Yamaha CD-S2000 Thread

After that, well, I couldn't help myself. I had to know what removing Q1 and Q6 would do for playing SACD's. Because up until now I still haven't been satisfied with the PB quality with them.

I have to say that I am coming to hate lead-free solder. It is a royal pita to deal with. In fact I'm starting to believe that our home vintage repair and modding hobby is heading for a great divide. Before LF solder and after. And most of the "after" gear will end up being recycled long before much of the "before" gear because the LF solder gear becomes too difficult to work with. And it will be interesting to see how many problems crop up in 10 years from tin whiskers creeping around inside of pcb's.

Anyway, having gotten that rant off of my chest, I was able to de-solder the B and C leads without too much problem but the emitter lead that was soldered to the ground plane just refused to melt. What with the fact that the through-holes are plated right through to the component side the solder goes all the way through and can be really difficult to remove. And in this case the ground plane is acting as enough of a heat sink that I reached the point where I was afraid that trying to get enough heat on the darn thing to overpower the heat sink effect would eventually end with lifted traced.

So eventually I destructively used side cutters to snip the lead on the component side. So most people probably won't want to do this. ;)

I failed to take photos of the board (not hiding anything, just forgot) but here is a pic of the offending little things on the bench. They will never again over-filter a SACD.

DSC06471.jpg

So was it worth raping my player to find out if it would sound better? In my opinion a decided yes. To my ears SACD's now sound decidedly better. No noise or unwanted artifacts, pops or etc. But definitely clearer sound, more timbre. I like it. Doing this was worth it for me. YMMV.

Cheers,
James
 
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I think that I'm pretty much done now. The CDP that I have now is a completely different machine than the one that came out of the box. IMHO and to my ears decidedly better. Great timbre and soundstage, just all around great sounding and finally actually sounding better than the modded Denon DCD-2700 that it replaced.

There are several things that I would do if that damn LF-solder wasn't such a pita. Everything that I've read states that de-coupling caps for op-amps should have the shortest possible leads. And all of the PP de-coupling caps have leads that are ca 10mm long. I would like to re-mount them right down on the deck. And I would probably replace the 47µF Nichicon FW de-coupling caps with Panasonic FM. I would consider replacing the OP275 I/V op-amps with LME49720. But those things are pretty minor and won't be done.

I've expanded my tiny SACD collection to 9 disks now. 4x MFSL, 4x Audio Fidelity and 1x Sterling Sound.
The MFSL editions are quite underwhelming imo. They just seem somewhat damped and are a disappointment in comparison to the joy of all of the MFSL LP's that I bought in the '80s. Again, just my opinion.
The AF and SS disks on the other hand are very nice. I'll be buying more of them.

Cheers,
James
 
Also, I have two SACDs (A. Franklin Gold and O brother where art thou) that I bought for the S2100 but once I got the S303, I don't use them anymore. If you want them, PM me your address. 100% free, I just want them to go to a good home.
 
I use lead free solder and have never found it difficult to work with.

Is your soldering iron getting hot enough? Does it have temperature control?

I have an Ersa 80w soldering station, temp controlled up to 400°c. It took 380°c to de-solder the legs that flowed. I didn't want to go higher.

Cheers,
James
 

Nope. That is one channel of IC-15. The Q1 exactly in the middle of your screenshot. The one(s) that you pointed out to me earlier that are hanging under IC-15 & 17.
I was going to mark it and re-post but for some reason I can't get Gimp to work tonight. (Linux user)

Cheers,
James

edit: wait. Actually I think that the answer is yes. It just looks like the screenshot shows an arrow pointing down to IC15. My bad.
 
Also, I have two SACDs (A. Franklin Gold and O brother where art thou) that I bought for the S2100 but once I got the S303, I don't use them anymore. If you want them, PM me your address. 100% free, I just want them to go to a good home.

Thanks very much for the kind offer. :beerchug: I hope that you don't think that I'm ungrateful if I say that they aren't really in my listening direction. :)

Cheers,
James
 
edit: wait. Actually I think that the answer is yes. It just looks like the screenshot shows an arrow pointing down to IC15. My bad.
That's ballsy. Have you tried playing a CD?
Thanks very much for the kind offer. :beerchug: I hope that you don't think that I'm ungrateful if I say that they aren't really in my listening direction.

