7/27/2020**** For sale is an excellent customer trade-in Soulution 540 CD/SACD Player + USB DAC + DAC + Transport. Moreover, the unit adds even more flexibility with fixed OR vari...8800.00

Soulution 540- CD/SACD Player + DAC + USB DAC + Transport - Beautiful Customer Trade-In!!!

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Ships fromWayne, IL, 60184
Ships toUnited States
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Shipping carrierFedEx
Shipping cost$150.00
Original accessoriesRemote Control, Manual
AverageResearch Pricing

****SOLD AS OF 7/27/2020****
For sale is an excellent customer trade-in Soulution 540 CD/SACD Player + USB DAC + DAC + Transport.  Moreover, the unit adds even more flexibility with fixed OR variable outputs to drive a suitable amplifier directly.  The unit in very good condition (close to a 9 less some small marks towards the back of the chassis) and comes with an owner's manual, remote, and power cord.  The factory packaging has been discarded so the unit will be professionally packaged and insured for safe shipment and arrival to the new owner.

INTEREST FREE FINANCE OPPORTUNITY: Next Level HiFi Is Now Offering 12 Months Interest Free Financing, To Approved Credit, On This Listing!!! 

Here is an in-depth and excellent review of this fantastic unit:

This review first appeared in the June 2011 issue of hi-end hifi magazine High Fidelity of Poland. You can also read thisreview of the Soulution 540 in its original Polish version. We publish its English translation in a mutual syndication arrangement with publisher Wojciech Pacula. As is customary for our own reviews, the writer's signature at review's end shows an e-mail address should you have questions or wish to send feedback. All images contained in this review are the property of High Fidelity or Soulution. - Ed

Reviewer: Wojciech Pacuła
CD player
: Ancient Audio Lektor Air 
Phono preamplifier: RCM Audio Sensor Prelude IC 
Cartridges: Air Tight Supreme, Miyajima Laboratory Waza
Preamplifier: Ayon Audio Polaris III with Regenerator power supply version II 
Power amplifier: Tenor Audio 175S, Soulution 710 
Integrated amplifier/headphone amplifier: Leben CS300 XS Custom version 
Loudspeakers: Harpia Acoustics Dobermann 
Headphones: Sennheiser HD800, AKG K701, Ultrasone PROLine 2500, Beyerdynamic DT-990 Pro
Interconnects: CD-preamp Acrolink Mexcel 7N-DA6300, preamp-power amp Wireworld Platinum Eclipse 
Speaker cable: Tara Labs Omega Onyx
Power cables: Acrolink Mexcel 7N-PC9300 
Power conditioning: Gigawatt PF-2 
Audio stand: Base 
Resonance control: Finite Elemente Ceraball under the CD player, Pro Audio Bono platform under CD player 
Review component retail in Poland: 76.000zł


The 5 Series is Swiss Soulution’s new entry level. That’s relative of course. This is very high-end stuff. The 7 Series is simply more expensive still. I well remember my first encounter with Soulution. Those were the 700 monos and two-box 730/721 preamplifier during a Munich High End show. They were huge, with an industrial design quite unusual for hifi and utterly distinctive from anything else I saw during that event. 


A year ago I already knew a lot more about the brand and awarded a Soulution/Magico M5 system Best Sound of High End 2010. During that show Soulution’s engineer Christoph Schurmann told me about the forthcoming 5 Series components and showed me a mockup of the 540 player which they’d been working on for a few years. It took so long because this range isn’t based on the 7 Series but rather introduces an entirely new circuit approach.


The Model 540 is a SACD player with digital volume control and digital inputs including USB. It is a big solid component with an ultra-modern appearance. A rotary controller similar to what Sony developed for their MiniDisc players operates the drive. I used such machines whilst working in theatre for their great editing features. Sony was almost the only company to apply such a control also to CD players which I frankly thought was a brilliant idea.


