USER MANUAL FOR 4040 CD PLAYER
OVERVIEW
COMPACT DISCS may be a 20th century legacy format, but most people still have a perfectly good collection of CDs
that may be collecting dust somewhere. Your CD music is wholly owned by you and not borrowed from the cloud.
So, why not exploit what is yours?
SIZE
The diminutive 4040 CD’s case, with its extruded aluminium front panel, matches the 4040 A integrated amplifier.
Technical advances and circuit miniaturisation over the last 40 years no longer require heavy casework and massive
power supplies to play digital music accurately from CD.
DIGITAL OUTPUTS
The 4040 CD oers three types of digital outputs for the discerning audiophile, including transformer-isolated SPDIF
(via coaxial RCA), professional balanced AES-EBU (via XLR), and optical TOSLINK.
DAC
The 4040 CD provides a useful built-in DAC for convenient stand-alone analogue audio output, via a pair of RCA
sockets. However, to ensure the highest quality audio reproduction, Creek recommends connecting the 4040 A by
SPDIF coaxial or optical digital output, to benefit from the amplifier’s excellent ES9018K2M ESS Sabre32 Reference
DAC.
POWER SUPPLY
An important feature of any high-end audio product is its power supply. The 4040 CD Player’s impressive
performance and small size is thanks to its eicient and rock-steady external DC power supply. The CREEK multi-
region 12 Volt power supply adapter provides a stable DC voltage to the 4040 CD’s circuitry, independent of mains
quality and stability. Multiple linear voltage stabilisers then power every part of its circuitry.
STANDBY
Audio signal sensing circuitry enables the 4040 CD to reduce overall power consumption by powering down non-
essential circuitry when not required to less than 0.5W.
CD QUALITY
Properly recorded and well-maintained CDs can still provide resolution equal to most streamed music. The Compact
Disc’s native 16 bit 44.1kHz format is adequate for most music replay and is not compressed. By comparison, a lot of
streamed music undergoes some form of compression to shrink its file size, with consequent losses. As a bonus, CDs
provide a positive tactile experience and provides helpful and informative artist and title notes.
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