Let's Talk Higher-End Vintage CD players!

[j!m]

Before I posted this ( after reading a rather interesting thread opener!) I wondered- for a second- if this might be a derail. I am confident that ship has sailed... so here you go.

I own, and am ignorantly pleased with some antique digital separates. I noticed we haven’t gone there in this thread. Maybe another thread is appropriate to start, but my understanding is the OP wanted vintage that has “up to today’s standards” sound. IE cheap n good.

I have the Theta Data transport (Philips CDM 9PRO drive in a fancy box) and the Aragon D2A. Here’s why I like them:

1) they sound good.
2) low buy-in price today
3) repairable transport (parts are out there)
4) the D2A has a super-cool de-emphasis on it, so over-compresses discs sound like correctly mastered ones. And it’s automatic.

I’d be interested in hearing about any d/a converters, made in the 21st century, with automatic de-emphasis. Or, some mad scientist that can take a D2A to mars lander tech specs. I am looking into a new outboard power supply for the D2A now. Someone was offering them years ago but doesn’t any longer. I may offer the solution once I have it.

popcorn popping!

 

[Normo]

I was thinking about the Macintosh MCD 7008, but no longer. I contacted Mcintosh and they no longer have any replacement lasers, they said it was a KSS-210A. In any case I guess I will review this entire thread again. Thanks for suggesting I contact them before throwing good money after bad. Norm

 

[Dingman]

I agree strongly with this.

After all of what we have gone through trying to isolate turntables from outside feed back is it any wonder that a pickup that is reading at 780 nano-meters can be jittered from feedback and fail to read information? A heavy stable case can do wonders here, as well as being a sign that the rest of the innards are up to snuff.

All of the higher quality players that I have researched have dual power supplies, including dual transformers, one each for the digital and analog stages, sometimes with Schottky diode bridge rectifiers. Not only that but from the dual L&R transformer windings forward the analog stages are dual-mono. Channel separation anyone?

Different generations of players have different progressions of processing in the digital stage, with increasingly improved filtering, processing and algorithms used to shape the signal. They appear to have gotten subtly better over time. As important as the DAC used is how they are used and the layout of the analog section. The better players are dual-mono here with robust local power supply filtering. With the newer upper class players you see all metal film and MOX resistors rather than carbon film, and higher wattage parts in the signal path to improve bandwidth. Muting relays rather than muting transistors. Solid brass RCA sockets rather than those with thin pressed on contacts. The list goes on and all of this adds weight.

A CD player that weighs under 7 kilos? Imho probably not worth looking at. And the good stuff is even heavier. For good reason.

Cheers,
James

Funny, so in the movie Jurassic Park when the kid picks up something, and the parent asks "Is it heavy?".
Kid: "Yes"
Parent "Then it's expensive, put it down"

LOL, that's generally the best quick indicator of quality? I'm being a bit sarcastic here, you make good points about the equipment inside that makes a unit heavy and I agree.

 

[Dingman]

Before I posted this ( after reading a rather interesting thread opener!) I wondered- for a second- if this might be a derail. I am confident that ship has sailed... so here you go.

I own, and am ignorantly pleased with some antique digital separates. I noticed we haven’t gone there in this thread. Maybe another thread is appropriate to start, but my understanding is the OP wanted vintage that has “up to today’s standards” sound. IE cheap n good.

I have the Theta Data transport (Philips CDM 9PRO drive in a fancy box) and the Aragon D2A. Here’s why I like them:

1) they sound good.
2) low buy-in price today
3) repairable transport (parts are out there)
4) the D2A has a super-cool de-emphasis on it, so over-compresses discs sound like correctly mastered ones. And it’s automatic.

I’d be interested in hearing about any d/a converters, made in the 21st century, with automatic de-emphasis. Or, some mad scientist that can take a D2A to mars lander tech specs. I am looking into a new outboard power supply for the D2A now. Someone was offering them years ago but doesn’t any longer. I may offer the solution once I have it.

popcorn popping!