Soulution’s adoption of Esoteric’s VRDS Neo drive allows direct conversion of DSD to PCM for digital processing. Whilst the Japanese give their user a choice of DSD or PCM processing, the Swiss have fixed their machine for the latter. This warrants a brief detour into signal conversion. I’m of the opinion that any conversion whatsoever incurs some audible loss of signal quality. I believe that an analog-recorded signal should be played back by an analogue device, PCM decoded as PCM and DSD as DSD. A signal should be played back in the same format it was recorded. Whenever I learn that a machine converts formats I detect a warning. So too the 540 Soulution triggered my personal alarm.


That said I must add that ‘pure’ SACD players no longer exist. There are no more one-bit converters, only multi-bit variants. In such devices the signal is first processed separately for PCM and DSD but before D/A conversion DSD is converted into multi-bit PCM. From a technical perspective this is reasonable. A PCM signal has far less ultrasonic noise than DSD which will be exactly the rationale for Soulution to not process DSD directly.


The 540 allows for fixed or variable operation. Digital volume control works with 32-bit precision like Wadia. During the review I rarely used this feature as I preferred a preamplifier. One more relevant bit of intel is that for the past six months I’ve used Soulution’s 710 amplifier in my personal system. In many regards it’s been the best amp I’ve ever listened to.


Sound: Selection of recordings used during the review - Tron Legacy, OST, Daft Punk, Special Edition, Walt Disney Records, 9472892, 2 x CD; Bill Evans, Everybody Digs Bill Evans, Riverside/JVC, JVCXR-0020-2, XRCD; Carol Sloane, Hush-A-Bye, Sinatra Society of Japan/Muzak, XQAM-1031, CD; Grabek, 8, Polskie Radio, PRCD 1372, CD; Laurie Anderson, Homeland, Nonesuch Records, 524055-2, CD+DVD; Leszek Możdżer, Komeda, ACT Music + Vision, ACT 9516-2, CD; Sonny Rollins, East Broadway Run Down, Impulse!, IMP 11612, CD; Stan Kenton & June Christy, Duet, Capitol/Toshiba-EMI, TOCJ-9321, CD. Super Audio CD - Stereo Sound Reference Record. Jazz & Vocal, Stereo Sound, SSRR4, SACD/CD; Stereo Sound Reference Record. Popular Selection, Stereo Sound, SSRR5, SACD/CD; Art Pepper, “…the way it was!”, Contemporary Records/Mobile Fidelity, UDSACD 2034, SACD/CD; Dead Can Dance, Into The Labyrinth, 4AD Warner Music Japan, WPCB-10076, SACD/CD; Dead Can Dance, Spirit chaser, 4AD/Warner Music Japan, WPCB-10078, SACD/CD; Kazumi Watanabe, Jazz Impression, Eve Records, EWSA 0163, SACD/CD; Michael Schlierf, Clouds And Silver Linings, Stockfisch, SFR 357.4070.2, SACD/CD; Peter Gabriel, So, RealWorld/Virgin, SAPGCD 5, SACD/CD; Sonny Rollins, Plus 4, Prestige/Mobile Fidelity, UDSACD 2006, SACD/CD. 


Music files
 - Brian Eno, Craft On A Milk Sea, Warp Records, WARPCDD207, 2 x 180 g LP + 2 x CD + 24/44,1 WAV; Charlie Haden & Antonio Forcione, Heartplay, Naim Label, 24/96 FLAC; Kankawa, Organist, T-TOC Records, UMVD-0001-0004, Ultimate Master Vinyl, 4 x 45 rpm 180 g LP + CD-RIIα + 24/192 WAV; Mikołaj Bugajak, Strange Sounds and Inconceivable Deeds, Nowe Nagrania 001, 45 rpm LP+CD+WAV 24/44,1; Stan Getz & Joao Gilberto, Getz/Gilberto, Verve, 24/96 FLAC. LPs - Alan Taylor, In The Groove, Stockfisch, SFR 357.8007.1, DMM Series, 180g LP; Clifford Brown and Max Roach, Study In Brown, EmArcy/Universal Music Japan, UCJU-9072, 200g LP; Dead Can Dance, Into The Labyrinth, 4AD/Mobile Fidelity, 140g LP; Dead Can Dance, Spirit chaser, 4AD/Mobile Fidelity, 140g LP; Kraftwerk, Tour The France, EMI, 591 708 1, 2 x 180g LP; Kraftwerk, Autobahn, Capital Records/KlingKlang/Mute Records, STUMM 303, 180g LP (2009).


