Classé Audio Delta SSP-600 Surround-Sound Processor

For those of us who love premium sound, the component category that’s on fire right now is surround processors. Between the Bel Canto Design PrePro, Anthem Statement D1, Lexicon MC-4 (review in the works), Meridian Audio G68ADV, and a slew of others, the last 12 months have been a real windfall. But few products have whetted the audiophile appetite like Classé’s new Delta SSP-600 ($6500 USD). Just a glance at its curvy lines and gorgeous design -- plus the knowledge that its good looks will be matched by Classé’s reputation for topnotch sound -- were enough to get me interested.

Then I found out about the screen. I’ve reviewed other processors with display screens -- e.g., the Bel Canto and the Fosgate FAP-T1 -- and I’m a big fan of this convenient way to see what’s making its way through the processor. Such screens keep you from having to fire up your projector or big flat-screen display just to see which chapter your DVD-Audio or MP3 disc is on, and they’re a huge boon to those of us who like to dub DVDs from our TiVos. But these screens have been mere tiny, passive TV displays. The screen of Classé’s SSP-600 operates that way as well, but it’s also a touchscreen that, with just a few taps, lets you select items deep in the menu hierarchy. Oh boy!

Classé, a Canadian company, has been around for 25 years. Four years ago they were acquired by B&W and, in a nice departure from the norm, the big company has actually made the small company stronger and more exciting instead of ineffective and boring. (Note to MBA students: B&W accomplished this by keeping the original CEO and giving him more R&D and marketing money. Smart.) Classé has been on a tear ever since, releasing a series of highly regarded components, the most famous being their Delta CA-M400 monoblock power amplifier, 33 of which are now powering all of the B&W monitor loudspeakers at EMI’s Abbey Road recording studios in London.

Every component in Classé’s Delta series has the same rounded-edge design -- it makes a stack of Delta components look classy instead of boxy. All components that need controlling -- such as the surround processor and DVD and CD players -- have the same blue TFT screen to keep the look consistent. Sitting atop a stack of Delta components, the SSP-600 captures pride of place as a beautifully crafted, 45-pound work of industrial art.

It’s what’s inside that counts

Part of what makes the Delta SSP-600 so gorgeous from the front is how clean it looks. There are no hidden doors with gluts of buttons and switches. What you see on the SSP-600 is all that’s needed. From the left are buttons for standby and calling up the menus, then the LCD touchscreen (home of the menus), and the Mute button and Volume knob. That’s it.

The SSP-600 is certified for THX Ultra, which means you get all the goodies that go along with that: Timbre Matching, Re-equalization, Adaptive Decorrelation, and Music and Movie modes.

On the video side, the nice Classé people in Montreal have added transcoding to the SSP-600 -- a feature seldom seen but highly appreciated, and a blessing for those who use multiple signal distribution. This means that the SSP-600 can convert any form of input signal up or down -- from composite to S-video to component video -- and make it available at all of its outputs all of the time. The only output that loses is Zone 2, which can’t use a progressive-scan component-video input because it receives only a composite signal. Also, progressive and high-definition signals are sent straight through and not subjected to transcoding, so if you want to have your high-definition TiVo running through the SSP-600 and to your standard-def sets throughout the house, you’ll have to use up two video inputs.

Other than the stellar sound -- about which more later -- the best part of the SSP-600’s design is its masterful graphical user interface (GUI). Though slightly smaller than the screens on the Bel Canto and Fosgate, it’s capable of much more. Besides the convenience features of normal displays, the SSP-600’s LCD touchscreen mimics that of a high-end remote control. The GUI is powerful and adaptable, and the icing on the cake is it’s simple to use and it’s programmable!

Explaining the depth of what the GUI is capable of takes 17 pages in the SSP-600’s well-written owner’s manual. If you’re interested in customizing the SSP-600’s interface with your system, it’s a snap; the whole procedure took me about 20 minutes. Of course, any dealer selling you a Classé product should be willing to set it up for you, but doing it yourself gives you a chance to better understand the system’s architecture. That way, when you change something out or figure out a way to make the operation even more convenient, you can do it yourself.

Here are a few fun but uncommon things you can do with the SSP-600. Using the supplied microphone and the SSP-600’s built-in program for automatically setting speaker level, delays, and distance, you can set four different listening locations, each with unique characteristics and level. In our room, the screen is at one end and the fireplace at the other. Using the SSP-600’s speaker-position settings greatly improved the listening experience at the fireplace end, and all I had to do was push a position icon on the Classé’s LCD screen.

Another function I’d never seen before is the SSP-600’s ability to change the response of the volume control. Think of this as being similar to your computer mouse’s acceleration control. If you want, you can set the Volume control so that a fast turn makes it go very quickly from 0 to 60dB, while turning it slowly makes volume adjustments in increments of 1dB. If you don’t like that, you can set the control to move at a fixed rate at all times. I seldom listen below 50dB, so it has little importance for me. Zooming past that point was a great boon in daily use.

The final coup de grâce is the inclusion of two separate Profile buttons, which give you direct access to the touchscreen buttons you use most often. Think of it. His and hers audio settings! Domestic bliss! The SSP-600 is loaded with such user-friendly features. Give that engineer a pat on the back.

