Yamaha CD-S2000 Thread

A small development. I'm posting this mainly as info for others.

I've been noticing, (and been driven crazy by it), that the sound delivered by the player can be completely different from one day to the next, and has often been pretty bad sounding. My kids gifted me a MFSL sacd of Supertramp Breakfast in America for Christmas and the player had a hard time even reading it. It took around a half minute of hunting before the cd would play and it sounded like shit.

I've been trying to figure this out, started hunting for new firmware to download (no luck with that) and info about calibrating the laser. Others of you that are used to using newer equipment may chuckle at what comes next but I'm just not used to players that do self-calibration.

Now I do know that if one loads a cd, shuts down the player and pulls the plug, and then plugs it in and starts it, then it runs a self calibration routine. I found that info after I replaced the laser and followed it. Well and good but then why has mine been playing wildly differently from day to day and mostly getting worse?

Well, aren't I a bonehead. I mean really really a bonehead. :crazy::whip::oops:

Because I don't like to leave equipment in standby all the time I have it all plugged into power strips which I kill every day after use with a bluetooth wall wart. So instead of having 5 units in standby I only have 1 (the wall wart). But because of this I have been effectively pulling the plug on the player every day and starting it without a cd in the tray for it to self calibrate with. (facepalm) And it never dawned on me until today that I wasn't thinking at all clearly.

Now that I have finally figured this out it seems so obvious that I feel more than a bit dumb but as I said I'm also just not used to having a player that works this way. So now I leave a cd in the tray when I shut it down for the day and after starting the next day it sounds just fine now.

Hopefully this post will be useful for the next guy that does what I did. Well, probably nobody else is that stupid, but you never know.

Cheers,
James
 
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That's pretty funny. It seems in today's age of smart power switches, it doesn't seem unreasonable for wanting it to remember calibration between power cycles.
 
That's pretty funny. It seems in today's age of smart power switches, it doesn't seem unreasonable for wanting it to remember calibration between power cycles.

Yeah. That would be nice but I looked all over and didn't find a gold-cap or such that one usually finds in Yamaha gear that has some kind of processor. Keep in mind that I could actually be wrong about this but so far it seems that starting the thing with a cd in the tray results in good sound for the day. This evening I put a burned cd in it before shut down. I want to find out how it reacts to that for a few days and then I'll try leaving a MFSL sacd in it and find out if they start sounding better. Stay tuned to this channel for further info.

Cheers,
James
 
So Brat, how would now say the CD-S2000 compares to your previous DCD-2700? (I notice it's gone and a 3000 is now in its place...I though maybe you had mentioned giving the 2700 to your son).

My 2700 took a while to mellow out but I would say it now sounds just right (but obviously no SACD capability). Is it a go and don't look back/change for the better or maybe two entirely different experiences? If I look around I
can find 2000's much less than retail in Europe/Japan and far less than the highly inflated asking price here in the states.
 
I don't want to derail the thread into D & S, and am unsure how to talk about comparative costs without doing so. I haven't the slightest idea what a CD-S2000 cost new in the USA, let alone what they are going for now. As far as I can tell the CD-S2000 went for around €2000 retail here when new. Current prices here run from 40% to 60% of that. There are no sweet discount prices for these units to be found here in Germany that I've seen.

808, you know that both my DCD-2700 and DCD-3000 were modded a fair amount. But equally so. And my CD-S2000 is modded in the same direction.

Having said that, the 2700 was/is a damn fine sounding unit. The 3000 is just a little bit more so and it's looks are (subjectively) more attractive (to my eyes), for what that's worth. The CD-S2000 gives every bit of the clarity and dynamics of the Denon's, but just sounds sweeter. It's a bit difficult to describe. The 2000 just draws me in and gives more joy. While I still have both the Denon and Yamaha hooked up I've pretty much switched to listening to the CD-S2000 exclusively. It's addictive. The BB PCM1792A is a fantastic sounding DAC, and trading out the OEM NJM5532 op-amps for BB OPA-1602's made a very nice improvement in sound.

Cheers,
James
 
Oh, I actually had 3x of the DCD-2700's. I gave 1 to my son and one to my brother-in-law. The 3rd one is still sitting here but unused at the moment, the 3000 having taken it's place.

Cheers,
James
 
I don't want to derail the thread into D & S, and am unsure how to talk about comparative costs without doing so. I haven't the slightest idea what a CD-S2000 cost new in the USA, let alone what they are going for now. As far as I can tell the CD-S2000 went for around €2000 retail here when new. Current prices here run from 40% to 60% of that. There are no sweet discount prices for these units to be found here in Germany that I've seen.