I've been listening to digital sources for years. My reference in this regard have always been CD players from Jarek Waszczyszyn of Polish audio firm Ancient Audio. First was the Lektor Prime, now it is the Lektor Air. From time to time I also had access to the Lektor Grand SE as an ultimate reference. Over this same period I listened to many other players, some of them insanely expensive. I was always able to point out some advantages but also many downsides. In most cases those machines were still struggling to reach the level of the Polish references. Some did seem to enjoy slight advantages like the Reimyo CDT-777 with DAP-999EX, the Jadis JD1 MkII and JS1 MkIII and more recently the Loit Passeri. These players seemed to offer superior sound to the Prime/Air rather than the Grand SE. Even so I didn't feel compelled to change (and a small manufacturer like Ancient Audio has one great advantage of being able to accommodate custom requests). With the Soulution now it was different. It became clear to me what should be changed in my Air's sound. I'm not sure whether it’s possible but that’s not really my problem, is it?

Compact discs: The Swiss player delivered sound on a grander scale than my Air (that hurt!). My Polish player seemed quite lean by comparison even though objectively it's definitely not. So far almost all other players seemed lean compared to it. Suddenly it was the smaller leaner one and although more precise perhaps not as natural on instruments and voices. I won’t state that the Soulution trounced it wholesale—not all aspects were superior—but I really started to wonder when comparing the sound with an analogue system of Kuzma table/Miyajima Shilabe cartridge quality. This system delivered a very similar presentation even though it was analogue. The Swiss presentation was large and massive even but simultaneously quite agile.


Quite uncommon for digital systems, the Soulution player had a slight emphasis on the lower midrange and upper bass but remained very energetic on transients and decays. Usually such an emphasis would affect those aspects and also the general rhythm or beat fidelity. Here the emphasis doesn’t sound artificial however but rather makes the result  more natural and closer to live music – like a good analogue system in fact.


This combination of timing and chewy density will allow vinyl fans to appreciate the 540 whilst supporters of digital excelling analogue will have in the Swiss their poster boy. In either case it’s certain that this is anything but a dead digital sound. This is far beyond any possible argument just as soon as you do compare it to a very good analogue setup. Many top digital decks I’ve encountered have found some way to avoid the ‘dead’ sound – some with extreme clarity, some with natural sound, some with coherence, some with a slightly subdued treble for better imaging.


Even so, confronting those players with a good analogue rig always called out the pretenders as being nothing but ways around the problem rather than a real solution. The best like those from Ancient Audio never try to avoid the problem. Rather they wrestle with it. That's why the Grand SE and Air are so precise at drawing instrumental outlines of instruments and deliver such outstanding soundstaging (out of reach for most digital devices) which in some aspects exceeds what a very expensive analogue setup is capable of.  And the Soulution is exactly such a machine. Perhaps part of the credit should be assigned to my reference Soulution 710 amplifier but be that as it may, the 510 gave me far more musical satisfaction than any other machine I’ve reviewed in quite some time.


Hopefully this intro which referenced a lot of personal items didn’t bore you. I usually begin my reviews with analysis to insure consistency and because it’s the foundation of my test methodology. While the end result is the sum total of all those little elemens which analysis must describe, surely even the most masterful descriptions alone won’t draw the proper big picture. Today we simply begin with the big picture. The Soulution belongs to that rare class of components which make the listener forget about analysis to deal with the music directly and more closely. There’s no magic involved. This is a premeditated result based on the same Physics every other manufacturer applies. With that out of the way we can now break down the sound into its constituents.