Of course, all of this would be meaningless if the SSP-600 didn’t also deliver the goods necessary for good sound. On the rear you’ll find a balanced two-channel preamp input that’s pure analog -- perfect for your Goldmund turntable. There are also 7.1 channels of single-ended inputs that bypass the digital circuitry, and the outputs are true, 7.1 balanced XLR.

There’s plenty of heavyweight digital processing onboard. The audio digital signal processor goes overkill with Motorola 32-bit processors, and the SSP-600 uses eight differential 24-bit multibit delta-sigma DACs to convert from digital to analog. The full spec sheet is on Classé’s website.

Setting it up

Setting up the Delta SSP-600 is very simple if you follow the instructions in the manual carefully and in order. This processor gives you an enormous amount of flexibility and freedom, but you have to properly tell it how to do so. Making a mistake is less likely to blow up your system than to leave you without sound on a particular input, but spending an hour on day one reading pages 1-54 of the manual will be a good investment.

Setup involves telling the SSP-600 what components you have, which of the Classé’s inputs they’re plugged into, what your favored form of surround sound is (the SSP-600 has everything), and what you’d like to call them. When everything is plugged in, you set the microphone at your listening position, point it at the ceiling, push a button, and get out of the way. In a couple of minutes, all of your settings have been adjusted to conform to the THX standard.

As I mentioned, a lot of customization can take place from this point on, none of it really impacting the sound but much of it improving the ease of use. Everyone will want something different; the SSP-600 can accommodate nearly every taste.

Performance on a par with the best

I first tried my normal video bypass test on the Delta SSP-600, running a 720p signal from Universal HD through the processor, then bypassing it. There was no discernible difference. Ditto using an Oppo OPDV971H DVD player’s S-video output and doing the bypass test. Sadly, the SSP-600 has no DVI inputs to test.

Though Classé recommends a 300-hour break-in period for the SSP-600’s audio circuits, my sample sounded great straight out of the box. I started with a few movies with big orchestral scores. The opening fanfare of Star Wars crashed through with the power it deserves, but what I really loved was the sense of depth, the overlay of a real orchestra in a real space that came through in the delicate moments. Bernard Herrmann’s masterful score for North by Northwest features braying horns and banging start-stop percussion that, through the SSP-600, made the size of the orchestral scoring stage audible.

Bear McCreary is writing, for Battlestar Galactica, some of the best TV music I’ve heard in years. At the age of 26, he shows signs of the level of genius of his mentor, the late Elmer Bernstein. Again, while the SSP-600 reproduced the booms and bangs perfectly, what impressed me more was the delicacy of the simple scoring for the sadder moments.

The film Hoop Dreams features a bass-heavy score of hip-hop and jazz that runs hot signals at both ends of the spectrum. Again, everything was pure and clean, with the mellow sound and depth of soundstage you get only when all of a processor’s internal circuits are cruising without stress.

I switched to music, starting with Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue, which I have in five editions: six-eye Columbia LP, CD, Gold CD, SACD, and DVD-Audio. It was fascinating to hear the Classé cut straight to the heart of the sound of each. The LP (played through a Rega P-25 turntable, Rega Super Elys cartridge, and Musical Fidelity XLPS phono stage into the SSP-600’s two-channel bypass) sounded richer than I was used to, allowing a further look into the multireflective, "wet" studio surfaces at Columbia Studios in 1959. The other winner was the SACD (played on a Lexicon RT-20), whose lack of rumble and surface noise let through a little more of the delicate decays.

Bottom line: The SSP-600 sounded wonderfully coherent, natural, and realistic. I loved it.

Comparison

The Classé Delta SSP-600 made my Lexicon MC-1 sound pretty tired. Where the Classé sounded open and clean, the Lexicon sounded pushed and congested. Where the SSP-600 felt jewelry-like in its operation, the MC-1 felt clunky and past its prime (which it is). It made me think about making a permanent change.

A better comparison was with the Bel Canto PrePro, which, like the SSP-600, is also a current and sweet-sounding processor with a screen and a price of $6500. Both had an effortless sound that comes only from over-engineering. The Bel Canto’s remote control is much more useful, although it requires a light and a magnifying glass. The Classé’s remote is a beautiful piece of machined aluminum you wouldn’t mind leaving out when company comes around, but it has limited use.

A tip of my hat goes to the Classé Delta SSP-600 for its gorgeous appearance and masterful GUI.

Conclusions

Given its elegant looks, faultless sound, perfect video handling, and standard-setting GUI, I give the Classé Delta SSP-600 my highest possible recommendation. Now, if it only had DVI switching and cost less . . .

But wait -- if you don’t need the 7.1-channel outputs to be balanced and can do without the two-channel balanced preamp bypass, Classé offers the otherwise identical Delta SSP-300 in a shorter box for $4500!

Decisions, decisions . . .

…Wes Marshall
wesm@soundstageav.com

Classé Audio Delta SSP-600 Surround-Sound Processor
Price: $6500 USD.
Warranty: Five years parts and labor.

Classé Audio, Inc.
5070 François Cusson
Lachine, Québec H8T 1B3
Canada
Phone: (514) 636-6384
Fax: (514) 636-1428

E-mail: sales@classeaudio.com
Website: www.classeaudio.com

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