808, you know that both my DCD-2700 and DCD-3000 were modded a fair amount. But equally so. And my CD-S2000 is modded in the same direction.

Having said that, the 2700 was/is a damn fine sounding unit. The 3000 is just a little bit more so and it's looks are (subjectively) more attractive (to my eyes), for what that's worth. The CD-S2000 gives every bit of the clarity and dynamics of the Denon's, but just sounds sweeter. It's a bit difficult to describe. The 2000 just draws me in and gives more joy. While I still have both the Denon and Yamaha hooked up I've pretty much switched to listening to the CD-S2000 exclusively. It's addictive. The BB PCM1792A is a fantastic sounding DAC, and trading out the OEM NJM5532 op-amps for BB OPA-1602's made a very nice improvement in sound.

Cheers,
James

Thank you James! That was pretty much the comparative evaluation I was looking for and you just happen to have (had) the same two units. I fully agree that the sweet sound is a wonderful thing and that puts the 2000 officially on my radar.
 
James,

Your thread is very interesting. I did a lot of this sort of modding myself in the past.

Two questions:

1. Do you actually have measurable DC at the output of this CD player before the capacitors? No cap sounds better than no cap at all! Often your preamp or integrated amp will have caps on the inputs too, and then you end up with a series of caps in the way of your sound. I have a Yamaha CX-1000 and the CD input has the caps completely bypassed.

2. Have you considered using a CD player as a transport and getting a DAC instead? If you want to get a bargain and have a blast modding, you cannot beat an Adcom GDA-600.

OK, so now almost 2 years have passed since my last reply to this post and almost a year since my last post in this thread.

And lately I was thinking that I was much too hasty in my first reply. I was thinking about replacing some of the output bypass caps that I had used with some higher end parts but kept coming back to question number 1 above.

So I thought out a careful plan of first taking one of the Denon players sitting around here and removing/jumpering the output coupling caps and doing some extensive listening tests between it and an otherwise identical unit with all of the added bypass caps. Then I could do a careful evaluation of the sonic differences as well as measuring for DC on the outputs and comparing them.

And of course I didn't do any of that. Yesterday evening I pulled the Yamaha from my system, lugged it back to my workbench and put the Denon DCD-3000 back in for the evening. Lol, the 1st cd wasn't finished before I was thinking "I want my Yami back"!

Today I opened it up and pulled all of the output caps and jumpered the output. Before doing that I powered it up and measured 0.3mVdc on the output jacks, 0.3mVdc on the input side of the caps, and, again 0.3mVdc on the output jacks after it was all done. So in terms of what all of those caps were blocking, not a darn thing. Now the player is back in the system and I have listened to 2 cd's.

I didn't know what exactly to expect other than hoping that it would sound better. Well, it sounds better. :)

Most surprising is that bass and midbass are tighter, nicer. Overall, it sounds super clear at all freqs and at the same time super smooth, just more so than before. So, belgianbrain the answer to your question number one is that you were 100% correct. It just took me 2 years to come around to trying your suggestion. I still haven't decided about question number 2. ;)

Cheers,
James
 
Day 2 after removing the output coupling caps.

It is a bit difficult to describe the change in sound quality.

The soundstage is larger, wider and deeper. Things just sound more live, and exciting. Far more detailed, with complex songs every voice and instrument is more distinct. It makes my heart beat faster. I just can't stay away from the damn thing.

I've been home alone today and will be again tomorrow. I listened to music most of the day today. When Wife came home from work today we had a nice talk and as soon as she was out of the apartment to go shopping I played another CD. When she came home I waited impatiently while she listened to her radio in the kitchen until evening when I could get back to some serious tunes.

I think that I'll get up tomorrow at 6am when Wife goes to work. I'm sure that the neighbors are going to love it.

I'm starting to get devious and dangerous thoughts. There is only 0.3mV of DC on the CDP outputs. What would happen if I removed/jumpered the input coupling caps in my pre-amp CD input buffer? Dangerous thoughts.

Cheers,
James

edit: Please not that I will not, ever, remove the coupling caps in my pre-amp. That really would be dangerous, potentially coupling both units electrically. But it sure would be interesting to know how it would sound.
 
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I just ordered a spare laser for this unit this evening. I've been thinking about that quite a bit lately. I really really really like this CDP, and realistically I don't see myself having the funds to replace it with something that might be better any time soon. Original replacement lasers for any CDP seem to be harder and harder to get and the Chinese aftermarket replacements aren't necessarily of the best quality even if one can find one that is the correct replacement. This was I can at least be assured that if I have a laser problem in the future I can replace it and keep on truckin'.

I'd strongly suggest to anyone that has one of these players and plans on keeping it for a while to do the same before it is too late.

Cheers
 
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