Compared directly to the Ancient and Kuzma, the 540’s treble isn’t as potent and seems a bit darker to make particular sounds less immediate or palpable. A perfect example thereof is Leszek Możdżer’s beautiful new recording Komeda. Możdżer uses the very dynamic and vibrant Fazioli 212 piano which emphasizes the musician’s very personal technique. Strikes in the upper register are powerful and energetic. With the Air these seem to pop out of the speakers where the ceramic tweeters of the Avalon Transcendent did a great job. The Soulution smoothed those powerful vibrant attacks over a bit to make them dynamically a bit less intense even though the presentation as a whole seemed actually bigger because the Swiss delivered the stronger lower midrange and bass.


This didn’t imply that the 540's resolution was inferior to the Air's. To be honest I couldn’t really tell. Sometimes I’d think the Air was superior, then other music would point at the 540. 


On one hand the Soulution delivered timbre a bit more crème or écru where the Air was white. On the other hand the 540 unmasked more detail on Laurie Anderson's Homeland. It was much easier to hear moments where the sound engineer left in some noise just before the singer would start. This seems to be an engineering mistake but doesn't really influence the perception of music. The noise actually makes this recording sound more natural, less sterile and mechanical (perfection is boring). The Soulution extricated this more thoroughly. And that to me was the most interesting thing about just how great the resolution of the Swiss is. Whilst the treble isn't super-detailed or bright, the most elusive elements of any recording were still presented better than over my Lektor Air.


And there there was the bass. Here the 510 is big, powerful and rich. While transients have less violence or immediacy than over the Air, the bass seems better controlled and extended. I’ve not heard anything like it before. Until now the upgraded Air with its powerful V-Cap CuTf capacitors always outclassed in this particular quality each and every other player reviewed. It made it so easy to judge this attribute as no player delivered anything close to what the Air is capable of. Until now. The Soulution's bass performance reminded me of the best analogue setups I know. 

One might think of the 540's dynamics and ability to differentiate attacks as a small backwards step when compared to the Grand SE, Air and—only with 24-bit files—the Linn Klimax DS. But it was the Soulution’s presentation that simply sounded right when I listened to electronically generated sounds on Homeland or Grabek’s 8 or the acoustic Bill Evans Trio’s Everybody Digs Bill Evans and compared those to vinyl remasters by Kraftwerk, Depeche Mode and such. It’s not that the Solution delivers pure analogue sound. But it is certainly true that the Swiss players shares its vision with some of the best analogue systems.


Super Audio CDs. The Soulution 540 obviously is a SACD player but performs the decoding of such recordings in a more unorthodox way. Most players convert DSD to PCM inside the DAC but Soulution does so sooner inside the main processor unit where the now PCM signal is treated in the same way as LPCM signal from DVD-A usually is. Unfortunately the Swiss don't share information about the post processor signal parameters. We know that the signal is 24 bits. At what sampling frequency—88.2/176.4kHz as the standard frequencies for DSD/PCM conversion—remains a mystery.


This paragraph about SACD performance will be short. I know great SACD players some of which tempted me to buy them for use alongside the Air. The 540 as a SACD player doesn't tempt me at all. Its performance with SACDs was not as good as it could have been, not as ‘analogue’ as the best. It sounded more like CD which is interesting considering how I loved the sound from plain CDs. Yet SACD sounded a bit mechanical and less natural. It didn’t matter whether the source material was analogue master tape, PCM or pure DSD. Perhaps I exaggerate just a bit but the absolutely outstanding performance of the 540 with CDs elevated my expectations to the 7th moon. I really should quit moaning. I always attempt to listen without prejudice but this time I realized very quickly that this wasn’t a sound for me. I won’t claim it was poor. The Soulution is a damn good machine. But playing SACD over it in my opinion is only a bonus and not the main raison d’être of the machine. Interestingly hi-rez files fared quite differently.


