REDGUM VERSUS SONY

How does someone feel when they are asked to audition their locally developed and manufactured product against a respected model from a famous world-wide brand? Well, Ian Robinson of Melbourne and producer of Redgum product fame responded enthusiastically to a request I put to him at a recent (Melbourne Audio) Club meeting to compare his Redgum CD player model RGCD5 against a Sony XA7ES. So, several weeks later the scene was set for a very interesting 3 hour session at Ian's manufacturing headquarters. Fellow Club member Tony O'Callaghan came along to help in the assessment.

Comparison

After an appropriate settling-in period accustoming ourselves to the speaker set-up and room acoustics, a Telarc recording of some choral/orchestral music was played. Soon we realised that differences were going to be subtle rather than marked and the mere fact that there was no immediate marked audible difference to me was, I guess, enough to allay any apprehension Ian may have had. On second playing of the same music a subtle difference commenced to be detected - here we had the old problem of grasping for adequate words to fit the description of the difference. Well, the session continued, and repeated listening to a Gilbert & Sullivan excerpt which commenced with drum beats followed by vocals suggested the Redgum was giving tighter bass and better clarity but with a slight stridency on female vocals. Sound staging was about the same with both CD players. Further listening to selections from another half-dozen CD's more or less supported the above characteristics. However, by the end of this continuous 3 hour session Tony felt that the Redgum sound although impressive lacked naturalness and ease, and that the Sony sound was easier to listen to continuously.

Home Comparison

I was interested enough from the above results to want to listen to the Redgum in my own home system, and Ian generously agreed to this. This comparison also utilised the Sony unit and the conclusions generally agreed with those reached at Ian's premises. The stridency and lack of naturalness were much less but still present: and that would seem to imply that the Redgum CD player needed to be matched carefully to speakers - or, possibly its CD-Rom drive and associated electronics of the Redgum were too efficient in showing up the shortcomings of the current 16 bit, 44.1 khz CD format.

From a woman's point of view when my wife Fay joined us for a 15 minute assessment her conclusion was (with some difficulty) ----- in favour of the Redgum!

Conclusion

The Redgum CD player may not have some of the features on the front panel such as display of track timing and skipping (this can be done with the remote) but from an audio point of view for the Redgum to hold its own against the Sony is a compliment to Ian and his designers, particularly with the significant price difference favouring the Redgum.

Note: Further description of Redgum products can be found in the October (1999) issue of our MAN