Intro
Contents
There’s no getting around it: this AVM Inspiration is a true all-in-one. CD, vinyl, streaming, analog and digital inputs … even HDMI Arc. And all that in a compact, sleek box. Not many manufacturers imitate AVM. After all: integrating all that isn’t easy. So the question now is: how does this AVM Inspiration CD 2.3 sound?
The German brand AVM – Audio Video Manufactur – has not been sitting idle in recent years. For this Inspiration CS 2.3 – 5950 Euro – the new X-Stream platform has been used. This in-house developed streaming platform can handle all major services: Roon, Spotify, Qobuz, Tidal, but also UPnP. That makes this AVM very versatile.
Really everything!
But what is perhaps even more special is that this is a true all-in-one. It has not only a streamer and dac on board, but also a whole series of analog inputs, including phono MM and MC (with various termination impedances) as well as a CD player. That makes this AVM pretty unique, since the quality of all these sources should also be good.
The CD drive, for example, comes from Teac. And the built-in dac chip is the Sabre 9038 Q2M. We have already heard fine implementations of that. So that promises something.
Very compact
the cabinet that houses all the electronics is extremely compact: roughly 34 x 32 x 10cm. So it will fit in an IKEA cabinet, should that be your thing. The finish is, as we have come to expect from AVM, sleek and sturdy. But let’s be honest: for 5950 Euros, it just has to be. Especially if we look at some competitors. Those admittedly in many cases do not have a CD player, but still. A Primare i35 Prisma is also beautiful and also plays at a high level. And the NAD M33 is also a nice machine with many features. Or the NAIM Uniti Nova … you see: the playing field is tough.
Of course, to get everything into a compact cabinet, AVM has to use Class D, especially if they want to deliver 140 watts per channel into 4 Ohms. The technology comes from Pascal. The implementation is from AVM itself. If we remember correctly, Amphion once used class D amplifiers from Pascal. We thought it sounded good…
One small issue is the the speaker outputs. Those fit bananas and bare wire. Theoretically, spades should fit, but we estimate that in many cases there won’t be room for them. No drama of course, but it is somehting to keep that in mind.
Controls
A somewhat wacky choice by AVM is that the remote control is an option. This is because the entire player can be controlled via the AVM RC X app. Now that works well, but we always like a physical remote control to do the basic stuff, rather than the phone. So we would love it if AVM just provides a simple, physical remote control with this all-in-one.