No worries, just thought I'd throw it out there.
 
Anyway, having gotten that rant off of my chest, I was able to de-solder the B and C leads without too much problem but the emitter lead that was soldered to the ground plane just refused to melt. What with the fact that the through-holes are plated right through to the component side the solder goes all the way through and can be really difficult to remove. And in this case the ground plane is acting as enough of a heat sink that I reached the point where I was afraid that trying to get enough heat on the darn thing to overpower the heat sink effect would eventually end with lifted traced.

I usually use a (cheap) smd workstation in those cases, applying hot air.
 
That's ballsy. Have you tried playing a CD?

So far I've listened to CS' Tea for the Tillerman (sacd), Dire Straits' Brothers in Arms (sacd) and the CCR compilation Chooglin' (redbook) yesterday and today Doobie Bros Captain and Me (sacd), Dr Hook's Sloppy Seconds (redbook), Bruce Baker Moore's Around The Next Dream (redbook). Sounding very good. Very articulate, lots of timbre, bass and clarity. Next up is some John Fogerty.

Cheers,
James
 
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I usually use a (cheap) smd workstation in those cases, applying hot air.

I need a lot of practice so that I can develop some level of skill working with this stuff. I'm considering buying some sort of cheap relatively new BPC that has LF solder just to tear apart and practice on without having to worry about destroying it.

In the above attempt I used gel flux, pre-fluxed solder wick and the largest tip that would fit in the area but with only partial success. Oddly enough I had no problems removing the coupling caps earlier. Truth be told I simply have no "feel" for working with lead free solder yet.

Cheers,
James
 
I have an Ersa 80w soldering station, temp controlled up to 400°c. It took 380°c to de-solder the legs that flowed. I didn't want to go higher.

Cheers,
James

I just looked at my Hakko soldering station, and it looks like I'm usually using it around 400-425 Degrees.

BTW, nice work. I love it when people are willing to think outside of the box and try modifications to gear that manufacturers usually don't supply simply because of obsession with cost or specs!
 
I just looked at my Hakko soldering station, and it looks like I'm usually using it around 400-425 Degrees.

BTW, nice work. I love it when people are willing to think outside of the box and try modifications to gear that manufacturers usually don't supply simply because of obsession with cost or specs!

Thank you! I figure that after I pay for it then it's mine to do what I want with it.

It's taken 5 long years but my system is finally reaching the point where I want it to be. I have a few small tweaks in mind for my pre & main amp and speakers, and then a TT to refurb & add to the system and then I'm done. After that I can concentrate on room corrections and music.

Cheers,
James
 
Last Thursday I took apart my stereo/tv stand and replaced the middle shelf with one that is deeper.

I had just enough of the same oil that I used originally to oil the board. Heh. My dumb. I didn't consider the fact that in the last 4 years the original boards & oil have darkened and the new shelf is way too light. I'll have to find some more oil that's a little darker and hit it again.

LOL. Actually drilling and replacing the shelf only took an hour. But removing everything from the rack replacing everything, and doing cable management took 4 hours. I was running out of plugs so I also added a second power strip. The network switch and fan power warts are connected to the 2nd one and all audio/tv components are on the 1st one. Both are going through a bluetooth controlled wall wart so that I can power up the whole thing with 2 clicks of a remote.

Full details of the stand here...
http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/index.php?threads/new-old-stereo-tv-stand.608556/

DSC06478.jpg DSC06483.jpg

Merry Christmas everyone!
James
 
That's ballsy.

Btw, it wasn't quite as much of a risk as you might think (except of course the somewhat 1-way path of removal). Once you pointed those nasty little devils out to me and we had made the guesses as to their purpose I felt pretty confident that they could be removed without any sonic risk, and that the benefits could/might be high. With my DCD-2700 I removed the low-pass filter op-amp entirely. Irregardless of what it was supposed to be doing in the 2700 it was in fact seriously damping the music and the player sounded much better after.

Details on that player...
http://audiokarma.org/forums/index.php?threads/denon-dcd-2700-cd-player-mod-thread.755995/

Cheers,
James
 
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