Creek Destiny CD Player

There are some signs of very clever thinking here.................Imaging is remarkably assured in both sideways and depth dimensions with the notably high end trait of maintaining the position of the instruments irrespective of overall dynamics........the end result is that anything with a danceable beat really does get the feet moving involuntarily. Hi-Fi Choice March 2006

The Destiny CD player from Creek Audio is the first indication of Creek’s intention to launch a series of higher quality products dedicated to the serious hi-fi consumer.

Following in the footsteps of the popular CD50 mk2, the new Destiny player offers superior sound quality with the same playability and durability as the CD50 mk2, but with many additional features.

The CD50mk2 has, up until now, been the best sounding CD player Creek has produced. It out-performed all of the company’s previous players in the area of playability, due to the use of customised firmware that allowed all known copy protected discs as well as interactive media to be played without hiccups. Sound quality was as good as Creek could make within its budget constraints. The Destiny is not a replacement for the CD50 mk2 but an additional model with a real ‘step-up’ in performance.

Performance has been enhanced by careful attention to design detail, specifically in the area of PCB layout. The Destiny CD player uses an improved low phase noise (5pS), temperature controlled, master clock oscillator. It uses separate, instrument grade, OPA134 op-amps in the audio output to buffer each channel and the filtering of unwanted digital artefacts is improved. The op-amps in the output are also powered separately from their own low noise regulators.

In total there are now 16 regulated low noise power supplies in the Destiny player. All rectifiers in the power supply are Shottky Barrier types for low noise, which do not require decoupling capacitors. All other power supply decoupling capacitors are audio grade low impedance 105 degree C types. Audio signal path passive components are selected for sonic purity, such as high-stability MELF type resistors and film and polypropylene type capacitors. Audio output RCA sockets are now solid metal, gold plated types with screw fixing, if required.

To maintain the isolation between digital and analogue supplies, Creek has designed a truly stunning mains power supply for the Destiny, with all components mounted on a thick double sided plated-through-hole PCB. Three separate fully encapsulated PCB mounted toroidal mains transformers are used to completely separate digital and analogue supplies. A fully shielded, multi-element, mains filter is used to prevent interference to or from the Destiny. The mains IEC plug with built-in fuse holder is mounted on the power supply PCB together with the mains switch. A voltage selector switch is accessible from inside the case for multiple country operation. All the supplies are separately connected to the mother and display boards for improved serviceability.

Creek has introduced additional re-clocking circuitry to eliminate jitter, or timing errors, from corrupting the performance of the Destiny player. It has also incorporated a Creek BUS system to carry signals to and from the player and a link to other Creek linked products. In the future the Creek bus will be able to join certain Creek linked products to proprietary multi-room controllers.

Casework for the Destiny has been increased in size over earlier Creek products, it is more substantial and will reduce vibrations that can cause harmful sonic effects to be heard. The front panel is fitted with solid metal buttons to improve the feel and feedback from the controls. Machined out of 10mm thick solid aluminium, the front panel exudes a much higher impression of quality and reliability than previous Creek CD Players.