Audio files. As always I started my listening session of a D/A converter by watching a movie. This time it was the 2005 TV show Weeds. The first impression was nicely boosted bass, the second that voices became much more distinct which of course improved intelligibility. This sounded just right. I had the same general impression with every genre of music I played later, especially with high-resolution files. The additional bits allowed music to sound more relaxed while also more dynamic. The treble was better differentiated but simultaneously softer and more vibrant. Bass was very strong. When I listened to 24-bit files I understood how the 540 applies a slight emphasis to the lower range. With CDs this was a great thing as it solves the format's main problem of being too lean and dry.


Generally speaking, files played from my Dune Max had very smooth ‘analogue’ textures and a terrific midrange. Differentiation was not clearly better than from CDs or at least it wasn't clearly so from the start although tone colors clearly were superior. The soundstage was similar however. One needs to get used to this sound to fully appreciate it. I think that the performance from CDs was so extraordinary that even the additional information delivered first by SACD and now by high-resolution files did not convince my subconscious to appreciate them as actually being better. 


But I also think that audio files remain a bit of a future medium where our industry still must establish some basic performance standards to guarantee top performance. I think a lot remains to be done with the software both on the recording and playback sides. The CD market seems to be much more mature by comparison. That's why 24-bit files didn't impress me right away as CDs did. I took me far longer to appreciate them. I could also easily tell that the signal source mattered where my Dune Max was not good enough for the Soulution. 


When I plugged a USB cable into my laptop I received surprising information –  Ayon Audio CD-2S. This actually was the last device plugged in which incidentally runs the same Tenor Audio chip as Soulution. That wasn’t the first time this happened. With April Music’s Stello Ai500 player the same information displayed. At the time I used a 5m Acoustic Revive USB-1.0PL cable. Later I wanted to check a shorter cable and used Acoustic Revive’s model USB-1.0 SP with a computer on top of the player. Surprisingly a new driver installed – DigiHub 0/1 Track & S/PDIF. Perhaps the drivers are interchangeable but I have no clue why the other one installed itself. 


Generally speaking the USB input sounded very nice but was less dynamic and palpable than S/PDIF accessed by the same files player. It was a very relaxed sound, very clear and resolving, reminding me of other devices that share the same converter DNA. Here the DAC and output stage simply upgraded that sound with more bass and a smoother midrange. Although not as spectacular as S/PDIF, it was still very interesting. 

Summary. Soulution’s 510 is a fantastic CD player. I loved it. It showed me what about my own Ancient Audio Air player could be improved. The Polish player retained some advantages like delivering a better soundstage with more precise imaging. But these differences were quite small, far smaller than when I usually compare the Ancient Audio with others. Despite these advantages the 540 offered the more satisfactory sound. With high-resolution material this player worked very well but not as spectacular as with regular CDs. Players like Linn’s Klimax DS (with files) and the Accuphase DP-800/DC-801 or Luxman D-08 (with SACD) offer better performance by sounding more natural and more resolved. But remember that these are very expensive devices at the apex of what’s possible. ‘Better’ refers to slight differences. I would treat the Soulution 540 as an absolutely amazing CD player with certain bonus features that also allow it to play SACD and streaming files.


Description. The Soulution 540 is a SACD player. The Swiss consistently call it a CD/SACD player which in my opinion is redundant since an SACD player by design also plays CD. But after my audition I began to appreciate why Soulution emphasizes ‘CD’ in the nomenclature. It points directly at the machine’s core competence. Size and weight of the machine are significant. With its enclosure made of thick milled aluminum plates the 540 looks sexy and very modern. The knob in the middle of the face plate might suggest an amplifier inside but it’s simply a Sony-style controller. You use it to operate the player's main functions like play, stop, pause and skip and access particular setting in menu mode. which is quite advanced. There you can select signal source, display brightness, absolute phase, output mode (fixed or variable), set a fixed volume level and so on. Next to this master control are three push buttons. ‘Open’ also operates ‘stop’ just like on the remote. On the left is a quite large red dot-matrix display. One thing I would really appreciate is if it displayed song titles from SACD and CD text. If you stream individually tagged files, that lack of display information becomes really annoying. The same applies to input signal resolution which many machines will display. Since these items are all software managed, I really hope Soulution will add that functionality with a future update.


