Isn’t it a beauty?
Despite the DAT format being officially transparent, and superior to MiniDisc, this machine definitely sounds inferior to the XA50ES cd player and even the JA50ES minidisc player. This is most likely to do with the output stages and not with the format per se. But the 57ES sounds synthetic and lacks expression. Additionally, its transport is super-unreliable: I’ve sent it in for repairs three times after which it was replaced by the DTC59ES, which had the same problems. I then went on to Philips DCC 900, only to find that this was also a disaster, but I digress… Visually the 57ES remains a beautiful machine.
