Review Atoll Electronique SDA200 and CD200 Signature – Vive La France!

Atoll CD200 Signature

The Atoll CD200 Signature is a regular CD player with no bells and whistles with, as mentioned, the same burr-brown dac on board. Nothing special at first glance but appearances are deceiving. There is a decent class A output stage provided and the drawer comes from TEAC  and is tuned for audio only.

This drawer opens quietly and slowly and also closes in the same way. Reading CDs is smooth and noiseless. It is really a fine mechanism and very pleasant to use. Not the absolute high-end top-notch TEAC, of course and there is also no mono dac in the ‘200’, as in the 400 series but still this is a very good CD player as you will further notice. Listening to music becomes a ritual again by inserting the disc, checking the cover and discovering new elements in the credits.

At the front we see along each side of the tray three push buttons. From left to right: back, forward, open, play/pause, stop and on/off. At the back we see the connection for the power cord, the on/off button and the common connections: rca out and coax and optical out. You can also use the CD200 as a looping device, we tested and that’s not bad at all, if you were to find a better dac later. But the fine sound of the Burr-Brown dac will probably keep you busy for a while. This dac is a good reason not to choose the DR200 (drive only). Atoll also believes in this dac because they offer an optional board (350 euro) with three digital inputs (optical, coax and usb) so you can also use the dac with other devices

Control

Both devices can of course be controlled from the device itself. A second option is to use the Signature app that we wrote about in the Atoll ST200 review. This app is stable, doesn’t crash and works fine. However, it looks less fresh than some of its competitors and works rather cumbersomely by using folders. Still, there were no hiccups or other bugs during the testing period.

Last but not least, you can control the devices via the delightful remote control. Both the streamer and the CD player are controlled with the same remote and it works really well. In the middle there is a circular part that allows you to enter the menu and scroll smoothly through the streamer and CD player. This is our favorite way to navigate through these Atoll devices.