Ya, I can google, but tell us more! Sounds interesting and... how can de-emphasis work with a multitude of mixing engineers, all working with different levels\goals?

 

[j!m]

Pfffff. Like I know how it works?!? It works well, I’ll say that much. I believe there is some “marker bit” or something on the disc it picks up on. I don’t know for sure. It’s not a dynamic filter as far as I can tell. It just doesn’t allow the 8db gain jump or whatever it is. I speculate it is/was a way around the CD red book standard in that it rides along, and is not part of the standard encoding. It’s cool that’s for sure. I’m surprised more DAC makers don’t make this feature available.

I have a bunch of music loaded in the car, and I’m constantly adjusting the volume. At home, (when the rig was running) I can go disc to disc and not much change in average volume. There’s a LED on the front that indicates “de-emphasis” and it comes on with the “loudness war” discs.

EDIT- I found this, see the answer posted. That seems to be it. I guess during the loudness wars the engineers (or mastering engineers) took advantage of this “loophole” to make stuff louder...

https://electronics.stackexchange.c...does-an-audio-dac-possess-deemphasis-hardware

 

[Dingman]

Ya, that makes sense and is supported in that thread you linked.
That's great news for... those red book disc that support it. Alas, am I right that they are few? At least that's what my first read into this says.
But I still approve and think, my goodness - if this "layer" were universally applied then we'd all be happy as a ducks in water. L)

 

[j!m]

I think it applies to a lot of discs. I think engineers were taking advantage of it in the hopes that newer gear was not de-emphasizing thereby providing a louder playback. Sort of like CD “doping”.

I mean, I saw it on a lot of my CDs. Kind of a “de-loudness” though I guess it just reduced the high end bump. Seemed like more than that to me.

 

[KentTeffeteller]

Before I posted this ( after reading a rather interesting thread opener!) I wondered- for a second- if this might be a derail. I am confident that ship has sailed... so here you go.

I own, and am ignorantly pleased with some antique digital separates. I noticed we haven’t gone there in this thread. Maybe another thread is appropriate to start, but my understanding is the OP wanted vintage that has “up to today’s standards” sound. IE cheap n good.

I have the Theta Data transport (Philips CDM 9PRO drive in a fancy box) and the Aragon D2A. Here’s why I like them:

1) they sound good.
2) low buy-in price today
3) repairable transport (parts are out there)
4) the D2A has a super-cool de-emphasis on it, so over-compresses discs sound like correctly mastered ones. And it’s automatic.

I’d be interested in hearing about any d/a converters, made in the 21st century, with automatic de-emphasis. Or, some mad scientist that can take a D2A to mars lander tech specs. I am looking into a new outboard power supply for the D2A now. Someone was offering them years ago but doesn’t any longer. I may offer the solution once I have it.

popcorn popping!

This is a nice thread. I am rediscovering CD done right. The present CD player I own is an ancient JVC XL-V 311. While it is OK, I think it's time for me to consider a better CD player, as sometimes having good sounding CD is nice as an option. Thanks for this superb thread. And any advice is welcomed!!

 

[KentTeffeteller]

Ya, I can google, but tell us more! Sounds interesting and... how can de-emphasis work with a multitude of mixing engineers, all working with different levels\goals?

Pre-emphasized CD titles tend to be the 1982-1985 era most of the time. Save for the odd outlier. As many early CD titles are among the better sounding options, this gets important that CD players be able to deemphasize those discs properly. And with many good used CD discs available, for cheap, a timely topic.

