Quad Artera Play+ CD Player Aluminium Silver

The Artera Solus – a multi-tasking hi-fi system packed into a single sleek and sophisticated box, combining a CD transport, DAC, pre-amplifier, and power amplifier in a single compact chassis, with extensive connectivity options including Bluetooth connectivity.

Based on the recently upgraded and richly specified Artera Solus, the QUAD Artera Solus Play incorporates the acclaimed DTS Play-Fi® platform for high resolution wireless audio streaming. With DTS Play-Fi® Technology, music can be streamed over your wireless network in high-resolution format and can be easily expanded to an ultimate multi-room system if required. You can stream from any source on your wireless network, including smart-phones, tablets or PCs as well as a NAS Drive.

The Artera Solus Play’s Wi-Fi networking is powered by DTS Play-Fi: an app-controlled platform enabling high-quality, whole-home wireless audio, capable of streaming hi-res music up to 24-bit/192kHz and supported by a greater range of established audio brands than any other wireless platform.

Play-Fi supports a wide variety of file formats, including MP3, MP4A, AAC, FLAC, WAV and AIFF. In standard mode, which is optimised for multi-room bandwidth, audio is streamed at up to 16-bit/48kHz – akin to CD-quality. By engaging Play-Fi’s Critical Listening Mode, hi-res audio up to 24-bit/192kHz may be streamed to the Artera Solus Play over Wi-Fi or Ethernet cable, without transcoding or down-sampling.

There are other ways to stream music to the Artera Solus Play wirelessly, other than via the Play-Fi app. Spotify users can connect directly from the Spotify app thanks to Spotify Connect, and you can stream from smartphones and tablets without connecting to the local Wi-Fi network thanks to aptX Bluetooth.

For CD replay, a slot-loading mechanism buffers data from the disc before feeding it to the asynchronous DAC section. Four digital filter options enable users to tailor the sound from both CDs and external digital sources, to suit personal taste and the nature of the source material.

At its heart nestles the ES9018 Sabre32 Reference, the eminent 32-bit, eight-channel hybrid multi-bit Delta-Sigma DAC chip, expertly implemented by QUAD’s renowned electronics engineers. External sources benefit from this DAC’s exceptional quality via a range of digital inputs, handling PCM data up to 32-bit/384kHz as well as DSD64/128/256. 

For CD replay, a slot-loading mechanism buffers data from the disc before feeding it to the asynchronous DAC section. Four digital filter options enable users to tailor the sound from both CDs and external digital sources, to suit personal taste and the nature of the source material.

Cable connectivity options are plentiful. Six digital inputs – two coaxial, two optical, USB. Type B and Ethernet – cater for external digital sources (there’s also a USB Type A socket for software updates) while a pair of RCA inputs handle analogue sources.