onanysunday
Listen carefully
Does anyone know anything about Classé audio? I just finished work on revitalizing and upgrading a non-functional Magnavox CBD650 and Rotel RCD-855 and was looking for another fun project. I came across this player and got it cheap because it did not read discs and was being sold as "not working" and for parts only. I thought I'd take a chance on it and might possibly be able to bring it back to life with a little luck, tweaking, and (hopefully) no extra parts.. When I received it in the mail today I plugged it in and lo and behold, it works perfectly! and plays every CD I've thrown at it!! It sounds incredibly realistic. It has dual Burr-Brown PCM1704 DACs, a large custom torroidal power supply, gold plated jacks, and loads of OSCONs and Nichicon power caps with several heatsinks that run burning hot. It is all metal and heavy. The CD tray loading mechanism is beautifully clean, fast and precise.
It puts out the most incredibly clean audio signal I think I've ever heard with more slam, dynamism and detail than I ever thought possible from my old CD collection. All CDs sound very good while others sound incredibly good. Maybe I am hearing the difference in the quality of the mastering from one CD to the next? I have to say I am quite pleased with this. Does anyone else have anything to add to the discussion of Classé in general or this model in particular?
Tweaking and modifying CD players for performance is my hobby. I love soldering and have upgraded several without issue, but I am not too sure I could really improve too much on this design. Thoughts? I was thinking of possibly removing the muting transistors near the output jacks as an experiment.. I can't get a good read on what the opamps are because they are so tiny! But they must be a great match and doing a great job with the current layout to sound this good. I love the internal layout of this machine. It's very clean, open, and easy to remove and work on the PCBs. Well-designed using performance parts with minimal clutter. I could be wrong, but I believe it had an msrp around $3k. Not bad for $80.
It puts out the most incredibly clean audio signal I think I've ever heard with more slam, dynamism and detail than I ever thought possible from my old CD collection. All CDs sound very good while others sound incredibly good. Maybe I am hearing the difference in the quality of the mastering from one CD to the next? I have to say I am quite pleased with this. Does anyone else have anything to add to the discussion of Classé in general or this model in particular?
Tweaking and modifying CD players for performance is my hobby. I love soldering and have upgraded several without issue, but I am not too sure I could really improve too much on this design. Thoughts? I was thinking of possibly removing the muting transistors near the output jacks as an experiment.. I can't get a good read on what the opamps are because they are so tiny! But they must be a great match and doing a great job with the current layout to sound this good. I love the internal layout of this machine. It's very clean, open, and easy to remove and work on the PCBs. Well-designed using performance parts with minimal clutter. I could be wrong, but I believe it had an msrp around $3k. Not bad for $80.