Yamaha CD-S300 CD/USB Player
Australian Hi-Fi 27
lowest possible noise interference and thus highest
sound quality of the analogue audio output.’ You
can also switch in and out of the Pure Direct
mode using the obvious button on the front
panel. (When switched off, the display will
come on briefly every time you press a control
button so you can verify the command has
been acted on.)
What should also be obvious on the front
panel is the USB port, into which you can
plug a USB stick containing WMA or MP3
files, or a compatible portable player. The
CD-S300 does not support lossless WMA, and
only bitrates up to 320bps (including variable)
as well as sampling frequencies up to 48kHz.
Alongside the USB port is a switch that Yama-
ha cautions ‘should be pressed whenever you
insert or remove a USB device’ but does not state
what might happen if you don’t. Nothing
much at all happened when I delib-
erately ignored this warning, but
I suppose you might potentially
corrupt data on the USB device.
The Yamaha CD-S300 does
not appear to have any type of
standby power mode—either
manual (usually invoked via a
button on the remote control),
or automatic (usually invoked
after a set period of disc inactiv-
ity). This means that in order to
save power (and, in most cases,
extend the life of the compo-
nent) you will have to manually
switch the CD-S300 off at the
end of each listening session.
IN USE AND LISTENING
SESSIONS
Operationally, I could not fault
the Yamaha CD-S300. Disc load-
ing and unloading is smooth,
quiet and relatively quick, and
all the playback features worked
exactly as I’d expect, with quick
responses to button-pushes and
smooth cycling through tracks,
no matter whether I was just
skipping through tracks, or using
one of the programmed modes.
I did think that the front panel
read-out was a touch on the
small side—especially consider-
ing my Nana’s failing eyesight—
but she said she could read it just
fine, so probably an over-reaction on
my part. She did say that the printing on
the remote control was a little too small for
her to see easily, but that since she thought
she’d only be using the Play, Pause and Stop
controls—and she could see the icons on these
buttons just fine—she wasn’t concerned.
Sonically, I couldn’t fault the Yamaha CD-
S300 either, no matter what music I played
using it. Bass was tight, tuneful, tonally
accurate and extended. The midrange sound
was equally good—smooth, well-balanced
and articulate and the clarity with voice—in
any vocal range, from bass to soprano—was
excellent.
Whenever you listen to a singer who has
a huge range, such as Mariah Carey, you will
particularly appreciate the superb uniformity
of the Yamaha CD-S300’s delivery over that
range, and the complete absence of distor-
tion. Listening to Cry, from Carey’s album ‘I
Am Mariah’ the sound of her voice over the
pianos is exceptionally well-rendered by the
Yamaha CD-S300, but it’s the sound of her
voice on her cover of George Michael’s One
More Try that’s by far and away the standout
as she tests the limits of her range
and her ability to deliver differ-
ent vocal textures. And by way
of comparison, you have those
backing vocals...
One of my favourite discs for
evaluating the high-frequency
sound of any hi-fi component,
and here used to evaluate that
of the Yamaha CD-S300, is Rod-
rigo’s ‘Concierto de Aranjuez’,
which has the added bonus that
no matter how many times I
hear it, I never seem to tire of
it... although I do swap between
the various different versions I
own, most often between Pepe
Romero (on Philips, with Nev-
ille Marriner and the Academy
of St Martin in the Fields) and
Paco de Lucía with Edmon
Colomer and Orquesta de
Cadaques (also on Philips). On
both recordings the orchestral
landscapes are rich and lush, the
all-essential percussion sounds
are beautifully accentuated
and the sound of the guitar is
captured with exceptional real-
ism. No matter which version I
played, the Yamaha CD-S300’s
delivery was excellent, and was
capable of revealing the emo-
tion of the music, so you can
hear the different ‘voices’ of the
two guitarists, even though they’re
playing the same piece.
Channel balance and separation were
audibly perfect, so far as I was concerned,
because stereo imaging was always spot-on,
and when an instrument was playing solo
in one channel, there wasn’t a hint of that
instrument’s sound in the other.As some point in my listening sessions, it
occurred to me that some audiophiles might
be interested in using the Yamaha CD-S300 as
a transport, by connecting its coaxial digital
output to a DAC. Not a bad idea either, as
the CD-S300 has more disc replay modes
than you’ll find on most dedicated disc
transports—particularly one of my favourites,
that A–B repeat mode—so I connected my
own much more modern (and much more
expensive) DAC to the digital output of the
CD-S300 to compare the sound of the two
DACs. You won’t be surprised to hear that I
preferred the sound through my own DAC,
but you may be surprised to hear how little
difference there was between the two, despite
the Yamaha’s use of an older Burr-Brown
converter. The takeaway here is that if you’re
looking for a transport for your DAC, check
out Yamaha’s CD-S300!CONCLUSION
Its performance as a disc transport aside, I
can report that I was entirely happy with the
Yamaha CD-S300’s performance as a CD play-
er. It sounds great, it’s got pretty-much every
disc playback mode you could ever want, it’s
well-built, it comes with a generous warranty
and yet, despite all these desirable attributes,
it’s one of the lowest-pricedCDplayers avail-
able. On yer Nan! Mannie OlsenCONTACTDETAILS
Brand: Yamaha
Model: CD-S300
RRP: $549
Warranty: Two Years
Distributor: Yamaha Music Australia Pty Ltd
Address: Level 1, 80 Market Street
South Melbourne VIC 3205
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W: au.yamaha.com̴ USB input
̴ CD Text
̴ Warranty̴ Headphone output
̴ Digital input
̴ Standby modeReaders interested in a full technical appraisal of
the performance of the Yamaha CD-S300 CD Player
should continue on and read the LABORATORY
REPORT published on the following pages. Readers
should note that the results mentioned in the report,
tabulated in performance charts and/or displayed us-
ing graphs and/or photographs should be construed
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