The slot drive with aluminium tray is placed on the right side and sourced from Esoteric. I mentioned functional limitations in regard to the display but the central knob works really well and there’s an impressive number of i/o ports with analogue XLR and RCA outputs; coaxial, AES/EBU and optical digital outputs; and coaxial, AES/EBU, optical and USB digital inputs. The former three accept 24/192, the latter 24/96. There is also a remote to slave multiple Soulution machines or interface systems like Creston. The power inlet has a mechanical power switch.


The insides are as impressive as the casing. I was truly impressed with Soulution’s build quality from the first moment I saw their gear. Everything is executed properly. Here the signal starts with the high-quality VRDS NEO from Teac. Its main body is made of some type of composite but all supporting elements including the tray are aluminum which makes the entire sled very rigid. This assembly bolts to thick aluminum bars which couple to the very  thick bottom panel. Two PCBs with controls are integrated with the drive. The key element is a DSP processor which converts DSD to PCM. The signal next encounters a large high-quality PCB mounted near the back panel. The key element here are digital filters (including upsampling) hidden in a large can emblazoned with the Edel logo and described as ‘S2 Powered by Anagram’ made by Swiss company ABC PCB. This firm has an impressive list of customers including Audio Aero Design, Audiomeca, Aurum Acoustics, darTZeel, Harman/Kardon, Hifi Winkel, Jean Maurer, Lyncee Tec, Manley Labs, Soulution, Talk Electronics and Wadax. 


This circuit is the heart of the machine so let's go into some details. The S2 platform runs the famous Q5 upsampling circuit designed by Anagram Technologies. It contains distribution algorithms to many converters and actual converters. Soulution bypasses the latter for separate PCBs for their D/A circuits and output stage. An upsampler converts the incoming signal to 24/384 in a DSP Blackfin chip. It seems the same circuit is responsible for the digital volume control and also supports DSD signal, hence Soulution converts that to PCM before it arrives here. The output connects to Burr-Brown PCM1792, one stereo chip per channel. The output stage is quite advanced and distributed over multiple PCBs. There are no capacitors in the signal path and an input LM6171 chip covers I/V  conversion. Burr Brown OPA134 amplify and buffer the signal. The output stage shows more chips with heat sinks accompanied by a complex power supply. Special achievements of Soulution designs are impressively low levels of noise and TDH. This is achieved with an innovative ultra-fast negative feedback system.


The power supply is quite intricate and situated on two PCBs. The lower one shielded by a metal plate includes an SMPS for the drive, digital section and display. A larger linear PSU on the upper PCB delivers separate current for the analogue circuit and D/A converters. This is built around a huge Noratel transformer and large Rubycon capacitors. The chokes ahead of the voltage regulators are a very rare solution for transistor circuits devices. A large Schurter filter follows the AC power inlet.


The USB transceiver is a Tenor TE7022 chip as is also used in Ayon Audio players, the Stello DA100 Signature 96/24 USB, ADL’s GT40 and Burson Audio’s DA-160. This is a USB 2.0 Full Speed 24/96 receiver. Here it works in classic adaptive mode. I would have preferred had Soulution gone all the way and applied ABC PCB’s special USB solution which supports full 24/192. The footers appear sourced from Finite Elemente. The remote control is nicely functional. In toto, this is a beautiful deck and a great performer. In my opinion a few elements could still be improved – additional display information, the USB chip and perhaps DSD signal conversion could be accomplished in the DAC. 


Technical data (according to the manufacturer):
Power consumption (standby/on): <0.5W/50W 
Output voltage (XLR/RCA): 4V RMS/2Vrms 
Peak output current: 0.2A 
Output impedance (XLR/RCA): 10Ω/10Ω 
Frequency response: DC-100kHz 
Distortion (THD): <0,002% 
Noise floor: -140dB 
Volume range: 0...-80dB
Balance range: <- 9...0...9 ->dB  opinia @ highfidelity.pl

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