 

[kjello]

Good stuff KJ, I'm a big fan of the TDA1541A-S1. There are two in my Sony DAS-R1 that I built in '93 (converted a DAS-703ES to the R1). It's still my favorite DAC for 16/44.1 to 48 and to this day.
Here's some pics of the innards:
Power supplies (left) digital processing board is inside the Faraday cage (center), D/A board (right)

Dual (staggered configuration) TDA1541A-S1's

Final output stage:

Power supplies:

EDIT: (lower right), your player. Beefy:

It's kind of funny @OnTheBlitz I was thinking a bit back and forth regarding different cd players i 'like' and others not so much. You mentioned the TDA1541A-S1. I just checked another (a bit of guilty pleasure device) cd player that I like very much and Its my Beosound 9000 6-disc changer. Guess what? It has a TDA1541A based DAC. This is totally out of the blue, I bought this player mainly due the high coolness factor and engineering level, and use it randomly as cd player only. I had no clue.
I really like the smooth and liquid sound of it, similar with the A727

I remember the ad's saying it could do 0-100 km/h in 5,5 seconds

 

[OnTheBlitz]

It's kind of funny @OnTheBlitz I was thinking a bit back and forth regarding different cd players i 'like' and others not so much. You mentioned the TDA1541A-S1. I just checked another (a bit of guilty pleasure device) cd player that I like very much and Its my Beosound 9000 6-disc changer. Guess what? It has a TDA1541A based DAC. This is totally out of the blue, I bought this player mainly due the high coolness factor and engineering level, and use it randomly as cd player only. I had no clue.
I really like the smooth and liquid sound of it, similar with the A727

I remember the ad's saying it could do 0-100 km/h in 5,5 seconds

Now, that's a super groovy conversation piece too!

 

[fjblair]

I still have my Adcom GCD-600 changer and it works just fine. Never A/B'd it with my newer gear though.

 

[Robint]

My high end cd player weighs 4kg approx. It's a Philips CD630, uses the TDA1541A chip. Though of highly by the Lampizator, not that I plan to modify my unit.

 

[stereofanboy]

This guy needs a therapist.

Did you have one in mind? If not, I recommend this guy.

 

[ET16]

I have some older players with digital outs. They sound better using newer, external DACs.

 

[Dingman]

I have some older players with digital outs. They sound better using newer, external DACs.

That sounds like a good tip.
I have a couple of older units, and I've always used the onboard DAC's, analog RCA's out. But they have digital\optical out.
I don't know enough about how to tell one DAC from another, LOL.
But I could see getting a nice outboard DAC, and use the digital signal - that means, I'm just using the player as a "transport", is that right?

 

[GChief]

That sounds like a good tip.
I have a couple of older units, and I've always used the onboard DAC's, analog RCA's out. But they have digital\optical out.
I don't know enough about how to tell one DAC from another, LOL.
But I could see getting a nice outboard DAC, and use the digital signal - that means, I'm just using the player as a "transport", is that right?

Correct

 

[Mark B]

I have some older players with digital outs. They sound better using newer, external DACs.

That's true if the DAC in the CD player isn't as good as or better than the newer, external DAC. It would take an extraordinary external DAC to sound better than the internal DAC of some vintage CD players, such as the Yamaha CDX-10000 which I have.

What older CD players do you have?

 

[GChief]

That's true if the DAC in the CD player isn't as good as or better than the newer, external DAC. It would take an extraordinary external DAC to sound better than the internal DAC of some vintage CD players, such as the Yamaha CDX-10000 which I have.

What older CD players do you have?

My uncle has one of those. It is one of the older we’ll respected CDP’s we tried in our little CD v Streaming comparisons. We also tried a the few reasonably priced DACs we had for the streaming on the CDP’s. Everyone present thought the Modi2u and SMSL-M8a sounded better than the internal DAC on that player. Those are $100 and $200 DACs.

 

[Audioraven]

That's true if the DAC in the CD player isn't as good as or better than the newer, external DAC. It would take an extraordinary external DAC to sound better than the internal DAC of some vintage CD players, such as the Yamaha CDX-10000 which I have.

Mark, was your Yamaha CDX-10000 ever sold in the States? Or was it a Japanese/Euro Market item only? At 50+ pounds you have one of the few CD players that is actually heavier than my DAC. You are probably the only person on this site to ever own, let alone hear a CDX-10000. I'm sure it sounds excellent!