The CSD is turning out to be the perfect entry level integrated. It has a lovely midrange that is conspicuously attractive in tonality. Treble is attractive rather than brilliant, bass is natural and firm if unspectacular. There is an overall sense of the easy listening quality of the late DAR without its popular but ultimately, to me, sometimes cloying lushness.
This is a delightful, surprisingly powerful (145 watts! ), amplifier. I would say its principal quality is the quality of honesty that pervades all of the new solid state amps from Blue Circle. Blue Circle honesty, not clinical, stern, scrupulous honesty. Honesty that focuses on music rather than sound reproduction. It is simply (!) unaffected, unadulterated ,