Tag: Cyrus

Cyrus Lyric CD receiver – playing a CD

Normally I would have a product for a few weeks to be able to test-drive it, but I had a very short opportunity to try out a Cyrus Lyric network-enabled CD receiver at Carlton Audio Visual. The demo unit was intended to be shifted to this hi-fi dealer’s stand at the HIA Home Show. I have given space to this product as another example of its class since it was premiered at the Melbourne Audio & AV Show 2013 at Intercontinental Melbourne The Rialto .

Carlton Audio Visual is one of a few remaining specialist hi-fi and home-AV dealers existing in Melbourne and who maintain a “bricks-and-mortar” storefront where you can actually try out the equipment you want to purchase or specify.

The functionality I was able to try out with this unit was the CD-playback functionality and the ability to “pair up” and play music from my smartphone and the unit was connected to a pair of Monitor Audio floor-standing speakers which demonstrated how flexible this class of network-enabled CD receiver was. I played the Big Break Records CD-remaster of Delegation’s “Eau De Vie” through this system and found that it came across with that same “punch” that was important for popular music, especially funk, soul and similar music.

The many functions that the Cyrus Lyric has

As well, I had done some other research and found that the Lyric does well for connectivity with 2 optical and 2 coaxial digital (PCM) inputs for equipment like a TV or set-top box with digital output, or a MiniDisc deck. It can also work as a “virtual sound card” for your laptop computer using a USB Type-B connector, but you also have a line-level analog input and an analog output that can be configured to be a line-level output for a recording device or amplifier, or a pre-level output for a power amplifier or active speakers like the Bang & Olufsen Beolab or Bose Powered Acoustimass speakers.

There is even the ability to have a Cyrus Lyric set up for “2.1” operation with an active subwoofer and while its own amplifier drives a set of speakers that don’t rate well for bass like very small bookshelf speakers or smaller “cube-style” speakers. This means that you can adjust bass volume and cutoff frequency for this setup at the CD receiver’s control panel.

There are some useability improvements that could be provided here. For example, when the Lyric is actually in operation but you want the system not to light up fully, it could “light up” the volume control “buttons” and a “menu/source button” all the time so one can know where to go if you needed to adjust the volume quickly such as to turn the music down when you want to speak with someone or “wind up the wick” for a favourite song.  It is symptomatic of a trend in designing consumer and small-business electronics where you have a dark-coloured control or display panel which lights up items on an “as-required” basis as has been done with pinball machines.

From my experience with the Cyrus Lyric, I do see some good things coming of it being Cyrus Audio’s example for a high-quality network-connected CD receiver expected to last a very long time. I would recommend someone to purchase the Lyric 05 low-powered model along with a pair of smaller bookshelf speakers or for that small apartment if they had their eye on this model. This may also apply with people teaming one of these units with a pair of older speakers that were in good condition. The Lyric 09 would come in to its own with newer speakers that could handle its greater power output.

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Cyrus Lyric Launches Down Under | Australian Hi-Fi

My Comments

Cyrus’s latest CD receiver

Previously I had reviewed the Rotel RCX-1000 as a network-capable CD receiver capable of high-quality sound from CDs, FM radio, DAB+ digital radio, Internet radio along with access to content held on one or more DLNA media servers. This, along with the Naim Uniti and a few others, was the kind of CD receiver you could pair off with a set of high-quality speakers of your choice, be a pair of new small bookshelf types that are on sale at the hi-fi store or that pair of good bookshelf or furniture-piece speakers that you had dusted off after finding them in your Dad’s garage.

This follows on from the music centres and casseivers of the 1970s and early 80s along with the steady run of high-grade integrated audio systems that Bang & Olufsen turned out i.e. the Beocenter 7000 series LP/cassette systems, the Beocenter 9000 series CD/cassette systems along with the Beosound 9000 6-CD system. This was also augmented with the Proton AI-3000 CD/cassette music system which came on the scene in 1988 and the arrival of the Bose Lifestyle music systems in 1990 and followed on with the Onkyo FR-435 CD/MiniDisc music system of the late 1990s.

Now Cyrus have launched the Lyric “full-width” CD-receiver range to the Australian market. This system which was premiered at the Australian Audio And AV Show which was held at the Intercontinental Melbourne The Rialto hotel, is one that follows from this lineage of integrated audio equipment that is about top-quality sound. Here, this unit can play CDs or tune in to FM, DAB+ or Internet radio broadcasts or stream in content from your NAS or PC-based network media server. It also uses Bluetooth with aptX to stream through content held on your smartphone or effectively work as your laptop’s sound-card. Here, I had seen the advance-preview sample in full-flight playing content from a smartphone via Bluetooth and driving a pair of newer “furniture piece” speakers that were being demoed at the show.

Even the way the product was styled eschewed various conventions like the classic “box with knobs and buttons” approach. Rather this used a touch-panel with a colour LCD screen for local control across the top half of the front panel along with a neatly-disguised CD-loading slot. This is similar to how the Bang & Olufsen Beocenter 9000 series was styled with a dynamically-lit-up touch panel below a large aluminium panel that had the CD and cassette bays hidden under doors that slid away.

There are two variants of this music system – the Lyric 5 with a a 100-watts/channel amplifier going for $4000 and the Lyric 9 with a 200-watts/channel amplifier going for $6000. I asked the demonstrator men about how much a decent music system for a small apartment which is based around the Lyric 5 CD receiver and he could call the Lyric 5 with commensurate-standard bookshelf speakers for around $6000.

This is definitely a sign of things to come for “integrated” lifestyle audio solutions that can work with any regular speaker, yet lead the way to a neat sound system that puts up some high-quality music.